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- Location
- Lost in my thoughts
[x] Warn Ulbar that silence can be just as damning as words spoken (Gain Friendship of Ulbar from Eldalondë Roll 1d6 Martial 1d3 Learning)
The bonus point from passing up on the friendship can be roughly valued at 3 stat points, so not getting that hurts, but Friendship might be a leverage-able trait later and I prefer Learning over Intrigue- particularly if we get the Bookworm or Military Engineer vote later, since those allow us to capitalize on Learning.
[x] The Company of ladies of negotiable virtue (Gain Trait Lustful +50% Fertility; -10 to resist seduction)
[x] Dueling for sport and then for profit, many an eager blade has seen his fall at your hand and you grew in reputation and in wealth for it (Gain Duelist +3 Martial +1 Intrigue -1 Diplomacy Cost 1 Bonus Point)
Either of these is fine by me as the first is bonus-point neutral and fertility bonuses are very nice, while the second matches the highest available stat gain per bonus point we've seen and Martial is a powerful stat that we will absolutely need a lot of. Of the others, Bookworm is a measly +1 and banks a lot on the anticipated value of a skillset that we'll only have learned from books but never actually used, while Drunkard is a crushing -3 stats in exchange for a bonus point that will at best be spent to make up that much of a loss (as only the highest-valued traits available have given a net +3) so it's only really usable if we genuinely don't care about Stewardship or Intrigue things.
[x] A Military Engineer, skilled in the building of bridges and roads, mastering Numanor's machines of war (Roll 1d6 Learning 1d3 Martial)
This is concrete knowledge of how to build a lot of really practical stuff and how to build and use some of the most advanced war machines to ever appear in Tolkien's setting. While we probably won't end up with an interpretation of the story that says Numenoreans basically had magitech war machines that made them essentially the equivalent of a modern industrialized civilization and taking this vote will give us the appropriate knowledge and skillset to match that, I would absolutely expect to know how to build the construction of key transportation infrastructure (and almost certainly quality fortifications as well). That is very likely to be something that will come in useful when the game takes off.
Quartermaster gives an extra d2 of raw stats but a much less useful skillset, I think. Management is universally applicable but it's neither unique nor something that leverages our heritage, so mostly the pull there is the stats.
Cavalry Commander loses d3 and d2 stats in exchange for... a horse. Fancy. Its value is almost entirely in the implicit "you will have had practical experience leading men in mounted combat and become as inhumanly skilled at that as any of Numenor's nobility on the battlefield" which is admittedly a very valuable skillset to have but it is also an entirely unstated one that we might not actually get, so hard to vote for. It should be pointed out though that being able to effectively trample people with a horse will immediately and very visibly put us in the elite warrior or warrior-noble social class of any civilization on the planet in any real-world history variant at any point in the timeline previous to the last couple hundred years, though, so that option shouldn't be discounted because even if it doesn't give social stats it gives instant social status. In a lot of ways that matters more.
The bonus point from passing up on the friendship can be roughly valued at 3 stat points, so not getting that hurts, but Friendship might be a leverage-able trait later and I prefer Learning over Intrigue- particularly if we get the Bookworm or Military Engineer vote later, since those allow us to capitalize on Learning.
[x] The Company of ladies of negotiable virtue (Gain Trait Lustful +50% Fertility; -10 to resist seduction)
[x] Dueling for sport and then for profit, many an eager blade has seen his fall at your hand and you grew in reputation and in wealth for it (Gain Duelist +3 Martial +1 Intrigue -1 Diplomacy Cost 1 Bonus Point)
Either of these is fine by me as the first is bonus-point neutral and fertility bonuses are very nice, while the second matches the highest available stat gain per bonus point we've seen and Martial is a powerful stat that we will absolutely need a lot of. Of the others, Bookworm is a measly +1 and banks a lot on the anticipated value of a skillset that we'll only have learned from books but never actually used, while Drunkard is a crushing -3 stats in exchange for a bonus point that will at best be spent to make up that much of a loss (as only the highest-valued traits available have given a net +3) so it's only really usable if we genuinely don't care about Stewardship or Intrigue things.
[x] A Military Engineer, skilled in the building of bridges and roads, mastering Numanor's machines of war (Roll 1d6 Learning 1d3 Martial)
This is concrete knowledge of how to build a lot of really practical stuff and how to build and use some of the most advanced war machines to ever appear in Tolkien's setting. While we probably won't end up with an interpretation of the story that says Numenoreans basically had magitech war machines that made them essentially the equivalent of a modern industrialized civilization and taking this vote will give us the appropriate knowledge and skillset to match that, I would absolutely expect to know how to build the construction of key transportation infrastructure (and almost certainly quality fortifications as well). That is very likely to be something that will come in useful when the game takes off.
Quartermaster gives an extra d2 of raw stats but a much less useful skillset, I think. Management is universally applicable but it's neither unique nor something that leverages our heritage, so mostly the pull there is the stats.
Cavalry Commander loses d3 and d2 stats in exchange for... a horse. Fancy. Its value is almost entirely in the implicit "you will have had practical experience leading men in mounted combat and become as inhumanly skilled at that as any of Numenor's nobility on the battlefield" which is admittedly a very valuable skillset to have but it is also an entirely unstated one that we might not actually get, so hard to vote for. It should be pointed out though that being able to effectively trample people with a horse will immediately and very visibly put us in the elite warrior or warrior-noble social class of any civilization on the planet in any real-world history variant at any point in the timeline previous to the last couple hundred years, though, so that option shouldn't be discounted because even if it doesn't give social stats it gives instant social status. In a lot of ways that matters more.
The only exuse is that day on the work is more busy than normal.