Galactic Basic is the most widely spoken language in the Star Wars universe. But it's far from universal (Wookies, Hutts, Ewoks, Jawas, astromech droids, et cetera).

How do you and your players handle this during play sessions?

Star Wars has never really pushed languages being an issue, there is usually someone there that can understand and translate and that's what I've done.

In my Old Republic era game, I have one player running a Jawa and they decided early on that only two others of the party understand him so I went with that and normally they role play out him talking to them and them translating it (not always with what he said but what they want him to say)

He has come across several NPCs that understand and speak Jawa and they have a long drawn out conversation but most of the time he relies on his party's translations.

1 hour ago, NokDrayen said:

Wookies

*Wookiees

Just handwave it.

2 hours ago, NokDrayen said:

Galactic Basic is the most widely spoken language in the Star Wars universe. But it's far from universal (Wookies, Hutts, Ewoks, Jawas, astromech droids, et cetera).

How do you and your players handle this during play sessions?

If it's a PC, then the other PCs understand them. If it's an NPC, it only matter if it makes for a fun complication or bit of scene setting.

1 hour ago, Rimsen said:

Just handwave it.

Yup. This.

3 hours ago, Rimsen said:

Just handwave it.

Pretty much, yeah.

Handwaving it seems to cheat the game experience a bit. It’s easy enough to acquire a translator, perhaps through a bit of gameplay. And if players care enough they can work towards learning the language. And, in situations where no translations are available, it makes things more interesting. And the opportunity for translation shenanigans can be entertaining.

9 hours ago, NokDrayen said:

How do you and your players handle this during play sessions?

Is it important to the story or plot? If not, hand wave it as others have said. If so, then it becomes a side-quest, a source of effort to resolve, or the root of dangerous and/or hilarious misunderstandings.

15 minutes ago, whafrog said:

hilarious misunderstandings.

^^ This. In my in-person campaign, we've got an Elom NPC who only speaks his native grumble. None of the PCs can understand him, so he gets quite exasperated with them. There is much arm-waving.

When his wild gesticulations don't work, shenanigans ensue. Even more so when his sign-language is misunderstood.

10 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

^^ This. In my in-person campaign, we've got an Elom NPC who only speaks his native grumble. None of the PCs can understand him, so he gets quite exasperated with them. There is much arm-waving.

When his wild gesticulations don't work, shenanigans ensue. Even more so when his sign-language is misunderstood.

And when that gets old a pc.can spend a destiny point to say they understand pigeon language...

P44 of ECRB, there's a sidebar for this. Basicly don't bother with it, unless plot reasons.

2 minutes ago, Rimsen said:

P44 of ECRB, there's a sidebar for this. Basicly don't bother with it, unless plot reasons.

Early Stargate messed with languages...but they quickly found it just slowed down story telling so they started handwaving. It wasnt worth it.

Unpopular opinion but do seriously think about languages. Come up with a reason why the PC can comprehend Basic if their species wouldn't normally be familiar with it. And as for your Wookiees, Hutts, and Aqualish, make sure at least one of the PCs has a reason to know that language. Most NPCs will speak Basic or have a translator, so that's rarely an issue, but there are always exceptions. Have fun with those exceptions.

Lots of NPCs know Basic, but they like their native language, and they might try to use it when they can. Picture a smuggler boss on Nar Shaddaa that knows Basic but prefers Huttese. If the PCs don't know what he's saying in Huttese, he'll use Basic, but he then sees them as stupid outsiders for the rest of the encounter. A Kerestian shopkeeper is still learning Basic, so he'll sell them stuff but can only tell them detailed information about the goods he's selling if one of them knows Kerestese. Maybe a Rishii hears the Wookiee PC speaking Shyriiwook, and he immediately starts mimicking the Wookiee to try to learn Shyriiwook.

My rule of thumb is that every PC knows the following languages:

• Basic (Can comprehend it even if they can't speak it)
• Any languages it says that species typically knows in the write-up's language section
• Any language they need to know so that none of the PCs are mute (Not everyone needs to speak Gamorrese, but make sure you have at least one PC who does if there's a Gamorrean)
• Any languages that it would make sense for them to know based on their backstory (Every language if they're a protocol droid, Huttese if they grew up in Hutt Space, Boche if they're a trader, Meerian if they're from Bandomeer, etc.)
• If they really want to know a language that isn't covered by any of these descriptions, I'd let them learn another language or two for 5 XP

4 hours ago, RookiePilot said:

Handwaving it seems to cheat the game experience a bit. It’s easy enough to acquire a translator, perhaps through a bit of gameplay. And if players care enough they can work towards learning the language. And, in situations where no translations are available, it makes things more interesting. And the opportunity for translation shenanigans can be entertaining.

The issue I have with this is that it discourages players from using those races that would struggle with basic.

I like to go with language not being an issue until it is. Or until it can add flavour. For example the party are currently in Hutt space, almost everyone everywhere is speaking Huttese most of the time, but as they're all underworld types, this is fine, as they all speak it too.

There were a few cases, when the question came up during our plays whether or not the PC speaks a given language. I usually give them a Knowledge(Education) roll, set the difficulty how obscure I feel that language is and maybe setbacks/boosts according to character background (boosts - for rich family who probably had a good education or if he spent his/her life in an environment that would explain it - or setbacks - you grew up on Dathomir, how could you have learnt Aqualish?).

It gives yet another reason to use the more rarely utilised Knowledge skills.

5 hours ago, Stethemessiah said:

The issue I have with this is that it discourages players from using those races that would struggle with basic.

I like to go with language not being an issue until it is. Or until it can add flavour. For example the party are currently in Hutt space, almost everyone everywhere is speaking Huttese most of the time, but as they're all underworld types, this is fine, as they all speak it too.

In my group, it hasn’t discouraged anything. If someone wants to be a Wookiee, they’re going to do it. The language barrier is just flavor to the story we’re building. And, like I said before, there are many ways around the communication barrier, so it isn’t the focus of every game. But it does come up at unexpected times, like when the group gets split up and the translator is with the wrong player... Even then, the familiarity between the players allows for rudimentary non-verbal communication.

Handwaving these kinds of details makes the different races less different. If you are only picking a race for its stat bonuses, the game isn’t being played right.

This comes up all the time as an issue in my campaign.

The crew have two astromechs and almost none of the players can speak droid. (They don't even have a translator droid). In casual interaction I'll describe the droid's interaction and they can get a tone for the interaction. If you watch the movie, A2 is pretty articulate and you can gauge if he's happy, upset, or scared, based on the sounds it makes.

However, some of the PC's have loaded up Binary to Basic translator software on their datapads and several of the ship control consoles have IM droid interfaces so if the droids need to be better understood, they can be. If those tools are used, then I give the players more details (as appropriate). For example, X-Wing and Y-Wing Pilots get a readout of what their astromech is saying, so in those environments, the can communicate VERY clearly with their Astromechs.

Occasionally, the PC's do run into NPC's that DON'T speak basic and it becomes a plot issue. I do allow PC's to make Knowedge (<Region>) checks to see if some of the PC's can comprehend that language and that usually works . . . but not always.

One of the NPC's in the group is a Twi'lek who never had a chance to learn basic growing up and that became a pretty big obstacle to learning. She IS learning basic slowly, but she'll fall back and try to clarify and speak in her native language and she uses simple diction and simple words . . . now. This can lead to confusion and I try to employ this for "Comedy of Errors" stories. (Elsewhere I described an encounter where the Captain & this Twi'lek had a confused conversation about her daughter/dottir). One thing that I do for this Twi'lek character is that when she falls back to Twi'lek, I grab Google Translate and just feed phrases into the French translator and just blurt out random French phrases, in character. No none of us speak Twi'lek so it emphasizes the alien nature of Aliz.

But like any other challenge in RPG's this is an obstacle for the players to overcome. And sometimes it's a very daunting obstacle. And often the PC's come up with some pleasantly surprising methods for overcoming these minor issues.

As I consider this, I do know that the PC's are going to be headed over to Tatooine soon and will be interacting with Tusken Raiders. I already know that the PC's won't speak their language and that proper communication will be problematic (at the best). Sure some of the Tusken's will understand Basic, but I expect that won't help much.

For me the language barrier is a fun narrative obstacle for my campaign but I use it sparingly as appropriate.

Appreciate all the perspectives on this. The movies take an interesting approach. Han Solo apparently understands Shyriiwook, Huttese and whatever language Greedo speaks. But Jabba uses a translator (C-3PO) when talking to others. Luke clearly knows binary/droidspeak. And his uncle Owen seems to make sense of Jawaese.

Have you ever had players speak in an alien language (Shyriiwook, for instance) at the table?

9 minutes ago, NokDrayen said:

Have you ever had players speak in an alien language (Shyriiwook, for instance) at the table?

PbP, a Mando'a an te ca'nara.

(PbP, but Mando'a all the time)

2 hours ago, NokDrayen said:

Have you ever had players speak in an alien language (Shyriiwook, for instance) at the table?

Nope.

5 hours ago, NokDrayen said:

Appreciate all the perspectives on this. The movies take an interesting approach. Han Solo apparently understands Shyriiwook, Huttese and whatever language Greedo speaks. But Jabba uses a translator (C-3PO) when talking to others. Luke clearly knows binary/droidspeak. And his uncle Owen seems to make sense of Jawaese.

Have you ever had players speak in an alien language (Shyriiwook, for instance) at the table?

I've done Shiiriwook, as well as Mando'a in PBP games. I use online translators to convert my English into the given language and post the actual dialog in that language with the English translation in a Spoiler tag.

5 hours ago, NokDrayen said:

Han Solo apparently understands Shyriiwook, Huttese and whatever language Greedo speaks.

Also Illodian, Trader's Argot, and a little bit of Mandaba.

7 hours ago, NokDrayen said:

Appreciate all the perspectives on this. The movies take an interesting approach. Han Solo apparently understands Shyriiwook, Huttese and whatever language Greedo speaks. But Jabba uses a translator (C-3PO) when talking to others. Luke clearly knows binary/droidspeak. And his uncle Owen seems to make sense of Jawaese.

Have you ever had players speak in an alien language (Shyriiwook, for instance) at the table?

I love playing Wookiees and making Wookiee noises at the table, but I can’t actually do Shyriiwook.

I can easily be really loud though, which is appropriate for a Wookiee. But not appreciated by most everyone else in the same building. Or in the building next door.

And no, I’m not joking. I topped my SPL meter at 127db. I don’t know what the maximum loudest my voice can be.

On 2/18/2020 at 6:38 PM, Mark Caliber said:

The crew have two astromechs and almost none of the players can speak droid.

Yet I cannot recall any character in any of the movies or shows ever not understanding R2.