[X] My Assistant

[MJBurrage]

I think there should be Knowledge Skill Groups (excluding languages).

Agreed that some knowledge groups would make sense. But I also think there should be Language groups. I use the old SR1/2 language families as groups, with a family costing double what a single language costs.

[Yerameyahu]

I thought all Knowledge skills were inherently groups. They're as broad or specific as you want, you just tell the GM. The broader they are, the less specific, which is why specializations are also available.

[Marwynn]

Didn't know that existed, that's cool.

The reason I don't like Language "families" is that while some languages share similarities and you can do a reasonable job making yourself known by speaking a related language, the game system assigns a flat rating to all.

Hmm, maybe if there were Language groups/families that if purchased didn't give you all the languages but require you to select one main one and have the rest at a lower rating.

For example, Germanic: Afrikaans, Danish, Dutch, English, Flemish, German, Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish, Yiddish.

You select German there and buy it at rating 3. The rest are at Rating/2 (rounded up) - 1, or 1. That way you have a primary language and it has some utility. Messier than a simple language group, but a bit more realistic than one fella who pics English as a natural language being naturally fluent in Yiddish as well.

[MJBurrage]

Didn't know that existed, that's cool.

The reason I don't like Language "families" is that while some languages share similarities and you can do a reasonable job making yourself known by speaking a related language, the game system assigns a flat rating to all.

Hmm, maybe if there were Language groups/families that if purchased didn't give you all the languages but require you to select one main one and have the rest at a lower rating.

For example, Germanic: Afrikaans, Danish, Dutch, English, Flemish, German, Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish, Yiddish.

You select German there and buy it at rating 3. The rest are at Rating/2 (rounded up) - 1, or 1. That way you have a primary language and it has some utility. Messier than a simple language group, but a bit more realistic than one fella who pics English as a natural language being naturally fluent in Yiddish as well.

Whenever I add new rules I try to balance realism with playability. Given how many technical ways there are to communicate without actually having the language skill, anything that makes languages expensive or complicated, makes them not taken. Also the "canon" SR language families almost never have more than three useful languages. So I went with the simplicity of a family costing double. Even at that cost, I have never had a player come close to exploiting it. Many never even make use of families, choosing only a few unrelated languages.

[Yerameyahu]

Yes, but a simpler (and in some ways, more accurate) solution is to just allow 'discount' defaulting on those. You have German 3 (and Intuition 3), you can default to Germanic languages using Intuition (-1) *and* German (-2, though, or whatever number works). Fiddle with the numbers, of course.

[CanRay]

Didn't know that existed, that's cool.

The reason I don't like Language "families" is that while some languages share similarities and you can do a reasonable job making yourself known by speaking a related language, the game system assigns a flat rating to all.

Hmm, maybe if there were Language groups/families that if purchased didn't give you all the languages but require you to select one main one and have the rest at a lower rating.

For example, Germanic: Afrikaans, Danish, Dutch, English, Flemish, German, Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish, Yiddish.

You select German there and buy it at rating 3. The rest are at Rating/2 (rounded up) - 1, or 1. That way you have a primary language and it has some utility. Messier than a simple language group, but a bit more realistic than one fella who pics English as a natural language being naturally fluent in Yiddish as well.

Hate to tell you folks, but I would suggest highly against this.

Having experience with a variety of languages going around Canada alone, I can tell you that folks even speaking the same language can have a hard time understanding each other (Acadian-French vs. Quebecois vs. French-Canadian, as just one example.). And that doesn't even bring into question Newfie, which is, technically, English.

Very, very, *VERY* technically.

[Draco18s]

And that doesn't even bring into question Newfie, which is, technically, English.

Very, very, *VERY* technically.

Or New York Cabbie.

[CanRay]

*Shudders* Explaining a bill to a New York Cabbie who had his cousin housesit the apartment and changed the services a dozen times. And then there was Pay-Per-View.

...

I think I need my corner now.