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Alden Loveshade · 10-29-2019, 02:58 PM

One of the players in my original GURPS science fiction campaign ran an SF first contact game which was also the first GURPS adventure she ran. In it, the space aliens knew our language, but we didn't know theirs. My human PC was a spy/linguist whose primary job was to translate the alien's language (we had some technology to help).

But in that adventure, we really didn't deal with the aliens much directly even though their ship was docked where we were at. So almost everyone we actually dealt with spoke our language.

I was also in a time-traveler-meets-primitive-humans game where I had to try to communicate, but that was a one- or two-session adventure with just me and the GM.

I think it's really difficult to make a "we can't talk to them and they can't talk to us" playable for more than a session or two.

10-29-2019, 02:58 PM	#9
Alden Loveshade Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: Hmm, looks like Earth, circa CE 2020+	Re: Harsh realism for languages One of the players in my original GURPS science fiction campaign ran an SF first contact game which was also the first GURPS adventure she ran. In it, the space aliens knew our language, but we didn't know theirs. My human PC was a spy/linguist whose primary job was to translate the alien's language (we had some technology to help). But in that adventure, we really didn't deal with the aliens much directly even though their ship was docked where we were at. So almost everyone we actually dealt with spoke our language. I was also in a time-traveler-meets-primitive-humans game where I had to try to communicate, but that was a one- or two-session adventure with just me and the GM. I think it's really difficult to make a "we can't talk to them and they can't talk to us" playable for more than a session or two. __________________ GURPS Fantasy Folk: Elves My first GURPS supplement Top 12 Clues You're a Role-Playing Old-Timer My humorous (I hope) article that also promotes SJGames/GURPS Kerry Thornley: Dwarf Planet Eris, Discordianism, and The John F. Kennedy Assassination Without Thornley, there would never have been the Steve Jackson Games edition of Principia Discordia