Dead Language Skills

[barna10]

How do you handle PCs with Dead Language skills in your games. I'm hesitant to require the player to waste one slot per "Dead Language" since it's more of a back ground skill than something that's going to affect game play. I am thinking of allowing the skill choice to apply to a family of dead languages (like Ancient Germanic Languages (which includes Old English), or Classical Languages (Latin, Greek, etc.)

What do you think?

[Bill]

No skill on the sheet is guaranteed to come into play. The player can take ancient Akkadian at his or her own risk. I like to work stuff like that into the game though, so it's less of a risk if I'm running the session.

[drewkitty ~..~]

Depends on the backstory of the character. If the char is "from the past" they will have the language as spoken at the time. But if they are a 'modern speaker' they will have a limited in speed of reading and speaking but have similar understanding.

I have a HU Alien char which has the Roman Lang/lit because it was in the "Earth Languages" learning package she bought when she decided to come to earth to settle down after a living the spacer's life.

Yah, had to fill out a lang program after picking english and french so picked out a language that would be thought to be a current earth language by cultures not in the same quadrant. So I added a bit of character to the skills list. As it's turned out the char ended up in a non-profit medical clinic as par of her legal residency deal, so she understands the latin medical names in generality (if not specifics) then the doctors & nurses working the clinic.