Language Anti-Talent

[johndallman]

We have ordinary Talents, and Power-Ups 3 added Anti-Talents. Language Talent is not a conventional Talent, and we have no anti-talent for it. Here's an idea of how to do one:

Language Anti-Talent is worth [-5], and means you need to pay an extra point to reach Broken level in the spoken form of a language, and again to reach Semi-Literate in the written form. This discourages most people from persisting long enough to actually learn a language. If you want to buy it off, you must first learn another language to Native, and having done that, trade in at least 3 extra points spent learning languages.

Example: John's native language is English, which he has at Native/Native, unaffected by his Language Anti-Talent. His elementary school tried to teach him French as a child, but with no success. As an adult, John became interested in Linguistics, which isn't directly penalised by his anti-talent, and the German language, which is. It will cost him eight points to learn German to Native/Native, the six it normally costs, plus two extra required by this disadvantage. If he also learns written Latin to Semi-Literate, costing two points, he becomes eligible to buy off the anti-talent. He trades in the three extra points he spent on German and Latin, plus two more points. This buys off the disadvantage, and leaves him with German (Native/Native) [6] and Latin (None/Semi-Literate) [1], which he can now improve normally.

[Flyndaran]

Anti-talents preclude the buying of the skill at all. They are far more restrictive than Talents are helpful.
What you're suggesting is really a point sink. If you want your character to suck at languages, then just don't buy them. In-game reasoning is separate from meta-game write ups.

Imagine someone that's just bad at singing, but loves to do it anyway. I could just not buy Singing even if my character technically "practices" every day. Hilarity and sore ears ensue.

[Ashtagon]

Mechanically, that's not how anti-talents work for other aspects of a character. Balance-wise, I'm not sure getting a points rebate in exchange for paying extra points for the very thing you are getting the rebate on is particularly viable either.

Perhaps model it as a penalty to all social influence rolls involving a spoken language other than your native language, and all rolls involving a written language other than your native language? Not sure how to price that combo though.

[whswhs]

I would suggest that you should also be limited to the Accented level in a language: You will always, always sound "foreign," you'll lack some vocabulary, and you'll read a bit haltingly. The study time you spent that should have gotten you to Native only got you to Accented, with the consequent penalties.

And I'm not sure it should be possible to buy this one off.

[Anthony]

You can probably take Incompetence (Languages), but in general being bad at abilities is represented by you not spending points on them.

[Kelly Pedersen]

I'm with Ashtagon, the doubling cost for languages doesn't make much sense, mechanically. I also agree with whswhs, cap "foreign" languages at Accented.

I'd also suggest adding an extra -2 penalty to the rolls for various skills and the IQ roll to comprehend for Broken comprehension, and a -1 for Accented.

Finally, I'd suggest doubling the time it takes to learn a language from teaching or the natural "on the job training" that everyone gets from immersion.

I'd also suggest a +50% modifier to have this apply to your native language, as well as foreign ones, and -50% limitations to allow it to apply to just spoken or written forms of language. This could be used to represent certain reading or spoken language disabilities that aren't as severe as full-blown Dyslexia.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Anthony

You can probably take Incompetence (Languages), but in general being bad at abilities is represented by you not spending points on them.

There's lots of disads that e.g. give blanket penalties to skills without forbidding them. The thing is that skills are things that (by and large) can be tried without spending points in them, as long as you've been plausibly exposed to them.

I can't try to fly without spending points in the Flight advantage, even though I've seen tons of birds do it, and no matter how much I study fish I can't breathe water.

I also can't even attempt to read or understand Zulu, even though I've been listening to Zulu music since I was a little kid and reading the lyrics (and translations of the lyrics) along with the song[1]. I actually can make do understanding German based on a similar background [2].

Languages have one foot in the skills set and one foot in the advantages set - I can't even attempt Zulu, it has no default to English. German is a related language so with familiarity I can muddle through some German.

As a result, a Language Anti-Talent I think would only be relevant for languages being used at default (ie, skill-like). I'd allow a "Incompetent at Languages" disad that makes default use of languages impossible; I'm not sure it's worth than a few points in the average game run by North Americans in North America (or the average Fantasy game) but a game set some place with more complex linguistics and a game with emphasis on socialization and negotiation it might be as much as -5.

[1] My parents had eclectic musical tastes.

[2] ... as long as it's in the small vocabulary set you find commonly in songs, in articles about bands, or on websites to buy CDs.

[Kromm]

I'd go with allowing a quirk-level rebate on a language if you actually buy a language.

My basis of comparison is Can't Read Music (GURPS Low-Tech Companion 1, p. 19 and GURPS Power-Ups 6: Quirks, p. 31): This allows you to get one point back if you spend at least one point on a musical skill. It's effectively a way to use points from quirks to define a minor background competence (one point in a skill is hardly masterful!) at net zero cost: "I can hum or strum sort of okay if I already know the tune." If you want to be a professional musician, you pay a whopping one point less in return for a pretty big drawback.

Bad with Languages would work similarly. You may take this quirk if you spend at least one point on a language other than your native one (which is unaffected) and lack Language Talent. At Broken or Accented, you have an extra -1 to skills normally penalized for low comprehension: -4/-7 instead of -3/-6 if Broken, -2/-3 instead of -1/-2 if Accented. At Broken, the IQ roll to understand or be understood is also at -1. At Accented, you must still roll, but at a net IQ+6; unless your IQ is very low, you're mostly checking for critical failure. None of this applies at Native, but you still can't pass as a native speaker – you'll always have an accent.

I would say this is fairest on a language-by-language basis, since that's how the Accent perk (GURPS Power-Ups 2: Perks, p. 12) is assessed. I see no problem with somebody having five "free" languages they kind-of, sort-of speak with a horrible accent and lots of social gaffes, in lieu of using five quirk points to get, say, +1 to Per all the time or something otherwise unequivocally and constantly positive.

[RogerBW]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Language Anti-Talent is worth [-5], and means you need to pay an extra point to reach Broken level in the spoken form of a language, and again to reach Semi-Literate in the written form. This discourages most people from persisting long enough to actually learn a language. If you want to buy it off, you must first learn another language to Native, and having done that, trade in at least 3 extra points spent learning languages.

For those of us borrowing material from the Discworld RPG… I note that Shouting at Foreigners gets a bonus from Language Talent, but I wonder whether perhaps it should not take a penalty from this. It is after all the easier option compared with actually learning a language.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by johndallman

We have ordinary Talents, and Power-Ups 3 added Anti-Talents. Language Talent is not a conventional Talent, and we have no anti-talent for it. Here's an idea of how to do one:

Language Anti-Talent is worth [-5], and means you need to pay an extra point to reach Broken level in the spoken form of a language, and again to reach Semi-Literate in the written form. This discourages most people from persisting long enough to actually learn a language. If you want to buy it off, you must first learn another language to Native, and having done that, trade in at least 3 extra points spent learning languages.

Ehn. That's the kind of disadvantage I don't like. It's just messing around with point costs. If I was go with Language anti-talent I'd just go with "you don't get to learn from immersion". Which is to say that I allow people to count time spent in company with people who are speaking an unfamiliar language to count as language instruction. Someone who is incompetent at learning languages never starts to pick up what people mean just from context and immersion and attempts to teach them are penalized. And you can never learn it to better than accented even after that.