Monster Languages

[Scott]

I don't want to take away monster languages, but I think Common should be much more common. Especially with the humanoids that low level PCs often encounter. By the book, it should be rare most humanoids speak Common (a leucrotta speaks common but a goblin, orc, ogre, etc. doesn't), but I think that takes away a lot of role playing opportunities.
In most of the literary inspirations, the intelligent monsters the protagonists encounter usually speak their language, and it often results in great dialogue. Just from the Hobbit I can think of the trolls, the goblins, and the spiders. I think Bilbo even understood some of what the wolves were saying.
Over the years there have been so many encounters that have just gone right to combat because nobody in the party spoke Goblin, Ogrish, Hill Giant, etc.
Also, should each giant and dragon type have a separate language? Or a language at all?
I guess it can go back to the campaign theogony you go with. I like the Black Speech concept from Tolkien.

[geneweigel]

I have language easements where it is at a 1/2 rate of understanding. 2 years of German in high school applied little to discourse 10 years later for me in Germany. So I have a blanket gibberish for each type and a subset which is the standard language of the D&D groups. I think the captain in King Kong is Gary's basis where a character can try to relay peaceful terms or discern activities.

So it's like the blanket gibberish languages that I mention in BROKEN CASTLE are almost a "sword proficiency" that gives a greater penalty (additional-1) as related to a "broad sword proficiency" so my "lingua dwer" (man-ling common) relates to dwarves, elves, & other demihumans as a noisier 1/2 incoherent trade language but each has their own chitter chatter.

[GRWelsh]

Yeah, that's a good point, Scott. When you look at the folklore and legends, the hero can often speak to the monsters just before fighting, to try to avoid fighting, to have a riddle game, etc. In AD&D, I do make use of the languages since they can be learned and demi-humans speak more languages, and I try to play that up sometimes as a benefit. Also there are spells and magic items to help with translation, and I think they should be of some use. In the last game I ran, they were fighting kobolds and Cindy's magic-user cast comprehend languages to understand what the kobolds were shouting to each other, and that came in handy. I usually treat orcish as the "Common Tongue of the humanoids." The concept of every single monster type having its own language seems a bit much, so I like the idea of consolidating some of them (Giantish for all six giant races, draconic for all dragons, a language for woodland creatures common to sprites, pixies, brownies, etc.). Generally, if I want the players to be able to role-play with monsters, I'll do as you suggest and simply make Common more Common, as you say -- or it happens to be a monster that speaks a language the player character knows as in Keolandish, dwarven, etc.