Do leads accumulate?

[Albert of Feh]

A point of confusion popped up in my BW group during pre-game prep. Basically, do leads only count as paths from one life-path to the next, or do they accumulate and stick around until the player chooses to use them?

My gut tells me the first, but I think I'll just quote my player's points on the subject:

As for leads, yeah, I thought for a while that you could only take a lead from the most recent lifepath. After all, the Character Burner says. "... one path should logically lead to the next." But I've looked more carefully, and now I don't think so. He seems to have based everything on the rule that things get accumulated as you lay out lifepaths.

The first paragraph of "The Elements of a Lifepath" on p. 10 of the Character Burner reads:

On each path, characters can learn skills, gather friends, earn wages and garner affiliations.  Each lifepath ages the character and grants her trait points, resource points, stat points, leads, skills and skill points.  These are the building blocks of every character.

(Notice that, in the second sentence, everything else but leads clearly accumulates, suggesting that leads do too.)

The following note appears with Country Wife in the Peasant Setting on p.49 of the Character Burner:

Player may choose husband's lifepath from the Peasant setting.  Wife may take half husband's skill pts and leads.  She also takes 50% of husband's Res.

Obviously, there can be only one next lifepath. So it wouldn't make sense to take any more than one of the husband's leads unless they accumulate.

[Luke]

Wow, your players are parsing too closely.

Leads are only available from the last path walked.

On each path, characters can learn skills, gather friends, earn wages and garner affiliations. Each lifepath ages the character and grants her trait points, resource points, stat points, leads, skills and skill points. These are the building blocks of every character.

Leads are omitted from this descriiption because they do not "accumulate" like skill points or trait points.

hope that helps.
-L

[Albert of Feh]

Okay, that's what I thought, but there was enough ambiguity in the text that it seemed like it might be worth asking.

Something to consider for the rewrite, perhaps. :P

Thanks.

[Kaare Berg]

Didn't strike you odd that the wife gets half?

K

[taepoong]

This is a time before pre-nups, apparently.

[Eric Minton]

It's clearly a typo; the Village Wife lifepath specifies that she takes "any of his leads."