Jane Williams
> --- Joerg Baumgartner <joe_at_...> wrote:
> a lot of things where I have no idea what point he's
> trying to make, unfortunately.
>> Jane Williams
>> > Certainly not if >> > it means giving a Heortling sage the same >> spear&shield ability as a warrior! >> I wonder why not, if said warrior obviously >> disdained use of that weapons
> Huh? Well, *if*, yes, but a warior who can't use the
> basic weapon combo of his culture is a pretty weird
> warrior.
Not sure I agree: an Anglo-Saxon great axe huscarl doesn't have to have practiced the standard "spear and shield" fyrdman's combo beyond basic proficiency as long as he can decapacitate horse and rider in a single blow. He is not expected to fight as your next best peasant.
It's different when a warrior doubles as instructor for the fyrd, but that is not a given.
>> My >> Chernan and Hevduran apprentices would be astonished >> that they are not >> supposed to form the second ring of defenders if >> their expedition was >> attacked, much like the fyrdmen at home.
> I'm sure they are. That doesn't mean they'll be any
> good at it.
Sorry? Hevduran means "Sword Sage", and will know (and be able to apply) sword tricks a Humakti might be challenged with. Chernan seekers are more likely to have to fight their way through mayhem than your average fyrdman. The Hevduran people will be as unlikely to use spear and shield as the great axe huscarl, while the Chernan seekers probably would revert to what they did before the god called them (and remember: specialist callings like LM are likely to occur later than ordinary Orlanthi callings).
> Certainly not as good as the bodyguards -
> as you say, *second* line of defence. So what point
> are you making?
Not as expendable as the bodyguards (unless specifically hired as such, in the case of Hevdurani).
The point I am making is that well-traveled people are likely to have not only combat skills but also combat experience beyond your average fyrdman ("not in the warband" types...)
>> You don't use an >> > ability as lead by choice if it's just something >> > you've grown up with, not something that's part of >> > your job, but you know the basics. Any non-drivers >> on >> > the list? RR? I bet you still know what I mean by >> a >> > hand-brake turn. And you probably know what needs >> > doing to start a car and move it ten yards >> forwards, >> > even if the attempt would be slow and painful. >> There are kids out there who know more about >> starting a car (especially >> without the proper keys) than I ever will, but still >> my driving skills, >> faulty though they may be as accidents proved, will >> stand me a lot better
> Well yes. And? Again, what point are you making? So
> you're an adult, at some point in your early adult
> life you spent HP on some driving lessons and a
> licence. So you know more about it than the basics.
Heck, if I still had the skills I had when aquiring the license, my bets would be on the kids. and I don't mean augmenting with "Homeland: Arctic Norway" 15 or similar, but put me in an unfamiliar car and see me struggling to get it running. Then amuse yourself seeing the car die down on me because I misjudge the gas/gear combo.
The point I meant to make is a) not to underestimate the dedicated kid, who will be able to draw on augmenting skills I never developed while b) still acknowledging that experience may count in different situations.
Knowing the basics depends on your interests as a kid, especially in an environment that offers various specialisations.
In my reading of Thunder Rebels etc., the average Heortling clan appears to offer a wide range of specialisations and to encourage pursuit of personal specialisation.
>> On the matter of weapon skills, there are gender, >> cult, class restrictions to be considered.
> Sometimes, yes. CA initiates for instance.
Or non-Kargan Humakti, Yelmalians, name any...
>> > So your average Heortling woman gets a gender keyword >> > that includes things like "endurance", "patience", >> > "able to give birth", "able to suckle a child".
>> You forgot "coldhearted" or "rational"
> Oh ffs, did you really imagine I'm going to list the
> lot???? Of course that's not a complete list! I
> haven't got a week to write it!
Miscommunication, then - I thought you meant to list Heortling gender specific traits rather than gender specific traits in general.
>> > Heortling men would get a gender keyword that >> would >> > include "strong", "boastful", "able to father a >> > child", "bearded".
>> I tend to disagree with "strong" as being the norm,
> You don't think men are, on average, stronger than
> women?
While I agree on that, this doesn't make the average man notably stronger than the average human. When it comes to carrying stuff on your back or balancing on the head, I'd award that kind of strength to females rather than males. "Stronger than the average woman" isn't much of an ability. "Culturally encouraged to vent/hide emotions in a public way" is.
>> But then I believe in defining a character by his or >> her back-story, and >> keywords serving mainly as a guide how they came >> about.
> That's my prefered method, but it's a long way from
> what the rules suggest.
Lucky this isn't the rules list but the actual play list...
My most interesting PCs and NPCs have always been well-grounded in a back-story that defined their abilities. For my favourite character, I even struggled through actual play to create the backstory and backstory skills I had in mind for that character, with a dose of that old "Central Casting" assortment of random tables to create a backstory. Wonder of wonders: it worked out into a believable and even logical and writeable character, without adding more skills than actually required. Even the lengthy process of aquiring magical specialist knowledge after a start without it figured in.
Nowadays I prefer to play characters who can look back on some life experience - I guess that's what aging past 21 does to you. Now I did that twice, and having a life 16-year-old to observe in the household, I sort of hesitate to play one unless the setting requires it.
My character concepts look something like Minaryth Blue's "Events of my life" in King of Sartar. Has anybody ever introduce Minaryth Blue at any stage of his life into their campaign? I'd love to see the character sheets...
In my - indeterminably dormant - Karse project I planned to present the city NPCs at various points of the history (since my own games and stories are mostly set in the past of the Hero Wars campaign). I'm still working on the concepts to put something like that (preferably without having to pay a license) into an online resource material.
>> Childhood expertises can be astonishingly high >> skills, and aren't >> necessarily forgotten as adults.
> Which is why they're there in the homeland keyword.
I miss the "stuff boys do" ability, then, which is applicable to aim peas as blowgun shots, lifting of kites, or various feats of stupid boyish bravery.
>> Boldhome is special with regard to the open spaces >> (along with Old Pavis), >> but especially the dwarf-made parts of the city will >> be closer to 20th >> century Manhattan than 14th century London.
> And comparison with ancient Rome might be worth a
> look. Yes, it's smaller, but there are similarities.
I'd compare it with Roman York (Eburacum) for size and cultural make-up. Only the scenery is wrong...
>> Much of the "open land" in Boldhome will be >> slanted...
> To put it mildly.
There are valley bottoms. That's where the markets were established...
>> I will have to look >> up a couple of pictures of the "Hoellental", a high >> valley just below >> Zugspitze, which might give a good impression of the >> "arms" of hinter Boldhome.
> For a community with steep slopes, how about Mont St
> Michel, on the north French coast? Not that I know
> much about it, but it's more the right size and
> steepness than most other "cities" mentioned so far.
The best RW comparison for the Boldhome pockets might be Petra, although that doesn't leave much of an inhabited impression. Or the pueblos. The best Gloranthan comparison is the city of Greatway, overlooking the Valley of the Hammers in Balazar.
The dwarfen architecture is the "overnight" part of the construction of Boldhome - the pockets and the wall facing towards Killard Vale. Knowing the dwarves, I suspect that they had been carving out the interior of the pockets weeks before letting go of the outer faces of the relative cliff sides...
The rest of Boldhome was built using the same methods as for Wilmskirk, Jonstown, Swenstown and Duck Point.
Mike Holmes
>>From: "Joerg Baumgartner" <joe_at_...>
>>Childhood expertises can be astonishingly high skills, and aren't >>necessarily forgotten as adults.
> This is a fascinating and true point. I was astonished to find, when I
> became an adult that I was already better than many adults at certain
> things. On the other hand, I wouldn't say that I was as competent as these
> same adults. The difference? Experience. HQ emulates this well, by giving
> experienced characters bumps in their augmenting ability. It's not
> neccessarily that they're an expert in thing X, but they've been around,
> and so may manage to outdo you based solely on that breadth of experience.
Excellent point there.
> That's not to say that there aren't some virtuosos that can only get to the
> level their at by studying as an adult, too. Simply that it's relatively
> rare. Put another way, the adult world is full of "journeymen" with only
> occasional masters.
Then there is skill deterioration. About the time I left school my "play chess" ability was at the experienced journeyman level. Nowadays I have trouble with trained 12-year-olds...
Easily modeled by adding a flaw "unused" to an unused ability. Sometimes you just have to love the system...
>>Parent (and other cohabiting adults') occupations will be reflected in a >>character's abilities, even if said character never pursued that career. >> A >>child growing up next to a red-smith's forge and castery will know a lot >>more about fixing superficial damage to metal items than an adult from a >>potter's household.
> I usually allow the player to augment with their relationship to said
> blacksmith parent. If the relationship is high, then they probably spent
> more time together at the forge. If the character is estranged from his
> father, and always has been, then that's likely not the case.
Generally a great idea.
I have some trouble defining the relationships. "Love parent", "Compete with parent" and "Fear parent" can all be quite intense, usually vary slightly, and come more or less as flavours to the relationship. While I'd love to have a way to model this with game mechanics in order to be able to create a believable relationship network of NPCs in a simulated background setting, I am unsure how to handle these flavours, and their effects on out of the scene events the outcome of which will affect player opportunities.
>>So, if my Heortling hunter has a year of road-working as experience in >> his >>back-story (possibly the result of say a prince asking for work force >>rather than cattle for tribute), how do I formulate the skill package >>aquired during that activity? Make Cement might fall into this. Getting >> it >>at cultural keyword level would be sufficient for the back-story, how to >>account for that?
> This is precisely where I wouldn't allow the ability to be in the keyword.
Sorry, Hero Wars rules backslash... I meant at a lower level like the cultural keyword in HW, compared to occupation or cult keywords.
> If it's true that all Heortling hunters do road-working, then yes. But if
> it's happenstance, even if a group of heortling warriors had this
> experience, it's not part of what makes the group archtypal. Instead all
> of them would take the skills as "other" abilities, and that would be an
> example of how they vary from the norm.
I chose the example because up to 1602, spending some time in a royal roadworking effort was as likely a background experience for your average Sartarite as campaigning experience.
>>I'd definitely add Fonrit, Safelster and all the major seaports. Urban is >>not just defined by size, but also by admitting a certain degree of >>otherness, whether home-made or imported.
> I think that Urban mostly has to do with close living conditions that force
> different norms. Where, interestingly, you care less about the people
around
> you, usually, because it's impossible to know them all well.
Knowing them well isn't that much of an issue, but being next-door neighbor to people who don't belong to your clan/guild/whatever does make a difference. Inside a clan, you may have hereditary rivals, but inside a city you may even have ongoing feuds (simmering under civic control).
Roderick Robertson
>>>So, if my Heortling hunter has a year of road-working as experience in >>> his back-story (possibly the result of say a prince asking for work force >>>rather than cattle for tribute), how do I formulate the skill package >>>aquired during that activity?
> Or (in my favored model) add a "Roadbuilding Crew" Keyword.
Back to the original topic... I like that approach, with the caveats (deleted below) that different work projects will impart different skills.
So, basically, you get a "heroband" keyword, including "Relation to co-workers", "Relation to foremen", "Move Work Camp" etc.?
> If he spent a year at it, then I'd treat the keyword as if he "bought a
> skill for 1 HP": The KW Ability rating is 13. He can raise individual
> skills as normal. Another year on it would allow him to raise it via the
> "Advanced Experience" guidelines on page 178. If he only spent a season
on it, I
> might let him have it at 7 or 8 - he can be a part of a work crew and get
> along marginally better than a non-Road Crew guy, but he really hasn't
> "learned the basics".
Sounds sensible.
Donald Oddy
> In message <64445.84.144.234.86.1168956899.squirrel_at_...>
> "Joerg Baumgartner" writes:
>>Gardens, maybe an occasional barley plot, quite a lot of land >>used as pasture, but a far cry from a rural community.
> However the skill to tend a vegetable garden is transferable
> to growing vegetables in a rural community. As does a tending
> livestock skill. I agree that a farming ability at 17 doesn't
> properly represent this.
While the actual gardening is transferable, the person transferred will have trouble with the gathering of additional food that is a daily experience for the rural person.
>>Many city-dwellers know next to nothing about food preparation. Real urban >>accomodation won't have hearths where cooking is done; instead, prepared >>food is bought from the numerous "fast food" sellers and taken along. It >>takes estate-like households in order to have your own cooking place, >>affordable maybe to thane-status craft-people/merchants or outright >>nobility.
> The loss of food preparation skills is a recent (last fifty years)
> innovation.
Must be a re-discovery of medieval and classical conditions, then. A craftmaster able to afford a cook in his retinue (could be a wife unfamiliar with the craft, or a maidservant) would have his own table, but a lowly cobbler with only a tent on the market as his workshop and a tenement room somewhere else likely would heat with a brazier when absolutely necessary, and grab his food from the prepared food vendors that make up much of the city traffic.
> Prior to that everyone except the very rich prepared
> their own food. Sure the hearth you use for cooking is the same
> one you use for heating but prepared food is an occasional luxury
> not the routine for the majority. In very poor areas several
> families might even share a single hearth.
Probably true where heating is considered necessary most of the year (i.e. northern central Europe), but mediterranean cities may well lack hearths. In a city, that would mean having a chimney, or a very rural great hall few citizens could afford.
An often overlooked fact of pre-electric (or gas) cooking is the time and effort that went into preparing a meal. Preparing a porridge in a ceramic pot on the hearth fire takes almost 24 hours, according to people who spent parts of their summer holidays in Iron Age housing and conditions (in Denmark). That cannot be done in an appartment of an insula-style residence, or in the Boldhome pockets, without risking the fire to spread out.
Re: What's a Keyword?
Roderick Robertson wrote an explanation that ought to go on the website...
> My reply: Add another layer of Keyword to filter.
> All heortlings do X, Y and Z.
> All Warriors do A, B, and C.
> All Boldhomers do F, G, and not X and Z only at -5 and D instead of A .
> A _Heortling_ _Warrior_ from _Boldhome_ does (A at 6), B, C, D F, G, Y and
> (Z-5) once you get all his keywords sorted out. He may also know J, K, and
> L, which are not typical abilities of any of the keywords, and are
> genereated by the list method or his 100 words.
Good answer. Now how many layers of keywords do we want to add?
What about small keywords like "Veteran of the Starbrow Rebellion", "Mercenary during Exile", "Member of Temertain's Bodyguard 1613-14", or "Guest on Broyan's Court", as a sizeable portion of middle-aged Sartarites may have at the onset of the Hero Wars?
> How many people make up a "keywordable entity"? I'd say family sized. (It's
> a trick answer - The trick is "how many in a family?"). It's *not* an
> individual, it's a bunch of people. <snip>
Basically, you define a community with a skill set. Will this cover "relation to" as well?
> I think part of the consideration for "keywordability" is the function of
> these abilities being passed on to others, both in the same generation and
> in succeeding ones. A Culture is all about passing on abilities and
> personality traits. A Heroband that is just formed has no real "keyword" to
> it, but as time goes by and the heroband experiences stuff, the abilities
> start accumulating. Events get passed on as part of "Myths of Our
> Heroband".
> Some abilities get taught to all members of the band soon after they join -
> We all learn tracking, because "<No-shit-there-I-was voice>back in '06 we
> lost our tracker and almost were wiped out by...</No-shit-there-I-was
> voice>".
What about herobands that are subsuming other herobands? I'm thinking of Orngerin Thundercape's heroband, that is just a splinter cell of Kallyr's Rebellion heroband, presented in the Sartar Rising arc. Would you apply the "other layer of keyword" approach there, too?
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