forums.cubicle7.co.uk
archive

Rich H wrote:

Beran wrote:As an aside I have to say that the concept of Standing as portrayed in TOR never really made too much sense to me; particularly the connection with wealth and Standing. I think a Renown stat based on their acts would be more appropriate to Tolkien's ME...the way it is presented just seems too D&D to me. Hmmm, perhaps time to look at adapting Decipher's old Renown system to TOR.

See my additional rules. I did just that.

So, you did and I like the rules you came up with. Though I would say that giving a fairly substantial monetary award to your home would be cause for a renown increase. Though it would reflect the act more then the actual spending.

Though I do have one question about he scale. I am running a PbP game of DoM and two of the characters are starting level Rangers. Would they have a Renown of 1 or 2?

Rich H wrote:

doctheweasel wrote:I think it's more likely that the character is presumed dead, whether they hear of it or not, the way Bilbo was.

That's simulated in the rules by being away from your cultural homeland and not spending Treasure to maintain your Standing rating. For me, this is something different; it's specifically tied to a Barding with the Birthright Virtue that miraculously survives death but are then presumed dead and therefore have their Standing reduced to zero (from whatever value it previously was; even 6). They don't get any opportunity to maintain Standing during an end of year Fellowship Phase, it's just zero because the PC has supposedly died.

Why I say that a an amount of time should be allowed to pass by before the character "comes back from the dead". Other wise you get a situation like in the second movie where Aragorn is presumed dead, then just appears a couple of days later. He certainly didn't lose any standing.

Beran wrote:So, you did and I like the rules you came up with. Though I would say that giving a fairly substantial monetary award to your home would be cause for a renown increase. Though it would reflect the act more then the actual spending.

Agreed, the rules can be played pretty fast and loose with.

Beran wrote:Though I do have one question about he scale. I am running a PbP game of DoM and two of the characters are starting level Rangers. Would they have a Renown of 1 or 2?

Start them at 1 or 2, up to you. Personally, I'd go with 1 and let them grow in Renown; the descriptors were only rough guidelines as to each level of Renown.

That is what I thought.

I do like the arbitrary Treasure Point system, but the spending for increasing Standing just made the accumulation of wealth more important in the game then I feel it was in the over all original story. I think I'll use your system going forth.

And don't get me started on the rules as presented in the Lake Town book...1 TP=1 Enc=1 gp!? Extrapolating on the average weight of a long sword (about 4lbs) that makes an Encumbrance point about 1.3 lbs...that is one mother of a gold coin.

Beran wrote:And don't get me started on the rules as presented in the Lake Town book...1 TP=1 Enc=1 gp!? Extrapolating on the average weight of a long sword (about 4lbs) that makes an Encumbrance point about 1.3 lbs...that is one mother of a gold coin.

Gold is a super dense and heavy material in Middle Earth!

Elfcrusher wrote:"My character has a nephew. Everybody knows who he is. In my will I name his as my heir."

If that character dies...

"He has a half-brother. Everybody knows who he is..."

Except for two things. One, the rules say the inheritor must be a direct descendant. Two, when you've died and passed on Birthright, if the inheritor dies the rules don't allow you to reclaim the Birthright posthumously and give it to someone else; only the inheritor's direct descendant can receive it.

This strict reading of the rules does not model historical inheritance rules, but then the virtue of avoiding death because of your bloodline doesn't model anything historical either.

Well if it must be a direct descendant, and only Bardings (with normal human life spans and reproductive cycles) can have it, then the parade of horribles that Rich invokes can't really occur. Each character would have to survive long enough for there to be direct descendants, so at most it's going to get used, on average, once every 20 years or so.

Elfcrusher wrote:Well if it must be a direct descendant, and only Bardings (with normal human life spans and reproductive cycles) can have it, then the parade of horribles that Rich invokes can't really occur.

Don't blame your misunderstanding on me, mister! Man up and take it on the chin.

... Besides, my issue was largely with the Standing resetting to 0; this 'parade of horribles' has nowt to do with that really. It's more to do with the fact that you're all on an Adventuring Phase, your Barding 'dies', and then *bang* before you return he has a Standing of 0. The 'death' may not have been witnessed by anyone other than your companions so it can't be that news gets back to your homelands. Additionally it can't just be because you're away from home as (a) it may not be you first Adventure away from home so why didn't it happen previously and/or (b) your other companions are away so why aren't they presumed dead? I think it's a rule that has too many variables depending on the particular circumstances of the 'death' so is difficult to apply a hard and fast rule to.

Rich H wrote: Like I said, a repeated set of characters miraculously not dying but always being presumed dead then a descendent turning up is something I don't really want in my game as it comes across as incredibly contrived, silly, and at odds with the themes of the campaign.

I was referring to this parade of horribles.

A parade of horribles - I was expecting something far more horrific!

... Anyway, this could still happen across a generational campaign - ie, 5 years after the Death of Smaug through to the War of the Ring. That's what, 70-odd years. That's the timeline of the game that TOR is looking to cover and the idea of players playing characters across a multi-generational story. 72 years easily gives you 3 characters to play, perhaps more.