The benefits of a liberal education and mass media

[Roxxy]

I'm still working on my modernish setting, and I have some mechanical questions regarding the effects of a setting where the PCs went to primary and secondary school and very well might have gone to college or university, and have very easy access to books, magazines, and television (no internet, though).

My first thought is that untrained Knowledge checks should probably be allowed. You may not be educated in a subject, but you might have seen a TV documentary or read a magazine article mentioning something, and you might remember that when asked. I am torn whether to give this a -2 penalty or not.

Secondly, it should be possible to retry a failed Knowledge check with a bonus by going to the library or something like that. If you don't know what the terrain of X region is, you can go to the library and look at an atlas or travel guide to find a map showing those features. A lot of failed Knowledge checks should logically be able to be circumvented in such a manner, because if you need to know something important you would probably go look it up. This does reduce the value of the Knowledge skills, so maybe halve the price of them?

Third, I really like the idea of a background system similar to D20 Modern, but I don't remember if that system was good or not. Does anyone remember?

Fourth, I want Linguistics to be changed. This setting does not have a Common language, but it does have a very high degree of multilingualism. Foreign language is taught at the primary school level and considered a vital life skill, and a PC with no intelligence bonus can be assumed to be bilingual. I do want Linguistics to be a bit harder, though. What I'm thinking is that the first rank of Linguistics lets you know some of a language. You can only make basic statements. The second rank lets you learn more, and you can carry out a conversation, but somewhat slowly and ponderously, and you don't know more uncommon words. The third rank makes you fluent. At first level, you can spend as many ranks in Linguistics as you want, but after that you can only spend one rank per level. Your starting languages and any language you had three Linguistics ranks in at first level have little or no accent aside from the normal regional accent for the character, but any language you put the third rank into after first level has an accent.

Does anyone else have any ideas for how a very high amount of access to information should effect character building, skills, and any other game mechanics?

[Vadskye]

My first thought is that untrained Knowledge checks should probably be allowed. You may not be educated in a subject, but you might have seen a TV documentary or read a magazine article mentioning something, and you might remember that when asked.

Does anyone else have any ideas for how a very high amount of access to information should effect character building, skills, and any other game mechanics?
You don't need to change core Knowledge mechanics at all. The base DC for things that people might reasonably have seen in passing is 10 or lower.

[Roxxy]

You don't need to change core Knowledge mechanics at all. The base DC for things that people might reasonably have seen in passing is 10 or lower.The problem is that pretty much anything that isn't classified could reasonably be seen in passing.

[Vadskye]

The problem is that pretty much anything that isn't classified could reasonably be seen in passing.
A similar argument applies to travelers and adventurers living in a magical world. The list of things that a typical merchant or even commoner might see could be quite extensive, depending on your campaign setting. It's a difference of degree, but the same principle applies; getting a 10 on a Knowledge check means you know something which could be relevant to the situation. What you remember depends on the DM's discretion, as always; the only real difference is that the DM has a broader selection of potential snippets of information to choose from.

Actually, now that I think about it, the real problem is that, 95% of modern PCs would have Knowledge ranks in multiple different Knowledge skills. You'll need to restructure skill point distributions to encourage that.