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I was thinking the other day while prepping for my next AP session, it's amazing that almost everyone intelligent humanoid speaks Common. What would happen if I were to remove this language from the game? Force everyone to start only with their regional or racial language? How much work would be involved?
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Not much work, but there would be issues. If the world has a large-sized empire or country of any sort that is a powerful influence on the world, there will be a common language of some sort. In the real world English could be considered "common" since most people tend to learn it due to the political, military, and monetary power of English-speaking countries.
Other languages that could be considered "common" are Spanish, Hindi, andMandarin Chinese simply by sheer number of speakers.
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Well, technically Common is also a regional language in Golarion. It is Taldane, language of Taldor and the Taldan people.
Most people in Avistan speak it as Taldor previously encompassed the majority of the continent.
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Depends on if you are doing a homebrew or playing in Gorlarion, where most of the Paizo mods are set. The Inner Sea Primer has a decent listing of cultures for the world and therefore attendant languages for each region. It elevates the role of spells like comprehend languages and tongues, but may restrict interactions with much of the party as those with the skill points for linguistics will be the only ones who can interact outside their home region. Consider other ways to draw them in. If you are homebrewing feel free to do your own. I am in a campaign I am putting together for my group.
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I was thinking the other day while prepping for my next AP session, it's amazing that almost everyone intelligent humanoid speaks Common.
With enough interaction between cultures speaking different languages, they will always choose or create a common tongue to facilitate communication.
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It would only work in a campaign where nations and cultures have little interaction with each other and that the party has to travel from country to country.
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The development of English into Earth's equivalent of Common is quite recent -- although the seeds of this developed before the 20th century, it didn't really get into full force until World War II. Arguably, Taldor at its height had a similar amount of influence over Avistan and other parts of the Inner Sea region, although given how long ago that was, one might expect substantial linguistic divergence in the areas that it used to influence. On the other hand, most things in Golarion seem to evolve at a glacial pace, so maybe things are about right as described.
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It would basically kill RP between characters from different regions and going to different regions. Not everybody has the skill points to spare on Linguistics or can cast Tongues, so you're basically just encouraging murder-hobo behavior since diplomatic solutions require communication.
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The development of English into Earth's equivalent of Common is quite recent -- although the seeds of this developed before the 20th century, it didn't really get into full force until World War II. Arguably, Taldor at its height had a similar amount of influence over Avistan and other parts of the Inner Sea region, although given how long ago that was, one might expect substantial linguistic divergence in the areas that it used to influence. On the other hand, most things in Golarion seem to evolve at a glacial pace, so maybe things are about right as described.
To be fair, before English was widespread, there was German, and before German, there was Latin.
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I was thinking the other day while prepping for my next AP session, it's amazing that almost everyone intelligent humanoid speaks Common. What would happen if I were to remove this language from the game? Force everyone to start only with their regional or racial language? How much work would be involved?
How much of the game do you want to be devoted to story, or do you really want to spend campaign time on language barriers? Because while it sounds neat, it gets very old very quickly, which is why language barriers never played a major role in the Hercules/Xena action pack shows, they get in the way of the meat of the campaign.
If you really think this through, then you realize that this question answers itself... a whole ton of extra work that doesn't make the campaign better.
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French was the language of diplomacy before English; English was the language of commerce before it took over other roles. I think German was the international language of science for a time?
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We treat that language as Common in the Inner Sea region of Golarion—the idea is that the most prevalent language of the larger area (continent, planet, whatever) where your campaign is set counts as Common. So for example, if your campaign is centered in Tian Xia, Common would be Tien instead.
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I love having an effective common tongue, generally as a second language. It makes speakers of other languages secure in their belief that speaking their native tongue is an impenetrable code.
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While it can be a logic idea and sounds nice flavor-wise it must be handled with care.
It might be OK if all the PCs share a language or they come from the same region and you want to make traveling more exotic.
But it can be a great disadvantage if not played right.
I was in a Call of Cthulhu game that I really enjoyed (it was based on Jules Verne's books). The GM gave us pregenerated characters. There were two British characters, an American journalist, a German doctor and ne, a French naturalist.
My character spoke some English, enough to express himself in a basic way, and it was already kinda hard to do. The German guy didn't know more than a couple of words in English so we couldn't really have a conversation with him. He was completely put aside in roleplaying and even though he had useful information and knowledges he couldn't tell us. Even though it was a great game the language was a real issue and one of the things I enjoyed the less.
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There comes a point in any rule system where logic and fun diverge. Not being able to communicate with the rest of the world may be logical... but it can get old fast. As an added bonus, it really doesn't add much to the game and can grind simple instructions and plot to a grinding halt.
Unless the goal is to make language a major part of the game... like traveling to Tian Xi, or exploring the mwangi or tracking down foreign civilization... then I really recommend not bothering with losing common.
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I think it will work fine if you and the players are prepared for the consequences. Even if there is no worldwide "common" tongue, there will still be regional ones. Take a look at your world and map out some rough ideas. The role of party face might change a bit as your party travels. Due to the game's rules for high Intelligence and number of languages known, any kind of community will have members that speak more than one language. Making this change won't often stop things from happening, but it will make it a little more complicated sometimes. The Linguistics skill will become a little more important.
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I like the idea of regional common based on groups of nations all within a particular area and somewhat isolated by geography. A northern area with a major nomadic tribal region and a few settled realms would have a very different common than a southern region dominated by island nations connected by sea trade.
Culturally, the indigenous values might be different based on the region as well. A slick speaking urbanite might get nowhere with nomadic tribes folk while a rough and tumble woodsman may gain more respect.
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I've enjoyed the Paizo setting for Varisia, or at least my take on it. "Common" is indeed Taldane, the language of the middle- & upper-classes. Varisian is the language of the lower classes (working, farmer, poor). I try to stay alert as to the class of an NPC when I have them talk, although many know both languages. Most of my players have twigged (finally) that their PCs need both languages if they're to get along across societal boundaries, although everyone started out with Taldane/Common. I think it adds a lot of sociology to the game, without isolating anyone too badly.
And then one character picked up an intelligent sword forged in Minkai (it's Jade Regent), which naturally never learned Taldane. It knows Tien (its Common) & Minkan. Luckily, a character who knows Minkan is willing to teach it to the character who got the sword -- and her player isn't blinking at the necessity of devoting a skill point to Linguistics. Again, I think the fact that the character has to learn to converse with her foreign blackblade adds to the story, but then, I did give them a strong empathic link on top of the telepathic one.
And French & German were not true D&D Common languages because they were employed only by highly educated people. English has become the world's "Common" only because the Brits conquered half of the globe militarily and then just as they declined, one of their ex-colonial possessions grabbed it again commercially. American commerce seems to be in decline now, but there may be so much impetus behind English as a Common that it outlasts us, too.
It's a bit of a pity, actually; English is one of the harder languages for most non-native-speakers to learn.
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In my games, there is no common. Taldan is a kind of lingua franca in many parts, but most people from "dominant" cultures speak their own languages. Problems? Zero. Plusses: Makes Linguistics and several skills matter. Ethnicities like Varisians and Shoanti speaking their own languages makes for a more compelling cultural interaction. Also nice: You can easily craft hooks and rules for e.g. related languages that kinda-sorta are similar, but not really. Think Spanish & Portugese, for example.
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Hmm, it may be just the local playstyle but ive never really found making basic communication harder added much to the game, it just makes it so that if one pc doesn't have skill points to spend on linguistics there are a bunch of non combat encounters where they dont really get to participate.
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So, when a monster's description says it speaks common, it speaks the common tongue for the area, be it Taldane, Tien, Mwangi Polyglot or whatever. That makes more sense.
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I think there are enough monsters who don't speak common to make Linguistics a worthwile investment. And even among civilized folks, identifying an NPC's accent and talking to them in their native tongue can be an icebreaker in conversations and grant a PC a bonus on Diplomacy checks.
My only real problem with Common as a lingua franca is outsiders. How many different worlds inhabited by intelligent creatures exist on the Material Plane? I assume there are a lot more than just Golarion. Why would outsiders speak Taldane (or any other language native to that world)? That would only make sense if Common was a universal language, a gift from the gods or something like that, which would raise new questions (why do other languages even exist and why are there creatures who don't understand Common?).
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I did this in my campaign, hasn't changed anything really since everyone is from the same region but it has made the world abit more flavourful according to my players.
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Well, a summoned outsider could reasonably gain the language of the summoner as part of the summoning.
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Well, a summoned outsider could reasonably gain the language of the summoner as part of the summoning.
If that were the case, it should have been mentioned in the description of the summoning spells and outsiders shouldn't have Common listed in their language entries (they can be encountered on their native planes after all).
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so if you remove common what language would all those races that only start off knowing common start off knowing?
The language of whichever region that character is native to.
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If you are going to use languages, at least give out background skill points so that the PCs can learn them. And make sure that the players understand that they'll need them.
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While it can be a logic idea and sounds nice flavor-wise it must be handled with care.
It might be OK if all the PCs share a language or they come from the same region and you want to make traveling more exotic.
But it can be a great disadvantage if not played right.
I was in a Call of Cthulhu game that I really enjoyed (it was based on Jules Verne's books). The GM gave us pregenerated characters. There were two British characters, an American journalist, a German doctor and ne, a French naturalist.
My character spoke some English, enough to express himself in a basic way, and it was already kinda hard to do. The German guy didn't know more than a couple of words in English so we couldn't really have a conversation with him. He was completely put aside in roleplaying and even though he had useful information and knowledges he couldn't tell us. Even though it was a great game the language was a real issue and one of the things I enjoyed the less.
This is certainly a potential pitfall.
I had a Mage game set in the Dark Ages, and languages within the party were all over the place resulting in one party member who was completely unable to communicate with the rest of the party (and a couple who could only communicate with one other).
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I feel like one of the major pitfalls to this mechanic is the GM letting the players create anything they want.
The GM should be directing the game and making sure that the players are somehow connected beyond "meeting in a bar" to start the game. A GM that takes care to bind the characters together will have no issues with languages unless the players are actively trying to create havoc in the game.
Additionally, as the game progresses, the players that don't try to learn languages of the other players are being unrealistically stubborn. I've never been in a group social situation with someone who spoke poor English and not tried to learn something of their language just to better communicate. I think it's natural to want to learn so that communicate is easy and comfortable.
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Imagine watching an episode of Star Trek where they meet a new creature each week.
How fun would it be to watch if half of every epiosde was devoted to overcoming a language barrier?
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Imagine watching an episode of Star Trek where they meet a new creature each week.
How fun would it be to watch if half of every epiosde was devoted to overcoming a language barrier?
That actually was fun in Star Trek Enterprise... those early episodes trying to work on the universal translater... but it was a joke with a time limit.
I played a wookie one time who had to translate everything to the one character who could speak wookie.. then he'd repeat everything I just said and it was tedious.
The other thing to remember... what is more realistic? There being a common trade language that people of different cultures can use to communicate with each other... Or spending a point on linguistics and instantly learning a language.
The game is designed around the concept of a Dwarf, human, elf and Halfling all going on adventures together. Taking away the common language... that's a mechanical disadvantage when lots of characters don't get competitive skill points.
Imagine watching an episode of Star Trek where they meet a new creature each week.
How fun would it be to watch if half of every epiosde was devoted to overcoming a language barrier?
That actually was fun in Star Trek Enterprise... those early episodes trying to work on the universal translater... but it was a joke with a time limit.
I played a wookie one time who had to translate everything to the one character who could speak wookie.. then he'd repeat everything I just said and it was tedious.
The other thing to remember... what is more realistic? There being a common trade language that people of different cultures can use to communicate with each other... Or spending a point on linguistics and instantly learning a language.
The game is designed around the concept of a Dwarf, human, elf and Halfling all going on adventures together. Taking away the common language... that's a mechanical disadvantage when lots of characters don't get competitive skill points.
Do you watch Hercules and Xena for realistic adventures or fantastic ones? Anyone who thinks they're watching Star Trek for realism is in a deep case of self-delusion. Realism has it's value... until it gets in the way of fun and the story.
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Do you watch Hercules and Xena for realistic adventures or fantastic ones? Anyone who thinks they're watching Star Trek for realism is in a deep case of self-delusion. Realism has it's value... until it gets in the way of fun and the story.Imagine watching an episode of Star Trek where they meet a new creature each week.
How fun would it be to watch if half of every epiosde was devoted to overcoming a language barrier?
That actually was fun in Star Trek Enterprise... those early episodes trying to work on the universal translater... but it was a joke with a time limit.
I played a wookie one time who had to translate everything to the one character who could speak wookie.. then he'd repeat everything I just said and it was tedious.
The other thing to remember... what is more realistic? There being a common trade language that people of different cultures can use to communicate with each other... Or spending a point on linguistics and instantly learning a language.
The game is designed around the concept of a Dwarf, human, elf and Halfling all going on adventures together. Taking away the common language... that's a mechanical disadvantage when lots of characters don't get competitive skill points.
Absolutely. That's pretty much my point.
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The other thing to remember... what is more realistic? There being a common trade language that people of different cultures can use to communicate with each other... Or spending a point on linguistics and instantly learning a language.
The game is designed around the concept of a Dwarf, human, elf and Halfling all going on adventures together. Taking away the common language... that's a mechanical disadvantage when lots of characters don't get competitive skill points.
Or you could just create the party so you're all from the same region?
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We played the Reign of Winter AP, which essentially has this problem (mini-spoiler, common isn't as common as I'd like).
The problem was, I was a fighter. I certainly couldn't afford spending a ton of my 2 skill points to learn a language every other session and also diplomacy/bluff to do anything useful with it, nor could much of the rest of the party. And even then, you had to suffer though whatever level you were at until you leveled up to get the darn point to put in it to learn language-of-the-week, hopefully not killing the quest target in the interim.
The result was only one character could actually interact with any NPC in the entire adventure. It was miserable. We often just had to start killing things and hope that was the right answer, since we couldn't talk to anyone to figure out what was going on half the time. And the other half the time the rest of group went for a beer run while the one character that could actually, you know, play the game, screwed everything up (he couldn't afford the point in Diplomacy and had low Charisma).
It was one of the worst experiences I've ever had in Pathfinder, and basically killed the whole AP for me (we had almost zero connection to any NPCs or even the plot).
TL;DR, don't be cruel to your characters (or at least, not to me, please), make common great again.
Well, in Reign of Winter the language is a big issue. I didn't want to spend skill points in languages that would only be useful for a short time as it was so much traveling. I learned Skald but I didn't learn any other regional languages.
For a caster is easier because you can palliate it with spells but for a martial it's a major issue.The Wizard and I casted Voluminous Vocabulary on our party to help them and it did great. When language barriers are such an issue that affect other players enjoyment, the casters should use their resources to help as they should be doing in a combat.
The objective of a RPG is enjoying as a group, and if it doesn't happen everybody should help with solutions.
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Killeana, I'm glad to see you aren't of the caster camp that begrudge anything to support the party.
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I trust martials to engage the baddies so I'm free to do my thing. Martials trust me to do my thing. Theorycrafting a high level caster who can fill all the roles of a party can be fun but when it comes to a real game table I feel comfortable as a part of a team where everyone provides his best abilities, in and out of combat.
That I am playing a class who can easily bypass things like language barriers doesn't mean I shouldn't be helping another characters who cannot.
Saying «they need to do it by their own. It's their fault for playing a 2+INT skill ranks character» is not fair. If an enemy casts an antimagic field on me and I am grappled inside I don't expect my teammates to think «she should be doing it on her own because I could. It's her fault for playing a low BAB class who depends on magic».
Teamwork makes the game more enjoyable, in and out of combat. In CoCT I played a ninja with 2 bards in my team. They buffed me and I just killed everything. Now I am playing a supporter Witch, and I love doing what the bards did with me.
Of course, Voluminous Vocabulary takes a 3 level spell and at lower levels it could be a handicap. But buying a wand or some scrolls with the group budget can easily be afforded.
I'm not judging if it's fair or it isn't, but every character has limitations (and it's good to have them, I don't think that I'd have fun playing an omnipotent character) that have to be overcome as a group.
As I said: I trust others to do their thing so I can freely do my thing.
Or you could just create the party so you're all from the same region?The other thing to remember... what is more realistic? There being a common trade language that people of different cultures can use to communicate with each other... Or spending a point on linguistics and instantly learning a language.
The game is designed around the concept of a Dwarf, human, elf and Halfling all going on adventures together. Taking away the common language... that's a mechanical disadvantage when lots of characters don't get competitive skill points.
Lame.
Unless your considering region to encompass a Dwarven Skycity, Absalom and an Elven city. To tell a group of people who have between 7 and 36 races some with lifespans in the centuries that they all have to be from the same village in the one little corner of the giant world map... that doesn't sound like fun to me. I mean... sure OCCASSIONALLY it's fun to have a group that grew up as children... but I
Playing the various cultures in a mixed party is half the fun of role-playing.
I can write up a backstory that will END with him in your region or having met people along the way... but charging skill points to communicate with all of them is just mechanically annoying.
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Lame.
Unless your considering region to encompass a Dwarven Skycity, Absalom and an Elven city. To tell a group of people who have between 7 and 36 races some with lifespans in the centuries that they all have to be from the same village in the one little corner of the giant world map... that doesn't sound like fun to me. I mean... sure OCCASSIONALLY it's fun to have a group that grew up as children... but I
Playing the various cultures in a mixed party is half the fun of role-playing.
I can write up a backstory that will END with him in your region or having met people along the way... but charging skill points to communicate with all of them is just mechanically annoying.
You have a very strange and limited definition of region.
Region doesn't automatically mean a single town, and it's rather odd to imagine every single town having it's own language. Say you're playing a game in India, it's regional language would be Hindi. So anyone from that country will start with hindi. So if everyone in the party spent most of their life in india, then they'd all speak hindi. If you end up wanting to play a character from out of india, learning it is simply a matter of getting a linguistics rank, having an intelligence score above 11, or spending downtime to learn it (which people in this thread seem to have forgotten is an option), or deal with knowing a language like english which many indians might know meaning you can still talk with 40% of people (which probably includes members of your party).
To be honest, it sounds ridiculous to assume that the standard party is going to be formed of people from entirely different countries most of the time because then it becomes difficult to actually tie the party together.
Lame.
Unless your considering region to encompass a Dwarven Skycity, Absalom and an Elven city. To tell a group of people who have between 7 and 36 races some with lifespans in the centuries that they all have to be from the same village in the one little corner of the giant world map... that doesn't sound like fun to me. I mean... sure OCCASSIONALLY it's fun to have a group that grew up as children... but I
Playing the various cultures in a mixed party is half the fun of role-playing.
I can write up a backstory that will END with him in your region or having met people along the way... but charging skill points to communicate with all of them is just mechanically annoying.
You have a very strange and limited definition of region.
Region doesn't automatically mean a single town, and it's rather odd to imagine every single town having it's own language. Say you're playing a game in India, it's regional language would be Hindi. So anyone from that country will start with hindi. So if everyone in the party spent most of their life in india, then they'd all speak hindi. If you end up wanting to play a character from out of india, learning it is simply a matter of getting a linguistics rank, having an intelligence score above 11, or spending downtime to learn it (which people in this thread seem to have forgotten is an option), or deal with knowing a language like english which many indians might know meaning you can still talk with 40% of people (which probably includes members of your party).
To be honest, it sounds ridiculous to assume that the standard party is going to be formed of people from entirely different countries most of the time because then it becomes difficult to actually tie the party together.
All depends on the groups I guess. I'm exaggerating a bit because I find this debate to be making mountains out of molehills personally. But if India was Varisia, and I wanted an Elf from Kyonin and a Dwarf from ... what was it? 5 kings mountains? Those would be outside of Varisia, and still the most well documented areas for those races.
Most of the APs I've played in have had very little time for 'down time honestly... and really most of the have only taken place in ONE region. so the nitpicking over whether we call it Common or Varisian and Elf/Dwarf characters get to start with Common and Elven or Varisian and Elven just doesn't make a huge difference. The only game I've played that I DO believe would make a difference is Serpent Skull, but there's not a lot of talking to NPCs anyway... and Jade Regent where you go to the other side of the world... and we did have a Tien player character going home who could teach us the language before we got there...
The development of English into Earth's equivalent of Common is quite recent -- although the seeds of this developed before the 20th century, it didn't really get into full force until World War II. Arguably, Taldor at its height had a similar amount of influence over Avistan and other parts of the Inner Sea region, although given how long ago that was, one might expect substantial linguistic divergence in the areas that it used to influence. On the other hand, most things in Golarion seem to evolve at a glacial pace, so maybe things are about right as described.
Not that recent... English itself has come to worldwide prominence only since WWI or II, but before it, there was French, which filled the role of culturally supreme language for intenrational trade and relations, and before French rose in the 1600s there was Latin and Greek... even if 'common' is a changing set, there's always a language that fills the role.
@Bitter Lily: I am in disagreement with you... I've tried my hand at a dozen languages (my native being French), and found English to be the easiest of the lot, namely the only one in which I managed to acquire full proficiency.
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I was thinking the other day while prepping for my next AP session, it's amazing that almost everyone intelligent humanoid speaks Common. What would happen if I were to remove this language from the game? Force everyone to start only with their regional or racial language? How much work would be involved?
In my 20+ year old homebrew there is no common spoken language. If a group of nations is united in a kingdom or empire, then most people speak the lingua franca to at least some degree, but leave those borders and the chances of that language being the most widely spoken are pretty slim.
We currently play in a different part of the world than my campaigns originally began in, and there was a common language there, called "Traders' Tongue", a simple sign language that allowed people from different regions to convey simple messages, mostly for commerce. It had evolved from an old language of secret signs used by a slave uprising centuries before called "Traitors' Tongue". But in my current campaign, outside what was once the Dari Empire, there only common languages are the ones spoken by the people of their own nations, and those with high numbers of language slots.