There seems to have been a conscious effort to de-emphasize languages in 4E, based on the consolidation into a much smaller number of racial / planar languages.
The Realms has always had a number of cultural languages, as well...and, while there's info on them in the Campaign Guide (IIRC), I've yet to see any use of them in an LFR module.
So basically, Chondathan and Damaran are hardly ever used? Seems kind of odd considering that common is more of a trade language. If everyone just talks to each other everyday in common, why do they even bother having Condathan, Damaran, and Uthric?
As I noted, in 4E in general, and in LFR, the designers seem to be making a conscious effort to de-emphasize languages.
I have a feeling that the primary reason the FR "legacy" languages, like Chondathan and Damaran, are mentioned in the FRCS book, is that those languages were a part of the campaign setting in prior editions. While a DM of a home campaign would certainly be able to use them, so far, in LFR, it certainly doesn't seem like the writers / staff are using them.
Seems like an awful big waste not to use local dialects in adventures.
Well, I don't know if you played LG, but in that campaign, in some regions, languages could be a pretty big deal. But, in 4E, it's not as easy to pick up additional languages (i.e., you have to burn a feat slot for them). Also, I get the sense that the LFR designers don't want to put things into modules that penalize players who don't make a particular build choice.
Hopefully they will at least give some kind of mechanical benefit to knowing many languages.
Personally, I don't think I'd burn a feat on Linguist until I started seeing this sort of thing come up at least semi-regularly in LFR play.
Pieter Sleijpen
RPGA LFR Global Administrator
Remember DMs Empowerment. Don't be afraid to let your DM know you speak specific local dialects. The DM is perfectly within his right to give that PC a minor benefit on social skill checks because the PC speaks the local dialect. Remember though that we, the administrators of this campaign, do not know whether or not a PC at a table is going to speak a specific table, and hence we cannot let the success or failure of an adventure (or even a single encounter) depend on the presence of said ability.
Pieter Sleijpen
RPGA LFR Global Administrator
As a practical matter, though, you conduct the role-playing encounter in a language only one person speaks, it excludes everyone else. In real life, if I were a German talking to a group of Americans, and one spoke to me in German and translated to English for the benefit of the others, and I spoke English well, I'd just tell them to use English.
You can just make the default assumption in game that the one foreign language speaker is translating everything, but unless you're negotiating with someone who doesn't speak Common, then everyone will just end up using that language.
The common tongue is one of the things I've always hated about D&D.
Just because there is no longer a table with specific rules does not mean that something does not exist. It just means you have to be flexible and play by the spirit of what you want to do instead of playing by the numbers.
Of course, on occassion, translating stuff for others can be really fun... I still remember fondly the time a PC wizard was the only one who spoke Giant. He was terrible at negotiations and had a tendency to brag. Had he listened to his friends they might have avoided that fight with the fire giants ;)
As a practical matter, though, you conduct the role-playing encounter in a language only one person speaks, it excludes everyone else. In real life, if I were a German talking to a group of Americans, and one spoke to me in German and translated to English for the benefit of the others, and I spoke English well, I'd just tell them to use English.
You can just make the default assumption in game that the one foreign language speaker is translating everything, but unless you're negotiating with someone who doesn't speak Common, then everyone will just end up using that language.
The common tongue is one of the things I've always hated about D&D.
It isn't necessarily thjat you are the only one speaking with the NPC, it is simply that you have used your fluency in his language to relax with (or trust) you a bit more than Joe Schmoe who doesn't speak his mother tongue..
He was terrible at negotiations and had a tendency to brag. Had he listened to his friends they might have avoided that fight with the fire giants ;)
Many were the times my insane elf was the only one who could speak draconic, giant, aquan, or some other obscure tongue, and the rest of the party had to trust her translations...
Fun times ;)
With local dialects, I would do it the way Pieters suggests: the PC opens up conversation in a greeting in regional dialect before switching to common, or occasionally makes a few off-hand remarks in the local language. That could potentially give a bonus on any social skill (including those of others).
Gomez
The Realms has always had a number of cultural languages, as well...and, while there's info on them in the Campaign Guide (IIRC), I've yet to see any use of them in an LFR module.
The FR languages are awkwardly grafted on. It would not surprise me to learn that they were removed in earlier drafts, but got stuck back in towards the end.
Consider, for example, that regional backgrounds only grant core languages, even those regions that would logically give one of the FR-specific languages. All human PCs from Aglarond speak elven, for example, though most can't speak to other humans in Aglarond using the humans' native tongue.
If not in the regional backgrounds, I would have expected that regional feats would give these languages as minor bonuses (i.e., the "You gain a bonus to this and that; oh, and you can speak Chondathan too" type of feat). Oddly enough, Chris Tulach has started creating such feats (see Dragon #370) but sticking only to the core PHB languages. Go figure.
Personally, in a home game, I'd give every PC a bonus language based on their regional background and the table on LFPG p. 156. In LFR, I would consider the FR languages to be merely flavor and background, not something a PC should ever take except for extreme flavor reasons.
-- Brian Gibbons.
That is what I did with my only human PC (so Valencia, who lives in Luruar, speaks Chondathan).