GM: The blue-skinned humanoids approach and begin speaking in a fluted, lyrical tongue. Anyone speak Avariel?

(much shuffling of papers)

Rashid: Nope.

Sara: I’ve got Sindarin, Carcinan, and Ashkaral. That’s not the same thing, is it?

GM: I’m afraid not.

Whether you’re playing a fantasy, science fiction, or historical campaign, it’s not unlikely that PCs — who often go roaming far and wide — will end up running into a language barrier or three. Some GMs may choose to handwave this away, perhaps even invoking some diegetic device like a universal translator to justify the wave.

Language barriers, however, can also be fun: They create an unexpected challenge, and can often force the players to come up with creative solutions to work around them. In the real world, one way people work around language barriers is by using a pidgin — a simplified form of communication featuring a limited vocabulary.

BASIC PIDGIN

To establish a pidgin in your RPG of choice, have the PC make a Language skill check.

The margin of success on this check establishes how many words the PCs and the other language speakers can establish in common. In practice, treat this as a pool of points: The player can spend one point from the pool each time they want to use a new word. The words they’ve used to far should be listed, and they can use the established words (or new words purchased from the pool) however they want in an effort to communicate.

This works best in systems that will generate a margin of success roughly between 1 and 20.

• If you’re using a percentile system or some other system that generates high margins of success, you’ll likely want to divide the margin of success to establish the pidgin pool.
• If you’re using a success-counting system, decide how many pidgin pool points are created by each success rolled.

The NPCs are generally limited to the same pool of words which has been “unlocked” by the player, although the GM may choose to introduce additional words if they so choose. (These additional words will also be available to the PC going forward.)

Tip: The GM is also encouraged to include literal words from the unknown language in the NPCs’ speech. Clever players may be able to figure out what these words mean and be able to start using them without paying points from their pidgin pool.

ADVANCED PIDGIN

Here are some optional/advanced rules that you might use in combination with the basic pidgin rules at your discretion.

RELATED LANGUAGES: In the real world, it’s easier to establish a pidgin if you know a language that’s more closely related to the one you’re attempting to communicate in. (For example, the Romance languages are all more closely related to each other than any of them are to Japanese.)

If you have an established language tree, you could apply a penalty for each step of difference between the closest known language and the target language. (Or impose disadvantage beyond a certain threshold.) If you don’t have a language tree, this might be a great opportunity to start one! Alternatively, you can just make a call with your guy about whether or not the languages are Closely Related (bonus or advantage), Related (normal check), or Distant (penalty or disadvantage).

EXPANDING YOUR PIDGIN: Each successful conversation the PC manages to have in the pidgin can grant them the opportunity for a new check to add more points to their pidgin pool. What constitutes a successful conversation (i.e., did you successfully communicate what you wanted and did you understand what they wanted?) is determined by the GM.

FROM PIDGIN TO FLUENCY: Some RPGs are smart enough to include a mechanism by which PCs can learn a new language. If so, then the player can choose to transition from pidgin to fluency by simply spending the appropriate skill points, selecting the appropriate perk, or whatever that mechanism might be.

If your RPG of choice doesn’t feature such a mechanism for some reason, you might consider setting a progress clock at the same time that the pidgin pool is established. You could then use downtime actions (as described in detail in So You Want to Be a Game Master) to fill the progress clock; or perhaps successful conversations could similarly fill the clock (while conversations that go awry would do the opposite). When the clock is filled, the character becomes fluent in the target language.

Alternatively, the first time you fill the progress clock, the character becomes fluent enough to make social checks with a penalty or disadvantage. You can then set up a second progress clock, which can determine when full fluency has been achieved and the penalty/disadvantage can be dropped.

Untested – Surprise Damage Threshold Untested Technoir: Fleeting Relationships Untested 5th Edition: Situational Advantage