Communicates by pheromens

[mayapuppies]

So, here's another how to build question. I'm thinking Telepathy would work for this but I want to put it forward.

 

I have a race that is incapable of verbal communication, among themselves, they communicate through pheromones, exactly the way that ants do, though with far greater complexity. This form of communication is only capable between members of this race and is not a thing that other races can mimic or learn. I'd also like to keep it relatively short ranged to account for dissolution and confusion thanks to dispersal and wind currents.

 

How would you build that?

[Christopher]

Re: Communicates by pheromens

 

Transmission for Smell. Smell has stronger range modifiers (see 6E2).

Special Language that requires Transmission for smell.

[Ice9]

Re: Communicates by pheromens

 

That. And maybe also Discriminatory for smell, Only for Pheromones.

[Christopher]

Re: Communicates by pheromens

 

That. And maybe also Discriminatory for smell' date=' Only for Pheromones.[/quote']

It already has the partial discriminatory, like our hearing.

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Communicates by pheromens

 

So, here's another how to build question. I'm thinking Telepathy would work for this but I want to put it forward.

 

I have a race that is incapable of verbal communication, among themselves, they communicate through pheromones, exactly the way that ants do, though with far greater complexity. This form of communication is only capable between members of this race and is not a thing that other races can mimic or learn. I'd also like to keep it relatively short ranged to account for dissolution and confusion thanks to dispersal and wind currents.

 

How would you build that?

 

I would be inclined not to use Telepathy which is, primarily a one to one form of communication. Pheromone communication is simply a repeat of mouth and ears but based on chemicals rather than sound waves. If the race had no verbal communication and no discriminatory hearing then I would call it a wash. Whatever complication you would give for lacking verbal communication should be equal to what it cost to give them pheromone based communication, unless you saw pheromonal communication having advantages. I would then simply focus on what the advantages would cost.

 

 

Doc

[Christopher]

Re: Communicates by pheromens

 

If the race had no verbal communication and no discriminatory hearing then I would call it a wash. Whatever complication you would give for lacking verbal communication should be equal to what it cost to give them pheromone based communication' date=' unless you saw pheromonal communication having advantages. I would then simply focus on what the advantages would cost.[/quote']

I agree with all you said, but would not modify the hearing. After all we humans don't communicate via smell, taste or touch but our senses are still pretty good. It's just that few things try to actively send information on that medium.

 

I also think the communciation should be obvious for everyone in smelling Range (the same way we know that whales communicate by singing, without understanding what they do). The Pheromones have to be a lot stronger than what we understand about Pheromones in humans.

 

We have a value for "Voice" as Power: 25 Points (6E2 10). This can also be used to create Technical/Magical mean to Communicate.

 

How much it is worth as complcation depends on the campaign:

If all the adventures play on thier home planet and all speices use that way of communicating: Nothing. It's just a campagin background information.

If he is the only one in the adventure with that way of communicaiton, it would become the complicaton Mute.

[mayapuppies]

Re: Communicates by pheromens

 

On a similar note, how would you work learning to only read a language? Mute character as an example, can't speak the language but nothing is stopping him from reading and writing.

 

Same cost as normal?

[Christopher]

Re: Communicates by pheromens

 

On a similar note, how would you work learning to only read a language? Mute character as an example, can't speak the language but nothing is stopping him from reading and writing.

 

Same cost as normal?

He is still able to hear the language and hearing is a much larger part of using (in the average game and real world) than talking.

I think his inability to speak is already covered by the complcaition or having sold back his voice.

[mayapuppies]

Re: Communicates by pheromens

 

The Mute Complication is pricey. This is the cheapest I could get it:

 

Physical Complication: Mute (All the Time; Greatly Impairing)

30 pts

 

or maybe this:

 

Physical Complication: Mute (Very Frequently; Greatly Impairing)

25 pts

[Ninja-Bear]

Re: Communicates by pheromens

 

For communication how about mindlink with group of ant-like minds, limitated range, maybe physical manifestation. And for mute you could lessen the value if you think that they can still make noise, just not any recognizable vocal communication.

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Communicates by pheromens

 

I agree with all you said' date=' but would not modify the hearing. After all we humans don't communicate via smell, taste or touch but our senses are still pretty good. It's just that few things try to actively send information on that medium.[/quote']

 

What I was looking to do was get a base at which there is no cost differential or ability differential.

 

Verbal communication relies on us being able to modulate and project sound to make the language and the necessary discriminatory hearing to decode those sounds into meaning. We have pretty good touch but our scent is probably not good enough to detect the small scale changes necessary to decode scent projection.

 

I was not saying they should be deaf but I would probably remove the discriminatory from their hearing simply to mean that they will hear the sounds but not well enough to decode it into meaningful language.

 

To me that puts the phero-peeps in the same cost bracket as the audio-peeps. Any overlap in ability should begin to cost more (IMO obviously).

 

 

Doc

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Communicates by pheromens

 

On a similar note, how would you work learning to only read a language? Mute character as an example, can't speak the language but nothing is stopping him from reading and writing.

 

Same cost as normal?

 

Reading and writing is interesting. Would they have become literate in that they wrote things down that represented the meanings of particular scents that someone else could read later. How would they do that? Would it be in marking where you had a visual representation or would it be possibly colour/scent based patterns that would be interpreted more in common with pheromone clouds. I get the feel that voice communication is a linear thing and so our written language is linear. I get the feel that the written language of the phero-peeps would be less linear....

 

However, I think colour patterns would be longer lasting than placing scents on paper or anything else. I think that scents could be added to the colours to enhance the communication or to give it personality/depth or just to verify identity....

 

 

Doc

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Communicates by pheromens

 

hmmm...6e2 p10 discusses "Voice as a Sense". If we extrapolate that, perhaps we could apply the Simulated Sense Group rule to say that most characters have Voice as part of the Hearing Sense Group, but these creatures have Voice as part of the Smell/Taste group. It's not Flashed by Hearing Flash, or blocked by Silence Fields, but it's also limited by the fact most characters have very crude Discriminatory for smell, and wind would impact Smell's range modifiers.

 

This also helps with the Complications issue.

 

makes those "speaks mentally" characters a lot easier too. Voice transfers to the Mental sense group.

[Christopher]

Re: Communicates by pheromens

 

Verbal communication relies on us being able to modulate and project sound to make the language and the necessary discriminatory hearing to decode those sounds into meaning. We have pretty good touch but our scent is probably not good enough to detect the small scale changes necessary to decode scent projection.

It's better than what we "civilised" humans use it for right now.

 

I was not saying they should be deaf but I would probably remove the discriminatory from their hearing simply to mean that they will hear the sounds but not well enough to decode it into meaningful language.

Each of our senses was very important for the Survival/Evolution* of Mankind:

Sight is our long range detection sense and targetting sense. But it's arc of perception is limited and easily obstructed.

Hearing is a omnidirectional danger detection sense. It is the second best to notice a danger.**

Smell is also a early warning system, if the wind blows right. It also helps determinig if food is eedible.

Taste is our final test for eedible food. Our mouth is basically a Quarantine area, where your food get's it's final viability check before going into our stomach (where it could cause harm or illness).

Touch helps with testing for edibility again, allows walking wihtout looking down and of course tool use.

 

So each of them at thier resolution (or slightly more) is required to survive to the sentience phase. It's not hard to immagine a species using a

different sense to communicate, but it would be a real handicap for any species to have such a underdeveloped sense that they don't have even partial Discriminatory.

 

 

*As in "everything until the last 10.000 Years, where we began to settle down for good". We are not nearly as far removed from the hunter-gatherers as we like to think. Evolution might not even have begun to notice this new Urban Environment (if our medical tech isn't just disabling it anyway).

 

**As evidenced that most stealth is not running in the Sightfield of someone and being silent, and that most Blind Characters Develop a super-hearing, not super smell.

[mayapuppies]

Re: Communicates by pheromens

 

Reading and writing is interesting. Would they have become literate in that they wrote things down that represented the meanings of particular scents that someone else could read later. How would they do that? Would it be in marking where you had a visual representation or would it be possibly colour/scent based patterns that would be interpreted more in common with pheromone clouds. I get the feel that voice communication is a linear thing and so our written language is linear. I get the feel that the written language of the phero-peeps would be less linear....

 

However, I think colour patterns would be longer lasting than placing scents on paper or anything else. I think that scents could be added to the colours to enhance the communication or to give it personality/depth or just to verify identity....

 

 

Doc

They, themselves, do not have a written language. It's more for communicating with other races.

[mayapuppies]

Re: Communicates by pheromens

 

hmmm...6e2 p10 discusses "Voice as a Sense". If we extrapolate that, perhaps we could apply the Simulated Sense Group rule to say that most characters have Voice as part of the Hearing Sense Group, but these creatures have Voice as part of the Smell/Taste group. It's not Flashed by Hearing Flash, or blocked by Silence Fields, but it's also limited by the fact most characters have very crude Discriminatory for smell, and wind would impact Smell's range modifiers.

 

This also helps with the Complications issue.

 

makes those "speaks mentally" characters a lot easier too. Voice transfers to the Mental sense group.

I like this. How would that be written up on a character sheet?

[mayapuppies]

Re: Communicates by pheromens

 

Ok, so how about this as a 0 point "power" and then removing the Mute Complication?

 

Pheromone Communication: Voice Is Based On Smell Sense Group Instead Of Hearing Sense Group

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Communicates by pheromens

 

It is a simple solution and I think that it works....

 

 

Doc

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Communicates by pheromens

 

Each of our senses was very important for the Survival/Evolution* of Mankind:

Sight is our long range detection sense and targetting sense. But it's arc of perception is limited and easily obstructed.

Hearing is a omnidirectional danger detection sense. It is the second best to notice a danger.**

Smell is also a early warning system, if the wind blows right. It also helps determinig if food is eedible.

Taste is our final test for eedible food. Our mouth is basically a Quarantine area, where your food get's it's final viability check before going into our stomach (where it could cause harm or illness).

Touch helps with testing for edibility again, allows walking wihtout looking down and of course tool use.

 

No real arguments with this but I can see a reasonably similar evolutionary path where hearing is swapped for touch - so that rather than hearing vibrations in the air you are more sensitive to vibrations on the ground. Better in some cases worse in others. If hearing is less important in terms of communication then touch and smell could quite easily more than compensate. Though we are threadjacking now, I will comment no further!

 

Doc