Mundane Family background and a leg up

[JLV]

Originally Posted by JohnPaulB

Does anyone recall if any of the TFT supplements gave data on data on character’s background before gaming? Or if its been covered already on this forum?

Specifically, did they get any benefit from their heritage?

I’ve been thinking of this situation, if you come from a family that had Mundane Talents, you grew up practicing that job for so long that it costs your starting character 1 less to ‘buy’ it.

• Joe has grown up in a fisherman community all his life, as part of his background he can get the Mundane Talent (1 IQ Point) Fisherman for free.
  
• Sally’s family had a bakery and she baked most of her youth, so as part of her background she can get the Mundane Talent (2 IQ Point) Baker for 1 Point.
  
• Haspar’s father was a member of the Sultan’s musicians, so as part of his background he learned how to play the Oud - Mundane Talent (3 IQ Point full mastery of any one musical instrument) for 2 points.

I would only give it to family backgrounds whose career was a Mundane Talent, but you can expand the Mundane Talents listed on ITL page 36.

I seem to recall that something was mentioned about that in the original Metagaming versions of ITL back in the '80's (or perhaps I'm confusing some Spacegamer or Interplay article or letter with the rules), but I don't, off-hand, recall if it was in the Legacy Edition or not (and am too lazy at this hour of the night to look it up...).

But if you think it's a good idea (I agree, it is), why not draft it up and shoot it to Steve for possible inclusion in Issue #2 of Hexagram? I think something like that would be a valuable article!