Literacy Skill in Rifts RPG

Ley Line walkers, Juicers, Coalition Troops, Samas, Tolkeen, & The Federation Of Magic. Come together here to discuss all things Rifts®.

Moderators: Immortals, Supreme Beings, Old Ones

User avatar
desrocfc
Explorer
Posts: 143
Joined: Fri Apr 10, 2020 9:31 am
Comment: Promoting great storytelling fiction and in games, for GMs and players alike.
Location: New Brunswick, Canada
Contact:

Literacy Skill in Rifts RPG

Unread post by desrocfc »

The Bazaar #32 : Literacy in the Rifts RPG. This is not your typical gaming experience topic of discussion. It is also a subject that can get fairly technical relatively quickly; the irony is not lost on me, for sure. Literacy skills on Rifts Earth has long been a contentious issue, particularly within the context of the Coalition States, and not something I readily agree with as currently p[resented. From a Player perspective, it’s too easy to simply select the Literacy skill to get over this problem, but it fails to address a more macro-level issue of how a culture and technological society like the Coalition States (or Northern Gun, or any other major kingdom for that matter) could not only survive, but flourish. Given recent Facebook posts on literacy rates in the USA, I thought I’d examine this skill in a slightly more academic sense, and call out what I don’t like about how it is currently presented.

https://www.scholarlyadventures.com/pos ... ifts-earth

So what are your thoughts on the Literacy argument in Rifts Earth?
Francois DesRochers

http://www.scholarlyadventures.com/blog [A Rifts RPG Blog]
User avatar
Crimson Dynamo
Dungeon Crawler
Posts: 238
Joined: Sat Jun 11, 2022 12:23 pm
Location: The Motherland

Re: Literacy Skill in Rifts RPG

Unread post by Crimson Dynamo »

One word: Iconography.

That's how most of the populace gets by without having to be literate in specific languages. Coupled with having people who read the news (and other information needed on a day-to-day basis), and there won't be much of a need for it.

That said, I too think it's silly that they infer that most people are illiterate, especially since most classes that give a free Language skill also include at least one Literacy skill, too. At least those classes that bother with a Language skill at all; it's amusing when you run into one where the character can't so much as speak a word of their native language without having to take it as (effectively) an elective.
User avatar
Killer Cyborg
Priest
Posts: 27954
Joined: Thu Nov 08, 2001 2:01 am
Comment: "Your Eloquence with a sledge hammer is a beautiful thing..." -Zer0 Kay
Location: In the ocean, punching oncoming waves
Contact:

Re: Literacy Skill in Rifts RPG

Unread post by Killer Cyborg »

desrocfc wrote:The Bazaar #32 : Literacy in the Rifts RPG. This is not your typical gaming experience topic of discussion. It is also a subject that can get fairly technical relatively quickly; the irony is not lost on me, for sure. Literacy skills on Rifts Earth has long been a contentious issue, particularly within the context of the Coalition States, and not something I readily agree with as currently p[resented. From a Player perspective, it’s too easy to simply select the Literacy skill to get over this problem, but it fails to address a more macro-level issue of how a culture and technological society like the Coalition States (or Northern Gun, or any other major kingdom for that matter) could not only survive, but flourish. Given recent Facebook posts on literacy rates in the USA, I thought I’d examine this skill in a slightly more academic sense, and call out what I don’t like about how it is currently presented.

https://www.scholarlyadventures.com/pos ... ifts-earth

So what are your thoughts on the Literacy argument in Rifts Earth?


First and foremost, you should understand and accept that Skills, including the Literacy skill, represent a threshold of ability, a combination of sub-abilities in varying degrees that are represented altogether by the Skill itself.
The Mathematics: Basic skill, for example, represents the ability to:
a) Count
b) Add
c) Subtract
d) Multiply
e) Divide
f) Use/Understand Fractions

A character who is missing any ONE of those abilities does NOT have the Mathematics: Basic skill, by definition and by rule.
Which means a character might be able to count, add, subtract, multiply, and divide with some level of adequacy, even without that skill; the lack of fractions would keep them from having the actual skill, but they could still have some level of the other various abilities.

Likewise, a character who lacks any Literacy skill is illiterate, but that doesn't necessarily mean they can't understand ANY words at all. They might be able to know the alphabet. They might be able to sound out a limited number of words. They might be able to recognize and/or sign their own name.
And they sure as heck could read numerals.

A person without the literacy skill might well be able to get in a car, and recognize:
The letters PRNDL standing for Park, Reverse, Neutral, Drive, Low
The word "Fuel" or "Gas" at the gas gauge
The letters MPH or KPH standing for Miles/Kilometers Per Hour
And so on, and so forth.

Most of modern society doesn't really NEED much in the way of real Literacy; the fact that so many people in the US graduate high school who are functionally illiterate (25%) demonstrates that it's not as big a deal as people think. There are ways to compensate, even in a society designed FOR literacy.
In a society designed to discourage literacy?
It'd be fine.

Second, it's important to understand that the CS does indeed teach certain people to read. They have schools for the elites, and literacy is fine among the people who the CS wants and needs to be literate.
Think of it like a church who teaches the priests to read the dead language their holy books are written in, but discourages the congregation from learning the language because they want the priests to be able to act as a filter, rather than to allow the congregation as a whole unrestricted access.
Looking at the RMB:
CS Dog Pack = Illiterate
CS Grunts = Illiterate
CS Elite RPA = Illiterate
CS Military Specialists = Literate
CS Technical Officers = Literate

The people running things in the CS are often literate; it's the people whose only purpose (as far as the CS is concerned) is to blindly follow orders who are kept illiterate.
Knowledge is power, and the CS wants the elites to retain their power, just as they want the power kept from the hands of the common masses they wish to lord over.

I've never understood why the literacy issue in Rifts is as controversial as it is.
People constantly argue "literacy would be necessary for a functioning society," but their reasoning has always seemed to boil down to:
a) overly-strict interpretations of the Literacy Skill
b) an inability to see how things could be done in a different way than they have done things in their own life and society
c) confusion between illiteracy and a lack of ability to read/understand numbers
d) an over-estimation of the necessity of the written word in everyday life.
e) an over-estimation of how many people in the CS are truly illiterate.
Annual Best Poster of the Year Awards (2012)

"That rifle on the wall of the laborer's cottage or working class flat is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there." -George Orwell

Check out my Author Page on Amazon!
User avatar
glitterboy2098
Rifts® Trivia Master
Posts: 13319
Joined: Wed Aug 06, 2003 3:37 pm
Location: Missouri
Contact:

Re: Literacy Skill in Rifts RPG

Unread post by glitterboy2098 »

Crimson Dynamo wrote:One word: Iconography.

That's how most of the populace gets by without having to be literate in specific languages. Coupled with having people who read the news (and other information needed on a day-to-day basis), and there won't be much of a need for it.


this is how i figure the CS gets by as well. its like interpreting the icons on your phone's screen. none of them have labels but you know that image means facebook, and that image means the clock app, and so on. or how you can just throw up a red + sign and most people will know that means "medical care available here", or that a red octogon means "stop", or a red cirlce with a line across at a diagonal over the image of something means "the thing imaged here is not allowed".

you can't really make a sentence out of them, because they don't represent a language, just various concepts.
Author of Rifts: Deep Frontier (Rifter 70)
Author of Rifts:Scandinavia (current project)
Image
* All fantasy should have a solid base in reality.
* Good sense about trivialities is better than nonsense about things that matter.

-Max Beerbohm
Visit my Website
guardiandashi
Hero
Posts: 1437
Joined: Wed Nov 27, 2013 12:21 am

Re: Literacy Skill in Rifts RPG

Unread post by guardiandashi »

technically iconography is like runes and in some ways Kanji.

the reality is iconography, is semi flexible but very limited. each icon is a complete self contained concept unlike real languages where a key part is that you have individual components that can be put to gather to represent a lot of things, such as a word which represents a thing or concept, and can then be modified by other words or concepts depending on how they are used.

the iconography that groups like the coalition uses are all about control, a combination of controlling what people do, and think
User avatar
glitterboy2098
Rifts® Trivia Master
Posts: 13319
Joined: Wed Aug 06, 2003 3:37 pm
Location: Missouri
Contact:

Re: Literacy Skill in Rifts RPG

Unread post by glitterboy2098 »

except that kanji and Runes are phonetic in origin, with added conceptual meanings (tied to the phonemes in the case of kanji, added later in the case of runes) which means that you can string a bunch together to literally depict the sounds to be spoken/heard and thus make a sentence with full sentence structure and grammar.

you can't do that with stuff like roadside signs or app icons. which is why Kanji and Runes are classed as alphabets (an ideogram alphabet in the case of kanji) and not Iconography. with iconography you aren't using the images as literal information transfer, its contextual to the culture. much more art interpretation than literature.
Author of Rifts: Deep Frontier (Rifter 70)
Author of Rifts:Scandinavia (current project)
Image
* All fantasy should have a solid base in reality.
* Good sense about trivialities is better than nonsense about things that matter.

-Max Beerbohm
Visit my Website
User avatar
Nevermore
D-Bee
Posts: 15
Joined: Sat Aug 20, 2022 12:43 pm

Re: Literacy Skill in Rifts RPG

Unread post by Nevermore »

Yes, iconography and television transmissions definitely explains how most of a given populace can get by without being literate.

It is, however, still a hard pill to swallow. I imagine that even in an apocalypse, most parents would still make the effort to teach their children at least the basics of reading and writing. Once a bag like that is open, it's very hard to close it again. After all, is there any point in history where general literacy in a region came about and then vanished? I honestly cannot think of any.
Post Reply

Return to “Rifts®”