The Land of Mistā¦ Goodness me, what a steaming pile of fertiliser that is. Letās completely reverse Challengerās character and beliefs! If there actually turns out to be life after death I shall be seeking out Sir Arthur and subjecting him to a thorough and vociferous rant.
Is there a term for the genre of literature described by āIāve got this really amazing idea about how life, society, theology, etc., should work and I must share it with all of youā?
Regarding Language, Iāve usually ignored it, but in my campaign last year and the one this year, it is a feature. Every fantasy race has itās own language (itself an over-simplification) but there are many races in The City of 1000 Names. Though everyone knows a few languages, miscommunication does occur. So while all the PCs speak dwarf and can communicate with each other, only one of the PCs speaks goblin. So, when interacting with goblins, that PC may be forced to be the speaker for party rather than the more charismatic PC who doesnāt speak goblin. As with any spice, I try to add language as a flavoring, sometimes subtle, sometimes strong, but not all the time and never to the point of becoming overpowering.
I pat myself on the back my making notes for each race about how their language has influenced the culture. For example:
Elves: Elvish words can be found in the songs and poetry of other races well. Many musical theatrical works are performed entirely in elvish.
Goblins: Not much of the goblin tongue has made its way into the vernacular except for a few choice curse words and bawdy idioms. The so-called āthievesā cantā is actually a pidgin of goblin and the old human tongue.
Orcs: Orcish words have found their way into the language of fighting and military jargon.
Kobolds: The calls, whistles, and hand signals employed by kobold scouts and sentries have been employed by other races for clandestine communications.
Humans: Humans were so ubiquitous in The City that much of their language simply became the default vocabulary used for doing business and was the most common second language taken up by city residents. Many traditional church services are still performed in the human tongue even if fewer and fewer of the faithful understand the words. (Note: Humans effectively died out over 100 years ago.)
Regarding RPG-a-Day, āFractionā immediately brought to mind Champions/Hero with its glorious method of using fractions for factoring in advantages and limitations when calculating power cost.
Real Cost = Base Cost Ć (1 + Advantages ) / (1 + Limitations )
Advantages and limitations ranged from +/- 1/4, 1/2, 1, etc.
I mastered Reverse Polish Notation on my HP calculator making Champions II characters.
The GURPS calculation is more natural and straight-forward by using percentages: sum them up, add 1, then apply. So if you had a +50% and a -25%, youād multiply the base cost by 1.25. Transparent.
In Hero, if you had a +1/2 advantage and a -1/4 limitation, youād multiply the base cost by 1.2 (1.5/1.25). This is not at all obvious. A rookie mistake would be to take (1 +1/2 - 1/4) = 1.25. Furthermore, the Active Cost (which mattered for things like power limits) was just the numerator part.