D&D 5E Reputation and social achievements

[FormerlyHemlock]

Then to the victor go the spoils! Maybe come up with one single formula to calculate Honor, something like CR*10 or XP/5 or whatever works for you. As you assign XP from an encounter, you use that formula to give Honor/Notoriety as well. There could be some special cases like a high-Honor fighter with a lower CR than he should, but the one-and-done equation might be a good baseline.

That's an interesting idea. Thanks for sharing it.

For me, a single formula to calculate Honor is kind of the opposite of the direction I'm going with this. Remember, Reputation doesn't do anything by default. It's not tied CR or physical power or money or anything concrete. It's entirely a roleplaying construct/game structure; it just happens to be one that some NPCs are acutely aware of, which means that it's a lever the players or PCs can play with to try to accomplish certain things within the game world.

I may come up with generalizations for how certain social groups tend to operate (such-and-such kinds of things tend to count as major victories among evil humanoids, and this-and-that are minor embarrassments among the nobility, and here's a quick way to gain acceptance among the peasants in most farming villages) but the system is deliberately heterogenous and context-dependent. That's the single biggest similarity to DMG Renown rules, in fact.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

[MENTION=6787650]Hemlock[/MENTION]
I don't think the specific reputation/renown system you use matters much, as long as it works and isn't too complicated.

What matters is what can you DO with reputation/renown.

For an example of my treatment of it in a recent game:

Ehhhhh... sort of. You seem to be using reputation for different purposes than I want to, as a sort of reward for PC behavior with inherent privileges. I get the impression that PCs in your system will primarily be aware of their own reputations; whereas I am more interested in a tool that allows players to manipulate NPC behavior by enhancing or threatening their reputations. I don't mind the idea of PCs with high reputations getting certain perks, but I don't really feel a strong need for an explicit system to accomplish that because it's not a game structure--you can just say, "These peasants love you so they share their meal with you." I do feel the need for a system that allows the players to know and quantify, when they have just tangled by proxy with Ferrovankoth the adult red dragon or Hextor the Death Knight, how much damage they did and how close they are to "winning" or at least forcing the battle to shift to a different, more physical plane. If I can just say, "Ferrovankoth has 200 reputation among dragons and is aiming for 500 within the century, which will make him preeminent among dragons his age" that's an NPC, a motivation, a set of goals, and an implied mechanism for players to interact with his goals (even while he is offscreen). Especially if the players consult a sage and learn some things that constitute embarrassments and victories among dragons. It's up to them whether they choose to use that knowledge to ally with Ferrovankoth, to blackmail him, or to trade with him (magic items for reputation-enhancing favors).

It could be that the system you're envisaging is closer to what my player was originally asking me for than mine is. I haven't heard any feedback yet (and this system won't see play before Wednesday at the very earliest; maybe not even then depending on what the players choose to do during the game) so we'll see.

 

[Quickleaf]

Ehhhhh... sort of. You seem to be using reputation for different purposes than I want to, as a sort of reward for PC behavior with inherent privileges. I get the impression that PCs in your system will primarily be aware of their own reputations; whereas I am more interested in a tool that allows players to manipulate NPC behavior by enhancing or threatening their reputations.

Ah, gotcha. You're using "reputation" more like what other games would call victory points. As in, given the abstract goal of diminishing a cult's power base among a city, if you achieve X victory points (the same as reducing the cult's reputation to 0) then the cult's hold on the city is broken.

For my purposes, the Sow Discord rules on DMG p. 131 are enough, but I could see a intrigue heavy game benefiting from your version of reputation points.

It could be that the system you're envisaging is closer to what my player was originally asking me for than mine is. I haven't heard any feedback yet (and this system won't see play before Wednesday at the very earliest; maybe not even then depending on what the players choose to do during the game) so we'll see.

Yeah, because you mentioned a player asking for it, I assumed it had to do with PC abilities. But you know what they say about assumption.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Ah, gotcha. You're using "reputation" more like what other games would call victory points. As in, given the abstract goal of diminishing a cult's power base among a city, if you achieve X victory points (the same as reducing the cult's reputation to 0) then the cult's hold on the city is broken.

For my purposes, the Sow Discord rules on DMG p. 131 are enough, but I could see a intrigue heavy game benefiting from your version of reputation points.

Precisely. Because I run a sandbox, I want there to be an intrigue-heavy subgame that the players can choose to engage with if they want to. Or they can stick to the dungeon crawl + combat game structure and its default goal of "I clear the dungeon by killing all the monsters, avoiding all the traps, and taking all the treasure." One of the properties that is therefore important to me in a reputation system is that it should be possible to bypass the whole system through, for example, sufficient amounts of physical violence; but it should also be rewarding to engage with and should give you options that aren't available through physical violence.

 

[happyhermit]

For my purposes, the Sow Discord rules on DMG p. 131 are enough, but I could see a intrigue heavy game benefiting from your version of reputation points.

I seem to have missed that blurb, might try that sometime.


As for the OP, I run sandbox type campaigns too and the amount of overhead that would introduce would be huge in our games. Unless I made the numbers rather arbitrary and only adjusted them when players interacted with the specific NPCs, it seems wonky. Do the NPCs have no effect on each other's reputations? Do events and actions of PCs not constantly change the PCs reputation in different circles? There would be so many things to consider.

I actually find the "renown" in the DMG to be a bit more elegant for the types of games I would run. It introduces very little overhead, comparatively, and it only effects the game through narrative and story (cannot really be separated to a mechanic mini-game).

For the most part though, I prefer a more organic view of the characters than either of these systems encourage. Trying to fit everyone into groups and factions (even multiple ones) tends to lead to less individualistic and realistic characters IME.

 

[The Grassy Gnoll]

Hi

The Superhero RPG Golden Heroes has an excellent system for character development, which includes a Public Status mechanic.

The basics are as follows;

PUBLIC STATUS
Rated from 5 to 30.

(1) BACKING
1 None
2 Backing of local community group/authority
3 Known to get on with police etc
4 Full backing of police/govt/large corp.
5 Known to operate with complete govt approval

(2) HEROISM
1 Antihero
2 Vigilante
3 Slightly suspect
4 Regular Hero
5 A real goody two shoes

(3) IDENTIFICATION
1 Obviously not human (alien/robot etc)
2 "Different"
3 Average
4 "One of the gang"
5 Guy/girl next door

(4) PUBLIC RELATIONS
1 Hates the public, makes it obvious
2 Ignores the public
3 Stand offish
4 Shows general concern for the public
5 Bends over backwards to help

(5) PRACTICE
1 Makes an appearance
2 Minor crime or confrontation with thugs
3 Riot/fire/major disaster or confrontation with thug-like super villain
4 Confrontation with minor super villain or terrorists/vigilantes
5 Confrontation with super villain or team of minor super villains
6 Confrontation with major super villain or team of super villains
7 Confrontation with major super villain and team of supporting super villains
8 Save the city
9 Save the country
10 Save the world

Each adventure has a Practice level assigned by the DM. If the character's current Practice level is lower than the Practice level of the adventure, and they succeed, the two values are added together and halved (keep halves).
If the adventure is lower than the current level and the character fails, the two values are averaged (keep halves).
A character's Practice score for an adventure is modified by -1 if the public were unaware of their involvement.
Failure in a Practice level above your current level, or success in one below, changes nothing, you current Practice level stays the same.

This all gives you a final Public Status score between 5 and 30:

5-10 Who?
11-15 Disliked/Resented
16-20 Accepted/Tolerated
21-25 Popular
26-29 National figure
30 Legendary

The final figure can be multiplied by 3 to give a percentage chance of an order being obeyed (eg PS of 22 = 66% chance); or in a group scenario where there's an equal chance of anyone in the party being targeted, the PC with the lowest PS score uses it x3 as the percentage they won't be targeted (eg PS of 14 = only a 42% chance they won't be targeted).

It could be adapted to D&D fairly easily; eg, starting PCs always have a practice level of 1; joining the Harpers gives you a Backing of 2 (but higher among Harpers); a Dragonborn in a largely human setting would score a 1 for Identification, and so on.

It then provides PCs with the ability to improve certain areas by spending downtime resources (so eg the Dragonborn could devote time to charity, or joining the pub darts team, or learning the national dance, or whatever).

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Tried this out last night. Mixed results. It livened up some NPC interactions and I liked that part, but one of the players (the one who asked for a reputation system in the first place) wants to make one giant pool of reputation instead of tracking it separately. He seems dissatisfied by the complexity--compared it to there not being multiple kinds of gold. I probably won't change that part but I'll think about ways to make it easier, which might mean changing physical artifacts. E.g. I could hang up reputation boards in the game room, showing who has the most rep in each peer group the PCs are in. Kind of like high score lists at the arcade.

That way you don't have to track rep on your character sheet AND you have more visibility into who your rivals are.

Sent from my SM-G355M using Tapatalk

 

[The Grassy Gnoll]

There might not be multiple types of gold, but what are cp, sp, pp and ep there for? They are defined as an amount of gold's worth. Same same.