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Homeland starting skills for non fighting players


Manu

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When we look at the homeland skills in the RQG, they all have a lot of weapons skills in it. I know it is for the Dragon Pass area.

But how would you handle the starting skills in a region where most of the people are non fighters (as in Umathela where the Sedalpist are non fighters, or for someone being an orphan of a Chalana Arroy/Tello Nori Temple)? They have no reasons to start with 6 weapon skills. Maybe 1 or 2, in order to be able to parry against possible attacks or against Chaos/Wild animals. But not 6 as they were learning to fight from the day they were born.

Would you replace them with other skills (Evade, persuasion, ...)?

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Those 6 weapon skills are not about them 'learning to fight from the day they were born', IMO; Homeland skills alone do not a fighter make. They're to represent the weapons that the children of that culture would be 'most' familiar with. If a culture wasn't exposed to weapons, they just wouldn't get any 'variant' weapon base skills. There's no concept of 'balance' in the character generation system. Bonuses are assigned in the skills that 'everyone' in the culture could readily be expected to have some knowledge in, to provide some differentiation in cultural biases and backgrounds.

A Sartarite orphan of Chalana Arroy would still have seen (and probably played with) more of the weapons that Sartar Homeland gets bonuses in than 'other weapons' (like sickle swords....), so the bonuses wouldn't adjust, IMO.

Cultures that are 'supposed' to be non-fighters will still have weapons. Every 'disarmed' peasant caste in History has taken up axe, spear, cleaver and cudgel in self-defense, and many have developed potent methodologies for using them; I don't see why Glorantha would be different. Which ones a particular culture gets bennies in, depends on the location. 

The character generation system, as well as being heedless of 'balance considerations', also needs considerable massaging by GMs to meet the demands of players, sometimes. If a player wants to have a character who's been cloistered in a pacifistic House of Healing (which is an extreme example of a C-A orphan who actually hasn't had any 'cultural exposure' to weapons) for 16-21 years of their life, then they aren't playing any of the backgrounds offered by the rules and you'd expect to have to jigger with their 'cultural skills' since they aren't actually Sartarite, they're 'Cloistered Monk - Pacifist'. Still, I wouldn't 'reward' such a background with moving weapon cultural bonuses into other skills.

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1 hour ago, Manu said:

But how would you handle the starting skills in a region where most of the people are non fighters

I think it would be a rare area in Glorantha where there wasn't some fighting skill.  Might just be with Fist, Kick, Dagger, Club, and Staff, but some basics will be learned to protect the home/stead, even in Umathela.  The temple orphan of Chalana Arroy will be rare - perhaps only found at her great temples (e.g. in Nochet).

That said, if a player reasonably thinks, and justifies, why their adventurer should have some other skill instead, then I'd like allow a swap-out.  For the CA temple orphan, I might assign the following substitutes: Insight(human), Farm or Herd, Search or Plant Lore, First Aid, Dodge, Charm or Bargain or Fast Talk.  These would reflect their focus on feeding the temple community, running errands to find needed plants, helping tend wounds, and avoiding blows.

 

Edited by jajagappa
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