Can you please do something with languages?

[Trashloot]

Maybe this is a me thing but i really don't like languages in SF1 or PF2e. And starfinder has a an even bigger problem. There are tons of languages but you can only learn languages during level up. This means that you need to know in advance which language will be useful. But you can't because there are to many of them. And if you aquire a new language you are instantly a master of the language. Maybe it would make more sense to learn languages like a wizard learns new spells.

And its really not easy to find a use for a language. Almost everyone speaks Common and there are even translation apps. Sure you can have the odd encounter where there is a language barrier between you and some random npc but in most cases languages are only relevant when you stumble upon some civilisation which is very primitive or not connected to the wider galaxy.

And the pact worlds languages don't make to me. You may find a kasatha enclave which is to proud to speak common. But why would any Lashunta not use Common or a translation app? In Pathfinder you can maybe argue that they want to seperate themselves from outsiders and that they use their own language to be secretive. But translation Apps make this impossible.
The Playtest book shows that you can use languages to further define your characters identity. We could do this way better if we merged languages with lore skills. Lets say you get a Lore Skill which represents your upbringing, the local customs and the local slang and language. This skill can not be used for social skill checks but its absence or presence might give you a bonus or penalty. You start your Local Lore (for example Castrovel Lore) with master / legendary proficiency and you can use it to decipher writing or recall knowledge about your home planet and its culture. Another advantage of this aproach is the fact that you can have different levels of proficiency with languages which you are learning.

And i realy don't like ancestral languages on a galactic scale. While it is already unbelievable that all goblins on golarion speak the same language, because they are somehow immune to developing dialects or changing their language, it gets even weirder on a galactic scale. When the shirren escaped from the swarm they traveled for a long time. Are you really telling me that my modern day Shirren speaks the same language as some shirren enclave, which was built by a refugee who got lost in some random solar system 300 years ago?
And its even weirder when we consider the fact that languages didn't change or evolve during the 300 years of the gap or during the many years between pathfinder and starfinder.

I know we are handicapped by the Pathfinder 2e compatibility thing. But it would be great to see a design pass (or lore update) for languages. Having over 100 Languages where no language has a purpose is not that fun. Maybe this can only be fixed in the Starfinder GM Core by changing the way adventures are written. But i really hope something happens on this front.

[Alchemic_Genius]

Tbh, a galactic scale is the only time an ancestral language even remotely makes sense (but only in the cases where one culture; such as the vesk; took over the whole planet and went on to subjegate others).

That said, I'm pretty sure both pf and sf mention you can take languages that are common where you were raised. Inwould definitely prefer though if the bespoke lists were more like "most lashunta interact with these languages the most" or even better, having a list of regions with a collection of languages, edicts, and anathema similar to dieties

[Bloed&Bloeder]

Funny enough, SF2e actually fixes this problem, though in a very bandaid way? "Digital Ambassador" is Society Expert feat available from level 1 that lets you use translation apps without penalties to Coerce, Influence, Lie, Make an Impression, or Request. And once you're Master you can interact using translation app without any difficulties at all.

[Teridax]

I think 2e has a fundamental problem of mixing different mechanics into different parts of the game that shouldn't necessarily overlap that much. Language barriers are a potentially interesting, if niche problem in exploration or downtime if you're trying to communicate with people who don't share your language, but in encounters it just means some of your abilities simply don't work unless you picked the right language, which to me is kinda meh. The gameplay to patch over this doesn't strike me as tremendously interesting, and the implementation of languages as written doesn't really give amazing insight into the people, locations, and cultures they stem from.

[Finoan]

I'm suspecting that this is also a problem of trying to get perfect parity between TTRPG game rules and the player's expectations of reality.

Unfortunately, that isn't a balance that is possible. It isn't possible to describe the nuances of reality in a finite set of rules. Certainly not a set of rules written in a language like English that is also a small enough set of rules to fit in a handful of rulebooks.

And it isn't possible to make the approximation of reality match the expectations of different players and campaigns. Some players don't want to deal with language barriers at all and will just handwave away all languages by having any creatures intelligent enough to understand or speak to be able to do so in a common language. Other players want to lean into the language barrier thing and have the choices of languages made during character creation be meaningful and important to the game. Ideally, the game rules should support both - which is what is causing this hybrid effect described where translator technology exists and is easy to access, but each ancestry has their own unique language that they use.

So what needs to happen is that the players decide during a session 0 how they are going to handle language in this particular campaign for their group. Then improve on some of the language rule features and remove others.

[Millicent Velarno]

Teridax wrote:

I think 2e has a fundamental problem of mixing different mechanics into different parts of the game that shouldn't necessarily overlap that much. Language barriers are a potentially interesting, if niche problem in exploration or downtime if you're trying to communicate with people who don't share your language, but in encounters it just means some of your abilities simply don't work unless you picked the right language, which to me is kinda meh. The gameplay to patch over this doesn't strike me as tremendously interesting, and the implementation of languages as written doesn't really give amazing insight into the people, locations, and cultures they stem from.

My favorite implementation of language rules to date is a PFS 2E scenario where the PCs need to get information from a scholarly merchant. Knowing one or more of four uncommon languages makes the influence checks easier, but they're still possible without them.

(My PC know at least three of them, so her obsession with weird, creepy languages finally paid off!)

[moosher12]

So, I decided to finally post an old custom language learning subsystem I put together for my players, it can be found here, if it helps.

Paizo Forums: Additional Language Subsystem