Hello

I am dubting. So far I am house ruling that action cards with the traits Ancestor, Way of the Sword, Ritual Dance and Slayer are restricted to characters who are or have completed the careers Ironbreaker, Swordmaster, Wardancer and Troll Slayer respectively.

I am starting to have some doubts about it, mainly because it overpower slightly those careers.

What are you doing in your games and why?

I apply a houserule that players must explain how they acquire actions with traits that indicate cultural or racial background such as those dwarf, elf or many Omens of War weapon style ones.

You are that background? Great good to go. You're a priest of Sigmar with Soldier career as well, whose backstory includes having been in a Reiklander mercenary company - Zweihander style no problem.

You are not already qualified that way? Roleplay your way into it. As in spend Interlude action in town rolling to find a teacher of the Diestro dueling style, we create that NPC (oh, player, how about you do it add some content to the game world, an NPC on my list of fodder) and that explains how you managed to learn that style. This can be seen as a nod to the older edition warhammer concept of finding teachers of various things and careers.

Some things would be harder to learn. It's going to take a heck of a lot more than one roll to learn a dwarf Slayer or Ancestor trait if you're not a dwarf.

Why?

I take my fluff seriously. Mechanics are to support narrative. Walk the talk. Drive roleplaying. Making player A tie more things to his backstory, great, making player B create a new NPC and roleplay that's what he did last time they spent a week in town, great. There's a "life" beyond encounters.

Rob

I'm torn.

Most of the cards I don't think exist in the game fiction. For instance, Troll-feller strike isn't some special move taught in Trollslayer school, it represents an attack against a bigger target, so why shouldn't it be used by anyone? But some of them do exist in the fiction... Ancestor and The Way of and Stuff. So, some of them I allow to be taken by anyone and some I don't.

Like all of the style action cards, I see those keywords as a grouping key to help build to a theme, but I wouldn't make a player justify how he learned it. He just fights in a similal style.

we have no general rule for those cards. cards with traits like engineer and ritual dance are clearly only useable by the specific careers for those.

slayer trait cards are, in our group also only buyable by the slayer, since they are clearly the most reckless cards in the whole action deck and the slayer is, by far the most reckless character i've ever seen

ancestor trait cards are hard, because we never knew which career really qualifies for these, especially the saga cards. we ruled that they are only useable by dwarf characters in general and decide whether that character is allowed to have it now from case to case. for example i would not let the slayer get the ancestor cards, since he has clearly broken up with his bloodline. but i let him use a saga once, since it fit perfectly into the reckless trait he was going for....

way of the sword are buyable as soon as you meet the requirements on the card, so lets say having a longsword. i have never had a swordmaster in my group, unfortunately, so that's why. but again: it is a decision we make from case to case wheter the character could have aquired knowledge/skill enough to be able to learn such an action, especially as it is given out to elves normally, so the character might meet an elf to teach him that...

our group is quite strict about trait requirements: pets, judjment, way of the sword, watcher, ancestor, engineer, slayer, etc. we also require the enhance card to be purchased to get the other cards of that type, the unlock if you will.

Same in my house rules. For the most part, they're just over-powered combat cards so I've found it useful to limit them to their respective careers.. I'm thinking of allowing them with 2xp instead of disallowing them altogether.

The traits seem to me like something that was originally well-thought out and then abandoned..and partly left in the game.

jh

Cabello said:

This is exactly how i play it, i also only allow one enhance card per character rank, I like that it gives players something to aim for, and represents the time taken to study various fighting styles in depth.

Crimsonsun

I think the concept of traits was a very ingenious way of Fantasy Flight Games to avoid dealing with traditional role-playing balance issues and the trap it sets for both players and GM's. Traits are basically a kind of narrative association that you as the GM command in your game. I think the goal of traits is ultimatly to present "links" to backgrounds/professions and action cards, without saying "this is the rule, follow it!".

Its smart given that whenever a restriction exists in a role-playing game and the GM doesn't agree with it, they house rule it anyway and vice versus when a restriction doesn't exist, if there is already an enviroment of restrictions, the GM feels safe to create his own restrictions with little recourse for the player. However without it being set in stones as is the case with traits, their is less argument to be made by either the GM or the players. It effectively falls into the realm of "this is my vision" and to me FFG got it right in terms of accepting the fact that the GM is the host, its his vision of the game world that the players have joined when they entered into his game and hence its his call, kind of the unspoken GM - Player social contract. That said, by creating traits it gives players a signal that "hey I better ask my GM and find out if its ok that I take this action card since it doesn't match my profession trait". It identifies that their may be a problem with it and its up for discussion, without either party feeling defensive that this is a "rule" and the discussion is wether or not we are going to allow it to be broken one way or the other.

Its very smart and personally I use traits on a case by case basis as I think they are intended. Generally if a profession and a action card trait match, than its an automatic yes. If it doesn't, I make a decesion based on how its rationalized via dialogue with my player, which is what they expect since there is no rule, hence the GM is the "decesion maker". The question is always "how does this fit into your character". If Im satisfied with the answer and I think it makes sense, its a none issue, naturally always considering the balance factors.

I love that system, but I don't think its a good idea to convert traits into a rule system. FFG gave you a flexible system to allow you the flexibility of deciding it case by case, why restrict your own game by creating hard fast rules?

In any case for polling purposes my answer is, its done on a case by case basis.