Council of Elrond

One of the rules my gaming partner and I struggle with is that once your avatar is revealed, a character must be played under DI or to your avatar's site. It seems unnecessarily restrictive that offers little to the gameplay.

For experienced players, what's the point of this rule, and how is it meant to change the game? Is it simply supposed to be thematic? Is it intended to limit the "sprawl" of your companies as the game goes on? Is it to add an extra consideration for whether or not you want to play your avatar?

In short, is it reasonable to house-rule that you can still play characters even if your avatar isn't present, or are there good reasons to avoid that?

It is a game balance decision - having your Wizard in play opens up basically 50% of GI to play new characters - you could take your Wizard and Elrond wandering in Mordor - while still having 20 GI open to play new characters all over the play (lets say keep 5 GI to keep Call of Homes at a minimum) you could than have Strider and Dain II run around up north and then have some decent influence to play new characters or factions.

your avatar is you so it makes sense to have you new characters join him, not just some lackey, but one could always play characters under DI of another character (that is why Cirdan is so massiv with his 4 DI)

For minions though it is pretty crippling - so many house and DC rules exist to have this rule changed, that you can play a character at any site where you send another company to, no matter where your avatar is at - without that rule active RWs would be almost impossible (or hard if your other company gets crushed you cannot replenish your orcs unless you move Mommy RW to the site do see how they do