Reputation System revisited

Have a question about the rules? Need some help with your latest plot? Just love talking about 7th Sea with others who share your love? Well this is the place

Reputation System revisited

Postby Ikkuhyu » Wed Jan 06, 2016 4:36 am

So when we started our new 7th Sea campaign some new players remarked upon some old issues, like how it is rather illogical that a bankrobber who subsequently saves a queen becomes less known.
Which led me to take a long hard look at these alternate Reputation rules presented in the Noblesse Oblige e-book. And while I find them a lot better, I was still not satisfied, so I decided to do a little rework...

We wanted a logical system that keeps track of a lot of different types of reputation, without becoming overly complicated.
So we ended up with 4 categories: Moral, Valor, Social and National Reputations. Each with a positive and a negative value.
And the reïntroduction of the Reputation Rank, so that these bonuses can easily applied during the game.

The result I share with you all to use (or not use) as you see fit.


Kind regards,
Wannes


PS: I am also looking into the Social dueling that was presented there, with more clearly defined rules and a battle-like social event table for those long court sessions, but no promises...

Edit: Discovered an issue involving reputation loss for duels, which had to be changed to a reputation reduction, also made a clarification on the difference between those two.
Attachments
7th Sea - Socializing - Reputation.pdf
(132.95 KiB) Downloaded 829 times
Ikkuhyu
 
Posts: 8
Joined: Thu Dec 24, 2015 1:18 am

Re: Reputation System revisited

Postby kckrupp » Sun Feb 21, 2016 10:58 pm

It's a shame no one's gotten back to you on this yet.

Personally, I think it's too complicated. The Moral/Valor rep is pretty straightforward and mirrors a lot of what I've seen people do with a sort of dual reputation solution. The Reputation circles, while interesting, just make things too convoluted for my personal style of play.

Two solutions I've always liked are as follows (each has their own benefits and challenges.)

1) Each PC and NPC has Reputation and Morality.
Reputation is the public perception and rises and gains the same way that the official Reputation does, while Morality represents the PC/NPC's actual moral center. Reputation rises and falls as NPCs/PCs perform heroic or villainous acts in a way that people are able to spread their name and story; if an act is performed in private or if those involved are sworn to secrecy, it has no impact on their Reputation. There is no limit to how high or how low Reputation can go. Then there's Morality, which can increase or decrease regardless of whether or not the action is seen. If a PC gets -30 in Morality they become an NPC. Morality has an upper limit of 160. For every 10 pts in Reputation (negative or positive) the PC gets a Reputation Die. For every 10 pts in Morality, the PC starts the story with an additional DD.

The benefits of this is it works really well for PCs that want to be more Scoundrel like and do questionable but not villainous actions, or if you want to run your PCs through a session where their reputation is sullied and they must slowly redeem themselves, because what decides whether or not they are a villain is their moral center more-so than how others view them. It also has the benefit of better addressing villains who are deceitful, their reputation may be high, but their moral center is rotten. The con is that it's still only 1 way, either positive or negative on the reputation front.

2) There are two types of Reputation: Heroic and Villainous.
This approach is similar to your Valor and Moral reputation, however the numbers only go 1 way: Heroic is positive (equal to or greater than 0) and Villainous is marked as negative (equal to or less than 0.) Performing heroic acts increases Heroic reputation and performing villainous acts will increase (well actually decrease since we're talking negative numbers here.) Every 10 of either reputation gives the PC/NPC a reputation die that must be used for a social interaction that exemplifies that sort of reputation (if you're trying to woo a lover with your heroic feats of courage you would use the Heroic reputation dice while if you're trying to woo a lover with your sense of mysteriousness and perhaps danger you would use villainous reputation dice.) If Villainous reputation drops to -30 the PC becomes a Villain.

In order to avoid becoming a Villain, a PC can spend 1 Heroic Reputation point to pay off 1 Villainous reputation point, so if a PC has 15 Heroic Reputation and -6 Villainous reputation, the PC can spend 6 of their Heroic Reputation to bring their Villainous reputation back to 0.

The benefit of this is that Scoundrel type characters can keep themselves hovering around the Scoundrel category, allowing them to keep earning Reputation dice without losing the benefits of the Scoundrel advantage they paid for. It also lets PCs choose when to have their reputation fluctuate if they're trying to hold onto reputation dice for a specific reason, and you as a GM can still call out the fact that they have some villainous reputation to them in social interactions and use it as reason for NPCs to potentially not full trust the PC. If they use Heroic reputation to pay off villainous reputation, it's like having the PC use the good word of their heroic actions cause people to forget and forgive them for the bad they've done.

I'm not saying your approach is bad, just that it sounds like too much bookkeeping and tracking for my taste. I do like the idea of characters having different sorts of reputation, which is something the 2nd Ed looks like it might be doing.
kckrupp
 
Posts: 100
Joined: Mon Aug 24, 2015 5:31 am

Re: Reputation System revisited

Postby Ikkuhyu » Wed Feb 24, 2016 11:09 pm

kckrupp wrote:I do like the idea of characters having different sorts of reputation, which is something the 2nd Ed looks like it might be doing.


It looks like they all have the same effect (1 bonus die if brought up during social interaction), but different flavor. They have this bought as an advantage rather than earned feel about them though.


It is indeed some bookkeeping and I have had that reaction from various people, so I'm starting to see the issue. ;-)

If I were to simplify the Reputation system I think I like the Heroic Rep as a positive, Villainous Rep as a negative as perceived by the world (giving Reputation Dice for both, solving the nobody-remembers-me issue).
And Morality as the personal allignment marker (determining if the character actually is a Hero, Scoundrel or Villain).

The National Reputations are easily removed by taking only the perspective of the character's Nation into account (possibly keeping defection and Dual-Nationality in mind).


Social Reputations are a bit trickier... perhaps the best solution is to give 'em the 2nd Ed treatment and consider them as 0 HP advantages/flaws (gained through other advantages/role play).
They could give a kept die as bonus/penalty to interactions with those of the same class or when that class is relevant (including Reputation uses, but always a bonus to recognition, making this possible without spending Rep dice).

I can see the Advantage side as being the equivalent of mastery levels representing how much power the character has within this class (perfect example is the Duelist Rep, where each mastery represents a higher ranking pin)
The Flaw side can then be received for serious or frequent transgressions against the rules and/or expected conduct, where -1 would reflect a bit of a poor reputation, -2 as a bad reputation, -3 resulting in being shunned by the community and -4 as being cast out (effectively removing the advantage side, you have become a walking scandal).


Actually I like this. It is simple, yet well rounded and does all of the things I want the system to do. Thanks for your take on it, your insights have helped me improve on my original idea.
Ikkuhyu
 
Posts: 8
Joined: Thu Dec 24, 2015 1:18 am


Return to 7th Sea Discussion (Rules/Play/Whathaveyou)

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 0 guests

cron