Creating a Squire

[Gideon13]

I am a new TROS player who wants to create a squire, but buying "Landless Nobility" is too much (I want him to earn knighthood via deeds, not start that way) and "High Freeman" alone implies a glass ceiling.  I was thinking of making being a squire a Gift as below, and would like to know if this is appropriate in TROS.  Thank you for your feedback.

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Squire (major or minor)
You formally acknowledged as being prepared for knighthood.  You have the right to bear all arms and armors, and the duty to obey the knight training you in all things.  You can expect to be raised to the status of knight if you prove yourself worthy in both combat and conduct, but it will not be easy -- your deeds will reflect upon not only your knight but the other knights as well, and they will be judging you accordingly.

This is a minor gift if your social class is equivalent to High Freeman ("You may be the son of a nobleman with your own armor, but you're still just a kid").  It is a major gift if you are also of a family, sex, religion, or species that would normally not be considered for knighthood.

[kenjib]

Would there be anything wrong with just putting it in your story background without needing any rules attached?  It seems very much in sync with SA's in a positive way.  You are telling the DM how you want your character to develop and where you want the story to go.

[Gideon13]

Sounds like a cleaner approach to me.  It does assume some flexibility in class definitions -- so, say, a poor ronin could be considered a "low freeman" for the purposes of character creation -- but that and SA's are definitely better than lots of special-case rules.

The TROS approach is definitely growing on me.  The characters it encourages you to create are definitely more nouanced and human.

Thanks!

[Sneaky Git]

I am a new TROS player who wants to create a squire, but buying "Landless Nobility" is too much (I want him to earn knighthood via deeds, not start that way) and "High Freeman" alone implies a glass ceiling.  I was thinking of making being a squire a Gift as below, and would like to know if this is appropriate in TROS.  Thank you for your feedback.

I suppose it depends on your interpretation of knighthood.  If you are considering mounted soldiers as candidates for knighthood, then any of the freeman social levels ought to do just fine.  Your being a squire could simply be handled in terms of background and SAs.

If, however, you are viewing knights as the military elite of a warrior aristocracy (think: ideal of European chivalric tradition), then I would say that you would need to be of the uppermost ranks in society.

You formally acknowledged as being prepared for knighthood.  You have the right to bear all arms and armors, and the duty to obey the knight training you in all things.  You can expect to be raised to the status of knight if you prove yourself worthy in both combat and conduct, but it will not be easy -- your deeds will reflect upon not only your knight but the other knights as well, and they will be judging you accordingly.

This is a minor gift if your social class is equivalent to High Freeman ("You may be the son of a nobleman with your own armor, but you're still just a kid").  It is a major gift if you are also of a family, sex, religion, or species that would normally not be considered for knighthood.

Well, I would say that the son of a nobleman, so long as he was acknowledged would be of his father's class.  That is to say, you are born to your rank, regardless of your qualifications otherwise.

As far as being prepared for knighthood and allowed to bear arms and armor, I would be careful here.  If you are a squire, then great.  You're a squire.  But you are not a knight.  And may never become one.  You have yet to earn your spurs and I seriously doubt that you would be tromping around in full harness.

I'm not certain of any historical precedents, but would probably handle it in that fashion.

Chris

[Valamir]

I've never been a big fan of including social class as part of the priority system anyway.  

In order to be a member of the highest ranks of society, you have to sacrifice one of your top priorities.  This means that on average your character will have lower attributes, skills, and or proficiencies than the typcial peasant who used Social Class as the second throw away priority.

In reality, however, those from the higher social orders would have had a better diet, better education, and more training meaning that on average they should ahve higher attributes, skills, and proficiencies than the typical peasant.

Personally, I recommend leaving Social Class off of the priority list altogether.  There are already built in advantages and disadvantages to the various classes.  Each has their own set of duties and obligations as well as wealth and privilege.  I feel it is probably better to let the GM select the range of social classes that are acceptable in the campaign and set those cooperatively during the joint character creation session.

[Brian Leybourne]

Personally, I recommend leaving Social Class off of the priority list altogether.  There are already built in advantages and disadvantages to the various classes.  Each has their own set of duties and obligations as well as wealth and privilege.  I feel it is probably better to let the GM select the range of social classes that are acceptable in the campaign and set those cooperatively during the joint character creation session.

In my current campaign, we decided that all characters would be freemen, so we changed the social priority. A-B was high freeman, C-D was "middle" and E-F was low, with the gold amount for each pick remaining the same as usual. That way, everyone was still a freeman, but some were of slightly better social class than others, and everyone could still start with as much or as little money as they wanted.

Not quite what you were talking about (high freemen would still have on average lower attributes etc than low freemen and so on), but just an example of modifying character creation to suit the campaign.

Brian.

[Ben Lehman]

In reality, however, those from the higher social orders would have had a better diet, better education, and more training meaning that on average they should ahve higher attributes, skills, and proficiencies than the typical peasant.

Personally, I recommend leaving Social Class off of the priority list altogether.  There are already built in advantages and disadvantages to the various classes.  Each has their own set of duties and obligations as well as wealth and privilege.  I feel it is probably better to let the GM select the range of social classes that are acceptable in the campaign and set those cooperatively during the joint character creation session.

BL>  This is where RoS's brilliantly designed Nar/Gam chargen runs smack into some Simulationism holes (possibly one of the only places in the entire system, honestly.)
 The point is that, even when taking a high slot for social class, you are still above average.  "Average" people aren't made with the character creation system.  You are a unique individual character, and the character generation system reflects that, not the entire population of the world.  Otherwise, say, there would be no Elf King.  Can't be built.

 If that explanation doesn't satisfy you:  Inbreeding.


yrs--
--Ben

P.S.  As for the squire, I think High Freeman is perfectly appropriate for hard-scrabble nobility.  I would give you less starting money to make up for the rank, myself.

P.P.S.  Or you could be a squire drawn from the commoners.  Those did happen, often by adoption.  Much less likely to get knighthood, though.