Quote:
Originally Posted by Dalillama
AFAICT, the difference is purely cosmetic, and thus irrelevant from a game mechanics POV: For 40 points, your character speaks every language that comes up in the game. Whether it's a limited number of languages combined with a plot contrivance, being a communications droid who actually knows all known languages, or a prophet who's been given the gift of tongues by your tutelary deity is entirely a special effect.
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Well, no. That's the difference if you HAVE the trait. But if you want to ACQUIRE the trait, radically different processes are involved, which require different game mechanics. In the case of Omnilingual, we're probably going to have a training montage where the protagonist practices speaking a bunch of languages, mostly familiar ones, but a couple of exotic ones to convey "they could turn out to speak something obscure and unlikely." In the case of Modular Abilities (Computer Brain), you'd see them being given access to some sort of database of languages.
There's also the question of what sort of worldbuilding is needed to enable either. For Omnilingual, you just need a society where travel and meeting foreigners are possible. For MA (CB), you need a society where there are computers, and AIs, and downloadable skills and languages, and where a huge number of languages have been turned into available downloads.