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World of Languages

Many GMs rightfully decide that the languages should not be a major part of the game. While I do not argue with this sentiment, I honestly believe that putting a little more focus on the way they shape, interact with each other and what roles they play can be really interesting and add a lot of depth to your campaigns.

In the real world languages shaped how civilizations develop, as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis said – the structure and vocabulary of the language shapes how speakers perceive the world around them. Language develops around the environment that it exists in and the environment is shaped by how we see it.

I wanted to use that to expand on the depth of my world-building without becoming overburdened by thousand systems enveloping my world, so this is the continuation of my series talking about simple things we can do to make our worlds more believable and thus make our players more engaged.

The Self

Different languages my portray the self differently, which can easily be used to demarcate cultures that the people of your world grew up in. For example more collectivist and nature inclined folk my be considering self a part of greater existence, worshiping the group, elders and their home. Their language will be build to reflect that using more “common” version, as so everyone can understand, while occasionally sprinkling in local words or language (or not) concepts. On the other hand more individual and divine removed society could face stronger barriers towards the outside world considering them as others, caring more about the group. They would actively or not chose not to speak “common” languages, creating a barrier to earning their trust.

This can also give your players a large amount of creative freedom without overburdening the GM – choosing language that the player character speaks and allowing them to create some of the concepts possessed by it.

The How

You could say mr Strawman that this is too much work to implement, as the entire language is just too big. I’d say that it is a valid concern, but there is no need to do that. Just the small patterns and even simple descriptions (saying that even when using “common” shopkeeper keeps the verb before the subject). If you are one of the more adventurous GMs who have more time you could make simple rules and grammar, to use during combat and other encounters.

The smallest things here are the most important as the language is the highlight guiding the ears and eyes of the players to where you want to point them.

The Act

For the bravest of the brave remains a not so secret technique that even I after 10+ years of GMing have yet to master – the Act. The act is the way of presenting the information in the diegetic manner during the game. This is much less of preparation method and as the name says the acting method, that can not be learned and must be found in oneself – it requires you to venture out of your comfort zone.

This one requires the biggest investment of all the things I’ve mentioned today, but also adds the most to the believably of the game, as it is the art of changing the language of the characters on the fly depending on the conditions they found themselves in. The thief may be bold and charismatic in the bar surrounded by friends, but will turn erratic when caught red handed during a crime.

Closing Thoughts

As I’ve showed the real sauce of the TTRPG languages lies in the small details that may seem unimportant, yet add the spice to the world the 500 page lore manuscripts lack. They can create engagement and fascination, allowing your players more expression, while keeping your workload light(-ish).

Getting better at feeling that may be intimidating, yet that is one of the best skills that could impress your players druing the game, even without the “voices”, as the descriptions themselves suffice.

This article may be a little bit different, because I had different plans for this week, but after much thought I decided against them and so wrote the first thing that came to my mind, being this short exploration of languages in TTRPGs. Hope to come back next week with something bigger tho.