Why, yes. It's really just a matter of interpretation.
As presented, the costs are for upkeep matching your station. The extra costs are linked to carousing. However, you could make the base costs include "keeping your skills well-honed" and the extra costs could be training costs, turning the whole thing into something completely different. In this case, bragging about monsters wouldn't work, but successfully defeating monsters merits an extra training roll, to see if you learned anything from your win. Mechanics would be exactly the same.
A side effect of this, perhaps, would be that all costs above the base 10 coins/week would go to training. Your housing, clothing, servants, and other outward status displays would not improve unless you spent extra, and that extra cash would no longer merit an advancement roll. Or you could interpret it as a 50/50 split between training and reputation-building, or some other proportion.
I actually think reputation/confidence is the better system, but in terms of mechanics, it doesn't matter which interpretation you use.
"However, you could make the base costs include "keeping your skills well-honed" and the extra costs could be training costs"
ReplyDelete"I actually think reputation/confidence is the better system, but in terms of mechanics, it doesn't matter which interpretation you use."
Well, except for the fact that it's a totally dissociated mechanic, since there's no reason training would cost anything.
How would you handle the fighter who wants to train by going just outside town every morning and doing pell drills in the woods?
Where are all of these masters-at-arms and wizard-professors who are doing the training? What if there aren't any in your area?