Question on The Call of Mirkwood Cultural Virtue

[Majestic]

As I've been reading up on the Woodland Realm in preparation for tonight's session, I re-read the Cultural Virtue called The Call of Mirkwood on p. 77 of Heart of the Wild. It reads:

Unfortunately, your fading does not pass unnoticed; other Elves recognise your refusal to depart into the West with a simple look, and treat you as a wild and wilful creature, not deserving trust: your Valour and Wisdom are considered to be equal to 1 for the purposes of determining the Tolerance of an encounter. [emphasis mine]

It seems to be, from what's described, that an Elf who took this Virtue should only count their Value and Wisdom as a 1 when the person being interacted with is another Elf, or possibly when another Elf is there (on the side of the person being encountered). I think the simplest solution would be to add the words "...when determining the Tolerance of an encounter with another Elf".

What do you think? I don't have a character that's taken this Virtue, and don't expect that any likely will any time soon. So it's more of a hypothetical question, really.

[Falenthal]

I think you're right. I've always read it such that only Encounters with elves are affected by this Virtue.

[Deadmanwalking]

Yeah, me too. The downside is pretty clearly Elves only.

[Angelalex242]

...The downside to this virtue means...pretty much nobody would take it. Even my Mirkwood Elves who like stealth have more self respect then that.

[Stormcrow]

...The downside to this virtue means...pretty much nobody would take it.

Are you kidding? "Wild and willful" describes the preferences of special star players perfectly.

[Angelalex242]

Well...I can't conceive of ever wanting it, even on a stealth specialist. But that's just me.

[Deadmanwalking]

Well, mechanically, it almost never matters very much.

Tolerance is determined by the highest Valor or Wisdom in the group, plus the highest Standing that applies, so unless you're the highest in one of those two stats by a whole lot, you're losing maybe one point of Tolerance, and if anyone is tied with you, you lose none.

If you were alone, it'd matter, but that doesn't come up a lot.

[Glorelendil]

I had to look it up, as I own HotW but haven't read it carefully. I agree with dmw: the penalty is hardly ever going to be a mechanical factor, but makes for great roleplaying potential. The Hope part of the mechanic will hardly ever be useful (it's sort of like Deadly Archery in this regard) but ignoring Weary on 6 common skills is nice.

[Angelalex242]

Eh. Maybe it's just a personal thing. I like my elves to go to Valinor someday, and the fluff of this virtue says 'screw you, I'm staying put.'

[Glorelendil]

Eh.

OMG it's like a flu virus.

(Yes, that's a perfectly good reason to not want that virtue.)