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Old 03-19-2021, 09:00 AM   #11
johndallman
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Language Talent and Omnilingual

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Originally Posted by WingedKagouti View Post
But unless used sparingly it risks ending up with lots of "I guess the rest of us need to wait for character x to finish talking with NPC y", which can often make for one-sided and uninteresting sessions.
We tend to assume that if we have a character who is fluent in the relevant language, they can interpret for us. When that's happening, I try to keep my questions short and simple, which is a good idea anyway.

There is the question of "is there any kind of roll needed for language interpretation?"

I've tended to assume not, for "consecutive interpretation", where only one person speaks at a time, and conversation is much slower. All that seems to need is an interpreter with good command of both languages, and a basic understanding of the subject matter. From personal experience, trying to teach computer programming via an interpreter who doesn't understand the basic concept is futile.

"Simultaneous interpretation" is comparatively new, invented in the 1930s and first used on a large scale in 1945. It needs technological assistance, in the forms of microphones, headphones, amplifiers, switchgear and cabling, and does require training. I think that's just a Professional Skill.
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Old 03-19-2021, 09:24 AM   #12
Tyneras
 
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Language Talent and Omnilingual

A quick thought on language in ultra-tech settings. The existence of advanced language translation software also implies the existence of advanced language teaching software.

Since people are far from uniform, I imagine that those disinclined to learn new languages would happily rely on the software, while those who want to learn more languages could very easily wind up with dozens. Omnilingual might be the cheaper option compared to Language Talent + Languages for such folks.

This applies to measurement systems too, software easily translating metric to imperial to traditional Chinese to hyper-cubits or whatever the user desires. Would be quite the headache for Infinity until they got their hands on the software.
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Old 03-19-2021, 09:32 AM   #13
malloyd
 
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Language Talent and Omnilingual

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Because "we don't understand" isn't fun, I think it would be a rare game that gave full point value for Omnilingual, and I've never seen it used. But I don't tend to play games in which it would be possible.
Yeah, it's a fundamental problem of languages in a game. Or a story for that matter. Characters you can't talk to are scenery or monsters, and describing scenery for too long gets boring, so.... All those fights are on sight to the death too, since you can't make threats or demands, interrogate or order around prisoners, or surrender yourself.

I've written my share of complex language rules too, and honestly they've never really added anything to a *game*. They're theoretical simulationist exercises, not aids to play. For spoken languages the standard rules (language cost 1, 2 or 3 points and anything related enough you can tell defaults at 1 level lower) play fairly well. Even most of the "too expensive" complaints come from buying literacy separately for each one, though if we were still using the 3e half points knocking the cost down to 1/2, 1, 2 would've been reasonable.

I do increasingly think Omnilingual is way too expensive. I suspect the problem is the same as the original pricing of Unaging - it seems fair relative to other stuff for the real world, but ends up overcharging for a game because the conditions where it would matter rarely turn up, since having them come up all the time would make the game unfun or unplayable. I wouldn't go all the way to [5] like Unaging, but I can easily see cutting it to [15]. You rarely actually need anything better than accented, so 15 points is effectively more than 7 languages if you are just considering speaking, and the 7 most important languages are usually enough talk to "everybody", at least to the extent someone in any given village or mob can reasonably know one of them well enough for you to issue those threats or offer to surrender.
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Old 03-19-2021, 09:50 AM   #14
vicky_molokh
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Language Talent and Omnilingual

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The thing is, extra languages are expensive and they SHOULD be expensive: they are not trivial things to pick up.
By now I'm no longer confident this is a solid reason anymore, since the hours-to-points ratio is not meant to represent actual realistic correlation, but rather a playable arbitrary number to have some kind of answer when a PC decides to start studying a skill.
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Old 03-19-2021, 10:06 AM   #15
ericthered
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Language Talent and Omnilingual

In my current game, I laid out three languages the players might want to have: The language of the settled folk they (jungle hunters) trade with, the language of their bitter enemies, and the ancient written language (a sort of hieroglyphics). So far things have gone pretty well, and the languages were bought with an eye to character background, with different characters having different option in who they talk to. As Malloyd mentions, only taken spoken literacy does wonders for affordability. As does offering discounts for close languages.



I find that languages add a lot more to the game in less cosmopolitan societies and settings. When communities have greater distinctiveness and hostility to others, languages play in the game more naturally.



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Yeah, it's a fundamental problem of languages in a game. Or a story for that matter. Characters you can't talk to are scenery or monsters, and describing scenery for too long gets boring, so....
On the other hand, language barriers be intentionally used to make the monsters more isolated and monstrous. They show up with weapons, and you can't talk it out with them, so you have no choice but to fight.

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All those fights are on sight to the death too, since you can't make threats or demands, interrogate or order around prisoners, or surrender yourself.
Eh, gesturing can work pretty for some of the basics. Throwing down your weapons and moving slowly is a pretty good way to indicate surrender, and basic territoriality isn't hard to convey either. Finger pointing can get you a long ways, especially for giving prisoners orders. As long as its a short sequence, making players communicate by gesturing is good fun.
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Old 03-19-2021, 11:00 AM   #16
Phil Masters
 
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Language Talent and Omnilingual

I liked Roger's article a lot, and would integrate it (possibly with personal tweaks) into my never-will-be-written personal GURPS 4.5.

I'm afraid that Omnilingual is priced at a prohibitive level for most campaigns, where players will just mutter a rude word and drop a couple of points into half-a-dozen languages that they think will be useful if they want to play the team talker-to-foreigners. My own stab at the subject is in Discworld, which has Multilingual at 20 points for "the character who knows at least a few words of every language you happen to encounter", and Universal Translator at 30 points for a true "gift of tongues". The justification for those costs is given in my "Under the Bonnet" notes.
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Old 03-19-2021, 11:32 AM   #17
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Language Talent and Omnilingual

Omnilingual is suited for a cosmic scale superhero campaign, or as a feature of an otherwise pretty useless ally. I'm looking at YOU C-3P0!
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Old 03-19-2021, 11:38 AM   #18
Fred Brackin
 
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Language Talent and Omnilingual

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Omnilingual is suited for a cosmic scale superhero campaign, or as a feature of an otherwise pretty useless ally. I'm looking at YOU C-3P0!
I looked once at the feasibility of making an AI who could have 6 million translation programs in storage and it was thouroghly doable as long as the programs were freeware. Any sane alien race would make a translation program for their own langauge to Galactic Common a priority to produce and then distribute it as freeware.

I don't know what campaign it is that Omnilingual is actually suited for. A Powers heavy high cp one would use either the Modular Abilities or Telepathy with universal solutions.
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Old 03-19-2021, 11:50 AM   #19
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Language Talent and Omnilingual

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I looked once at the feasibility of making an AI who could have 6 million translation programs in storage and it was thouroghly doable as long as the programs were freeware. Any sane alien race would make a translation program for their own langauge to Galactic Common a priority to produce and then distribute it as freeware.
.
C-3P0 is able to translate languages that could not possibly be in his database.
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Old 03-19-2021, 12:19 PM   #20
malloyd
 
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: Language Talent and Omnilingual

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C-3P0 is able to translate languages that could not possibly be in his database.
When?

I don't think we saw him translate something that clearly had no prior contact with Republic/Imperial society. Indeed I'm a little skeptical with the scale and time depths cited for the Republic that it's even possible for something to exist in the galaxy that was clearly that isolated. A few months of contact with one speaker every few centuries is probably enough to keep a language data set usefully current after all.
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