Post by Skir on May 12, 2013 12:02:13 GMT -8
Languages have been a point of contention and problems at ECC for years. The system of languages gained from increasing the Linguistics Ability makes very little real sense and has many clarity issues on top of it. Where do the extra languages come from? Do you still need a teacher for the individual languages? Does increasing the Ability give "slots" that can be later filled? Why do I need someone who speaks double the number of languages I do to teach me one language?
In order to cut through this mess, we propose the following new system.
CURRENT SYSTEM
from Vampire the Masquerade p. 128
You begin play with the native language of your choice for free, but if you want to speak any other languages, whether modern or ancient, Linguistics is a must. This Ability allows you to understand additional languages, but at high levels also offers a more general understanding of linguistic structure. Linguistics may allow you to recognize accents or decipher word puzzles.
* Student: One extra language
** College: Two extra languages
*** Masters: Four extra languages
**** Doctorate: Eight extra languages
***** Scholar: 16 extra languages
PROPOSED CHANGE
Learning new languages in game: The standard system from the Core Book will continue to determine the number of languages that a character enters play with. Gaining more languages in game is not directly adjudicated by the character's Linguistics Ability or directly spending xp. Instead, learning a new language is an extended Intelligence + Linguistics roll with weekly rolls requiring 20 successes to be accumulated in order to learn the language.
The source of the language being learned and other related languages set the difficulty of this roll. Languages can be learned from either a teacher who already speaks the language in question or from an impersonal source such as books or computer programs. If learning from a teacher, the base difficulty of the roll is 6. If learning from books or other impersonal sources the base difficulty is 8.
If the language is related to the character's native language, there is no increase in difficulty. If the character knows another language that is not his native language, the roll is at +1 difficulty. If the character knows no languages related to the language being learned, the roll is at +3 difficulty.
The checks for this roll are made weekly, accumulating successes until the necessary 20 are acquired. A failure on any of these rolls means that the character has made a misstep in the learning process, learning some bad habits that must be unlearned, increasing the difficulty of all future rolls by 1. A botch on any of these rolls means that the character has learned something completely wrong, raising the difficulty by 2 on all subsequent rolls unless the character chooses to abandon the effort and start again from scratch.
We will hold a period of discussion and a vote at game on May 25.
In order to cut through this mess, we propose the following new system.
CURRENT SYSTEM
from Vampire the Masquerade p. 128
You begin play with the native language of your choice for free, but if you want to speak any other languages, whether modern or ancient, Linguistics is a must. This Ability allows you to understand additional languages, but at high levels also offers a more general understanding of linguistic structure. Linguistics may allow you to recognize accents or decipher word puzzles.
* Student: One extra language
** College: Two extra languages
*** Masters: Four extra languages
**** Doctorate: Eight extra languages
***** Scholar: 16 extra languages
PROPOSED CHANGE
Learning new languages in game: The standard system from the Core Book will continue to determine the number of languages that a character enters play with. Gaining more languages in game is not directly adjudicated by the character's Linguistics Ability or directly spending xp. Instead, learning a new language is an extended Intelligence + Linguistics roll with weekly rolls requiring 20 successes to be accumulated in order to learn the language.
The source of the language being learned and other related languages set the difficulty of this roll. Languages can be learned from either a teacher who already speaks the language in question or from an impersonal source such as books or computer programs. If learning from a teacher, the base difficulty of the roll is 6. If learning from books or other impersonal sources the base difficulty is 8.
If the language is related to the character's native language, there is no increase in difficulty. If the character knows another language that is not his native language, the roll is at +1 difficulty. If the character knows no languages related to the language being learned, the roll is at +3 difficulty.
The checks for this roll are made weekly, accumulating successes until the necessary 20 are acquired. A failure on any of these rolls means that the character has made a misstep in the learning process, learning some bad habits that must be unlearned, increasing the difficulty of all future rolls by 1. A botch on any of these rolls means that the character has learned something completely wrong, raising the difficulty by 2 on all subsequent rolls unless the character chooses to abandon the effort and start again from scratch.
We will hold a period of discussion and a vote at game on May 25.
