Languages

I haven't used the Decipher system in a game yet and I'm trying to learn the details... I'm slightly confused by the language and skills rules relating to them... I'll try and explain.

For your species skills (Int *2), how many points do you need to put into your native language and Standard? Do you speak them automatically or what? If you do speak them automatically, what would you use the skill for... talking to a non native?

I know its a dumb question, but languages always screw me up... its the one thing I liked about D&D... either you spoke it or you didn't.

Thanks for your time.

I've been going with you buy your native language, as well as foreign ones. IIRC, the skills run 1-12 in scale, so a basic idea of proficiency might be as follows:

Skill level 0 (DLPT score 0 to 1): huh?
Skill level 1 (DLPT score 1+ to 2): very basic unde4rstanding; a few words
Skill level 2-3 (DLPT score 2+ to 3): suvival level. You can get by but lack a lot of nuances.
Skill level 4-6 (DLPT score 3 to 3+): proficient. You can handle most situations and dialogue. Problems with obscure or technical words. Mos tnative speakers fall about here.
Skill level 7--9 (DLPT score 4 to 4+): expert. No problem with grammar or vocabulary. Capable of multiple dialects with ease. Well educated native speakers fall about here.
Skill level 10-12 (DLPT score 5): complete command. Near impossible, but it could happen; even educated native speakers are rarely this proficient with their own language.

*DLPT refers to the Defense Language Proficiency Test of the US military. Most non-native speakers achieve a 2 or 2+ and can do well in-country; 3-4 can often pass for natives. 5 seems to be there more to round out the scale; I know no one, even a native English speaker who can mimic perfectly multiple dialects, who scored a 5.

Figure difficulties as TN5: ordinary conversation "Where's the bathroom?", TN10: politics or other abstract but common things; TN15: scientific or technical conversation in your field; TN20 scientific or technical conversation outside your field; TN25: if you're trying conversation this esoteric you probably have no friends to talk to... :D

Hope that helps.

So you think I should set a +4 requirement for native language AND Fed Standard (for Starfleet chars)... I dunno.

8 skill points hurts... little for culture and that jazz... Again, this is the one annoyance I have through all my games...

4 is also the minimum skill level I require my players to have in their native language. But I always thought that the INT x 2 Knowledge Skill points are too little. Therefore I have increased that number to INT x 3. Maybe a factor of 2.5 would have been better but hey, we are having fun.

Never really thought about that, but why not just use the INT score for your native language level and the skill points for either improving your native language skill or learning other languages.

An Earth character with INT 8 would have an 8 in Earth Standard, and 16 points to spend on culture, history and possibly other languages as well (like French, Ki'suaheli or Yiddish).

Although I'd probably wouldn't allow Federation Standard as the native language of any character.

3 would be the lowest I would expect for a native language or Fed Standard. You would still be able to make yourself understood, most of the time.

Not all native speakers are fluent. All are at least proficient.

Sounds pretty overpowered to me. And it doesn't reflect reality. I mean there are many bright people, but they wouldn't necessarily be able to translate for example Schiller to contemporary German, in the case of Language: German. There certainly is a correlation between real world intelligence and language skill, but you still have to learn your language, whereas INT seems to be, at least in RPGs, mainly determined by one's genes. (In reality it is a little bit more complicated than that ;).)
Most players will anyway want to have a high language skill level, and a high intellect score gives them the opportunity to assign many picks. For the remaining players the narrator should make sure that the characters are capable of having a normal conversation.

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Originally posted by Ergi
Sounds pretty overpowered to me.

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How so?
Is your native language skill THAT important and essential to game balance in your games?

I'm simply assuming smart people are eloquent, less smart people are not. Language: Earth Standard hardly plays any other role in my game.

If you want to play a less eloquent character, you can still lower your language skill.

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And it doesn't reflect reality.

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But that's not the point.

The point is that a character should be fluent in his native language. The Species Picks are supposed to mirror that. But fluent is relative. I think tieing your skill in your native language to your INT attribute is a nice and quick way to not worry about how fluent your character "should" be.
And since you still only have INT x 2 skill picks on culture, history and other languages it gives you some skill points to spend on your skills originating from the character's background .

And that can never be bad.

Is your native language skill THAT important and essential to game balance in your games?

No.

I'm simply assuming smart people are eloquent, less smart people are not. Language: Earth Standard hardly plays any other role in my game.

And smart characters will probably have more skill levels in their native tongue due to more skill points to distribute. I wouldn't let myself stop by the rule that fresh characters shouldn't have any skill level above 6 but it makes sense to me.


If you want to play a less eloquent character, you can still lower your language skill.

Yes, exactly, with the original system you can. So you are saying you can do the same with your house rule. I assume you want to give the players an additional point to spend on knowledge skills for every point they reduce their language level, right?
So they have a total of 2 x INT + INT points to distribute. If I am not mistaken that is 3 x INT, which is what I was saying from the beginning. Thanks for supporting my view :D.

But that's not the point.

For me it is. Especially when I am not playing Fantasy games and even these need some internal logic.


But fluent is relative.

No it isn't, that's the point in assigning levels.

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Originally posted by Ergi
I assume you want to give the players an additional point to spend on knowledge skills for every point they reduce their language level, right?

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Hell no. This isn't about number-crunching. It's about having a quick guideline to figure out how well you speak your own language.

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For me it is. Especially when I am not playing Fantasy games and even these need some internal logic.

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"If I wanted realism, I'd look out the window."

This is about the character's knowledge of language(s). It's not about a realistic set of rules to deal with any or all aspects of language. I'm studying languages and I can tell you, I have yet to see a rules-system that's even remotely close to the real thing.

It's a game, and all you need to know is how good your character can speak a language. And for convenience's sake I assumed that your INT score reflects your knowledge of your own language and your species skills reflect the knowledge you have of your culture, home world and languages you have come into contact with when you were young. Speaking your native language fluently is so central to every person that coming up with a character that has a low skill in language is simply non-sense. How the hell are you supposed to interact with the world around you if are not completely fluent in your language?
And why should you spend 6 (or more) picks on your language, and thus know close to nothing about the world you grew up in.

Now, THAT'S incompatible with the internal logic of Star Trek.

The problem with allowing them to have their int score in language means that the majority of players will have language skills higher than 6 as a starter level character. Sure feel free to throw rules out of the window, but they are usually put there for the interests of game balance.

Going from Querlin's rather neat guide that means most of my players would go around speaking in iiambic sempaphore, and probably not actually be understood because their language skills would go over the heads of most people with a mouthful of syllables :D

Generally I have found the allotment of 2x int seems to be about right. Most people just pick a handful of languages at very low level and a number of knowledges, and the more inteligent one's have several maxed out at 6.

Just think of the players with language of Federation Standard +1 as having the articulation of Scotty :D

Unless you are setting your game in Enterprise Era, it's not relevant to have anything other than your native language at high levels and a few points in Federation standard to get by, as you have the UNIVERSAL TRANSLATOR. Yes it would be nice to have klingon when you are trying to convince the Klingons you are a freighter (as in ST VI) but as demonstrated there, no one had Klingon, so it's not realistic to portray everyone as multilingual geniuses!

I use the Int x 2 rule, but I allow players to automatically start with 6 levels in one language of their choice for free (which usually ends up being their native language). This way, it frees up enough skill picks to take some levels in other languages, such as Federation Standard, not to mention the usual choice of skills.

Actually i find the 2*int is more than enough. If you have a low int score, suck it up...but with my 12, I have 24 picks, so I am fluent in Denobulan(native0 federation standard and romulan with enough points to have knowledge and culture in all of them.

If you have less, that sucks, but unless you have a HORRIBLE roll(ie 5 or lower) you have enough to be fleunt in 2 languages with some points in culture for one of them. that really seems to be enough to me.

Err ... tough subject.
I set aside that particular rule on homeworld's language and culture.
I assumed that every PC has an average knowledge of its own language, culture, homeworld's history and politics etc ...
Unless his profession or packages suggest that he is lower or higher than average skilled in those fields.
But by reading this thread, I have to admit that it's not that simple (comparing to "real life" :rolleyes: ).

So, if we have to consider the degrees in language of the PC, it should give an affinity bonus (or malus) to speaking-based skilled such as Inquire, Persuade, Negociate, isn't it ?

I can't see how a person with a poor language level could be a really good negociator ....

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Originally posted by QuantumRabbit
Actually i find the 2*int is more than enough. If you have a low int score, suck it up...but with my 12, I have 24 picks, so I am fluent in Denobulan(native0 federation standard and romulan with enough points to have knowledge and culture in all of them.

If you have less, that sucks, but unless you have a HORRIBLE roll(ie 5 or lower) you have enough to be fleunt in 2 languages with some points in culture for one of them. that really seems to be enough to me.

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Yes, 24 picks should be enough to create a character with good skills but, as you said, you need an INT of 12 for that. Of course players tend to create characters with a high intelligence attribute, also with the additional skill points in mind, but a system making it necessary for every player to max out INT needs some changes.

Please don't misunderstand me, I don't think that the system is bad, though my previous opinion about the *2 being a little bit too low remains.