Talent/Spell of the Week: Area Knowledge

[Shostak]

Originally Posted by stefanj

It gives the character comprehensive knowledge of the hierarchy, notables, which churches / temples can provide hospitality.

Neat. Would that more appropriately be Mundane Talent: [Organization]?

This would distinguish talents representing possessing comprehensive knowledge about a single church or guild from having Area Knowledge that represents cursory knowledge of all churches or guilds in a given location.

[TippetsTX]

Originally Posted by stefanj

I riff a little bit about Area Knowledge in an article I just submitted for Hexagram. I won't go into the specifics, but I'd like to suggest that a character might take Area Knowledge about an organization. Such as, the Catholic Church, or the Enok faith.

It gives the character comprehensive knowledge of the hierarchy, notables, which churches / temples can provide hospitality.

I make that a component of the PRIEST talent in my game. General, lay knowledge of a specific religion (or any organization) shouldn't be connected to a talent IMO. That's the type of information I prefer a PC to learn thru role-play.

[hcobb]

Lich with Area Knowledge who's been hanging out in a cave for a few centuries?

[JohnPaulB]

Originally Posted by stefanj

I riff a little bit about Area Knowledge in an article I just submitted for Hexagram. I won't go into the specifics, but I'd like to suggest that a character might take Area Knowledge about an organization. Such as, the Catholic Church, or the Enok faith.

It gives the character comprehensive knowledge of the hierarchy, notables, which churches / temples can provide hospitality.


I also really like the idea above of giving a character a free Area Knowledge for the town / rural county they grew up in.


Nomads might get area knowledge of the migration route they traveled!

I consider Area Knowledge to refer to a geographical area.

For a village, this describes neighborhoods, streets, shops, government facilities, days and location of markets, when the village gates close and what is adjacent to the village. It might include what the trade is like in this village, who the government officials are.

For AK of 5 miles around village, this gives a little less general knowledge of the village but increases the data about the fields, woods, roads, rivers, marshes, farms in this area. They can navigate this area like the back of their hand because they know it so well, even at night. They know what area to stay away from after a heavy rain, have a pretty good idea of where the moonshiners keep their stills, what the crops are in almost all areas and such.

I would consider Area of Knowledge - Organization to be a Mundane Talent. This is a knowledge gained of an organization because one has been in it for a long period of time or because one has studied that organization.

So Stefanj's Area of Knowledge - Catholic Church organization would give them this hierarchical structure and possible the nearby church locations of this organization as well.

For soldiers, Mundane Talent - Area of Knowledge - Military would give Army Organization ranks, military etiquette, the broad military tactics that that organization applies.

The Military Area of Knowledge could even be given freely by the GM to somebody who has a profession of Army soldier (but not recruits). And since militaries are often similar in ranks, one can make a good guess about the enemy's Military also.

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I would say that the difference between spending points for IQ 8 Talent Area Knowledge and Mundane Talent Area Knowledge is that if you bought the IQ 8 AK Talent you have that knowledge at the tip of your fingers and shouldn't have to roll for success unless it was a stressful situation or to confusing a problem. On a Mundane Talent AK (1 IQ) you would have to roll your IQ to see if you can recall the area, but it should be otherwise the same style as the IQ 8 AK Talent. I go with Shostak thought, that Mundane AK should cost less though I would say you get two Area AK for that 1 point.

[Shostak]

Originally Posted by JohnPaulB

I would say that the difference between spending points for IQ 8 Talent Area Knowledge and Mundane Talent Area Knowledge is that if you bought the IQ 8 AK Talent you have that knowledge at the tip of your fingers and shouldn't have to roll for success unless it was a stressful situation or to confusing a problem. On a Mundane Talent AK (1 IQ) you would have to roll your IQ to see if you can recall the area, but it should be otherwise the same style as the IQ 8 AK Talent.

Why should Mundane Talent [Organization] have to roll on IQ while Area Knowlege gives information automatically when they both have the same investment?

I go with Shostak thought, that Mundane AK should cost less though I would say you get two Area AK for that 1 point.

Did I say that? I intended to say that a Mundane Talent about an organization in an area should give more complete information than Area Knowledge for that region, since Area Knowledge would give a wider range of information, such as a little bit of general info about a lot of organizations as opposed to a lot of information about one.

[David Bofinger]

Area Knowledge is a great idea in principle but I don't know how to make it work in practice. If we can loosely say there are three common kinds of campaign:

1. Those where the world is irrelevant, because it all happens in a labyrinth. Area Knowledge is essentially useless.
2. Those where the PCs are based in a particular location, and the immediate surrounds are important to them. Area Knowledge of the area where the game happens is very useful. But as the campaign proceeds everyone has a fair bit of time in the area and Area Knowledge stops being distinctive. The best solution here might be to make Area Knowledge more specific.
3. Those where the PCs hexcrawl all over the place, and no particular location is especially important. Area Knowledge can be briefly useful but not often. To some extent it can be made more general.

I don't feel Area Knowledge is really helping to make any of these games more fun. Which is sad because I appreciate it's trying to represent something real and important.

Maybe a game between 2 and 3, where some areas get visited a lot, would be where Area Knowledge shone. Like a city campaign where you go into the rough part of town sometimes, the noble part sometimes, etc.