Language and Literacy issue

[plotulus]

Why does a Nightbane have roughly 70% Native language skill but a Character in Rifts or Dead Reign have a Base Native Language of 88%? Did the Nightlords screw with the education system before Dark Day? Or is this just a typo?

[Shark_Force]

not 100% sure, but i believe the basic assumption is that a typical nightbane gets stuck in the war at a younger age, and likely is more worried about things other than literacy and language skills once they've got those skills to an adequate level.

[plotulus]

It looks like there is actually no Native language skill in Nightbane. Also I suppose that makes a sort of sense but then why does the base skill of Language start at 50%. Even characters who are potentially 30+ years old or even centuries old have that issue.

[Warshield73]

Nightbane is one of the older systems, Rifts under the old RMB had about the same percentages, even lower in some cases. The older games just had languages with no distinction between native or otherwise except for OCC bonuses.

[Axelmania]

Language problems would be more understandable in post-apocalyptic isolationist settings. That said, some of the Rifts OCCs seem to be written with the assumption of there being a default language skill, even if we're not able to find it.

Pg 80 the Rogue Scholar for example, after Literacy +50% has "Two additional languages of choice +30%"

In addition to what?

P 79 the Rogue Scientist has no Language skill at all, but does have Literacy +40%. I guess you could assume they're only capable of writing a language like American but can't speak it...

Pg 31 of Rifts says "Characters with a language skill can understand and speak in a language other than their own native tongue".

This seems to imply that everyone can speak in their native tongue without needing a language skill. This concept of course got muddled once OCCs started listing native languages at 90-98% in subsequent books.

[Blackwater Sniper]

I've found that even games with interlocking systems of rules, when different people take the helm for writing source books there are no "standard" rules. You can probably even find more skills with different base percentages when you look hard enough. Or very similar spells that have differing PPE costs.

[The Beast]

IIRC, Nightbane was one of the first settings where PCs actually took their native language as a skill. Prior to that it was assumed that the PCs could speak the language they were raised in. So my guess as to why the NB skill starts lower than the RUE version is that the company later decided that the starting percentage was too low.

[knightmare6]

Nightlords trying to take over would want to limit access to education, so their political minions would over the decades, reduce education funds, limit information in textbooks. Easier to take over the Earth if the populace is dumb and uneducated. While the invasion is hyped up after Dark Day, it's been happening gradually before Dark Day as well.

I see the lowered skill, as well as the need to take it as a reflection of that in the Nightbane setting

[drewkitty ~..~]

Why does a Nightbane have roughly 70% Native language skill but a Character in Rifts or Dead Reign have a Base Native Language of 88%? Did the Nightlords screw with the education system before Dark Day? Or is this just a typo?

And it better reflects the real world. Not everyone is a poet or author who use large vocabulary regularly.

t is a 'Different Game' then those other two Games, so it has it's own tweaks to fit the NB/NS setting.

[Grazzik]

knightmare6 and drewkitty ~..~ got it right... I think it is a fundamental reflection of the state of the world from the perspective of PCs who are obligated to prioritize survival. But when it comes to the native language, it doesn't really make much of a difference in-game unless they are engaging in wordplay with another PC or NPC. I actually like the lower % for a native language as it allos a PC to grow and develop linguistically.

It could also perhaps reflect that, in RUE, "American" as a language has been so devolved that it is very easy to master, while the "English" of NB includes the archaic and stilted language of the over-educated.

[Snicker]

By the end of the 20th century, literacy has decreased even in industrialized nations, to the point that the U.S. enjoyed less than a 90% literacy rate among the adult population.

I'm not surprised people missed this, since I don't expect most experienced players to double-check the Literacy skill description.

[Grazzik]

By the end of the 20th century, literacy has decreased even in industrialized nations, to the point that the U.S. enjoyed less than a 90% literacy rate among the adult population.

I'm not surprised people missed this, since I don't expect most experienced players to double-check the Literacy skill description.

Interesting, because the average literacy rate (> Level 1, the lowest basic reading comprehension) across all US states is 79% IRL.

Art imitating life or life imitating art?

[drewkitty ~..~]

By the end of the 20th century, literacy has decreased even in industrialized nations, to the point that the U.S. enjoyed less than a 90% literacy rate among the adult population.

I'm not surprised people missed this, since I don't expect most experienced players to double-check the Literacy skill description.

Not suprised, I've had arguments with people who ether...: don't read the descriptive text, or throw it out of their understanding of the canon text because it is not hard stats.

[green.nova343]

I think the reason that the RUE version starts higher is tied into how it advances much more slowly. Look at the level progressions (assuming no bonuses):

• 1st: NB 50%/30% (both) vs. RUE 88%/40% (native) 50%/30% (other)
• 2nd: NB 55%/35% (both) vs. RUE 89%/45% (native) 53%/35% (other)
• 3rd: NB 60%/40% (both) vs. RUE 90%/50% (native) 56%/40% (other)
• 4th: NB 65%/45% (both) vs. RUE 91%/55% (native) 59%/45% (other)
• 5th: NB 70%/50% (both) vs. RUE 92%/60% (native) 62%/50% (other)
• 6th: NB 75%/55% (both) vs. RUE 93%/65% (native) 65%/55% (other)
• 7th: NB 80%/60% (both) vs. RUE 94%/70% (native) 68%/60% (other)
• 8th: NB 85%/65% (both) vs. RUE 95%/75% (native) 71%/65% (other)
• 9th: NB 90%/70% (both) vs. RUE 98 (99)%/80% (native) 74%/70% (other)
• 10th: NB 95%/75% (both) vs. RUE 98 (100)%/85% (native) 77%/75% (other)
• 11th: NB 98 (100)%/80% (both) vs. RUE 98 (101)%/90% (native) 80%/80% (other)
• 12th: NB 98 (105)%/85% (both) vs. RUE 98 (102)%/95% (native) 83%/85% (other)

Nightbane characters catch up to RUE characters by 11th level in terms of speaking their native language fluently, but have already surpassed them in speaking a non-native language by 2nd level. As for writing it, the Nightbane character always seems to lag behind the literate RUE character, but in Rifts Earth the vast majority of characters have to choose literacy, instead of getting it for free. It would be like a situation where, if you weren't forced to attend school for your pre-college years, would you even bother learning how to write, & how well would you even master it? By the same token, the Nightbane characters being able to progress faster with foreign languages represents that the modern world is much more globalized: people move to different countries all of the time, many people learn additional languages even in middle & high school (or even younger, outside of the USA); in Rifts Earth, however, in many ways it's almost a return to feudal times, where the majority of people literally are born, educated, & die in the same village or town, many times the same one that their parents, grandparents, & even great-grandparents lived in, so the societal pressure to learn a new language is much less...& if you do, your opportunities for practical application are probably more with the written word than the spoken word. By the same token, in Rifts Earth, because so many characters (even among the non-humans) are not literate, spoken proficiency in your native language becomes even more critical, because you have to make sure your meaning is conveyed in a way that the other person can understand you.

Personally, I prefer the breakup of "native" vs. "other" language in RUE, as it directly illustrates how a non-native speaker of a langauge has to work harder & spend more time (i.e. more levels) to achieve the same proficiency as the average native speaker. If you do want to incorporate them into a Nightbane setting, however, then I would recommend for the "native" language that you subtract 30% from any listed bonus. This would still put the Warlord Nightbanes at a base of 68% at 1st level, & pretty much eliminate any Nightbane setting character (except maybe those with an extremely high IQ) from maxing out their Language: Native skill at 1st level...

[Snicker]

Personally, I prefer the breakup of "native" vs. "other" language in RUE, as it directly illustrates how a non-native speaker of a langauge has to work harder & spend more time (i.e. more levels) to achieve the same proficiency as the average native speaker.

Sorry for the extremely late reply, but I only just noticed this when re-reading the thread. While the Nightbane setting doesn't distinguish "native" and "other" languages as different skills, it does distinguish them in most OCC lists. Psychics and magical OCCs both speak and write their native languages at 98%, while most Nightbane skill packages get their native Language and Literacy at various bonuses as RCC skills (the Warlord package only gets Language at +10% and has to buy Literacy as an "other" skill). Oddly, it's possible to generate Wampyrs and Guardians without any Language or Literacy at all.

[Marcethus]

Not committing thread necromancy. I have been away from the boards a long time.

The reason for the difference between NB and RUE is that NB was released 13 years before RUE. The numbers from NB match those of the RMB, which was current at the time of NB's release.
There is no other reason for the difference.

[Grazzik]

Not sure that's true. I haven't played RMB style Rifts in a long time, but on a cursory glance at my old book I see almost no reference to native languages... the Borg OCC calls out the automatic ability to speak American and another language at 96%. Other than that, it would seem that the ability to speak a native language is assumed with no percentile. Maybe I missed something, but if someone could point me to a reference re RMB's rule or proficiency in a native language, it would be appreciated. I'm guessing it may have been clarified in later books, but t seems a glaring omission in RMB.

[Marcethus]

I'm referring to the base skill % for language and literacy. RMB and NB both do not differentiate between native and non-native language/literacy skills. Iirc base skill is 50/30 for both RMB and NB. Some OCC's will give a bonus to native lang but until RUE there wasn't seperated skills for native and non-native lang. Literacy has stayed the same.

[Grazzik]

Ok I started to look deeper into this and reached a point of asking "why?" The more I read the more I got frustrated with the lack of consistency across OCCs and RCCs in how language skills were listed. Bottom line, thank goodness for RUE. I had never realized, stepping back, just how much a mess it was in the earlier books.

The impression I got from RMB was that American was assumed to be universally around 96% or 98% without actually saying so, while most of NB was a similar assumption as most PCCs/OCCs said native language was in that range despite the RCCs being a mess. Almost as if the concept of mentioning native language in text started to emerge in NB, but was not standardized or consistent.

BTS from around the same time at least had an automatic skill package for all PCs that had speak native language, but gave no %, instead giving various notes (or not) in the PCC/OCC write ups. HU Revised, similar automatic package, but no %.

PFRPG 2nd Ed cleans all this up by being specific in each OCC that native language is 98%. Why they couldn't just say that all PCs get native language at 98% escapes me, but at least they were clear in the OCC write ups.

And that is where I stop wasting time and return to my preferred RUE ruleset where it's generally clear-ish.

[Marcethus]

BTS 2e fixes alot of the skill issues but it's alot of work to bring Nightbane into line.

[Grazzik]

BTS 2e fixes alot of the skill issues but it's alot of work to bring Nightbane into line.

Actually that is a really good point, Marcethus! BTS2 came out over half a year before RUE - including native language as a dedicated skill, giving it as an automatic skill to all PCs, and setting it to a base of 88%. RUE does not offer it as an automatic skill requiring it to be listed in each OCC - opening up the risk that a writer might take it for granted and forget to add it.

As a megaversal player, I'd be very interested in a single base framework across all games, with then each game, like Nightbane, tweaking the base to reflect the nature of the game/setting. Then the content of each source/world book would have to be aligned to this megaversal base. I know that isn't gonna to happen, but one can dream.

[Marcethus]

For that to happen they would need to make new editions for all supported settings. Since that's not going to happen it's left upto the GM to create a Megaversal ruleset. Something I have cobbled together over my 30 years of playing and GMing Palladium's various settings.