Threads keep coming up with new approaches to languages, so this seemed worth posting:
GURPS 4e made languages exponentially more realistic than third edition's half-point skills, but it seems that nobody actually enjoys the new rule: even with the appropriate advantages, languages are simply too expensive to be worth investing in unless they're outright required for your character.
What just occured to me is that in the source material of many cinematic settings - comics, movies, or the average occasionally-globe-trotting TV series, languages seem more like gizmos than anything else - people are revealed to speak languages that are actually relevant.
The next step is just continuity porn: remembering who speaks what, with the authors either bringing up a known or unknown language as appropriate.
It seems to me like languages are used as Wild Talents, but that only allows skills.
So maybe this:
Polyglot [5 points per level]
You speak a number of unspecified languages. Once per play session, when the game calls for language use, you can suggest that you could know this language, and quickly explain why. If the GM agrees, you can understand, speak, read and write that language at Broken level. Much like Serendipity, additional levels either allow multiple uses, or higher mastery (e.g. three levels used at once give you Native command of the language).
In a realistic game, maybe force Retention +0%, which temporarily lowers the value of the advantage by the points required to buy the language, which you can then pay back. Using Polyglot 3 [15] to instantly speak and write native Japanese drops it to Polyglot 1 [9/15] until you pay back 1 point, then Polyglot 2 [10/15] until you pay back the rest. In a cinematic game, ignore this and assume people just speak a different dialect or the continuity people had a brain fart.
You can reduce the cost with limitations appropriatye to the setting, such as Only European Languages -20%, or Only Chinese Dialects -60%.
Language obscurity is handwaved by GM approval, but it could be built-in for a specific setting.
GURPS 4e made languages exponentially more realistic than third edition's half-point skills, but it seems that nobody actually enjoys the new rule: even with the appropriate advantages, languages are simply too expensive to be worth investing in unless they're outright required for your character.
What just occured to me is that in the source material of many cinematic settings - comics, movies, or the average occasionally-globe-trotting TV series, languages seem more like gizmos than anything else - people are revealed to speak languages that are actually relevant.
The next step is just continuity porn: remembering who speaks what, with the authors either bringing up a known or unknown language as appropriate.
It seems to me like languages are used as Wild Talents, but that only allows skills.
So maybe this:
Polyglot [5 points per level]
You speak a number of unspecified languages. Once per play session, when the game calls for language use, you can suggest that you could know this language, and quickly explain why. If the GM agrees, you can understand, speak, read and write that language at Broken level. Much like Serendipity, additional levels either allow multiple uses, or higher mastery (e.g. three levels used at once give you Native command of the language).
In a realistic game, maybe force Retention +0%, which temporarily lowers the value of the advantage by the points required to buy the language, which you can then pay back. Using Polyglot 3 [15] to instantly speak and write native Japanese drops it to Polyglot 1 [9/15] until you pay back 1 point, then Polyglot 2 [10/15] until you pay back the rest. In a cinematic game, ignore this and assume people just speak a different dialect or the continuity people had a brain fart.
You can reduce the cost with limitations appropriatye to the setting, such as Only European Languages -20%, or Only Chinese Dialects -60%.
Language obscurity is handwaved by GM approval, but it could be built-in for a specific setting.
Polyglot, a cinematic take on languages.
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