The Communication Breakdown

One of the most recent of the Dungeons and Dragons team's Unearthed Arcana released a playtest for a bunch of new elf subraces. Among them were the Wild Elves or the "Grugach". The wild elves, only receive Sylvan as a language. This has a maelstrom of issues surrounding it. However, I decided to ignore it for a few weeks, as I was more concerned with Acadecon (which was awesome), and the release Xanathar's Guide. Then in a few Twitter threads I saw it talked about and the question is posed, "Do you think playing a character that doesn't share a language with the rest of the party would be fun?" My answer is no, but I'd be doing you a disservice if I didn't tell you why.

When I see the question asked, "Would this be fun?" I am not thinking about simply that player's experience. The game is not about one player. The game is based on a group experience. Though a player's individual fun matters, it is important to consider the dynamic of the entire table. What if the other players don't want to be bogged down by that? What if that is an element that they don't feel like working around? Maybe that doesn't fit in the GM's current dynamic that for the story. Maybe that could be interesting in the right set up. However, in the wrong set up it could feel very out of place. Though, to take it a step further, we need to look at two main aspects of the situation to really explore the issue: language and language barriers in real life and language in media and roleplaying games.

Language and Language Barriers

As much as any devil's advocate would enjoy to hear otherwise, I actually have studied a lot about languages. My bachelor's degree is in the study of natural (spoken/written human language) and artificial (computer language) languages. A large part of my studies was devoted to studying language acquisition and human learning. When I am not fervently writing, I tutor at a college and many of my students are ESL students thanks to my specialty. I personally have studied six different languages, my second language is Japanese and I have been using it regularly, almost daily for three years now. I may not be J.R.R. Tolkein, but I have some idea of what I am talking about.

Learning a new language is difficult, but it is a skill that is frequently necessary if someone is to heavily interact with another country or culture that does not share the same language. It takes time and practice, but with travel and interaction, it becomes more practical to acquire the appropriate language than to insist on learning nothing. For students of a second language, it is an arduous process but ultimately worth it. It comes with many embarrassments but also it forms connections with the people that help them learn that new language. During the in between phase, and even for people who lack sufficient communication methods, like a hearing impaired person trying to communicate without the use of sign language for example, attempts to communicate can be quite frustrating for the person attempting to communicate and for the person they are trying to communicate with. On the receiver's side of the communication, they often don't want to leave the sender of the message confused, misinformed, or otherwise disappointed based on their response.

I'm generally amazed when I meet people who are even trilingual, as language learning is an extraordinarily challenging process. I will forever be in awe of my friend Ana from Finland, who speaks Russian with her family at home, Finnish in her every day life, and English with her internet friends. English is her third language, and if I didn't have an ear for accents, I would never have been able to tell she wasn't American. Her heritage, her location, and her interests and friends have all shaped how she has acquired language. Dungeons and Dragons characters shouldn't be any different and should exemplify this concept further. Fantasy settings can be comprised of very diversified communities and kingdoms, and some races, especially elves, have much more time to master different forms of communication. Also, fantasy characters do not have the same distractions and education systems that we do in the real and modern world. It can be easily rationalized as to how they may have found the time to learn extra languages. The backgrounds in the PHB give a very clear indication of how educated a character may be just in the titles. The setting is entirely important to how language is utilized.

The United States of America may have English as the official language of the country, but a national census in 2015 reported that over 350 languages are spoken in the U.S. but only 20% of the population, the total population being 323 million and counting, consider themselves bilingual. Meanwhile, roughly 54% of Europe's population of over 743 million consider themselves to be at least bilingual. If you consider the size of both the United States, a whopping 9.8 million square kilometers, and Europe's 10.1 million square kilometers, while taking into account their geographic and cultural differences, our statistics we are working with concerning the factor of language shouldn't be that surprising. Europe, though slightly larger than the U.S., is comprised of multiple countries all closely bordering one another in some way.

If I were to spend the 9 hours by car that it took to get from where I live in New York state all the way to Dayton, Ohio, I cross through three states, all in the same country, no change in language or culture. I could spend the same time in a car in Europe, leave London, in the U.K. and arrive in Munster, Germany. Across the way passing through three other countries- France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, before I arrive in Germany, and in that span encountering anywhere between three to five languages that aren't English- French, Dutch, Frisian, Papiamento, and German all on the way there before arriving in Germany.

Dungeons and Dragons, being mostly based in European fantasy, assumes a geographical system closer to Europe than to America. Many American fans of Dungeons and Dragons are often confused as to why it would be at all likely that player characters would even begin to possess as many languages as they tend to. Keeping the example of the drive across Europe, it would be more unreasonable to make that trip at a slower pace, like a fantasy adventuring party might, and not be able to communicate effectively. Often, it is the magical waiving of the presence of languages that is the more fantastic.

The Chewbacca Issue

(Han and Chewie arrested by the language police)

In plenty of fantasy and sci-fi media, languages are often amidst the list of things that are suspended with our disbelief along with laws of physics, logic, and practicality. To be fair, we don't take part in them for those things. We partake in those media because they're fun and we don't often have the time to linger on something like language. A perfect example of language being glossed over and unexplained would be, as pictured above, Han Solo and Chewbacca from Star Wars. Every time Chewie speaks, the only person in a scene who ever acknowledges what Chewie says and understands him is Han. In fact, the audience is only ever clued in to what Chewie is saying based on Han's response. In a bizarre inconsistency, C-3PO, the designated translator of the heroes, never once translates for Chewie despite translating for R2D2, Jaba the Hutt, Princess Leia when posing as the bounty hunter Boushh, and the Ewoks. I am not trying to discredit the film series, as it is my favorite film series, but it does illustrate the point. For anyone that is not a "party member", they need to be translated, but apparently everyone who knows Chewie, understands Wookie. Imagine how tedious watching Star Wars could become if someone needed to translate for Chewbacca in every scene. Chewbacca is useful as a body in the scene, to the lore, and often as a comedic device, but nobody really craves to understand what he says, because it often doesn't contribute to the scene. When Chewie's "dialogue" does contribute, it is obvious and visceral, liken unto an exclamation, a cry of emotion, or other responses.

To really incorporate language into a story, it would have to adopt an integral part of the narrative. Most media do not have the time to delve into the intricacies of communication and often, at best, explain how it addresses or gets around it. However, in Dungeons and Dragons, based on the languages a character speaks, the narrative changes because for the most part, the game is not designed with the spectator in mind. The game is designed with the player's experience in mind. Language can be a tool in story telling because you are the character that you are playing and how you handle it is integral to your experience. If you choose to take the Han and Chewie route with a language, you can because there is effectively no one missing out, other than possibly someone at the table having to accept that their character doesn't understand what was said.

A tabletop roleplaying game is a very different medium. The experience is shared and the goals of the group as a whole have to be congruent. When a player wants to play a character that is vastly different from the others, the congruent structure is stretched, because if the GM is good at running games, they consider the minutia of each character's place in the game or campaign. In the case of the Wild Elves, speaking only Sylvan with no other languages on their list, it creates the need to explain how and why a character that speaks only Sylvan joined what is usually a group of characters much more diverse. In the hypothesized character choice of not sharing a single language with the party being fun, the player risks running into a Chewbacca situation. Unless you want to play charades with the rest of the players the entire session, chances are, you will probably be circumventing language barriers by communicating succinctly what you character is thinking and feeling. If the other players in your group want to actually act out not being able to communicate, that's fine, but it has to be a unanimous decision, not just your own decision. As I said previously, it is not just your fun that matters, and roleplaying games require a degree of cooperation and coordination for everyone's sake.

Let me know in the comments and on Twitter what you think about the language dilemma. If you're a GM, have you run into this before, and how did you deal with it? If you are player, how do you handle languages when creating a character. Remember that there are no wrong answers, there only has to be forethought into the game you as a group create.

ではまた会いましょうね。

じゃあ、皆さん、ハーピゲーミング ! (See you next time! Happy gaming everyone!)

Featured Artwork: Mina and Denn, Wildborn by Izzy