Easterly Inn - Chatter

[Trogdor]

I know how to raise you Valour (though I'd been purposely keeping that lower than Wisdom for character reasons). How do you raise Standing?

Because having Pipkin as cook for an Inn seems too appropriate to pass up.

[Blubbo_Baggins]

It costs Treasure to raise Standing. Considering this is Pipkin's 3rd adventure, a regular adventurer might not have earned enough Treasure to get a Standing of 3 though, unless they got lucky and found a horde.

I've pulled up the rules on Standing and paraphrasing some of them:

Spending Treasure "back at home" raises one's status in the eyes of their folk from a mere wanderer to gaining admiration, acclain, or respectability.
(Standing is used in the game to gauge how influential a hero can be when dealing with individuals and issues related to his home country - Valour/Wisdom when dealing with other cultures). During the Fellowship Phase, the higher your Standing, the more you can determine and narrate what events take place on behalf of your folk.

Players spend Treasure points to raise their Standing rating.
0 to 1: 12 Treasure
1 to 2: 24 Treasure
2 to 3: 36 Treasure
(This seems extremely high and I'm pretty sure it has been changed! Vardaen, can you find anything?)

Standing 0: homeless vagrants, wandering conjurors, unknown adventurers
Standing 1: Rangers
Standing 2: Respectable citizens
Standing 3: Officer, Shirrifs

In the Revised Rulebook, they also have rules for "gaining a Title" which usually comes with a small Holding. Perhaps V would let Pipkin get the equivalent of this, and since Pipkin has a lower Standing, his "share" in the Inn would be equal to a Holding that is rated as an 8 or 9 (requiring a Standing of 2 or 1 instead).

[Vardaen]

I've decided to let Pipkin join in, using his Valour at whatever rank he has it at. It simply means he has a harder time of joining in on the profits since he's in the kitchen eating and smoking them all away! It makes sense from a story point to let him and I'm not going to let the crunch screw up the RP.

I found the same Standing rules, insanely high if you ask me.

[Blubbo_Baggins]

I'm almost certain I saw a revision that to increase Standing, they halved the costs. So 6, 12, 18. (So 36 T total to get to 3 Standing).

I get why it would be expensive at the higher levels (esp. 5 or 6 Standing), because you're getting up there at the level of King Bard or Bilbo. But for a Standing of 1 - 3, I'm pretty sure they didn't playtest the cost in the original rules.

Cool. I'm glad Pipkin can join. One idea, as I mentioned, would be that when he "Tends Holding" the Inn can just be rated 1 or 2 higher for him until he has a higher Standing or Valour.

[Trogdor]

Did Bilbo really have that high Standing in the Shire? I mean he was rich as Croesus, and everyone respected that. But doesn't The Hobbit mention that while he gained a great deal from his adventures, he lost the respect of his neighbors?

I guess you might call him a "Prominent Personality" (Standing 4). But he was prominent for being an odd duck among hobbits. I certainly can't see him as 5 or 6.

He seems to me the poster child for someone who was far more respected outside of the Shire than in it.

...though technically, under the rules, he was rich, and rich = Standing. With what he took from Smaug's hoard, he could have bought himself up to 6 Standing easily.

[Vardaen]

Part of Standing is being able to influence your culture, being present when important things are happening, or important people are about. That seems Bilbo even if he was a bit queer.


Rich = Massive Birthday Party that everyone wanted to come to

[Shurijo]

Ya!

[Trogdor]

True. That was the social event of several seasons.

[Blubbo_Baggins]

Yes, as odd as Bilbo was, his wealth still gave him influence. After the the initial rumours died down, folks were probably happy to be his friends so long as they weren't seen as being "crazy" like he was. But yes, in the game, Standing is Riches. But not Riches horded...the Birthday Party is the perfect example of spending Treasure to increase one's influence.