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Where Do They Get Their Literacy?
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<blockquote data-quote="AmerginLiath" data-source="post: 7738372" data-attributes="member: 777"><p>One of the things I enjoyed when playing Rifts was the assumption that few people were fully literate, such that even PCs would often only have literacy skills at lower percentage levels (and that even more literate characters could fail to fully parse difficult technical or pre-Rifts texts that gave penalties to rolls). While it could make things difficult at times, it made for an interesting challenge outside of the ordinary (especially as a voracious reader myself). Beyond OD&D, communication between characters in speech and writing has never been much of a challenge at the table (the blessing and bane of the Common Tongue), but that also takes away a fun challenge.</p><p></p><p>In 3e, there was the ribbon about Barbarians not being automatically literate, but that was solved by multiclassing. I wonder, especially in 5e, if literacy could be made a tool proficiency that some classes and backgrounds get and that others could train for the way they do as for any other proficiency (I can even imagine a character with expertise in literacy shining in certain moments of a campaign). Certain small adjustments might have to be made in character creation so as to not overly benefit or penalize characters, but that’s how I’d consider it. Of course, even a non-literate character would still be able to manage basic numbers, symbols, and signs (they could order an ale and follow a map, just not read a scroll or parse a contract).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="AmerginLiath, post: 7738372, member: 777"] One of the things I enjoyed when playing Rifts was the assumption that few people were fully literate, such that even PCs would often only have literacy skills at lower percentage levels (and that even more literate characters could fail to fully parse difficult technical or pre-Rifts texts that gave penalties to rolls). While it could make things difficult at times, it made for an interesting challenge outside of the ordinary (especially as a voracious reader myself). Beyond OD&D, communication between characters in speech and writing has never been much of a challenge at the table (the blessing and bane of the Common Tongue), but that also takes away a fun challenge. In 3e, there was the ribbon about Barbarians not being automatically literate, but that was solved by multiclassing. I wonder, especially in 5e, if literacy could be made a tool proficiency that some classes and backgrounds get and that others could train for the way they do as for any other proficiency (I can even imagine a character with expertise in literacy shining in certain moments of a campaign). Certain small adjustments might have to be made in character creation so as to not overly benefit or penalize characters, but that’s how I’d consider it. Of course, even a non-literate character would still be able to manage basic numbers, symbols, and signs (they could order an ale and follow a map, just not read a scroll or parse a contract). [/QUOTE]
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