Breaking (Bad) Scholars

[David Bofinger]

Scholar is a big expensive broad talent, so maybe it would be a good idea to split it up into pieces. It's basically about anthropology, history and just being educated, so my plan is to break up the talent into roughly those pieces.

Delete Talent: Scholar

New Talent: Cultured (IQ 11, costs 1, requires Literacy) The character has had his culture's equivalent of a liberal arts education. They know about art, public affairs and generally the sort of things the intelligentsia talk about at dinner parties, and receive +1 to reaction rolls in such a setting. If they speak a language, they speak it as an educated person, with a large vocabulary. If speaking for a while with a character who lacks Cultured they can try to reveal this by tricking them into saying something that makes no sense: 3/IQ roll for them to avoid it; if it turns out the other character does have Cultured then the character who attempted to trick them must roll 3/IQ not to make a fool of themselves. They can recognise common extant languages, art styles, etc. on a 3/IQ roll; very common ones will be automatic. Knows a bit about history and about customs of the various races and peoples, and can (on 4/IQ) make a rough guess about the origin of artifacts or objects from well-known cultures.

New Talent: Cosmopolitan (IQ 13, costs 1, requires Cultured) The character knows about the extant cultures of his part of the world. Will recognize any extant language (even if he doesn’t speak it) on a 3-die roll vs. IQ; common extant languages will be automatic. If they speak a language, they can speak it as though they were a native. Knows a good deal about about customs of the various races and peoples, and can (on a 4-die roll vs. IQ) make a very good guess about the origin of most artifacts or objects from extant cultures.

New Talent: History (IQ 13, costs 1, requires Cosmopolitan) Knows a good deal about history and archaeology of extant and extinct cultures. Same abilities as Cosmopolitan, but applies to extinct as well as extant cultures and languages.

Issue: Cultured seems like it should be linked to Courtly Graces, and Cosmopolitan seems like it should be linked to Diplomacy. But how?

Usually I dislike ladders but it seems natural here. Is there an alternative?

Are there other talents I could add in the Scholar space? Arcana, for instance?

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by David Bofinger

Scholar is a big expensive broad talent, so maybe it would be a good idea to split it up into pieces. It's basically about anthropology, history and just being educated, so my plan is to break up the talent into roughly those pieces.


Issue: Cultured seems like it should be linked to Courtly Graces, and Cosmopolitan seems like it should be linked to Diplomacy. But how?

Usually I dislike ladders but it seems natural here. Is there an alternative?

Are there other talents I could add in the Scholar space? Arcana, for instance?

In a fantasy game, generic scholar is not inappropriate. Knowledge was not nearly as specialized.

However a number of professions encourage scholarship as an occupational aid. Cleric. Bard or Skald (Snorri was obviously very learned). Highly technical things like military engineer or ship building. Strategy (generals always reference the lore of their trade). Mage, and so on.

It was far more possible to be a renaissance man in the Middle ages (or of course the renaissance) because there was far less data to master.

[Shostak]

I'd prefer them to not be a ladder, so separate elements could be learned independent of each other.

I'd also make the breakdown Arts & Letters, which would cover languages, literature, and art history; Historian, which would cover both history and geography; and Anthropologist (yes, I realize that this is human-centric), which would deal with folklore, costume, customs, religions, cuisine. One could add a fourth scholarly talent: Occultist, which would deal with the history and theory of magic and hidden knowledge.

If doing this, some discounts might be appropriate. For instance, someone with Arts & Letters might learn languages or Bard at a lower XP cost. Similarly, if one had any of them, maybe Mathematician could cost 1 point less.

For more discussion of Scholar, see this thread on the main forum.

[TippetsTX]

A few months back, I was playing around with a framework using SCHOLAR as a type of specialization (a concept that I've applied to various other talent trees in my revised ruleset). The prerequisite talent is called ACADEMICS which replaces the original SCHOLAR as a generalist skill for academic knowledge and research, but w/o the RAW emphasis on language. When adding my new SCHOLAR talent then, the character would select a specific school of knowledge and expertise, several of which are stand-alone talents in RAW... MATHEMATICIAN, NATURALIST, STRATEGIST, LINGUIST, HISTORIAN, THEOLOGIAN, ARCANIST, etc.

I suppose I could just drop the 'scholar' pretense, but I like the idea of those talents sharing a set of common mechanics. I didn't get too far with the idea, though.

[David Bofinger]

Originally Posted by Shostak

I'd prefer them to not be a ladder, so separate elements could be learned independent of each other.

Basically RAW Scholar is about (a) knowing about foreign cultures i.e. cultural anthropology renaissance version and (b) knowing about extinct cultures i.e. history and archaeology renaissance version. If History doesn't depend on Cultural Anthropology then we have characters who know about extinct cultures but not about those which exist today. Which is kind of strange. But maybe it's possible, if you say that historical knowledge is broader and less deep.

I'd also make the breakdown Arts & Letters, which would cover languages, literature, and art history; Historian, which would cover both history and geography; and Anthropologist (yes, I realize that this is human-centric), which would deal with folklore, costume, customs, religions, cuisine.

Geography is a tough one because it's really naturally a part of both Historian and Anthropology. I guess if it's current geography then Anthropologist is better?

Anthropologist is a bit too modern a word but I don't know a better.

I really wanted to have a Scholar-light to represent a classical education. A lot of characters might want something like this.

One could add a fourth scholarly talent: Occultist, which would deal with the history and theory of magic and hidden knowledge.

I was thinking of calling it Arcana, because given the place of magic in Cidri I don't think the talent should imply secrecy.

If doing this, some discounts might be appropriate. For instance, someone with Arts & Letters might learn languages or Bard at a lower XP cost.

I think the natural discount would be two languages for the price of one. Whether at generation or during experience. Being a linguist needs to be cheaper anyway.

Bard I'm not so sure about. I know in some settings and some games Bards are great travellers who can make lore rolls to speak of distant times and places but that's not a TFT thing.

if one had any of them, maybe Mathematician could cost 1 point less.

I don't think so, there isn't any subject matter in common and the fact they both need high IQ is link enough. And CP Snow is on my side.

Good thoughts, thanks.

[Shostak]

The fact that academic knowledge is interdisciplinary rather than wholly compartmentalized means that there will always be some overlap between the different talents. Arts & Letters would reasonably include at least some folklore, for example, and History & Geography would include at least some information about cultures and customs. But that could be solved by requiring a roll for information rather than simply giving it, or, if already requiring a roll, adding a die or more for those with only cursory knowledge.

[David Bofinger]

Originally Posted by Shostak

Arts & Letters would reasonably include at least some folklore, for example

I'm not sure what you mean by "folklore" but to me it pretty much by definition is stuff the folk pass around, i.e. not elite culture and not intelligentsia but common people. Though of course some things start as elite culture and filter down, like Perrault's fairy tales. Generally I doubt the classically educated know any more current folklore than do, well, the folk.

[EKB]

In my campaign/house rules, I've rewritten the Scholar talent as follows:

----
Scholar (3): This talent represents the knowledge of a sage or loremaster. A character with this talent rolls against IQ to remember a fact or recognize an unusual object or condition. The number of dice rolled depends on how obscure the fact, object, or condition is. Characters without this talent roll twice as many dice.

Note that the Literacy talent is *not* a prerequisite for Scholar. Non-literate, oral tradition scholars will often be called “Loremasters.”

The Scholar talent has the same base cost for wizards as for non-wizards.
----

Further thoughts:

The Scholar talent is culture-dependent with different cultures having different versions. "Twice as many dice" is for non-scholars of the same culture, with members of different cultures likely needing to roll more or fewer dice. Common knowledge in the Million Kingdoms may be obscure in the Empire of the South or among the Northern Barbarians, and vice versa.

A +1 reaction bonus from the Scholar talent is *highly* situation-dependent; I prefer to downplay it and even to give a -1 reaction penalty in some cases ("damn prissy egghead..."). So I left out that bonus as a "standard" part of the talent.

The Scholar talent will give the character a big vocabulary in the languages he speaks, which is not quite the same thing as a high level of fluency. It will be more a matter of being able to speak in a "scholarly" register, if desired.

Recognizing languages is not specifically called out in my version, but would fall under an "object" (for writing) or "condition" (for spoken language). So a Scholar would automatically (2 dice vs IQ 13+) recognize languages that a non-scholar would need to roll 4 dice vs IQ to recognize, 3 dice to recognize 6 die obscure languages, 4 dice to recognize 8 die obscure languages, etc.

I'm in the camp of "In a medieval or renaissance world, scholarship will be more unified, rather than specialized the way it is in modern times." Which is why I'm disinclined to split up the talent as suggested in this thread.