Cultural tokens

[Zeita]

Hi staff,

So there was a player today, I think he's probably new, asking why Charali don't start with a horse. There were the expected (and patient/kindly) responses that you'd expect about how to get a horse.

But it got me to thinking 'Why -don't- Charali begin with a horse? It makes sense that they should.' But extending from that, it got me thinking 'Well, Charali -are- supposed to be poor, but the horse makes sense. So how would we level the playing field with the other cultures.' I'd like to see other little differentiators on chargen to make the different cultures stand out a bit more from one another. Perhaps even extend it further to permanent differences: ie, Lithmorrans being part of the local culture and rulers of the realm get extra ip per week, Vandagans being a politicised culture can support an extra person, Vavardi get a bit of extra coin per week (or free contraceptives, whatevs). etc, etc.

Thoughts?

[Fea]

Support.

[Tremere]

I support this wholeheartedly.

[Applesauce]

I like the idea in general, but I think any distinct difference would lead to player min-maxing and therefore a strong imbalance in regional representation, specifically away from the Lithmorran bias the game has expressed a desire for in the past.

For example, even a mere 5 extra silver per week would lead more people to make Vavardi chars than Lithmorran, given that unless you have very specific goals for your char, money will tend to be more useful than IP.

Those who recall older TIs might remember that the regions once had different base stats, which led to different "out of the gate" maxes. If you wanted a high-dex char, you made a Tubori, period. At the time that wasn't really a problem, but if we still care about making PCs want to be Lithmorran, this could be a hard thing to balance.

[Fea]

I like the idea in general, but I think any distinct difference would lead to player min-maxing and therefore a strong imbalance in regional representation, specifically away from the Lithmorran bias the game has expressed a desire for in the past.

For example, even a mere 5 extra silver per week would lead more people to make Vavardi chars than Lithmorran, given that unless you have very specific goals for your char, money will tend to be more useful than IP.

Those who recall older TIs might remember that the regions once had different base stats, which led to different "out of the gate" maxes. If you wanted a high-dex char, you made a Tubori, period. At the time that wasn't really a problem, but if we still care about making PCs want to be Lithmorran, this could be a hard thing to balance.

Perhaps a quota could be imposed to limit over-representation.

[Dice]

I liked this at first, but the more I thought about it, the less in favor I found myself. Why? I think the problem is that, as much as I love it when people RP their cultures out, there just aren't really good benefits that work for every culture.

Charali having horses to start makes sense, but the others? Many Vavardi are poor. Many Vandagans aren't political. Etc. I think that this is cool, but it ultimately wouldn't work well to reflect the diversity within cultures as well as between them, and I agree with Applesauce's concerns re: minmaxing.