New Keyword: Squire (feedback)

[Doyce]

Hey all,

During the course of getting ready for the Well of Souls game this Friday, I've dressed up two new Occupations and thought I'd share and gather feedback and pointers.

I'm starting with what I think is my weakest one, the Squire.  I've failed to put together a good decription for things like typical homeland and so forth because it seems pretty self-explanatory, and I'm not entirely sure about some of the skills in the Keyword (I've marked those with a ??) -- basically I think it's a bit too close to a Cavalry Skirmisher.  Thoughts welcome.

SQUIRE

Abilities:
#  Camp
#  Care for Armor and Weapons
#  Care for Horse
#  Identify Foe ??
#  [Mass Combat style]
#  [Melee weapon]
#  Orders of Chivalry
#  [Ranged Weapon]
#  Riding
#  Rule of Law
#  Scan for Danger
#  Scouting ??

Typical Personality Traits: (optional)
#  Brave, Combative, Determined, Disciplined, Loyal, Obedient

Typical Followers:
#  A horse. Perhaps a dog? Otherwise, no... Knights get followers, Squires get dirty boots to clean.

Standard of Living: Common (except where outfitted by their leige.)

Typical Equipment: A horse, weapons, light armor (light chain, et cetera).  Camp gear. Armor/weapon cleaning gear.

(Magic: I've found that Order of Saint Ehilm, the Watchful Sun (either version) works really well with Squires.)

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I've considered skills like "clean this place up", "falconry" and a couple others, and made a note to go back and read some of my books on what the realistic duties of a squire were back in the day, but haven't had the time yet. Any input welcome.

[Eero Tuovinen]

My first reaction was "Squire? An occupation? I guess he means squire-the-title used in some feudal lands. But why is that then different than any other minor noble?"

After reading your specs my reaction was "Squire? As in knight-in-training? Why a different keyword?"

I have no idea about the specifics of the culture in question, but I'd handle the knight-in-training, if that is what this is, as simply a knight with a low keyword value. Like, you wouldn't make keyword for an apprentise tanner, would you? After all, he's just learning all the same things a regular tanner already knows, so the keyword is the same.

Anyway, see how important a good description of the occupation is? A squire is a rather common consept, but I have no idea at all about what you mean by it (the title, a knight-in-training, some kind of officer). Might be that you have it as some kind of petty officer or such permanent office, in which case it might make sense as a keyword.

[Doyce]

Squire-as-knight-in-training, yes.

"Why a different keyword"... than what?  Where is there a 'knight' keyword?  Have a missed it?  I've seen soldiers on horses, yes.  Knights? No.

So I basically came up with Squire as 'an occupation (one of several) that you can start with to get the Advanced occupation (cf. Shaman) of Knight.

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Edit: and I should have mentioned a setting -- for purposes of shorthand, saying "Seshnela" will work.

[Eero Tuovinen]

"Why a different keyword"... than what?  Where is there a 'knight' keyword?  Have a missed it?  I've seen soldiers on horses, yes.  Knights? No.

Heh, might be. Me and my book, we're currently separated by half the length of Finland. I would have thought that there were a knight in the rulebook. At least it wasn't only limited to the Dragon Pass in other regards. You'd know that better than me, though.

So I basically came up with Squire as 'an occupation (one of several) that you can start with to get the Advanced occupation (cf. Shaman) of Knight.

An interesting notion. That'd certainly be something to consider in a chivalric game (mmm... Pendragon with HQ... mmm...). What were your thoughts about the abilities of the knight? Something special cool to justify the separation and preliminary requirement?

Anyways, my take would be to replace "Identify foe" with "Tactics" and "Scouting" with "Logistics", under the notion that a squire's job is to learn to be a knight, not to go and die a spy's death in the enemy camp. And remember, many a squire might not actually see battle, which would presumably be behind abilities like "Scan for Danger". That I'd replace with "Heraldry" (or is "Orders of Chivalry" that?), a skill much more important for squires than any paltry battle experience. In general, you should maybe consider how the occupation handles in peacetime, and maybe add some skills for courtly duties. "Manners" would be a must for my squires.

That said, both occupations look fine to me. I at least don't sweat too much about the occupations, they can always be revamped after play starts. Almost have to, IMO, because you can't know what notions the players have about what should belong to a given occupation and what not.

[Bankuei]

Hi Doyce,

One of the neat things about HQ is that there is no such thing as "too close" in terms of keywords.  Unlike D&D, there's no need for class or niche protection- it's quite reasonable to take any keyword, swap some of the traits with another keyword(should it make sense, within the game concept) and run with it.  So its very possible to run a game where everyone plays a knight, but give different keyword traits based on homelands, lineage, environment, etc.  

All that said, you'll also notice that in Well of Souls that the NPCs don't have full listings of abilities- it's assumed that you'll just say, "It makes sense that he would have this as well" and rate it by comparison to the other abilities listed.  In this way, keywords only become really important for PCs.   So as long as the Squire concept is plausible to you and your group, any of the abilities make sense.

Chris