Standing

[Khamul]

Is it possible for Beorn to give a beorning a standard of for example 3, or can you only gain Standad by Treasure?
My heroes dont have alot of cash as they are not working at getting rich but keeping Andiun Vales free from orcs and their filth.

[Rich H]

Is it possible for Beorn to give a beorning a standard of for example 3, or can you only gain Standad by Treasure?

By the RAW you are a bit limited by how you raise Standing but I started nearly all my players' characters on Standings of 2 and 3 due to the backgrounds for them and ideas they had and it didn't break anything; just made Encounters a little easier when it cam into play.

My heroes dont have alot of cash as they are not working at getting rich but keeping Andiun Vales free from orcs and their filth.

Check out page 4 and 5 of the following: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/795 ... 0Rules.pdf

... Which I use in my own game to give more options to raising Standing of your own culture and of other ones (I call standing elsewhere as Renown) through achievements during adventures, etc. It may help you come up with your own ideas or use wholesale.

[Khamul]

Thank you Rich!

I will use that, thanks man.

[Rich H]

A pleasure, hope it is useful - take a look at the other elements around Encounter on pages 6 and 7 as well as they may also be useful. I really love using James' Encounter Hazards; not least because they work but I also like the idea of Hazards being applied across more than just journeys - that kind of repeated design appeals to me on an aesthetic level!

[Beran]

Rich beat me to it. I use, and highly recommend, the Renown rules he mentioned above. Makes much more sense for a Tolkien based game then the current Standing rules.

[Stormcrow]

I think the idea that investing Treasure is the only way to increase Standing is based on an overly-mechanistic understanding of the rules. The basic state of the game rules assumes that player-heroes start the game as nobodies who leave home for long periods. Since they don't have normal places in their societies—it's hard to hold down a job when you're wandering through Wilderland every summer—the only way to make yourself relevant to your homeland is to spread around your Treasure. Standing through philanthropy.

If you want to have Standing in some other way, the Loremaster can do what Rich H did: start player-heroes with artificially high Standings. If your background supports it, and no other players object, why not? Since you're away much of the time, you'll still have to invest Treasure during the Year's End Fellowship Phase or it'll drop.

Given extraordinary circumstances, the Loremaster could rule that you don't even need to invest Treasure to keep up your Standing. I don't recommend this; it makes little sense that you keep your importance in a society in which you are rarely present.

Finally, I see no reason why the Loremaster cannot, by the same logic as above, grant free Status to a player-hero as a reward. Again, as long as the circumstances are logical and no other players object, why not?

Just remember: the primary purpose of Standing is to allow player-heroes to affect regional events during the Fellowship Phase. As long as everyone is all right with granting player-heroes a fast-track to this ability, there's no reason you can't do it. Just make sure the reasons this happens are good ones.

[Glorelendil]

As I expressed last time this came up, the mechanic I would like to see is that you can pick whatever initial standing fits your background, but at a price. The best idea I can think of is 1:1 with starting Hope, although that has some complications. But something like that.

[Angelalex242]

I didn't like that standing for hope idea because it turns all rulers into Denethor. Most rulers have more hope (and class) then that.

And then you consider Aragorn's son, who as high king to be has status 7. Why should he start with a hope of 3? Or something like that.

[Glorelendil]

I didn't like that standing for hope idea because it turns all rulers into Denethor. Most rulers have more hope (and class) then that.

Well, you could still earn more Standing in other ways. I just meant you spend Hope for Standing at character creation. (And maybe it means that everybody gets 1 more Hope or something.)

And then you consider Aragorn's son, who as high king to be has status 7. Why should he start with a hope of 3? Or something like that.

Again, because he didn't start with maxed out Standing. Also, he's not a player character.

[Angelalex242]

That's my thing. Versimitude. NPCs of the same race get no advantages (or disadvantages) on PCs in my world. They follow the same rules all the way through. King Thranduil is built like a basic woodelf given 300 xp and 300 AP to spend, and so on