Geographical and Temporal Scope

Skills such as Area Knowledge, Current Affairs (Regional), Geography (Regional), and History require specialization to specific places and times. In reality, this kind of knowledge is never "clear cut," and tends to spill over into related areas. The following penalties apply when you wish to use such a skill outside your specialty.

Distance

For an area far from your "stomping grounds," use the penalties under Long-Distance Modifiers. However, the speed at which knowledge propagates increases as progressively more powerful tools for managing information appear: printing press, telephone, television, computers, faster-than-light radio, etc. To reflect this, at TL5 and above, the GM may choose to roll 3d against TL+1 (e.g., 9 or less at TL8) to determine whether you are familiar with the distant region from TV, the Internet, etc. On a success, you may ignore all distance penalties. (The GM might also wish to use this rule to determine whether a character's Reputation is known far from home in a high-tech setting.)

Time

Time is usually only a concern for History skill – but it could also apply to Area Knowledge skill in a time-travel game, or if someone has been away from home for a long time. Use the Long-Distance Modifiers once again, substituting years for miles. For each point of tech-level difference, double the time modifier (a two-TL difference would be ×4, etc.). This is because societies change drastically on all levels when technology increases.

Area Class

"Area classes" are defined under Area Knowledge skill: Neighborhood; Village or Town; City; Barony, County, Duchy, or Small Nation; Large Nation; Planet; Interplanetary State; and Galaxy. Area class becomes important in campaigns that involve a lot of travel. We assume here that the smaller areas are contained within the larger ones.

If you have specialized in a larger area and want information about a smaller area within it, the penalty is -2 for one class of difference, -4 for two, -8 for three, and so on, doubling each time.

If you have specialized in a smaller area and want information about a specific locale within the larger area containing it, the most appropriate solution is usu- ally to use the distance penalties described above. However, questions having to do with the entire large area use a flat -2 per difference in levels.

Example: Someone with Area Knowledge (Earth) would be at -8 – due to three classes of difference – to know the mayor of Los Angeles. However, someone with Area Knowledge (Los Angeles) would be at -4 to know the location of Mount Rushmore. The same person would be at -10 to know the location of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.; the Library of Congress has more to do with Washington than with the United States as a whole, and it's more appropriate to resolve the question by considering distance.

Note that in a setting with multiple planes of existence, Area Knowledge skills for one reality can be dangerously unreliable in another. The GM decides the penalty that he will apply when you try to apply your knowledge of your San Francisco to his version.