Using the Local Knowledge Skill in Your Campaign

The Local Knowledge Skill was first introduced in the _Nyotekundu Sourcebook_, and represents a character's knowledge of a particular world. It is a General Skill, although it is given its own section of the Character Sheet, for sake of space.

During character generation, every character should have a Homeworld determined, whether this is done randomly (through the use of the Homeworld Determination Tables), or through selection by the Referee or Player. Once the Homeworld is known, the (N)PC should be awarded a free Skill Level 1 in Local Knowledge for that world. Since they have lived on that world for eighteen years, or so, they have a good knowledge of local lifeforms, politics, who's who, etc. Note that a Skill Level of 1 is the equivalent of a Bachelor's degree.

(N)PCs who are more adventurous than the average NPC may have done some exploring, and have increased their Local Knowledge skill. Local Knowledge Skill (for the Homeworlds, only!) should be treated as an additional Background Skill. Also, the Referee may choose to award additional levels of Homeworld Local Knowledge skill to (N)PCs who have taken special pains to acquire knowledge of a world. Here are some suggestions:

• First of all, just studying a world isn't enough to give a character more than Local Knowledge 0! Orbiting a world and mapping it, running sensor scans on it, reading books about it, etc. simply doesn't convey much experience about the place. Never give any (N)PC more than Local Knowledge 0 for any, or even all of these actions! Only adventuring in an area gives true Local Knowledge skill.
• Secondly, gaining knowledge takes time! Remind the Players that they can always expend Experience Points to raise their Local Knowledge Skill (as any other General Skill). If you are passing out Local Knowledge Skill as an added "Freebie", you have the right to require that the PCs spend a week (or so) adventuring in the local area in order to earn it. Thus, to go from unskilled to Local Knowledge 2 will take a minimum of three weeks.
• Thirdly, remember that a planet is a big place! Someone who grew up on Earth may know a lot about it, but North Americans will know a lot less about African wildlife than an African will, and both will be generally ignorant of Pacific Rim politics. Thus, once a character has reached Local Knowledge 1 in a world, they can generally advance no further without going to a different place! On worlds that have continents, this makes a good way to distinguish this (Earth, for example, has North, Central, and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Antartic -- unfortunately, this doesn't work so well for waterless worlds). For worlds with oceans, you can also add undersea as another area to be explored (giving Earth eight "continents" or "zones" to be explored). You can also add in the Orbital Terminals as another "zone" to be explored, if a world has any! If PCs want Earth Local Knowledge 10, you should make them visit ALL of these areas, spending at least a week in each zone, before you allow it. If they adventure only in the Tanstaafl area of Aurore, for example, they will have to advance their Local Knowledge in other ways (such as interviewing people, using Info Gathering or Computer skills, and then spending experience points). Don't make it easy for characters to become skill level 10 in any world's Local Knowledge skill! This should take a lifetime! DO use it to reward curious players, and get them to explore the worlds you've so carefully created!
• When developing a character ask the Player (or yourself, as the NPC's Referee) "How much more exploring than the average citizen has this character done?" Players should be asked what their characters have done. Also, look at the careers the characters were in. Many Careers give a random number of Local Knowledge Skills as a free Benefit. Remember that Local Knowledge 1 is the equivalent of two Local Knowledge 0 skills, and that is two point's worth of a Primary Skill (Local Knowledge in a Character's Homeworld is always a Primary Skill, regardless of where General Skills usually fit into their Career). Most NPCs who have lived on a world for a while will have only Local Knowledge 1. Why should this character have more? If you can't answer that question, then they probably should not! On the other hand, if you're generating a playboy BC NPC who has Air and Sea Vehicle skills, he has probably jet-setted to all four continents, and the Orbital Terminals, as well as sailed the seas. If he is truely adventurous, he might have BC Local Knowledge 5, but is more likely to have level 3.
• Benefit Local Knowledge 1s count as two points each. These can be broken down into two Local Knowledge 0 skills, or combined into a higher level... Remember that each world has its own Local Knowledge skill (thus, you could have Tirane 1, Lachesis 0, Clotho 0, Earth 2, Mercury 0, and Mars 1). 1D6 Local Knowledge 1 Skills might yield a roll of 3. That's six points. If (for instance) an Explorer's Player convinces you that his character did a really good job of exploring a certain world, then you might allow him to put 5 points into Local Knowledge 3 (one point each for skill levels 0 - 2, and two more for level 3).
• Also, look at how a character expends their background and service skills. Did a Frontier character take Survival or Vacc Suit? If they live on an airless world, and took no Vacc Suit skill, it's a pretty good clue that their Local Knowledge skill never rose above level 1! On the other hand, a character who took Athletics, Survival, First Aid, and Vacc Suit, and then went on an expedition to the pole of their world is probably a good candidate for a free Local Knowledge 3 skill... Level 1 for being born there, level 2 for hanging out in space, level three for exploring the pole. Add some Swimming skill, and you could make a case for level 4, especially if Sea Vehicles skill was also taken. Don't get too carried away with this (I never give anything more than Skill Level 3, for Background), but you get the idea.

So just what is Local Knowledge, anyway? Knowledge of conditions? Yes. Knowledge about people, places and things? Yep. Knowledge about Languages, Cultures, and flora & fauna? Well, not exactly, but "sorta"...

Linguistics covers languages, Anthropology covers cultures, and Biology covers flora & fauna. When designing tasks, Referees should remember that Local Knowledge skill covers things that are known (whether learned the hard way, or not), while these skills (and others such as Geology, Prospecting, etc.) are used whenever something new is encountered. If you are new to Aurore and see a local critter scuttling towards you, Biology or Local Knowledge (if you had any) would let you identify it, if it was known. If not, Local Knowledge would be useless (unless you or someone with you had encountered one, before), but Biology would let you examine it. Local Knowledge would let you know what languages and cultures are on a planet, but not analyze them, or know much about them (especially if you don't speak the language). It might be possible to use Local Knowledge to identify the language, or to prevent you from making a serious cultural breach (such as winking at a Japanese person), but you probably wouldn't understand what was being said, or why you should remove your shoes upon entering a home...

Once you have a character generated with Local Knowledge skills, what can you use them for? Finding stores that sell the (legal) goods they need. Knowing where to ask around for the "other" things they want. Streetwise might work better, but even a Streetwise old Thief might have trouble, on a world she's not familiar with! Identifying local critters before you set up a camp in their area might be a good idea, as might be identifying that plant your character is about to chop down... Local Knowledge also helps you when your character wants to know who runs a certain portion of the local government, etc. It allows you to recognize people who are famous locally, or world-wide, but not throughout the Arm.

It might even be used along with other skills to adjust the difficulty of a task... Suppose, for instance, that, on a world named Avalon, the local "crick" is full of leeches of a most unpleasant extra-terrestrial variety. The local settlers know all about them, but the new PCs don't (because they've been here less than a week, and have no Local Knowledge skill). They stumble into the stream, and one of them gets a blood-sucker attached to his back, which another PC points out, once they climb out of the water. Now also suppose that there is a local plant known as "Fireweed" that will instantly cause the sucker to drop off, if it is applied properly. The poor PCs don't even have a chance of knowing about it, unless one of them is a Biologist who just happens to have read something about it (and remembers)! You could use a task like the following to represent this situation:

To know about the existance of Fireweed: Difficult. (Biology OR Avalon Local Knowledge) + EDU. Instant.

To properly treat the Surliman with Fireweed: Routine. Biology + Avalon Local Knowledge. Instant. Referee: Improper use won't result in Mishaps, but won't help, either.

Okay, now let's look at the effects of this: First of all, either Biology or Local Knowledge could be used to know about the plant (and a high Education wouldn't hurt, either). Assuming that the PCs know about the plant, the Referee might also want to make another task to find some of the stuff (Where does it grow? How long does it take to get enough to treat the PC? Is it even in season?).

Assuming a Biology-minded PC remembers reading about Fireweed, and that the kind Referee rules that Fireweed grows all along the banks (and that the Biologist can even recognize it), the second task could then be attempted. Unfortunately, since the PCs didn't do their Homework (reading up on the world before they got here, in order to obtain Avalon Local Knowledge 0), the Biologist's task rises from Routine to Formidable! Unless he has a Biology Skill Level of 4+, the players are going to have to come up with some other way to remove mister Surliman! They can try to kill it, use Medicine, try to burn it off, or whatever.

If one of the PCs had done his homework, the Referee might allow the two of them to work together as a Teamwork Task. If the PCs hired a local Colonist or a Wilderness Guide, the NPC may be able to easily solve this problem for them.

PC 1: "All I know is that Fireweed's supposed to be applied to some little hole-looking thing in a tiny gap under the ventral fin, whatever that means... As long as the leaf's thoroughly soaked, it'll cause the Surliman to let go. Otherwise, you can't get it off without breaking its jaw, and it releases poison into the wound, if you do!"

PC 2: Under the ventral fin, huh? This must be it...

Wilderness Guide: "Here! See? You do it like this. It won't react with the critter's oily skin 'less'n you holds it like this!... Now it's heatin' up! Watch'im squirm! Oops! Thar'e went. Slimy little suckers!"

Referees can use such situations to make taking their carefully crafted NPCs along on the mission a much more attractive idea. In the above episode, if the unprepared PCs hadn't had a guide, and weren't able to handle the tasks, the Referee might have the Surliman release its poison after they bothered it one time too many. It might be merely anesthetic (or hallucinatory), but the PCs would have to have medical skill to learn that. Now the party will have to re-cross the "crick", avoid more Surlimans, go back to town, and get aid. Once there, the Referee can once more offer his Wilderness Guide NPC to the party. If they refuse, again, the next critter's poison may be lethal...

Nor is Local Knowledge only useful in the wilds. In the _Aurore Sourcebook_, the PCs can encounter une fille de joie with Local Knowledge skill. She is said to have a lot of information on who's who, and does what, and could even be an Underworld contact, if the Director desires. A good knowledge of the local area has many uses!

Speaking of the "local area", just how far does that extend? Certainly not off-planet! Not even off-continent. Basically, whenever the environment changes in a major way, Local Kowledge may be reduced by one. Changes of a life-threatening nature may cause a reduction of two. Thus, a normal citizen of Earth might have Local Knowledge -1 when trying to identify submarine life, or antartic animals. Likewise, if you've never been to Nauseville, BC Local Knowledge won't be as much help in finding things as if you'd spent a week there, taking a scuba class. Referees should remember this when designing tasks.

Also, when conditions on a world are known, Local Knowledge of any world in that system will yield Local Knowledge 0 in the rest. Terrans know the general conditions of Mercury, Venus, Mars, etc., and Tiraneans know about Clotho, Lachesis, etc. Knowing more than that requires space travel, however, and a week or more of adventuring!

The above should be giving any good Referee who isn't already using Local Knowledge in their campaign quite a bit to think about. Remember that this can be handed out as a "free" skill, if the Director desires, or increased as any other General Skill. Local Knowledge should never be allowed to replace Streetwise, Survival, Biology, etc., but (if used properly), can help limit overly-skilled PCs, and to add color and a reason to adventure to your next campaign. Enjoy, and merry adventuring!