How do characters earn money?

[PhilHibbs]

10 minutes ago, Thaz said:

Who said anything about Innocents?

The person I quoted did, in the bit I quoted.

[Lordabdul]

10 hours ago, Thaz said:

However RQG is about adventure in Glorantha and is not Farmer the RPG.

If the GM goes by the "seasonal" format, the players can play the "Farmers Who Have Crazy Shit Happen To Them Every Three Months RPG": one time it's a bunch of Tusk Riders attacking all the region's steads, the next season they participate in a raid with the promise from their clan that they will get more cows (to make up for the cows lost to the Tusk Riders), another season they discover some weird haunted artifact/ruin buried on their lands and that's a whole thing, the season after that some stray Lunar deserter stumbles upon your land, the season after that your kid falls ill to some disease spirit and that turns out to also be a whole other thing, etc...

"I'm just trying to tend to my farm and provide for my family, but there's always some crazy shit happening to us every season almost like clockwork!"

(my example is in fact fairly close to the first few adventures in my own Bachad Tribe campaign notes)

1 hour ago, PhilHibbs said:

The person I quoted did, in the bit I quoted.

Yep I did -- although to be more precise, I didn't imply that the kidnapped NPCs were innocent. I just meant that the PCs would go and kidnap them while they were minding their own business, regardless of whether they're innocent. For example, a totally decent player-driven adventure would be that they decide to go kidnap or kill Jarhast Strongarm, who is totally not innocent: he did "something bad" previously, but the PCs' clan ring ended up negotiating with Jarhast's clan, because there was a whole political angle at play. The PCs are unhappy about this and disagree with their elders' decision on the matter... so they take it upon themselves to sneakily capture Jarhast and deal their own form of justice... and of course, it backfires and more adventuring ensues.

To be even clearer: when I say "the PCs would get in trouble if they did XYZ", it doesn't mean that the players shouldn't do XYZ... very much the contrary, in fact    Getting the PCs in trouble is half the fun of playing RPGs!  

Edited June 6, 2020 by lordabdul

[PhilHibbs]

11 hours ago, lordabdul said:

"I'm just trying to tend to my farm and provide for my family, but there's always some crazy shit happening to us every season almost like clockwork!"

The same thing happens in combat. "Hmmm, his arm is always swinging exactly 12 seconds apart..."

No, it doesn't work like that. You can't infer Gloranthan reality from a guideline in the rules.

11 hours ago, lordabdul said:

To be even clearer: when I say "the PCs would get in trouble if they did XYZ", it doesn't mean that the players shouldn't do XYZ... very much the contrary, in fact    Getting the PCs in trouble is half the fun of playing RPGs!  

Yeah, I was agreeing with you. Reinforcing the clarification that ransom isn't usually from spontaneous kidnapping, like you might think from real world usage of the term, it's a legitimate process in Dragon Pass.

Edited June 7, 2020 by PhilHibbs

[Lordabdul]

10 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

No, it doesn't work like that. You can't infer Gloranthan reality from a guideline in the rules.

Apparently I was missing a smiley... this was a comment written with a tongue firmly in the cheek  

(and it's not even really "clockwork" because even in a seasonal game, one adventure might be early in the season while another is late in the season, so there wouldn't be a strong pattern there)

But I still stand by the fact that you can indeed play farmers and make it interesting and fun.

Edited June 7, 2020 by lordabdul

[French Desperate WindChild]

12 hours ago, lordabdul said:

But I still stand by the fact that you can indeed play farmers and make it interesting and fun.

I thing so, but campains should be different

-> you play an "harmast"-like, so at the end of the day you are no more a farmer but a "previous farmer now adventurer"

-> you play a very social focused campain (then not a lot of fight, I don't consider a farmer with axe skill as his better skill is really a farmer). This one could be interesting but there are few campaigns where finding a bride or discuss how bring water or which wood we will cut to build another house

[Thaz]

23 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

Yeah, I was agreeing with you. Reinforcing the clarification that ransom isn't usually from spontaneous kidnapping, like you might think from real world usage of the term, it's a legitimate process in Dragon Pass.

Exactly. The players will have the odd adventure. Now the vast bulk of the published stuff has them fighting somebody at some point. That person is normally likely NOT to fight to the death but offer ransom/try and surrender. And when they do the players should leap at that as it's cash spending money. And it shows off their prowess. Killing without mercy is unusual and reserved for chaos and the like. 

 

[Lordabdul]

8 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

then not a lot of fight, I don't consider a farmer with axe skill as his better skill is really a farmer

Remember that, AFAIK, a Sartarite farmer is not like most farmers in other cultures: the Sartarite farmer is also a trained warrior (just not a professional warrior) and will routinely take part in raids during raid season (I think it's Fire Season?), in addition to getting in a couple fights here and there during the rest of the year. So sure, their Axe and Shield skills might not be their highest ones, but they're no amateurs either. And there can be another focus than combat in many scenarios too.

You're right that they wouldn't stay farmers for longer than a couple years after the start of the campaign though... most likely they rise into the clan ring or get promoted within their cult, at which point they might not tend to their fields themselves anymore, and have started delegating to others. But that's the same with many other character archetypes: the assistant shaman eventually isn't an assistant anymore, etc. Still, in Vikings, Ragnar Lothbrok likes to remind everyone that, at heart, he's still a farmer!

Edited June 8, 2020 by lordabdul