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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6027210" data-attributes="member: 42582">What RPGs do you have in mind? And what are their mechanics for handling celebrity?In HeroWars/Quest celebrity is just another attribute. In Burning Wheel, it plays into the Circles mechanics via the Reputation and Affiliation rules. In both cases, it is factored into the mechanical balance of PC build resources and action resolution.In contrast, D&amp;D has almost no rules for handling celebrity. This suggests that it probably shouldn't be a big part of the game. But in any event,&nbsp; [MENTION=18340]CM[/MENTION] didn't mention celebrity. The imaginary feat had the effect &quot;NPCs automatically fawn over you and beg your friendship&quot;. That's not a useful mechanic for adjudicating the effect of celebrity upon social conflicts. Rather, that's an automatic bypass on any challenge involving dealing with recalcitrant or non-compliant NPCs. It is to social conflict as Rope Trick is to dungeon pacing.Actually, it will be broken in any game in which NPCs are meant to pose obstacles to the will of the PCs - which is far more than the PCs being unknown &quot;lone hero&quot; adventurers.But more genrally - it is not objectionable to want the game to deliver a certain sort of experience, as far as genre and pacing are concerned. Arguably, this is the main purpose of RPG design!Well, if I was hoping to play a game of heroic fantasy, and what the rules give me is a game of world creation, that's bad for me. Instead of having a useful set of rules for framing heroic fantasy challenges, and then having the PCs resolve them by engaging them with their PCs via the action resolution mechanics, I have an essentially freeform game of the players reshaping the world with their unlimited wishes. That's a game I have little interest in on genre grounds alone; and I've got zero interest in playing it freeform.100% this.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6027210, member: 42582"] What RPGs do you have in mind? And what are their mechanics for handling celebrity? In HeroWars/Quest celebrity is just another attribute. In Burning Wheel, it plays into the Circles mechanics via the Reputation and Affiliation rules. In both cases, it is factored into the mechanical balance of PC build resources and action resolution. In contrast, D&D has almost no rules for handling celebrity. This suggests that it probably shouldn't be a big part of the game. But in any event, [MENTION=18340]CM[/MENTION] didn't mention celebrity. The imaginary feat had the effect "NPCs automatically fawn over you and beg your friendship". That's not a useful mechanic for adjudicating the effect of celebrity upon social conflicts. Rather, that's an automatic bypass on any challenge involving dealing with recalcitrant or non-compliant NPCs. It is to social conflict as Rope Trick is to dungeon pacing. Actually, it will be broken in any game in which NPCs are meant to pose obstacles to the will of the PCs - which is far more than the PCs being unknown "lone hero" adventurers. But more genrally - it is not objectionable to want the game to deliver a certain sort of experience, as far as genre and pacing are concerned. Arguably, this is the main purpose of RPG design! Well, if I was hoping to play a game of heroic fantasy, and what the rules give me is a game of world creation, that's bad for me. Instead of having a useful set of rules for framing heroic fantasy challenges, and then having the PCs resolve them by engaging them with their PCs via the action resolution mechanics, I have an essentially freeform game of the players reshaping the world with their unlimited wishes. That's a game I have little interest in on genre grounds alone; and I've got zero interest in playing it freeform. 100% this. [/QUOTE]

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