Organization Rank in D&D

[Michael Sorensen]

One thing that I really like about GURPS is the Rank advantage -- fairly independent of power level, but very tied to the campaign world. It also provides a consistent and easy game mechanic -- not just DM fiat. There really isn't anything similar in D&D. I would like to come up with something, but I am not sure the best way to approach it. It would have to be level independent, and flexible, as membership within an organization may change frequently. I would consider the benefits of rank within an organization largely offset by the associated duties.

This would allow you to simulate rank within a church, but your relationship with the deity is handled by the cleric class. (Allowing priest of Nerull to infiltrate the Church of Pelor, etc.) It also allows better handling of governments, legal order, and military ranks.

I was possibly considering an experience point penalty or cost depending on the organization, but I am not sure about the repurcussions.

Any thoughts or help anyone could offer would be appreciated.

 

[Aaron2]

Any thoughts or help anyone could offer would be appreciated.

This isn't much help. Anyway, Bushido (my second favorite game) had pretty detailed rules about status. The gist was fairly simple. When you joined an organization (be it a samurai family, a village council or merchant guild) you had a Group Status roll according to your membership level ....

Normal Member +0
Senior Member +4
"Manager" +12
Elder +18
Head +20

These level names were just examples.

You would make a Status Check by rolling your status versus the person you are trying to influence. The results of a success or failure depended on how much the askie benefited from what was asked of him.

The leader of every organization had a +20 status but that only applied to checks within that same organization. Each organization had a Status Factor (from 0 to 1) that determined that organization's influence. The Imperial Family had a Status Factor of 1.0 while large village might have a 0.3. Multiply the Status Factor by your Group Status when trying to influence people outside your group. This was called a Social Status. For example, if you were a noble son of a fairly decent noble family (Group Status +10, Status Factor 0.7) your Social Status would be +7 (10 * 0.7) while the head of a small fishing village (Groups Status +20, Status Factor 0.1) would have a Social Status of +2.

This allows the PCs to create a new group and give themselves huge Group Status values, such as +20 for being the leader, but then they need to work on increasing the power and prestige of their group to get a decent Status Factor.

The only level dependent thing was a general limit based on character level. In general, when you join a group, the highest Group Status you can get is equal to your level. So a first level fighter joining a Fighter Guild would start at around +1 status while a 10th level fighter might be invited to join at a much higher level (up to +10).


Aaron