JasonTReading about the origin of the phrase “lingua franca” makes me wonder what it would be like to run a fantasy RPG campaign in a setting where the “common tongue” is really just a pidgin trade language with limited utility, so actual knowledge of different cultures’ languages is no less beneficial than skill with weaponry.
Monte Cook@JasonT I've run that campaign. It's more interesting than fun, to be honest.
@montecook “More interesting than fun” sounds like a potentially accurate blurb for a lot of things I want to try, so it’s useful to hear this before I put too much work into it!
Peter Kisner ≈@JasonT That's basically the assumption I made in my Owl Light setting. Most people understand the literal "Trade Tongue". Is pretty useful for commerce, and *can* communicate many other ideas. But most folks don't feel it is very evocative or descriptive for other purposes.
You'd usually use specific other languages if you wanted to write a poem, explain an engineering process unambiguously, encode a spell, describe transcendent reality, cuss someone out, fit in with the local population, etc.
You'd usually use specific other languages if you wanted to write a poem, explain an engineering process unambiguously, encode a spell, describe transcendent reality, cuss someone out, fit in with the local population, etc.
@PTR_K How would you say that this affects play? I imagine players aren’t frequently composing poems, but cussing folks out sounds useful…
@JasonT Well, maybe just because I'm not a superb GM, but the way I'd say it effects play is "not much".
I try to convey something about how hearing or reading a specific instance of language strikes the PCs. To inject some sense of tone, feel, or context into the situation.
But generally, the sense I get from players is just, "So, do I understand this or not?"
Not sure if this is a failure on my part, or they just don't care, or they just don't let on that the details I provide impact them.
@JasonT
If you're interested in specifics, see:
https://kisnerp.itch.io/skill-option-languages-and-cants
rdonoghue@JasonT It’s a good idea but hard to retrofit onto setting where that was not given a lot of thought. In 5e i tried a simple as “you need to know an actual language to get proficiency bonus” to implement, but then stumbled over 5e having a bazillion languages, so now it just shows up in edge cases, like “variants of elemental languages sound like extreme regional accents, and using the right one gets a positive response”
@rdonoghue That makes a lot of sense. I was thinking less in terms of “get a bonus” and more in terms of “communicate anything at all beyond ’how much does this cost’ and ‘where’s the toilet?’” But that actually might discourage social interaction and encourage murderhoboism, which is usually the opposite of what I want…
@JasonT It also tends to introduce situations where only one player can communicate with people (since it incentivizes the party to cover different languages) which are funny once and frustrating every time after that.