A bunch of questions and a comment

Hey, I'm new here. I've just finished reading the playtest documents, and I have some questions (and a comment at the end). In no particular order, and numbered for convenience:

1) Does a people consisting of x warriors mean when you muster warriors you get x warriors (assuming a 10+ roll), or can you recruit from regular souls as well? The war companies seem pretty small if they're composed only of a people's warriors.

2) How does crossing off the 'each of us'/'each warrior' harm track work after counting your fallen? Do you cross off up to the worst condition, or do you indicate what proportion of your army is at each condition? The instruction document says the battle moves will give further details on that, but unless I missed something, those details aren't there.

3) Regarding the right to marry - is it analogous to the 'get a gang' move in AW in that selecting the right gives you a spouse (after sufficient explanation within the fiction), or is it essentially giving your character permission to marry within the social structure set out by the fiction?

4) Why exactly would the MC and other players instruct someone to mark off experience in 'abandon this character to die'?

5) "You have the right to appoint a girl to be your acolyte" and "your foremothers were queens of the Old Blood" - is there a reason for the gendering in these particular rights?

6) Can improvements on a stronghold only be selected once, or could you end up accruing every fortification (aside from ones that seem to replace others or defy reason, like suddenly gaining an island position) over the course of play?

7) It seems pretty easy to end up with permanent harm. Is that intended, or is healing large harm numbers not as difficult as I've understood it to be?

8) Bonds have been removed here, which at first I thought was quite disappointing, but it seems like they're actually still in the game, though perhaps not as mechanically relevant as in AW. I imagine that history between characters would arise organically in the creation of strongholds and households, as well as selecting playbooks that could come with implicit relationships, like the Keep Liege and the Castellan. If that's the right reading, it's really cool that it happens without explicitly saying "okay, now explain how you know the other PCs."

Maybe at some point - if it'd be useful at all - I'll post about all the things in the playtest document that make me arm-flailingly excited, but there are the things that have me somewhat confused (and one thing that I think is rad).

Thanks, Brandon!

1) You get x warriors. If you need a big army, you'll have to muster warriors from a big people.

2) Hm. There's not actually a good way to track that. Let me think about it. I'll need to add something to the war company sheet.

3) The latter. Having the right to marry doesn't mean that a suitable spouse appears.

4) If you're Ned Stark.

5) There is a reason, yes. It's to establish paganism as matriarchal. I'll reflect on whether to keep it.

The idea that the student you want to take is a boy, but you don't have the right to take a boy as a student, only a girl, is interesting to me. Do you take the boy as your student anyway?

6) You could end up accruing every fortification. Even an island position, via digging a moat.

7) Intended. Harm is easy to get and hard to get rid of.

8) Here's hoping.

Thanks!

-Vincent

Thanks for the quick reply, Vincent!

I really like the idea of matriarchal paganism(s), so if you're crowdsourcing that decision, I vote to keep it!

If you're interested, Marija Gimbutas has written about the possibility of matriarchal societies and religions across continental Europe prior to the migration of the Proto-Indo-Europeans.  I can't really speak to the validity of the idea, I've only read about her in the context of a historical linguistics course I did last year, and I've mostly forgotten all the linguistically relevant stuff. But if it sounds worthwhile, Wikipedia is a pretty good place to start, and has references and links to related ideas, like the Goddess movement that was in part inspired by her feminist archaeological ideas.

Brandon, that book does sound interesting! Possibly beyond the scope of the game or time-frame we have available, but thanks for the tip.

~Meguey

4) Good answer.

Ooh, another question:

Why does stronghold creation require you to spend more on gear like mail coats and swords when they have the same armour and harm values as the 'cheaper' items like hide armour and spears? I'd guess it's to do with the actual cost and effort required to make those items being greater, but why would the players spend more 'stronghold creation points', for lack of a better term, on something when the cheaper gear is just as effective?

There's no game-mechanical reason to.

-Vincent

Is the stronghold sheet is the same as holding that instructions tell us to create in the beginning of the game?

There's no game-mechanical reason to.

-Vincent

So is there a narrative reason to? Cause I'm stretching to see one. Like leather, hide, and wood break down easier and need more maintenance, but if we're getting into that, metal is heavier and still requires a lot of maintenance, especially to deal with rust. So what narrative benefit does it give beyond, maybe looking a bit cooler? Or is that it? Should I as MC be trying to find flaws in the hide and spears to make that choice meaningful, or find advantages for picking swords and chain, or should I just look at it as a flavor?

>> There is a reason, yes. It's to establish paganism as matriarchal. I'll reflect on whether to keep it.

I was wondering about this too, and while I'm all for matriarchal paganism, I'm not sure it actually does this. Since you haven't explicitly restricted the PCs by gender -- or even hinted about which genders are standard for which playbooks -- it's easy enough to end up with a male PC wickerwise or magician who has the right to take a girl as an acolyte -- which no longer feels particularly matriarchal?

>> There is a reason, yes. It's to establish paganism as matriarchal. I'll reflect on whether to keep it.

I was wondering about this too, and while I'm all for matriarchal paganism, I'm not sure it actually does this. Since you haven't explicitly restricted the PCs by gender -- or even hinted about which genders are standard for which playbooks -- it's easy enough to end up with a male PC wickerwise or magician who has the right to take a girl as an acolyte -- which no longer feels particularly matriarchal?

One thing to note, it's not explicit, but... if you have a male wickerwise or magician, and the only right by default is to take a girl acolyte, the PC's very existence implies that someone broke that mold, making them a curious exception but not, I think, particularly breaking the idea of a female-lead tradition overall.

Or am I reading wrong?
- Alex

One thing to note, it's not explicit, but... if you have a male wickerwise or magician, and the only right by default is to take a girl acolyte, the PC's very existence implies that someone broke that mold, making them a curious exception but not, I think, particularly breaking the idea of a female-lead tradition overall.

Or am I reading wrong?

That was my read, and I'm playing a male Wicker-Wise.

Should I as MC be trying to find flaws in the hide and spears to make that choice meaningful, or find advantages for picking swords and chain, or should I just look at it as a flavor?

My two cents, I feel like the mechanics sort of give you a fictional answer. You roll up on this stronghold and the guys there have metal armor and weapons instead of hides and wood. What does that tell you about it just based on the world that the system implies? Well, first off, they're wealthy. Second, that they've probably got all the other cool upgrades that they want because they can afford to focus on better weapons and armor with no mechanical benefit. It probably also implies the new nobility but that's more strictly in the fiction than the system.