>1: You must have the skills your follower possesses and the follower
>is –8/-12 to your skills. The idea here is a sort of master-
>apprentice relationship. I rather liked this but it seemed too hard
>to retrofit.
It also means that followers would be limited to an "AP battery" roll, since they could never provide a useful skill.
>2:Forbid followers from being the actor in an extended contest.
I don't like this much, either. It prevents a follower from filling in a hole in the character's conception, which was a major point of followers in the first place.
You could also make use of the Relationship: (Follower) ability. If I start out with an Issaries Merchant with 3 bodyguards, my Relationship: 13 with each of them is probably enough to get them to follow me around the tula and keep me safe. When, after a year or so, I decide to go haggle the teeth out of the local Uz, even though their warrior abilities have risen to 5W, their Relationship, if it's still 13, is going to cause me trouble. When we are attacked by Broos on the way to the Uz, I may well find all three bodyguards running off -- what's the resistance for "Fight Chaos" anyway? Alternatively, you could simply rule that the Relationship ability has to be kept within a certain distance of the follwoer's highest ability -- it's easier to keep neophyte fyrdmen loyal than guys who could get a job as a Clan Champion without much trouble.
The Narrator also might be more attentive toward followers: not allowing a starting character to have more than one or two, asking for various ability tests during games (Wealth tests to keep the followers fed and happy, Relationship tests before combat, etc.), using the followers in plots, etc. If a follower dies, make the player work to replace them. I think the point is not to "handicap" followers to make them less attractive but to moderate how they get used in the game.
Another possibility is use that -8/-12 as an upper limit not a value, and hand out "Follower HP," either to individual followers or the followers as a pool. When a follower dies, they get replaced with another "starter follower" and have to be built up (perhaps at an accelerated rate).
Peter Larsen
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