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Old 01-06-2018, 05:40 AM   #4
Phil Masters
 
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Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: U.K.
Default Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the week: Cannot Speak

I've put it on one or two demo game PCs, but I find that it has a bit of a practical problem of enforcement. One can't tell the player not to say anything, and that soon becomes the player suggesting party courses of action, and that soon ends up feeling like the character communicating smoothly with the rest of the party and probably with NPCs...

One can insist that the communication must be something that could be signed or otherwise conveyed, but continually saying "How do you convey that? What are you gesturing?" gets kind of boring very fast. I've seen similar problems when a party somehow winds up with substantially diverse language sets.

(It would have been even worse with the demo game PCs, come to think of it; the ones I'm remembering were Alchemical Baroque sapient cats.)

I'm sure it could be played convincingly and interestingly, but it'd require a disciplined and committed player. Mute NPCs are probably easier, but they're probably going to end up being treated as dumb furniture if one isn't careful.
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