Well Spoken
The best part of writing this comic was researching elven insults. Thanks to Ravandils Quest for providing the “knife eared” bit, and also for cracking me up. Now I’m imagining alternate subtitles for the Frodo-meets-Galadriel scene in Fellowship. I think the quest might have ended right there if Mr. Baggins had learned his elvish from Wizard.
Languages are one of those game elements that get handwaved all the time, mostly because it’s incredibly obnoxious to actually RP at the table. I mean, does anybody out there actually play it like this?
NPC: Uma lle merna ai’lereth?
GM: He asked if Bjorn would like any bread.
Linguist PC: He asked if you would like any bread.
Bjorn: Tell him I said no thank you.
Linguist PC: N’uma diola.
NPC (with angry gesticulation): Lle caela amin lereth. Sii’lle gurtha!
GM: He says that Bjorn has insulted his cooking. It looks like he’s preparing to attack.
Linguist PC: It seems you’ve insulted his cooking. Prepare to die.
Bjorn: Argh.
In order to avoid that kind of silliness, most tables generally assume that if at least one PC knows infernal or cyclops or whatever the day’s gobbledygook happens to be, then everyone can hold a conversation; the translator just does his thing in the background. The problem is that, since you’ve effectively decided to remove foreign languages from the in-world experience, “the common tongue” becomes “the only tongue,” and nobody winds up putting any points into Linguistics. For my money, it’s a shame to see an element of immersion disappear for the sake of convenience.
As a solution, I suggest inserting situations in which Linguistics actually makes a difference. Make them defend themselves in an ogre courtroom using only the ogre tongue. If they want to write a love letter to the princess, don’t let them use Diplomacy as a catch-all. Make it a Linguistics roll. Is it imperative that you provoke that giant into a rage? Then you’re going to want to roll well on the Linguistics check, because “stupid” and “ugly” are compliments in his native tongue. Even if you don’t want to muck about with gibberish that “sounds elvish,” there are still plenty of ways to make languages a plot point. Your game might even be better for it.
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Ok now I want to have a setting where a monster language is exactly the same as common but all the words mean completely different things. Even PCs who know the language would have to make checks to avoid slipping and using the common word instead.
And the game is of course one of political intrigue where every ball and board meeting has life or death stakes.
At the dinner party of the succubus queen, one does not refer to the appetizers as “tempting.”
I knew one GM who kept a portable Whiteboard on hand, so he could write stuff quickly and flash it to a single member of the party when/if you had stuff only one member of the part was supposed to know. It was actually quicker than trying to pass notes and you didn’t have to worry about disposing of them afterward.
On another note- I’ve got a fun(ny) story about in-character “communication”. It’s to long to repost here, but here’s a finely crafted link if anyone wants: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=13796262&postcount=165
Truly, the male body transcends all language barriers.
Also, good on the GM for realistic consequences. Of course the orcs are going to raid the village. How else are they going to replenish their supplies of tear-away armor and body oil?
We were a little sore about the whole looting-and-pillaging thing, because the party hadn’t been exactly clear if we were actually supposed to fight the orcs or not. Apparently the INTENT had been that either we, the party, ambush the orcs and make up for being outnumbered with clever tactics and the surprise round, or the orcs were supposed to ambush us and the party gets captured, leading to a different sort of plot. But because EVERYONE failed their listen checks it didn’t work out that way and both sides had to improvise.
As they say, no campaign survives first contact with the PCs. Or something.
I just love the image of you guys high-fiving your new orc pals like it’s a little league game, then they immediately round the corner and start stabbing villagers as you go on your merry way.
“Gee, those were some nice fellas.”
“AAAAAHHH!”
*flames, billowing smoke, etc.*