Old World» Reputation

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Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,
Is the immediate jewel of their souls:
Who steals my purse steals trash; ’tis something, nothing;
’Twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name,
Robs me of that which not enriches him,
And makes me poor indeed.

—Iago

Contents

If your adventures are successful, words of your characters’ deeds will likely spread far and wide. The nature of that reputation will depend on your actions, and will, in turn, affect how people see you and how they treat you. Your characters’ reputations affect all other social interactions—every use of a social skill (like Diplomacy or Intimidate), reaction rolls?, morale checks?, your leadership score, what sorts of people gravitate toward you, and what sorts of opportunities for quests and adventures you find.

Reputation score

A character’s (or an adventuring party’s; see Group reputation, below) reputation score has three components: renown, fear, and love (the latter two of which are together known as “valence”). It is written as follows: renown / fear / love. (Example: 2/+5/+3 means that the character has renown 2, fear +5, love +3.)

Renown

Your renown is how widely known you are. A character’s renown is a value from 0 to 6, and corresponds to the scale of the region on which he might be recognized:

A character’s renown changes when he performs deeds that get people talking. Specifically, performing a deed that has a renown rating higher than his current renown increases his renown by 1 (to a maximum of 6). (Larger changes are possible in exceptional circumstances, but should not be typical.) The DM determines the renown rating of actions taken by the player characters, but the following are some representative examples:

Valence

The fear and love aspects of a character’s reputation score (which together are known as valence) correspond directly to the fear / love components of NPC reactions?. In other words, where renown represents how widely known a character is, valence represents what people think of the character, assuming that they’ve heard of him at all.

A character’s reputation valence shifts when he does things that are, to some degree, unexpected or extraordinary, given his current reputation valence. (Performing deeds that are totally unsurprising or expected merely maintains a character’s current reputation valence.) Note that anything which increases a character’s renown is by definition an extraordinary deed, and so inevitably also shifts the character’s reputation valence; the reverse is not true, however (it’s possible for reputation valence to shift without renown increasing).

The following descriptions of the fear and love components of a character’s reputation valence refer to reactions, but remember that they apply to reputation in the same way. Reputation may thus be thought of as “reactions in advance”—what someone thinks of you, before they’ve ever met you.

Fear

Fear refers to a person’s perception of how strong (in a general sense, not just a physical one), intimidating, and impressive you are. A dictator or authoritarian king is seen as strong, as is warrior famous for his skill at arms, or a well-respected judge known for her harsh but fair decisions.

A high Fear reaction does not necessarily mean that the person is afraid of you or thinks that you will harm them; rather, it means that they respect you for your strength or influence, and your willingness to use it. A good creature may be feared just as much as an evil one; an impeccably honorable paladin who elicits a high Fear reaction may be one who is perceived as brooking no compromise, who will readily fight for his beliefs, and whom one should not challenge when matters of justice are at stake. High Fear reactions may be elicited by characters of great social standing and power just as easily (if not more so) as by characters of superior combat prowess.

The opposite of fear is disdain. A character who elicits a low Fear reaction is perceived as weak, unimpressive, someone who does not need to be taken seriously, who may be ignored, bossed around, or treated without consideration.

Love

Love refers to a person’s positive feelings toward you: admiration, esteem, approval, fondness, or even reverence. A high Love reaction means that the person sees you as good, and smart, and kind, and capable (the halo effect ensures that people rarely separate their perceptions of your different positive qualities). A character who is loved is perceived as a great person, and their actions and words will be seen in the best light. Someone who is outgoing, open, and attractive may elicit a high Love reaction, as can a celebrity or famous personage—a character known for their good deeds, impressive accomplishments, or high social status. Even an evil person may elicit a high Love reaction. “Aye, he’s a right bastard,” people may say, “but you have to give him credit…”

The opposite of love is hate. A character who elicits a low Love reaction is disliked or even hated. They are perceived as offputting, disgusting, or evil (if the Love reaction is sufficiently low). Things they say and do will be viewed in the worst light.

Regional reputations

Although the descriptions on this page generally refer to a character’s reputation (singular), in fact a character may (and typically does) have multiple reputations. The reason for this is that characters may travel widely, and deeds performed in one place may not directly affect a character’s reputation elsewhere.

A reputation score (i.e., a single set of renown/fear/love values) is associated with a “point of origin”—a population center or region from which word of a character’s deeds might begin to spread. Strictly speaking, each character can be thought of as having a reputation score for each village, town, city, province, etc., in the world; however, the vast majority of such regional reputation scores are not tracked, as they never deviate from their default value of 0/—/—. Only when a character actually performs some noteworthy deeds does a reputation score for the relevant region begin to be tracked.

For example, a character (or an adventuring party; see Group reputation) might build a tower near Drylake, while occasionally venturing out into the wastes to go dungeon-delving, and may gain a local reputation as a mysterious but kindly wizard; he might then travel to Stavronne? and participate in the intrigues of the royal court, becoming known in the capital for his political machinations. Our wizard would thus have two separate reputation scores, each with their own renown / fear / love components.

When determining an NPC’s attitude toward a character, a recognition check (see Recognition) is made for each of a character’s reputation scores. If the NPC recognizes the character via multiple of the character’s reputations, valences are averaged across all recognized reputation scores. (Precisely what this means in terms of the NPC’s opinion of the character is up to the DM to determine.)

Group reputation

An adventuring party usually has a single reputation score; individual group members need not have their reputations tracked separately. A character may acquire a separate reputation if he goes off by himself to have some adventure which then reaches the public awareness. Even then, to the extent that the members of the party are commonly seen to travel together and closely associate with each other, each group member’s deeds reflect on the rest of the party.

Recognition

When a character first encounters an NPC (or first arrives in a community), the DM makes recognition checks for that NPC or community (one check for each of the character’s reputation scores). If a recognition check is successful, then the character’s reputation valence takes the place of the reaction rolls? for that NPC or community. (In essence, people who recognize a character will react to that character in accordance with his reputation, rather than forming a “naive” first impression of the character.)

A recognition check is a Knowledge check (typically using the Knowledge (local) skill, although other Knowledge skill topics may be appropriate in certain circumstances). The check DC is 20 + 5 for every step of distance from the relevant reputation score’s point of origin (same village-sized region—0; same town-centered region—1; same city-centered region—2; same kingdom/country—3; same continent—4; same world—5; different world—6) − 5 × renown rating for that reputation score.

(For example, the check to recognize renown 1 characters in the same village where they are known is DC 15 = 20 + (5 × 0) − (5 × 1); to recognize renown 3 characters in the same kingdom where they’re known is DC 20 = 20 + (5 × 3) − (5 × 3); to recognize renown 5 characters in the same town where they’re known is DC 5 = 20 + (5 × 2) − (5 × 5).)

Effects of reputation

A character’s reputation has several concrete effects.

Social interaction

Reputation affects social skill checks (including information-gathering; research checks made via interpersonal interactions; “shopping”, i.e. seeking out rare goods or services; etc.) via NPC attitudes, which apply modifiers to such checks (these are typically +/− 2 through 8). See Reaction Rolls? for more information.

Leadership

Characters of renown 2 or greater naturally attract followers. Any such character has a leadership score (note that each character has their own, individual leadership score, even if they are members of an adventuring party or other group with a single collective reputation score). A character’s leadership score determines how many followers he can attract.

A character’s leadership score is equal to his renown × 5 + his Charisma modifier. The following modifiers apply to a character’s leadership score:

All modifiers are cumulative (except for the class modifier).

Quests/events

Fame makes for a turbulent life. Characters who become widely known soon discover that they no longer have to go out to look for adventure; now it comes to them, whether they want it or not.

The following is a suggested method for generating random periodic happenings produced by the player characters’ reputations. A DM is free to ignore the suggestions below, and to instead use his own whim or judgment to determine the consequences of the party’s actions.

Each month, roll d6; if the roll is up to the party’s renown rating, an event occurs. (This uses the highest renown rating that applies to their current location.) The specific roll of the d6 determines what actually happens:

  1. PCs approached with a quest, job, etc. (The quest or job will be appropriate to their reputation valence at the location.)
  2. Past is prologue, for weal or woe (roll d2):
    1. PCs are contacted with relevant information about some interest of theirs; or, a long-standing project/endeavor/business of the PCs bears fruit or yields some exceptional result. (If no such thing, then as #1.)
    2. Complication: a rival plots against the PCs, a nemesis returns to plague them, they’re accused—truly or falsely—of a crime, someone tries to steal a prized possession, etc.
  3. As #2.
  4. Benefit or burden of fame (roll d2):
    1. Someone makes the PCs a lucrative offer (that is not a quest or job; perhaps the PCs are invited to participate in some exclusive club, endeavor, etc).
    2. Someone wants something from the PCs (information, support, etc.; this might include lower-level adventurers coming to the PCs for aid).
  5. Roll twice; count rolls of 5 or 6 as 1 or 2 respectively.
  6. Roll thrice; count rolls of 5 or 6 as 1 or 2 respectively.

(If in doubt how to interpret results #2 or #4, or there’s no obvious interpretation, simply default to result #1 instead. For results #5 or #6, the events may be totally unrelated, or may share a single cause or origin.)

Note that at higher levels of renown, PCs are likely to get so many offers of quests or jobs that they can’t possibly take on all of them. They may wish to farm out some of the less-interesting offers to adventuring parties of their followers, to their allies, etc.

Category: Rules