D&D General Player: Gaining influence in d&d

[Nerdette]

Hi, I am a player doing a 5e campaign in d&d. I play a snakeperson that is a bard college of eloquence. His ultimate goal is to gain influence in life. I was wondering if anyone has any ideas on gaining influence. I currently have spent the campaign in a rascist country ands soon will be moving south to an area that is not rascist to fight in a war on the southern portion of the continent to pay off some group members debt. The things I am currently doing to gain influence are:

• Creating a profit making organization that I convince people to join through telling them being in it will make them rich and will give them the renown of the organization supporting their careers. Currently it is purely made up of all but a few of my group/
• Convincing people that me and the more important members of the previously mentioned organization that we are gods. In our world if you gain 10000 followers you will become a lesser diety. The ruler in the south that rules my races main country is one example of this.
• Running an organization to help beggers get by in the rascist city's capital

 

[Benjamin Olson]

It seems like you're doing plenty on the money and religion front. Really politics is the other front to attend to. Traditionally old school D&D characters of a certain level often made themselves lords, and I had one in 5e who carved out a little barony for himself and got it populated by refugees. Campaigns often involve abandoned locations which local authorities are seemingly powerless over, so after clearing the zombies out of the old tower or whatever who's to stop you from making it your castle? Once your party gets to a certain level your DM will be happy to give you all something to waste money on.

Depending on the setting you might also run for some sort of public office, or get yourself appointed to some military of civilian post by whomever holds power.

The most important characters to influence are the other player characters because if their characters wouldn't want to spend time and energy supporting your ascent, than the other players are not going to let the group's game time be spent on it. Be careful that the rest of the group is having fun with building your character up. If whatever you're doing also provides them with opportunities and spotlight time you'll probably be fine. If it just becomes the you show probably less so.

 

[TigerDude]

1. Do stupid dances that a bunch of people want to watch. That seems to be the tiktok influencer model.
2. Show your awesome rich person stuff to people who want to watch. That's the IG influencer model.

If it were me I'd be influencing the lifespan of the racists by cutting them short, but that's just me.

 

[aco175]

Poor people. The have less time to socialize and read the newspaper. This means you can tell them things and be believed more easily. Combine this with free healthcare healing for then and they will follow you. Fastest way to 10k.

 

[Umbran]

Honestly, it depends on what rules, if any, your GM uses for these matters. D&D doesn't do "influence" well in and of itself, so what your GM is doing is paramount.

 

[Bae'zel]

I've attempted to implement a relatively simple influence system to track relationships with NPCs, factions and locations.

Basically each type has it's bullet point list of "likes" and "dislikes". Whenever I feel that a character has done something to meet either criteria, their relationship status goes up or down a point.

The ratings are 1-20, just like attributes. The modifiers are bonuses or penalties to social checks with them. However, they also overlap with old school reaction tables too, so if the PC encounters these groups, they'll react on a scale from favorable to indifferent to outright hostile.

Can't really help with tracking things like "number of followers or fans" like in the Rockband video games of yore, but was pretty solid for basic things.

And it was easy to understand by the players. "hey PC, your relationship with Shadowheart isn't so great, if you want her to help you out in this quest, gotta make a Persuasion check at -2". Or "you helped the Gondians in the past, so your social checks are all at +3 and they're more likely to do a favor for you!".

 

[Nerdette]

These are interesting suggestions. There is no official system for showing influence, but thank you for the suggestions. Also, I am not currently rich, I would consider my character middle class currently.