Languages in the Game

I've been given some thought to languages in the game, and more specifically, languages in my world. Originally (and you can find the post by selecting the "Languages" tag), I had envisioned a semi-realistic array of languages and related language families that would create a believable world. That seemed reasonable at the time, and if anything, I sketched out the languages of what I then called the "Northlands" at a level of detail that was not really necessary, including predecessor languages that branched and developed into the current languages. And this was just one corner of what would soon sprawl out into a much larger world.

If you look at historical medieval Europe as the de facto stand-in for what a D&D fantasy world tends to typically look like, even the "overblown" language structure I sketched out would be very simplistic compared to the real world. Several languages in the British Isles, a few more in use in Spain, a few more in France, the Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland, Italy, etc... Complicated. Putting that area in square miles into my world would have the Northlands alone with a dozen languages or more.

The disconnect between the truly realistic and the limit to what might be fun in game terms was first highlighted in the last few sessions of our campaign (#45-47+), where the party traveled through a magical gate to a tropical land and are able to speak to nobody. There is magic for this of course, but it creates a complication.

There are a few ways to approach this issue. At one end of the spectrum, you could say that realism should drive things; go ahead with a complex language structure, and let the chips fall where they may. The opposite end of the spectrum is what the Forgotten Realms (official D&D world) does; there are many different languages scattered all across the world, but there is also a universal trade language simply called "common". Far-traveling characters may not be able to talk to everyone in any particular place they find themselves, but they can generally count on being able to find somebody (and more likely many somebodies) who speaks "common".

So what's my point?

I plan to go back to the language design I have done in the past and try to find a happy middle ground between truly realistic (i.e. too many languages), and what I would consider to be a bit of a cop-out ("common").

My basic parameters and design goals going into this effort would be:

• Regional, but generally not national, differences in language. Enough variation, but not too much.
• Maintain the historical aspect of predecessor languages developing into current languages (yes, I know that nobody cares about this but me, but I find this sort of exercise in world building to be a fun hobby for me entirely on its own merit).
• Racial languages (i.e. dwarven, elven, etc) that have their own variations, but have less variation than human languages, and can serve to be a partial bridge between geographies that might otherwise have no other language connection.
• Lastly, when thinking about the bending of Skills and Abilities that I have already been doing, determine how I might be able to include a "Language Adept" skill/trait that would allow a character to begin to pick up a basic understanding of a spoken foreign language more easily than would be typical.