If you are already tracking in-game time in your game, you could use that to build in some kind of "decay", to make table space, I think! I haven't tried this myself, but I can think of two ways to do it: 1) Keep careful records (etc.): Assign each deed a "lifespan" on the table, reduce it as time passes, and when it hits 0, remove the deed from the table. (e.g. Defeated the bandits / 6 months, reduce value by 1 each month). 2) Assign each deed an "impact" score, or derive it from the % you assigned it. (i.e. 2% = Impact 1, 50% = Impact 25, if using your d% table) At whatever interval works for your game, throw dice to determine if the deed's Impact score changes, and adjust % band / remove from table accordingly. (No idea what die would work best. d6, no change on 1-4, reduce by 1 on a 5-6?)
It's not unlike the Infamy options in WEG's Star Wars. Reputation can be a very interesting tool to apply to one's campaigns, but, as Earthmote points out, is often forgotten or either under used or improperly used in my opinion.
@@Earthmote I have most of it collecting dust these days. When a friend picked up the d20 Star Wars core book I found it just as good, if not easier for players who are familiar with the D20 system.
@@yourseatatthetable WEG Star Wars was fun. We only played it a few times a long time ago but it was enjoyable. I picked up the d20 Star Wars a long time ago and never touched it. It sits on the shelf.
In almost 40 years of gaming, reputation seems to be a forgotten tool to enhance a game. The way you described it seems fairly easy. Adjusting the percentages could be a good use of a chat bot where you cut and paste the table in and tell it to weight different deeds higher than others and have it create a table for you each time the group adds a new deed worthy of it.
When the list fills up, you could also add a second column, and put more deeds in. So 01-08 is "Defeated the Bluehand Bandits", 09-24 is "defeated Blurg" but then 01-16 is ALSO "Found the lost Amulet of Fire" That way if you were to roll a 06, they know about the Bandits and the amulet. If you roll a 14, they know about Blurg and the Amulet If you roll a 20, they only know about Blurg
Yeah, that could add some nice depth! Might get a bit complex for simple roadside encounters. But there's nothing saying you couldn't just pick one/scale it based on the use case.
This is one thing I was going to suggest. As the party builds their reputation, it makes less and less sense that people would only know one story about them. The other thing that I wanted to add is that you could use this to mechanically represent npcs that are particularly well informed like bards, spymasters or information brokers by rolling multiple times on the table.
If you are using factions, what a great way to see if a faction has heard of the party. Then, based on the faction, you can decide or roll for its member's reactions. This higher the party's reputation, the more likely they will be recognized (for better or worse).
You get this in video games, like Darklands where you get more rewarding missions and get to talk to fancier people, and Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, where it's sort of like a party level that affects reactions with aligned NPCs and somewhat neutrals, and makes things worse with opposite alignments and factions. Into this sort of thing, especially if it can't be obviously gamed to make things weird
Blades in the dark does an excellent job of making repution matter. Individual players have their character sheet but the team as a whole also has one shared crew sheet that tracks repution and other shared assets. Having it tracked on a sheet helps remind everyone of what matters.
For my own game, I've been experimenting with turning reputation into an abstract currency that players can spend on social benefits. I think having these things spelled out in mechanical terms encourages players to consider them more often.
I had been conceptualizing levels not so much as pure experience but also renown, or here reputation, giving it the plus or minus character one sees insinuated in the early advice to DMs and rules. I think the level up might be how I can expand the % ranges for each benchmark achieved adventure to adventure (as older modules move one up in levels), thus destroying the brigand band gives XP towards level and a thing to be known for, or reputation, but as one levels up that means more people know you did that so it increases friction (or improves alliances) with the NPCs, especially allies or bosses of those bandits! A way to track and bond players to the campaign arc or trails and have progress have meaning and impact.
It's a lot of fun if the party meet someone with a negative perception of their past heroics. A lot of the time, they won't really understand what this animosity is about at first. So it may be good to have the NPC make it explicit (though not every time, of course). Having the PCs trying to win over an NPC can be a lot of fun, and has on occasion been the beginning of a beautiful friendship. I've never built an explicit table like that, which sounds fun. What would be the pros and cons on letting the players see the table? Maybe let them spend downtime to surreptitiously research their own rep, like Henry V going anonymously into his camp.
I don't see too many issues with showing them. Sometimes transparency can be fun to discuss with the right group. Some people don't like knowing about the meta mechanics the GM uses to run the game for immersion issues. But I'd guess they are a minority. I suppose you might also have players quibble about the weights you assign to different deeds.
You can earn titles and bounties based on your deeds. If you do bad things people will hear. You live in a world where little birds can actually tell secrets, so it's up to you whether you want to act honourably. Just know Arsonist Jim might not be treated as well as Brave Champion Jim.
My gaming group often uses fire as a solution to solve problems. It's a running joke every so often when we are doing a PC discussion on how to solve a problem, someone will mention to burning the place down. When you mentioned Arsonist Jim I started laughing.
More tables. That seems like a lot of work. How about a lazy-Susan instead? Making reputation into a currency of sorts by calling in favors (thus discarding it) would urge the characters to continue their pursuit of heroic challenges and not just sit on their laurels. In some cases, receiving a poor reputation requires some restitution to alleviate that, or keeping it curries favor in shadier company. - I like game parts that can be seen and handled at the table. A combination of tokens, dice, and cards that represents the state of the character may be a fun way to reduce checking the numbers on the sheet. Hmm.
@Earthmote meta-currency! That’s it! Maybe that’s why Talisman is one of my favorite games. How simple it would be to create a TTRPG character by dealing out cards, players pick tokens from a bag, and assign dice to various pools. Treasures include the typical coins, gem, etc. but also favors, songs, tasks, letters, books, deeds, charms, trinkets and so forth. I suppose the table would begin to look like a poker match in the style of frosted lucky charms. Theatre of the mind…blown.
This shows what is wrong with D&D. Anything not previously covered ends up as some ad hoc houserule. And really the only reason that most of the rules are considered canon is because they had been published. Make up something totally stupid but get it published and instantly it is Rules As Written. Just play Gurps where reputation is already a thing. If players do something amazing reward then with a Reputation advantage. Figure out what, in simple terms, the player is known for, the rough number of people who might know, and of course what degree of influence that reputation would have. Typically this last part is anywhere between -5 and +5. This is very similar to attractiveness, charm, or a pleasant voice in that the player uses it to influence the outcome of the meeting. If the reputation doesn't apply because the NPC is from a different locality, religion, organization, etc then this would be the same as trying to flash a blind man, or verbally seduce the deaf. In Gurps all things cost character points and these points can be awarded upon completion of a mission. Instead of an amount of money based on the player's wealth and social standing, they might be given a reputation instead once they return home with a story to tell. As a side, the social status itself is also an advantage that can be awarded in the same way with very similar effects. Just have lordships handed out to whomever slay the beast. So when an encounter is made, total up all the bonuses the player has from whatever applicable source and add it to a 3d6 roll. The player could be +3 attractive but have a -3 reputation and end up with a net +0 modifier. The higher this result the better the NPC reacts to the player with 10 being totally indifferent or apathetic. Below 3 would get a hostile reaction while above 18 would totally fangirl.
@@Subject_Keter Mine aren't house rules. They are from Gurps which is a completely different and better game system. Gurps actually has a table of what the results mean but I simplified it for my comment by saying low is a bad reaction and high is good reaction. What I left out was the type of encounter it might be. Trying to haggle for a better price is a bit different than trying to convince someone to put down the gûn or to get someone to deliver a note. The advantage of Gurps over what is in this video is that you never run out of space on the chart. A person might have 50 different reputations based on who they interact with. None of them ever have to go away, except of course some of them might not apply for a given encounter. You could be seen as a thief by one community (the rich) but as a generous savior by another (the poor). And if you travel to another continent neither of them might apply when you arrive but certainly would if you ever returned.
I like the idea of building the d100 table. Great way to keep it immersive
My contribution to build your reputation…YOU ARE AWESOME!!
No kidding, amazing material that you are releasing!
Thank you that's very kind! Credit to Luke Gearing and Murkdice for sparking the idea of the video.
Now that's a topic I didn't know I would be interested in.
D&D Reputation Mechanics=
3.5e "Unearthed Arcana" page 180. It works well enough, & can be applied to any edition.
This is such an amazing concept. Immediately rolling with an adaptation of it. Thanks
I'm glad you're finding it useful!
If you are already tracking in-game time in your game, you could use that to build in some kind of "decay", to make table space, I think! I haven't tried this myself, but I can think of two ways to do it:
1) Keep careful records (etc.): Assign each deed a "lifespan" on the table, reduce it as time passes, and when it hits 0, remove the deed from the table. (e.g. Defeated the bandits / 6 months, reduce value by 1 each month).
2) Assign each deed an "impact" score, or derive it from the % you assigned it. (i.e. 2% = Impact 1, 50% = Impact 25, if using your d% table) At whatever interval works for your game, throw dice to determine if the deed's Impact score changes, and adjust % band / remove from table accordingly. (No idea what die would work best. d6, no change on 1-4, reduce by 1 on a 5-6?)
It's not unlike the Infamy options in WEG's Star Wars. Reputation can be a very interesting tool to apply to one's campaigns, but, as Earthmote points out, is often forgotten or either under used or improperly used in my opinion.
I haven't looked at WEG's Star Wars, but I know people enjoy it!
@@Earthmote I have most of it collecting dust these days. When a friend picked up the d20 Star Wars core book I found it just as good, if not easier for players who are familiar with the D20 system.
@@yourseatatthetable WEG Star Wars was fun. We only played it a few times a long time ago but it was enjoyable. I picked up the d20 Star Wars a long time ago and never touched it. It sits on the shelf.
@@isaace8090 I have plenty of systems collecting dust. It's been about ten years since I last ran a Star Wars game.
@@yourseatatthetable I use some of the dusty game books for idea fodder for other games so I don't feel that bad about it.
In almost 40 years of gaming, reputation seems to be a forgotten tool to enhance a game. The way you described it seems fairly easy. Adjusting the percentages could be a good use of a chat bot where you cut and paste the table in and tell it to weight different deeds higher than others and have it create a table for you each time the group adds a new deed worthy of it.
When the list fills up, you could also add a second column, and put more deeds in.
So 01-08 is "Defeated the Bluehand Bandits", 09-24 is "defeated Blurg"
but then 01-16 is ALSO "Found the lost Amulet of Fire"
That way if you were to roll a 06, they know about the Bandits and the amulet.
If you roll a 14, they know about Blurg and the Amulet
If you roll a 20, they only know about Blurg
Yeah, that could add some nice depth! Might get a bit complex for simple roadside encounters. But there's nothing saying you couldn't just pick one/scale it based on the use case.
This is one thing I was going to suggest. As the party builds their reputation, it makes less and less sense that people would only know one story about them.
The other thing that I wanted to add is that you could use this to mechanically represent npcs that are particularly well informed like bards, spymasters or information brokers by rolling multiple times on the table.
Great information here! I will incorporate this idea into my campaigns.
If you are using factions, what a great way to see if a faction has heard of the party. Then, based on the faction, you can decide or roll for its member's reactions. This higher the party's reputation, the more likely they will be recognized (for better or worse).
Yep! Love some faction interplay
Really good stuff, I never thought of doing it that way.
Amazing video! Very valuable stuff. Thanks for adding the link to the blogs.
Glad you liked it! Happy to credit the ideas where it is due.
This is an incredible idea
You get this in video games, like Darklands where you get more rewarding missions and get to talk to fancier people, and Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, where it's sort of like a party level that affects reactions with aligned NPCs and somewhat neutrals, and makes things worse with opposite alignments and factions. Into this sort of thing, especially if it can't be obviously gamed to make things weird
I was just trying to come up with something for reputation and social status. I like what you have better. Well done.
Thanks!
Blades in the dark does an excellent job of making repution matter. Individual players have their character sheet but the team as a whole also has one shared crew sheet that tracks repution and other shared assets. Having it tracked on a sheet helps remind everyone of what matters.
Yeah, what's tracked is managed!
For my own game, I've been experimenting with turning reputation into an abstract currency that players can spend on social benefits. I think having these things spelled out in mechanical terms encourages players to consider them more often.
Excellent ideas here. Thanks for the video, I'm going to make use of that.
Glad it was helpful!
I had been conceptualizing levels not so much as pure experience but also renown, or here reputation, giving it the plus or minus character one sees insinuated in the early advice to DMs and rules. I think the level up might be how I can expand the % ranges for each benchmark achieved adventure to adventure (as older modules move one up in levels), thus destroying the brigand band gives XP towards level and a thing to be known for, or reputation, but as one levels up that means more people know you did that so it increases friction (or improves alliances) with the NPCs, especially allies or bosses of those bandits! A way to track and bond players to the campaign arc or trails and have progress have meaning and impact.
Sounds interesting! Let us know how it works out for you.
It's a lot of fun if the party meet someone with a negative perception of their past heroics. A lot of the time, they won't really understand what this animosity is about at first. So it may be good to have the NPC make it explicit (though not every time, of course). Having the PCs trying to win over an NPC can be a lot of fun, and has on occasion been the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
I've never built an explicit table like that, which sounds fun. What would be the pros and cons on letting the players see the table? Maybe let them spend downtime to surreptitiously research their own rep, like Henry V going anonymously into his camp.
I don't see too many issues with showing them. Sometimes transparency can be fun to discuss with the right group.
Some people don't like knowing about the meta mechanics the GM uses to run the game for immersion issues. But I'd guess they are a minority. I suppose you might also have players quibble about the weights you assign to different deeds.
Good starting mechanic. Now it need to be fleshed out better
Excellent!
You can earn titles and bounties based on your deeds. If you do bad things people will hear. You live in a world where little birds can actually tell secrets, so it's up to you whether you want to act honourably. Just know Arsonist Jim might not be treated as well as Brave Champion Jim.
My gaming group often uses fire as a solution to solve problems. It's a running joke every so often when we are doing a PC discussion on how to solve a problem, someone will mention to burning the place down. When you mentioned Arsonist Jim I started laughing.
Another great video!
More tables. That seems like a lot of work. How about a lazy-Susan instead? Making reputation into a currency of sorts by calling in favors (thus discarding it) would urge the characters to continue their pursuit of heroic challenges and not just sit on their laurels. In some cases, receiving a poor reputation requires some restitution to alleviate that, or keeping it curries favor in shadier company.
-
I like game parts that can be seen and handled at the table. A combination of tokens, dice, and cards that represents the state of the character may be a fun way to reduce checking the numbers on the sheet. Hmm.
I suppose that depends on your thoughts and preferences around meta currencies in your game systems. But a system like that could definitely work!
@Earthmote meta-currency! That’s it! Maybe that’s why Talisman is one of my favorite games. How simple it would be to create a TTRPG character by dealing out cards, players pick tokens from a bag, and assign dice to various pools. Treasures include the typical coins, gem, etc. but also favors, songs, tasks, letters, books, deeds, charms, trinkets and so forth. I suppose the table would begin to look like a poker match in the style of frosted lucky charms. Theatre of the mind…blown.
...but I don't give a damn about my bad reputation :/
* Shrek fight at farquads castle ensues *
This shows what is wrong with D&D. Anything not previously covered ends up as some ad hoc houserule. And really the only reason that most of the rules are considered canon is because they had been published. Make up something totally stupid but get it published and instantly it is Rules As Written.
Just play Gurps where reputation is already a thing. If players do something amazing reward then with a Reputation advantage. Figure out what, in simple terms, the player is known for, the rough number of people who might know, and of course what degree of influence that reputation would have.
Typically this last part is anywhere between -5 and +5. This is very similar to attractiveness, charm, or a pleasant voice in that the player uses it to influence the outcome of the meeting.
If the reputation doesn't apply because the NPC is from a different locality, religion, organization, etc then this would be the same as trying to flash a blind man, or verbally seduce the deaf.
In Gurps all things cost character points and these points can be awarded upon completion of a mission. Instead of an amount of money based on the player's wealth and social standing, they might be given a reputation instead once they return home with a story to tell.
As a side, the social status itself is also an advantage that can be awarded in the same way with very similar effects. Just have lordships handed out to whomever slay the beast.
So when an encounter is made, total up all the bonuses the player has from whatever applicable source and add it to a 3d6 roll. The player could be +3 attractive but have a -3 reputation and end up with a net +0 modifier.
The higher this result the better the NPC reacts to the player with 10 being totally indifferent or apathetic. Below 3 would get a hostile reaction while above 18 would totally fangirl.
"Aaaa anything dnd does is stupid because houserules... so follow my brand of houserules" 😂
@@Subject_Keter Mine aren't house rules. They are from Gurps which is a completely different and better game system.
Gurps actually has a table of what the results mean but I simplified it for my comment by saying low is a bad reaction and high is good reaction. What I left out was the type of encounter it might be. Trying to haggle for a better price is a bit different than trying to convince someone to put down the gûn or to get someone to deliver a note.
The advantage of Gurps over what is in this video is that you never run out of space on the chart. A person might have 50 different reputations based on who they interact with. None of them ever have to go away, except of course some of them might not apply for a given encounter. You could be seen as a thief by one community (the rich) but as a generous savior by another (the poor). And if you travel to another continent neither of them might apply when you arrive but certainly would if you ever returned.