Quote:
Originally Posted by Nightshade
Given the frequency in which it mattered, and the degree of detail needed for it, its largely a waste of space. I could give a farmer the base weapon value for culture and his modifier and feel just as good about it (and for an older farmer, I'm not sure I found the values given credible anyway--if you kept running the numbers up past the 20's, I think it could end up making him too _good_ a combatant at some point). So no, I really never found the need.
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You could make the same argument for any occupation in the list though. You could just start all characters with a standard cultural skill level plus bonus. You could just hand them X*years in points to spend on whatever skills they want. But then you'd have no idea what a "typical" merchant's skills were, or a "typical" sailor, or a "typical" footpad. You could certainly just make stuff up (and as a GM you often will do just that), but it certainly doesn't hurt to have some sort of guideline. If nothing more then having a sense of relative skill. Is the local guardsman better at fighting then the local tavern owner? Sure. We assume that's the case, but how much better? Why?
In a game in which there are no character classes, the *only* thing that differentiates one person from another is their skills. Having some sort of templates and examples of typical skill sets based on broad occupations is incredibly useful I think. I never viewed those as some kind of limitation or restriction on the player characters. It's background. It gives you a starting point. It gives you continual relative reference points as well (how skilled will that master sailer be in comparison to the newbie who just joined the crew last week?).
And you never know. One day a player might just come up to you and want to play something other then a soldier. Perhaps even roleplay a young farmer who's family just got killed by some evil bad guy and now he wants to join your band of stalwart adventurers and fight against him. But that's a plot that's never happened, right?
