Because we need REALLY COMPLEX LANGUAGE RULES.
Oh, and you are obligated to roleplay communicating in a language. But you all knew that, right?
You receive 5 dots of Languages at character creation.
Language (• - •••••)
Effects: You can speak a given language with a given level of fluency. If you and a conversational partner do not share a language, you are reduced to hand gestures and charades.
One Dot: You are restricted to communicating with proper nouns. You can't use verbs properly (or understand their tense structures), you can't use adjectives, and adverbs are quite beyond your grasp. You also have a heavy accent.
Two Dots: As one dot, but you can use any noun. Hey, it's still good enough to get ideas across!
Three Dots: You can form simple sentences; there's a strict limit of one verb in there.
Four Dots: You can speak with complex sentences; no slang, though, and you still have an accent (maybe not as heavy, but still noticeable).
Five Dots: You're (basically) a native speaker! Hooray!
As a side note, if you are communicating to someone with less dots in a language than you, you can't get across your full linguistic ability. So speak at the level that you would normally, but substitute nonsense words for stuff they wouldn't understand. I suggest "smurf" as a perfectly cromulent word for such usages.
You can speak other dialects of the same language as if you had two less dots, and if you can speak a language that's the root of a bunch of others (like Latin), you can speak those descendent language as if you had three less dots.
This might be a bit too aggravating in actual play, but I think it would be hilarious.
Here is how the same sentence would be rendered at each dot level:
Zero: *Frantic gestures. Maybe the "bathroom dance"? Wave some money around.*
One: Bathroom? Money.
Two: Where bathroom? Friend money.
Three: Where is the bathroom? My friend can pay.
Four: My friend like to know where the bathroom is. He will pay like a handsome man.
Five: My friend would like to know where the bathroom is. He will pay handsomely.
Oh, and you are obligated to roleplay communicating in a language. But you all knew that, right?
You receive 5 dots of Languages at character creation.
Language (• - •••••)
Effects: You can speak a given language with a given level of fluency. If you and a conversational partner do not share a language, you are reduced to hand gestures and charades.
One Dot: You are restricted to communicating with proper nouns. You can't use verbs properly (or understand their tense structures), you can't use adjectives, and adverbs are quite beyond your grasp. You also have a heavy accent.
Two Dots: As one dot, but you can use any noun. Hey, it's still good enough to get ideas across!
Three Dots: You can form simple sentences; there's a strict limit of one verb in there.
Four Dots: You can speak with complex sentences; no slang, though, and you still have an accent (maybe not as heavy, but still noticeable).
Five Dots: You're (basically) a native speaker! Hooray!
As a side note, if you are communicating to someone with less dots in a language than you, you can't get across your full linguistic ability. So speak at the level that you would normally, but substitute nonsense words for stuff they wouldn't understand. I suggest "smurf" as a perfectly cromulent word for such usages.
You can speak other dialects of the same language as if you had two less dots, and if you can speak a language that's the root of a bunch of others (like Latin), you can speak those descendent language as if you had three less dots.
This might be a bit too aggravating in actual play, but I think it would be hilarious.
Here is how the same sentence would be rendered at each dot level:
Zero: *Frantic gestures. Maybe the "bathroom dance"? Wave some money around.*
One: Bathroom? Money.
Two: Where bathroom? Friend money.
Three: Where is the bathroom? My friend can pay.
Four: My friend like to know where the bathroom is. He will pay like a handsome man.
Five: My friend would like to know where the bathroom is. He will pay handsomely.
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