Improving Reputation

[The Shadow]

While going through some old True20 files of mine, I found one I had unaccountably never posted. It's an attempt at reworking the Reputation system, and I'd appreciate comment. It's not as complex as aaronil's system, being based on the Wealth mechanic.

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Reputation as currently implemented in True20 is deeply flawed. First off, one's Reputation score applies only to recognition, and even then is so easily overwhelmed by situational modifiers that it is basically a 'Mother May I' ability. Reputation depends only on level, rather than on a character's actual deeds. Infamy always applies a penalty, even when it would make sense for it apply a bonus. (On Intimidate, for example.) The feats given for enhancing the use of Reputation are so timid and weak as to be worthless. (Compare the Diplomatic feat to Skill Focus: Diplomacy, for example.) And the whole subsystem has a very un-True20 feel, IMHO. My gaming group basically ignores the whole thing and just uses Narrator judgement, just like other games.

Yet I think the idea of having a Reputation mechanic has promise. Let's ask ourselves what we want it to DO.

I, for one, want it to be a way for my character to be awesome. For my past deeds to have an influence on the present. For my character's reputation literally to precede him - for good and maybe sometimes for ill. On the other hand, I don't want to bog down with bookkeeping... don't want to have to remember that my Reputation has a bonus of +3 in the village of North Skellingham for the time we fought the goblins, for example. And I don't want a mechanic that is too far removed from other True20 stuff.

Here's a first sketch of a system I think has promise to do those things. Precise numbers remain to be filled in; input is welcome!

Let's do Reputation a bit like Wealth. You have a score that can go up and down, basically. The existing Reputation score is the baseline - you won't go below that number for long, barring unusual circumstances. Merely surviving for a while in an adventurer's lifestyle is a notable achievement!

You can try to impress somebody by making a Reputation check: d20 + your Reputation vs the "purchase cost" of the individual in question. The "purchase cost" is X + the person's level + their Wisdom. Ordinary and minion levels count for half. (Don't halve twice for Ordinary minions. However, minions can be affected in groups.) In effect you can declare a 20 on an interaction skill with that person (or distinct group of minions). The price can be adjusted upward by as much as +5 if you're outside your usual stomping grounds... and the Narrator can rule that it's impossible for someone to have heard of you, but that should be saved for truly unusual circumstances, like being teleported to an uncharted continent or star system. If you fail your Reputation check, you get -2 on all subsequent interaction checks with that person in that scene.

You lose Reputation when you "purchase" someone - basically, you are expending your political capital.

Someone can resist being impressed by you by matching your expenditure of Reputation points with their own. (Question: Should Reputation, like Wealth, let you automatically make lesser "purchases"?)

You gain Reputation by achieving notable deeds. Each adventure in which you succeed against odds appropriate to your level, you gain +1 Reputation, *if your success is public knowledge*. If you succeed against difficult odds, or your success is very public, you gain +2. And if you succeed against impossible odds or otherwise are extremely impressive on a nation-wide level, you gain +4. However, even saving the world will not improve your Reputation if your deed is unknown. You also gain +1 Reputation each adventure you're below your baseline. *Failing* adventures publicly causes you to lose Reputation in the same amounts.

You take a penalty to Disguise checks equal to half your Reputation score. And if someone is seeking to find out about you, via Gather Information or the like, they get a bonus equal to half your Reputation score. Negative Reputation gives a penalty to Gather Info, but not a bonus to Disguise.

If your Reputation is Y (15?) more than the cost necessary to impress someone, they are overawed by you - they want to make babies with you, or offer you sacrifices to make you go away, or the like. While this can have its uses, it can also be extremely annoying - just try to sneak into a town when groupies are swooning over you on every street corner! PC's are, naturally, immune to this effect.

New feats:

Renown (General): You gain +4 Reputation, and +1 to your baseline. This feat may be taken more than once.

Low Profile (General): You are -4 to Reputation, and -1 to your baseline. Also, you lose 1 Reputation each adventure you're *above* your baseline. If you later decide you don't want this feat, you can arrange with the Narrator over the course of several adventures to change it into Renown. The reverse transformation, however, is MUCH more difficult. This feat may be taken more than once, but cannot be combined with any amount of Renown.

Reputable (General): This feat reduces the "purchase cost" by 4 when using a specific interaction skill. This feat may be taken more than once; each time, it applies to a different skill.

Excellence: This works the same way as the existing feat in the True20 book.

[iwatt]

Some questions:

1) Hows the baseline set?

2) Besides the Disguise and Gather Info uses, what other benefits are there to Reputation.?

[ValhallaGH]

I, for one, want it to be a way for my character to be awesome.

And with this single phrase, you have summed up most of my game design philosophy. That gets my support.

I'll agree with iwatt that the setting of the baseline is important, perhaps more so than any other mechanical concern given the outline you've provided.

Ian, Reputation is used to "purchase" the behavior of NPCs encountered. Rather than convincing them that they should work for / with you (Diplomacy), or scaring them into working for / with you (Intimidate), Shadow's Reputation mechanic is used to simply buy the best result of either of those checks that the Narrator allows your character to have.
So, you could turn the small group of teenaged thieves into utterly loyal ("Helpful") associates that aid your renowned hero for the opportunities to a) do some cool heroic stuff, b) hang out with such a famous person, c) maybe get some material rewards out of it. All this, and you just arrived in town two hours ago.

I'll have more feedback as I think it over.

[The Shadow]

The baseline is the existing Reputation score from role levels, modified by feats and (now that I think of it) Charisma.

And VGH has the right of it - the primary use of my Reputation mechanic is to "purchase" 20's on interaction skill checks.

[The Shadow]

As I mull it over some more, some caveats do seem necessary. You shouldn't be able to impress people you're in combat with, for example. And it seems unlikely that you could win over the BBEG's sentry just by being well known. If anything, that would make him more likely to sound the alarm.

Perhaps I should simply state that it doesn't work in combat, and doesn't work on people who are already Hostile?

(This raises the related point of how badly Diplomacy needs to be revised. It's really not a well-designed skill. Rich Burlew's version is a good alternative, but I think it could be done even better.)

[cthughua]

Given that Diplomacy allows for a combat usage at a +10 Penalty to the final Difficulty, it would seem logical that a Combat usage of the reputation system incurs a similar penalty. I am sure there are instances in various media of an enemy suddenly recognizing a personality on the opposite side and be affected by them. A perfect use of Combat Diplomacy and indeed a heroic Reputation! I see this as being a fairly dramatic use of the skill and may not be appropriate for all genres.

[iwatt]

(This raises the related point of how badly Diplomacy needs to be revised. It's really not a well-designed skill. Rich Burlew's version is a good alternative, but I think it could be done even better.)

Take a look at CJM's Diplomacy hack. It came up in an IH discussion in which we both felt that the current Diplo rules and Rich's fix weren't exactly right. Then CJM did the heavy lifting

[ValhallaGH]

As I mull it over some more, some caveats do seem necessary. You shouldn't be able to impress people you're in combat with, for example. And it seems unlikely that you could win over the BBEG's sentry just by being well known. If anything, that would make him more likely to sound the alarm.

Unless your towering reputation as an ustopable force for good scares him into letting you through, with the hope that you drop his employer like a bad habit and protect him from repercussions.

There's always more than one way to look at things. Generally, one of those ways makes a lot of sense.

[The Shadow]

cthughua: That's what I get for posting without having the book handy. Yes, I agree that Combat Diplomacy is the way to handle this. In effect, buying a 20 with my Reputation system cancels out the Combat Diplomacy challenge, so it's basically a normal Diplomacy check.

VGH: The above should make you happy.

iwatt: Cool! It's basically Rich's system, only expanded. I do have some issues with it, but perhaps that needs to be in another thread. Look for it shortly!

EDIT: The Diplomacy thread is here.

So, any thoughts on what X and Y should be? And how much Reputation should you lose after "buying" someone?

[barsoomcore]

Reputation ought to have more negatives than just making it easier to find you via Gather Information. My NPCs aren't going to be making Gather Information checks.

Perhaps other characters can USE your Reputation score AGAINST your interaction attempts? If Captain Red-Eyes has heard of how tricky and charming Victoria can be, he's going to be that much harder for her to successfully use her Bluff against.

Not sure how that would work.

[The Shadow]

Reputation ought to have more negatives than just making it easier to find you via Gather Information. My NPCs aren't going to be making Gather Information checks.

Well, there's also the Disguise penalty, but your point is well taken.

Perhaps other characters can USE your Reputation score AGAINST your interaction attempts? If Captain Red-Eyes has heard of how tricky and charming Victoria can be, he's going to be that much harder for her to successfully use her Bluff against.

Not sure how that would work.

Hmmm. An interesting and viable idea.

We probably don't want minions and the like to be using this; they exist to be overawed by reputable characters. So perhaps bad guys can spend a point of Conviction to get your Reputation score as a bonus to resist interaction? You would need to spend a point of Conviction in opposition in order to cancel it out. This reflects a common trope, where the bad guy makes a big point of being on guard against the tricky hero, but the hero tricks him anyway.

[cthughua]

I like that A LOT.

[barsoomcore]

Perhaps bad guys can spend a point of Conviction to get your Reputation score as a bonus to resist interaction? You would need to spend a point of Conviction in opposition in order to cancel it out. This reflects a common trope, where the bad guy makes a big point of being on guard against the tricky hero, but the hero tricks him anyway.

Genius. Total fricking genius.

I don't like the "baseline" reputation. Wealth doesn't have a baseline, though it can't fall below 0. Let's say the same for Reputation, or perhaps that the minimum Reputation score is level/5, rounded down. That's pretty low, and keeps all characters the same (I never understood why Warriors have lower Reputations than Adepts and Experts). But call it minimum instead of baseline. Even if you take "Low Profile", you can't reduce your Reputation below the minimum. It's just simpler that way.

When you want to use your Reputation to your advantage, you make a Reputation check: d20 + Reputation + other modifiers against a Difficulty of 5 + the target's level + the target's Wisdom. Minions and Ordinaries add only half their level to the Difficulty. On a successful Reputation check, you can choose to use any interaction skill with that person (or group of minions) without making a roll, as though you had rolled a 20 on the die.

If the Difficulty is higher than your Reputation, your Reputation decreases by one. If the Difficulty is higher than 15, your Reputation decreases by one. If both of these conditions are true, your Reputation decreases by two. Your Reputation can never decrease below your minimum.

Narrator characters may choose to take advantage of your Reputation. To do so, the character spends a Conviction point (thus, Ordinaries and Minions may not take advantage of a hero's Reputation) as a free action. For the rest of that encounter, the Narrator character has a bonus to resist any of the hero's interaction skills equal to the hero's Reputation bonus. The hero may spend a Conviction point to end this effect.

Gaining Reputation
Professional Skills
A character can choose to use their professional skill to improve their Reputation rather than their Wealth when they gain a level.

Reputation Awards
Characters can gain Reputation awards through adventuring just as they can gain Wealth awards.


Thoughts?

[The Shadow]

Genius. Total fricking genius.

*takes a bow* Thenk-yow. :)

Great minds think alike, too. I was mulling this over last night and running some numbers, and reaching many of the same conclusions you do in this post. But you do have at least one brilliant idea that made me thunk my head into the keyboard because it was so much better than anything I'd come up with.

I don't like the "baseline" reputation. Wealth doesn't have a baseline, though it can't fall below 0.

Sigh. I put the baseline in because I have felt for a long time that Wealth needs one too. At any rate it has long annoyed me that Wealthy is the only feat in the game that gives no permanent benefit.

There also seems to be no way to represent, and precious little motivation to do so, a character who is poor. Caliphate Nights made a valiant attempt, by creating feats with maximum Wealth prerequisites.

But I suppose this is for (yet?) another thread. :)

Let's say the same for Reputation, or perhaps that the minimum Reputation score is level/5, rounded down. That's pretty low, and keeps all characters the same (I never understood why Warriors have lower Reputations than Adepts and Experts). But call it minimum instead of baseline. Even if you take "Low Profile", you can't reduce your Reputation below the minimum. It's just simpler that way.

OK, I can get on board with a minimum, I guess. It's definitely simpler. Though I'm not sure why Low Profile can't let you go below level/5?

When you want to use your Reputation to your advantage, you make a Reputation check: d20 + Reputation + other modifiers against a Difficulty of 5 + the target's level + the target's Wisdom. Minions and Ordinaries add only half their level to the Difficulty. On a successful Reputation check, you can choose to use any interaction skill with that person (or group of minions) without making a roll, as though you had rolled a 20 on the die.

Should the size of a group of minions add to their effective level somehow?

I'll have to run some numbers on this, but it looks reasonable at first blush. 5 was the number I was rolling around in my head as well.

I might as well share the thing that keeps me up at night... Imagine a character who has gone wild with increasing Reputation, hoarding it carefully... only to saunter into Barad-Dur and turn Sauron into his bitch. :) I'm exaggerating, but you get my point - it seems anticlimactic to Reputation a major villain to a pulp. Of course, even a 20 might well not do the job...

If the Difficulty is higher than your Reputation, your Reputation decreases by one. If the Difficulty is higher than 15, your Reputation decreases by one. If both of these conditions are true, your Reputation decreases by two. Your Reputation can never decrease below your minimum.

So 10th level is roughly where characters get impressive enough to get hard to impress. Works.

Narrator characters may choose to take advantage of your Reputation. To do so, the character spends a Conviction point (thus, Ordinaries and Minions may not take advantage of a hero's Reputation) as a free action. For the rest of that encounter, the Narrator character has a bonus to resist any of the hero's interaction skills equal to the hero's Reputation bonus. The hero may spend a Conviction point to end this effect.

I don't see why PC's can't use this on NPC's as well. True, PC's are immune to many uses of interaction skills, but not all. They can be feinted using Bluff, demoralized with Intimidate, and so forth. The Warrior's Handbook even had rules on resisting torture. (Ick, but still.)

And the villain spending the countering Conviction also has a fine narrative tradition: "No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die." (Of course, Bond managed to pull off an unmodified Bluff check to save his tender bits anyway, but that's what heroes do.)

Gaining Reputation
Professional Skills
A character can choose to use their professional skill to improve their Reputation rather than their Wealth when they gain a level.

This is the brilliant piece I could not think of on my own! I approve. I had come to the conclusion that there needed to be a boost-by-level to Reputation, as with Wealth, but could not figure out a way that satisfied me. Doing Wealth *or* Reputation is a tradeoff with teeth. I like it. (It also occurs to me that you've come up with a way for poor characters to remain poor, in addition! They're just all really well-known poor people. :)

Though I can easily conceive characters that have different Professional Skills for Reputation than Wealth. Take Sherlock Holmes. He paid the bills, so far as I can tell, with Knowledge (physical science)... but his Reputation was built on Search.

I've felt for some time that the Wealth gain by level is too generous. Do others find this to be so? I haven't run any long-running campaigns in True20 yet... It's not a huge deal for Wealth, but it might be a huge deal for Reputation.

Reputation Awards
Characters can gain Reputation awards through adventuring just as they can gain Wealth awards.

Much shorter, sweeter, and simpler than my paragraph on the subject.. Naturally, Reputation awards, like Wealth awards, are capped at +4. Is there any way to lose Reputation by screwing up?

All in all, I approve heartily. I do still like the penalty to Disguise and the bonus to Gather Info, though. NPC's might not use the latter, but PC's can! (NPC's have Reputation too.)

[The Shadow]

Oh! Almost forgot two things.

1) When an NPC spends Conviction to use a PC's Reputation against them, they should also become immune to being "purchased" for the scene. And I don't think that immunity goes away when the Conviction is countered.

My reasoning is that it after all that Conviction flies around, it seems rather anticlimactic to then resolve things like usual. The NPC has already shown themselves to be aware of the character's Reputation, and not to be positively impressed.

2) I still think that if you fail a Reputation check on someone, you're at -2 on interaction checks with them for the rest of the scene. And I don't think you can try again during the same scene, either. You can try Reputation checks on other people, of course.

EDIT: And a third...

3) Needless to say, most NPC's encounter PC's in groups. Should the Conviction point give you resistance to everybody in the group based on their Reputation? Or is it strictly one-on-one?