What's rules and what isn't?

Opening with an aside - yes, I was aware when I originally started drafting this article, a year or more ago, of the One D&D announcement, and the likelihoods of lots of comments all over the D&D-social-media-verse. I may add my two-pennorth on the UA material per se in a while, but for now, here's the video in case you missed it. 

Explanation of radio silence hereabouts to follow in another post. I just found this in the pending pile and thought I'd finish it.

Ok, that done, and branching off from some of the back-then just-announced UA material, here's a thought for you.

Are races and backgrounds part of the core D&D rules?

I've actually discussed this briefly before, but having read the UA stuff, I'm even more convinced that the answer is 'no'. You could possibly even argue that the spell lists aren't, and I'd probably not disagree much, Races and backgrounds are very much part of the setting, not the rules: I would, for instance, not be in the least surprised when Shadow of the Dragon Queen comes out that the list of available PC races is not 'everything in every rulebook so far', any more than it is in my world. Now, to be fair, Krynn is reachable by spelljammer (or one assumes, other planar travel means), so there is (and doubtless people will make) a case that any PC race can have turned up somehow. (So maybe I'm going to be proved wrong :D)

But...

If every PC race from every rulebook is available 'because the rules say so', then you take away one of the things that makes a setting special. OK, perhaps we can tone that down a bit, and say 'not every PC race is native to the world'. Maybe that sits better. 

"But", people will say, "PCs should be special". Yup. Yup they should. PCs are the heroes of the story, and they should wind up being special, being heroic (if it's that kind of campaign), and I will never deny that. And yes, if you can come up with a background for your PC being from a non-native race to the world, more power to you.

But.

Constraints are good. I've had some of the most fun ever playing in a campaign setting that is restricted, where I can't be just anyone: in some cases I've chosen to impose those restrictions myself (e.g. playing an ordinary mortal in a Vampire: The Masquerade setting), in some cases they come with the setting (Krynn as of the original DL modules being a great example. I think this boils down to the whole 'if everyone is special, then no-one is', which is largely why I'm not a V:TM fan (purely because it made vampires NOT be special (or required you to redefine 'special'). 

The caveat, of course, is this only holds as long as the players are aware of the constraints inherent in the setting from the start (remember what Session Zero is for!). I.e. they are aware that there are constraints WHEN they sign up for the campaign. 

End thought, at least for now.

Languages in your campaign

A topic that's come up a couple of times in the past few days is what languages your players speak. This post was originally prompted by a thought-provoking tweet from The Umbral Knight (with which I thoroughly agreed!):

DM tip: Consider granting more languages, maybe a lot more. In many parts of the world where multiple languages are spoken it is not uncommon for ordinary people to speak 4-5 or more languages. Don't let America's monolingual tendencies hamper your players 1/ #dnd #TTRPGs

— TheUmbralKnight, aka Stefan H. #BLM #StopAAPIHate (@StefanHuddlest1) August 9, 2021

So, here's a look at Altrion. I'm not going to use the whole world as an example, but here's what the six characters in my party speak and why. I'm also going to leave out non-'mundane' languages like celestial etc.

First note - there is no 'Common' as such. In fact, I'd love it if D&D Beyond would let me remove 'Common' from my players' lists :D

The party met in Ambar, which is a Venice-like port on the east coast of the Meral Sea, the inland sea just west of the desert of Tabal.

• Jennan is half-elven and his family have been local to Ambar for several generations. As such, he was raised speaking Imperial Sasarkan and Elvish. The former is the official language of the Sasarkan Empire, which covers the north and east coasts of the sea. As Ambar is right on the border with Magar (also part of the Empire) he has a smattering of Magarran. He's also picked up the Meral trade talk, a pidgin used by sailors and merchants all around the sea, which is some basic Imperial Sasarkan peppered with loan words from Iannosian and further afield - in fact most of the party can make themselves understood in this, so I'm not going to mention it more. Because he's a priest of Verdana of the Nine, he's also had formal training in Old High Sasarkan, which is essentially the Latin to Imperial Sasarkan's Italian, and in which temple documents across the entire faith are written.

• Kiera is also half-elven, but her parents fled with many other half-elves from Meara (home of most of the half-elves) to Tabal (part of the Sasarkan Empire) during the Gerethian invasion a century ago. As such she speaks Elvish and Mearan by virtue of her heritage, Tabalin from where she was raised, and passable Imperial Sasarkan (though it's not her first language). In addition, as the first chapter's BBEG was from Taran, she has been making an effort to learn Tarani. She may have a smattering of Andorean, as it was probably her parents' second language. 

• Samira is from Tabal, but human. As you can probably guess, she has Tabalin as a first language, and more than enough somewhat accented Imperial Sasarkan to get by.

• Callie is a priestess of Kerila of the Nine, originally from Causeway, a city port on the far East coast, who is on secondment at the temple in Ambar. As a Causeway native, she speaks Andorean, which is the closest thing to a common language east of the central spine of mountains (the Grey Mountains), with a recognisable East coast accent. As a temple foundling, she has been formally taught both Imperial and Old High Sasarkan, and as one of her best friends for her teenage years was from the south-eastern kingdom of Madria, she also has conversational Madrian. 

• Aidan is a mercenary, originally from Greygate, high up in the mountains on the Andor/Sasarka border. His most recent work has been with a Mearan unit called the Hawks, hence he speaks Andorean and Imperial Sasarkan with almost equal facility, as do many residents of Greygate, and enough Mearan to banter with his comrades.

• Linus is from the north-eastern tip of Altrion, the chilly peninsula of Estariol. Andorean has even reached there as the predominant tongue, so it's his first, though somewhat accented, language. As a wizard, he's learned Imperial Sasarkan for research purposes, and he has a smattering of Estarolian, which is otherwise largely restricted to the more ‘native’ Estarolians who travel little or have no contact with the outside. It’s not uncommon for such folks to not, or pretend not to, speak Andorean.  

Andorean is probably the least pure of the languages on Altrion - it's definitely the one for which 'mugging other languages in a dark alley for vocabulary' holds most true, and it's been doing it for a long time, to the extent that most speakers have no idea where words originated. 

It is also probably the one with the most identifiable regional dialects, ranging from the relatively pure version spoken in Mirador to the dialect spoken in Zagarash, which is liberally sprinkled with loan-words from Draconic and Orcish. And, just to amuse my inner linguist, it's probably the only language on Altrion with no inclusive/exclusive 'we' distinction. 

A side note - half-elves in Altrion are, as I may have said before, a distinct race, not a human/elf cross - it's actually a mistranslation of the Elvish for 'second people', as they are, essentially, Corellan's second creation. For a long while, the majority lived in Meara, speaking a dialect of Elvish leavened with Mearan loan-words, but, since the diaspora, it's more and more common to find half-elves for whom Elvish is at best their second rather than first language.

So, we have a party who can actually communicate, as they do all speak Imperial Sasarkan to a greater or lesser extent, although some of the conversation may get laced with bits of the trade pidgin if someone is struggling for vocabulary. And several subsets of the characters can have private conversations if they so choose :D

How do things work in your campaign?