Lunchtime Poll #16: I Am a Jelly Doughnut
This one can be answered from a player or GM point of view.
How do you convey the feeling of being unable to speak the majority language in the area where the story is taking place?
This came up in our game on Saturday; we met a group of reptile people who didn’t speak any languages we knew. It was related to Draconic, so Drafen had some “related language” experience, and their translator toad spoke some Elven (which most characters understood).
The GM played it out with gestures and strange sounds at first, when there was no real chance to translate. This modified, with the GM choosing persistantly strange coloquialisms even in shared languages. That helped keep them exotic; overall, it was very well done.