Cultural Backgrounds: how much can they be customized?

[SaFe]

To be honest my problem lies with the ridiculous low Body score for Woodmen.
I thought of these guys more as though and hardy survivors.

[poosticks7]

There are also a load of additional backgrounds in my Additional Rules supplement that Poosticks7 put together. These illustrate how other backgrounds can easily be developed.

If you actually look back in the thread I took the time to give your players background the same treatment. The name of the background needs work but the rest is there for you.

[Rocmistro]

To be honest my problem lies with the ridiculous low Body score for Woodmen.
I thought of these guys more as though and hardy survivors.

It's all about balance. Woodmen can have insanely high parry scores, which means they never get hit (except on Eyes) which means they don't need as much starting endurance in order to balance it out.

I do question the distribution of points though; it seems odd that such a rustic and hardy folk like Woodmen should have high wits and low body. I think the intent was to separate them from the Beornings, which are more like the "I pick things up and put them down" guy from Planet Fitness commercials.

[Michebugio]

Funny, that you should say that none of the backgrounds fit, because I immediately thought that the Watchman (or Sentinel, as you called it) fit the character perfectly.

In the end it went exactly like this (sorry for the misspelling, I have the italian version and somehow I need to find the right english translation every time). And Wits 3 instead of 4 isn't a big deal (though he complained a bit).

If you actually look back in the thread I took the time to give your players background the same treatment. The name of the background needs work but the rest is there for you.

Thank you very much, but in the end as I said above we went for the Watchman background, and Hunting was made Favored thanks to his Warden calling.

However, I really wouldn't see any harm into making custom backgrounds, as long as the basic rules we pointed out before are followed. The worst that could happen is to give to a background both a 7 in an Attribute and a Favored Skill that benefits from that Attribute: so a min-maxer could put 3 points making that Attribute Favored 10, then taking other 3 Favored Skills based on that Attribute.

Ugly thing to do, but surprise surprise: you can already do it with a lot of existing backgrounds!

It's all about balance. Woodmen can have insanely high parry scores, which means they never get hit (except on Eyes) which means they don't need as much starting endurance in order to balance it out.

I do question the distribution of points though; it seems odd that such a rustic and hardy folk like Woodmen should have high wits and low body. I think the intent was to separate them from the Beornings, which are more like the "I pick things up and put them down" guy from Planet Fitness commercials.

From my point of view, it's actually about categorization of choices. See, there are exactly 2 Cultures with high Body (Beornings and Dwarves, range 5-7), 2 Cultures with average Body (Bardings and Elves), and 2 Cultures with low Body (Hobbits and Woodmen). The same happens for the other Attributes: every time, we have 2 Cultures with a high score, 2 Cultures with a medium score and 2 with a low score.

So essentially, while all the other choices made sense (Beorning and Dwarves DEFINITELY should be on top; Bardings and Elves are rightfully on a mid way, and of course Hobbits have the worst scores), it seems to me that they simply needed a second Culture, besides Hobbits, with a low Body score.

[Woodclaw]

To be honest my problem lies with the ridiculous low Body score for Woodmen.
I thought of these guys more as though and hardy survivors.

It's all about balance. Woodmen can have insanely high parry scores, which means they never get hit (except on Eyes) which means they don't need as much starting endurance in order to balance it out.

I do question the distribution of points though; it seems odd that such a rustic and hardy folk like Woodmen should have high wits and low body. I think the intent was to separate them from the Beornings, which are more like the "I pick things up and put them down" guy from Planet Fitness commercials.

One might argue that Woodmen are more about outsmarting their opponents, rather than outmuscling them.
Still I too question the design choice sometimes. It seem to me that the Woodmen suffer from being the less known of the playable cultures, which put them in a rather strange place.

[Heilemann]

It seems more fitting for the Bardings to have a low Body score, if anything (lazy city dwellers).

[Michebugio]

It seems more fitting for the Bardings to have a low Body score, if anything (lazy city dwellers).

My exact thought. When I saw Woodmen's low body scores I immediately thought "wait, are they the Drùedains? [the Woses]", which could make sense as well (the Woses are very short, almost as hobbits, and less stocky than dwarves).

Plus, it's very odd that wild men have more wits than civilzed, scholarized city dwellers... all the merit goes to Radagast, probably

[Stormcrow]

Bardings, who built an entire city from ruins in less than five years, are lazy?

Woodmen are farmers, ordinary people, not wilderness survivalists. Beornings are the survivalists, and Bardings are the urbanites, and higher than the other two.

[Láthspell]

In the end it went exactly like this (sorry for the misspelling, I have the italian version and somehow I need to find the right english translation every time). And Wits 3 instead of 4 isn't a big deal (though he complained a bit).

No need to apologize, Sentinel is a perfectly valid translation as it means the same thing as Watchman. I was just clarifying for those who might have been unaware so as to avoid unnecessary confusion.

It seems more fitting for the Bardings to have a low Body score, if anything (lazy city dwellers).

My exact thought. When I saw Woodmen's low body scores I immediately thought "wait, are they the Drùedains? [the Woses]", which could make sense as well (the Woses are very short, almost as hobbits, and less stocky than dwarves).

Plus, it's very odd that wild men have more wits than civilzed, scholarized city dwellers... all the merit goes to Radagast, probably

I feel that folks have a slight misconception about the nature of Wits, generally equating it with intelligence. Under this assumption the scholarly Bardings seem ill-suited to have low Wits, and by the same token the high Wits of the Wood-men might seem odd for a society that has little use for study.

However, I hold that Wits has more to do with vigilance than intelligence. Now it may manifest as intelligence for certain skills (Persuade, Riddle, and Lore), the others (Sneak, Search, and Hunting) have far more to do with attentiveness to ones surroundings.

Viewed from the perspective of vigilance, then, it makes sense that city-folk (the Bardings and Lake-men) would have low Wits as being alert and vigilant are not critical to their survival. They may still be skilled and specialized in certain aspects of Wits, but as a whole they are not necessary to their way of life.

For the Wood-men, on the other hand, any snapping twig or rustling leaf could be a warg or spider coming to kill them. Those who don't keep their Wits about them at all times will not survive long in Mirkwood. This can carry over into the more learning aspects, in an attention to details that other might miss.

Along those same lines, Body can be seen as overall health and vigor, instead of just strength. As a culture with a Frugal standard of living the Wood-men don't necessarily have the best health, as few bad seasons when they were children could seriously affect their development.

Anyhow, that's my take on the matter.

[SaFe]

For example, the Heavy and rather large Long-hafted axe is the cultural weapon of the Woodmen(correct me, if i'm wrong as i currently don't have the book here) the Woodmen in my opinion are not the typical farmers and ordinary people as Stormcrow sees them.
The Bardings and their cousins - the Lake Men would have fit better with the lower Body score. Those two usually don't live in a rather hostile area with constant threats from Spiders and Orcs.