A little late on this, but i gotta say, I love the idea of Knowledge and Language skills, and am glad they added them....but the way they handle them is a little off...


The average person here, I think, has knowledge skills equal to points waaaay beyond their INTx5. Given the typical person here has an INT of the 3-4 range, most of us can prolly make a massive list of knowledge skills...not all useful per say, but MAY be useful. Like the book used the Troll Thrash Metal Bands example. You might not use that every day but it could come in handy in the right kind of bar.

Most of us here prolly have knowledges in some 'useful' stuff, like sciences, math, theology, history, etc....even if it's only at a 1 or 2. Then of course we prolly have oodles and oodles of others(i prolly have about 30 points in different kinds of music skill alone...from Northern European Heavy Metal bands to Music Journalism to Concert Photography to Helsinki Bar Locations to other crap), and i am sure others are the same. Again, I know the game isn't 'real life', but I think more knowledge skills would be a bit more appropriate...but again, maybe they just didn't feel the need to require you to write down the fact you have said 'Taiwanese Pastry'. I guess they just assumed that everyone has 'Unwritten' knowledges.

As for languages, I like the way they handle them overall, tho I say some are harder to learn than others(for a native English speaker, it's much easier to learn German , Swedish, or Norwegian(germanic languages), or the romance languages(french, spanish, italian)...Ive had friends fluent in but a 2-3 years of living there....than it is Finnish or Hungarian(horrible languages with grammar from Mars ). I guess that's where the default comes in....it says that all knowledges and languages default to INT...but i'd allow a +2 default from Swedish to Norwegian or Danish, a +2 between German or Ducth, a +2 between Spanish and Italian, but you'd have to default to INT if you speak German and English and are listening to Finnish, Hungarian, or Polish,

As for the contact thing, i agree with the whole 'criminal' aspect of it. My mom is prolly a lv 3 contact in real life in any other aspect, but if she found out I was knocking over Nokia installations on my free time she'd prolly turn me in