Adventurer's Companion - Speculation

[DavetheLost]

I hope the Men of Bree will have a Bree Brie virtue.

You have no idea how hard it is to resist making the obvious pun about cheese.

[DavetheLost]

I would love to see the River Folk from Heart of the Wild developed as a playable culture. I know I am not the only one, but I am not expecting it, unfortunately.

[Hermes Serpent]

River Folk might be generated a a variant of Woodmen with some of the material from Lakemen. Something using Water legs plus something associated with rivers and boating like the Mountain Hall version does for mountains compared to woods.

I did some variants for Men of the Lone-Lands and Men of Bree last year prior to a group starting out in Bree. Use Stuart's Palantir app to find the thread.

[StuartJ]

River Folk might be generated a a variant of Woodmen with some of the material from Lakemen. Something using Water legs plus something associated with rivers and boating like the Mountain Hall version does for mountains compared to woods.

I did some variants for Men of the Lone-Lands and Men of Bree last year prior to a group starting out in Bree. Use Stuart's Palantir app to find the thread.

The Palantir suggests these threads may be what Hermes is referring to

[Hermes Serpent]

Thanks Stuart but I was hoping to encourage the use of your Palantir app for searching rather than relying on me (or you in this case) providing everything on a plate.

[DavetheLost]

Yes, my first thought was to use an adaptation of Men of the Lake. I am just lazy.

They just seemed like a bit of a missed opportunity to include another Culture is all.

[Glorelendil]

They just seemed like a bit of a missed opportunity to include another Culture is all.

Is more (always) better? I can see the benefit for players who have a character concept for a Breelander that they are itching to play, but I wonder...in all RPGs including this one...if there is such a thing as too much choice. How much design space is available, before the cultures begin to blend into each other?

The same question could be asked of weapon choices. For both, I tend to err on the cautious/conservative side.

[Michebugio]

Is more (always) better? I can see the benefit for players who have a character concept for a Breelander that they are itching to play, but I wonder...in all RPGs including this one...if there is such a thing as too much choice. How much design space is available, before the cultures begin to blend into each other?

The same question could be asked of weapon choices. For both, I tend to err on the cautious/conservative side.

Totally agree on this one. Moreover, adding Cultures means adding an option just during character creation, which is only the starting point of your character. Then start the adventures, experience points, character development, etc. so unless your game is very much "character-grinding" oriented with a high mortality or retirement rate, once you've chosen your Culture all the other Culture options are lost.

I would prefer expanded options for the existing Cultures, rather than more Cultures: more Virtues, more Rewards, even variant Cultural Blessings. This would attract both players looking for a new character, AND players with experienced PCs from those Cultures who would like to keep developing their old characters.

[DavetheLost]

What has really lodged the thought firmly in my mind is that Wild Hobbits got a boxed callout on creating PCs, even though to my mind the River Folk are more likely to become adventurers. It seemed that everything except the mechanics was put in place for River Folk and they really appealed to me. They also seem a logical pool for potential adventurers to be drawn from.

On reflection what might actually be more useful than cluttering up the books with details of every possible "minor" culture and subculture, especially for Mannish cultures would be a set of notes and guidlines on how to adapt the existing cultures to cover some of these other backgrounds. That way players and LMs who want to include them in their games can do so without worrying quite so much about getting them balanced, but C7 doesn't need to develop every single possible ethnic group in ME.

Some groups such as the Woses seem extremely unlikely to produce adventurers at all, interesting and fun though they might be.

[Terisonen]

And Equitation for Rohirrim? Skill (new) or Traits?