>My point is that a farmer with a 17 should, in my opinion, be able to
>survive. He won't do great, but he won't die, either, with some help from
>his community.
This is where we disagree. 17 is the farming skill of a beginning PC who will probably specialise in something else. Even such a character should be able to find a few augments to push their target over a mastery. If it were that easy to survive in Glorantha there'd be no reason for specialist farmers. Now if they are part of a community they can also get augments from other community members "Advice from experienced farmer" +3, "Prayers from the Grain Priestess" +3, etc. This way the community can survive in normal times even though most of the farmers would have difficulty surviving on their own.
So let's say our intrepid band of adventurers decides to settle down and start farming using those skills they've never upgraded. The drama is there in the ploughing of fields, herding of cattle and shearing of sheep. Simply because those are difficult tasks *for them*. In truth if they had any sense they'd persuade some more experienced farmers to join them so they could learn quicker and with less risk.
>But that's despite the fact that if you have him rolling
>daily against a default 14 resistance that he's going to have a
>nearly 50% failure rate. The rules say explicitly that they do
>not represent this sort of simulation.
I've never suggested daily rolls and determining the results of each success or failure. I could imagine making contests out of key events such as ploughing, harvest and cull the herd for winter. Or an extended contest out of the whole farming year. A bad result on the latter could easily reduce the character to poverty reliant on charity from neighbours but a more likely result would be reduction in wealth.
-- Donald Oddy http://www.grove.demon.co.uk/
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