[UA] RE: Negative Skills?

[Christopher]

So far, I haven't worried about languages in the game, though I let players
know that if they wanted something exceptional that they'd need to spend
points. Same with income. If someone wants to be fabulously wealthy, buy
Fabulously Wealthy. With my group it didn't end up being a problem. The
players were mindful of what their characters could spend and no one
suddenly started speaking a language just because it was suddenly
convenient. As long as they were forthcoming with such things at character
creation (or even developed it reasonably during the game), I was fine and
let us get on with it.

 

Christopher Smith Adair

 

-----Original Message-----
From: ua-bounces at lists.unknown-armies.com
[mailto:ua-bounces at lists.unknown-armies.com] On Behalf Of Niall
Sent: Thursday, August 31, 2006 10:28 AM
To: The Unknown Armies RPG Mailing List
Subject: Re: [UA] RE: Negative Skills?

 

But riddle me this: It's one thing to be a person who has studied a foreign

language (ie. taken French in Unversity, or lived there long enough to pick
it up), but what about bi-(or even tri-)lingual societies? For example, I 
live in a country with ELEVEN official languages where most people are
bi-lingual and tri-lingual is becoming increasingly common.

Or what about a UA game set in Europe? Especially as the EU leads to
integration, you'd expect more and more people to grow up with "two first 
languages". That rapidly becomes expensive.


Would it matter if someone could do that? I'm of the view that communication
issues in games have a limited period of being fun and then get dull and
irritating. I  would be inclined to say that a player could have 2-3
languages for free if it is reasonable to expect the character to have those
languages as native and let them spend the points on fun (useful?) skills.
After all if the game is going to be set in a place where multiple languages
are expected then restricting player choice for some sort of artificial
balance seems a little, well artificial, unless you are making a point that
the characters are outsiders and want to make that language barrier a point
of the game to highlight the differences. 

 Simply give all the characters that option and explain to players who want
to be from a different background where multilinguals are not common (for
instance if playing in the EU then they could be British :) that their
characters will be at a disadvantage and to suck it up. This is UA not D&D

Niall

 

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