Hi all,
Chap in a game I’m running had a character concept that was essentially a dwarf who lived in a Human city.
I simply said he could take Born (insert dwarf born LP) and then use the human city LPs. He felt that this would break the game and I was a bit confused. I know the MRB states you take stock dependent LPs only, but didn’t think it would “break the game” per se.
From my perspective, it would give a dwarf slightly less Mental & Physical points due the age disparity with human and dwarven LP age requirements, make that character younger than the 4 LP norm for dwarves, remove some dwarvish skills, and would show a dwarf disconnected from his heritage and culture. I thought it would be an interesting character to play, especially when he mentioned wanting to actively fight his dwarvish Greed (which his parents had fully embraced).
Even if the dwarf in question was born and raised in a human city, he is still a dwarf, born of dwarven parents, and able to learn his dwarven culture from them (dwarven lifepaths).
I would suggest he work in the dwarven outcast adventurer lifepath (if it fits his concept) as the required adventurer die trait would make him seem odd to the dwarven nobles and artificers while granting a minor affiliation outside of the dwarven holds.
He could spend any spare trait and general points to demonstrate his contact with humanity.
If he wants to fight against his greed, there is a trait for that (virtuous) or make that be what his oath is about (then let him earn the virtuous trait by working his oath).
As far as whether or not your suggestion would actually break the game, I doubt it. I also doubt the need to do it.
Dwarven settings and lifepaths have plenty of skills that have human counterparts, without hamstringing the dwarf for lack of years.
Use the characters general points and bits to demonstrate the way he is different, rather than reinvent the wheel to burn him that way.
Yup. Anything Larkin or you suggested sounds quite reasonable considering there is no direct parallel of this. If he is worried that it would be game breaking, have him demonstrate his human contact through other means as Larking said.
The contrarian in me wants to suggest burning up a human character using the Fey Blood trait to take the Dwarvish trait that gives access to Greed and any other character traits needed to suggest residual dwarfness.
Fey Blood gives the human only one of the common racial traits of his Fey ancestry (or let’s him purchase a single specialization racial trait), it doesn’t provide the full list of common racial traits.
Cheers for this guys, some good ideas here. I’ve been at work over the Friday-Saturday, and the chap in question dropped out of the game. However, it is something I’d like to look into, and may spend dome time burning some dwarf characters using human LPs to see what occurs.
John
Funnily enough talking it through we had come to the same conclusion, a born Dwarf LP, a dwarven outcast LP and two human city LPs. We had even discussed the idea of cultures being subsumed by other more dominant ones, leading to a sense of a lost heritage and traditional culture, elements Larkin mentioned in his post.
We even talked about the ways the dwarven culture would endure within the human city, and talked of using general skill points trait points to purchase any culture-specific skills or traits. I was quite excited by the concept. Shame I couldn’t convince him, that in my opinion, doing so was within the spirit of the game.
I’d burn him up as a dwarf, give him mundane rather than Dwarven Arts, and give him a free trait- Dwarf Among Men: This dwarf grew up in the cities of man. All circles tests for lifepaths spent in Mannish lands will be applied to Mannish lifepaths rather than Dwarfish ones.