Hey guys

So one of my players is playing a soldier, but when relating his backstory, he talked about how he was noble born. He's considered to be the second son not in line blah blah blah so went off to see the world as a soldier.

One of my other players took issue with this, claiming that the noble rules in Lure of Power (chapter 5) dictates that if you're going to fluff your character as a noble, you must play a noble by the LoP rules for nobles.

What I'm looking for here is the interpretation of that ruleset by others. Is it that you choose to be a noble, and then have access to the noble careers, or are you simply a character until you choose a noble career?

I will refrain from giving my POV until others have chimed in, but I will say that having read that section twice, it seems that it's pretty clearly spelled out.

Thanks all!!

i never actually had a player with the noble trait.

if it is not clearly stated in the book of pleasure, i would say you may, but this is alot f houseruling, swap one of the career traits.

that is actually what we do. for example i had an amber wizard, who thought that the traits and skills of the app wizard would not fit the amber wizards at all. so i let him swap the academic trait with the rural trait and 2 skills for this career.

from the wizard on it was all the same as for anybody else, which cost him a ton of advances more, but for him it was worth it.

so, to sum it up: if you can explain a trait-switch or a soldier which is noble in terms of storyline and make up for the traits not met or the rules in the books, you are fine.

or!:

let him lose the noble trait as soon as he joins the army as a mere soldier, for example. so he may play the career he wants, the guy sitting on the rulebooks is happy, and, once his rank is high enough, he regains his noble trait!

Thanks for the input!

Let me clarify before anode else chimes in.

The soldier character is NOT playing a noble, just - fluff wise - a high borne guy. Otherwise the noble gear is irrelevant.

My other player argued that since he claimed high born at the fluff level, he must play a noble character. The two are mutually exclusive.

My question is, Who is the GM?

Do not transform your game in a rule-lawyer thing. To me it seems totally plausible to have noble born character who does not want to exercise as such. You can think of thousand reasons why he is not a real noble. He may be just a revel who does not like his family, or like Aragon he may be just hiding his real status… I don't know imagination is the limit.

Cheers,

Yepes

EXACTLY my point, Yepes.

I try to respect my player's opinions, and adjust accordingly. I have read this section twice, and it's clear to me mechanically how this works.

I don't have the book in front of me, but I'm sure there was a rule in there that said you could take out a trait and replace it with noble if the player's background was appropriate (e.g. the player is playing an officer but lower than the rank of Captain, like a Second Lieutenant). If the noble-born player was playing an enlisted soldier, maybe swap out a trait with 'Menial' to indicate he is 'slumming it' (so if he does move to a noble career later, his time in the military will actually reflect -badly- on him).

In my games rules are just a tool. And my players trust me. They know that everyone gets a cookie once in a while. And I try to force them into thinking as a group.

For example: Through some events one of my dwarf-players got the "Thane"-card from me as an extra. I consider him as his original career firstly (coachman, pitfighter) and the thane-card as extra-learning opportunities.

Sometimes someone gets a companion, a cool weapon, a cool contact or what have you. Story is always first in our games. And I try to cater to everyone's needs. It's supposed to be fun.

Oh, but I should mention hat we are all friends and relatives, so I can't speak about rpg-groups without non-rpg-ties.

Thanks guys!

Yeah I try not to "pull rank" (so to speak) as GM, since we are all friends as well (I hand picked the group as I was very reticent to step back into the RPG world), but one of my group is a stickler for RAW, and sometimes either reads too much into something or misinterprets things.

The real issue is, if one of my players announces his character's fluff says he's noble born, but doesn't want to play a noble character, does he have to anyway. Reading and rereading that chapter in LoP tells me no, he does not. Our "rules lawyer" (who I should quantify by saying that she s usually really on top of this stuff) saw it as ignoring the noble rules, and questioned her ability to play a noble character in the future.

Everything all of you said here is relevant, and only clarified what I thought anyway.

Thanks all!!

The enemy within has High Born background, which doesnt have the 'rules' burden or the bonus free gold each month.

Thanks man!

(filler for post length)

BTW, here's our wiki. Some spoilers for the enemy within.

http://enemywithincampaign.wikispaces.com/Investigators