[Basic] Disadvantage of the week: Cannot Speak

[johndallman]

Cannot Speak [-15 or -25] is a mundane physical disadvantage, and often a racial disadvantage. It comes in two levels with different names, which is reasonably common for disadvantages that were tidied up during the 3e to 4e editing process.

Mute [-25] means you cannot vocalise at all, or, presumably, make coherent sounds in any other way yourself. To communicate, you must use some other means, from sign language to telepathy. You cannot have Voice, Disturbing Voice, or any other traits that affect your voice. This appeared at GURPS 1e, although some details have changed.

Cannot Speak [-15] means you have a voice, but it can't manage the subtleties of a spoken language. Most normal animals have this disadvantage. You can have any other vocal traits, except Stuttering. This level was new at 4e.

This disadvantage mostly shows up on racial templates, including things like Alternate Forms, inhuman constructs, robots and zombies. Discworld has an interesting case: The Librarian, who can only say "ook," and is given Cannot Speak, even though he can say quite a bit with that, and people with the right perk can understand him. Banestorm has a special class of slaves who are made Mute, and Bio-Tech procedures for adding, removing and mitigating the disadvantage. Fantasy discusses animals without this disadvantage, and Horror has spirits and ghosts that suffer it when materialised. Madness Dossier, where language has terrifying power, uses it, which might bring on the quirk-level version from Power-Ups 6, where there's a word you can't or won't say. Powers: The Weird has surgery to improve animals' voices, which is an option in Space for uplifting. Zombies often have Cannot Speak, but the ones that randomly utter a single word are effectively Mute.

I've never seen this disadvantage on a PC. I've had to cope with communications between a spirit and a PC who could see him, but not hear him; sign language solved the problem.

Has this disadvantage been significant in your games?