Reputation System or Skill for professions

[Aren]

The other day I had a somewhat random thought about why PCs don't become "known" for doing some of the incredible stuff some PCs do and why an individual doesn't start to build a reputation as a good mercenary or sublime chef or just incredible painter whose paintings are sought after. And, because fame and skill are not necessarily linked (you could be a master musician in your chosen instrument, but because you haven't played in many places, or for any influential people, nobody might know your name) I thought that it would interesting if there was a Reputation system or at least a skill pertaining to your chosen profession such as "Reputation - Dancer". Now, this post is to judge interest, and more importantly, feasibility. Is this even possible? Is it more trouble than it's worth? Is it wholly and completely pointless? Does anybody even care? The reason I suggest this apart from personal interest is because the idea is to create a sort of community amongst people who are linked by this system, in the same way that shield points link those characters who are squires and are aspiring to knighthood. It's that sense of something greater than yourself, of looking up to and wanting to reach a goal in your chosen profession, instead of just getting paid. My initial idea for implementation was (and keep in mind that is only the second time I'm voicing this idea apart from a quick query in chat) is a simple number system where you are awarded points for doing Job related threads right along with your normal grades. Now this would be a slowly progressing system (for obvious reasons) but, ideally, you'd get benefits for reaching certain milestones of reputation, such as a small discount in shops which carry goods essential, or related to your profession. The reasons for this is just makes sense, as merchants who know you and what you do would likely see it as an investment to sell you goods they know you need in order to encourage you to shop more often at their store. Of course, it would only make sense for there to be a variation for certain professions, such as those of the criminal variety, as reputation can be both a good and a bad thing in that respect. Good in criminal circles, but probably bad in reputable ones. Perhaps there could be a slightly better advantage in discounts (if we're using the same example) when dealing with certain shops and merchants, whilst actually needing to pay more when dealing with others. That's the basic gist of it, although the thought of having a regional reputation as well as a local one also crossed my mind, I don't know if that's unnecessarily complicating the pot. We'd already need to have a write up associated with the benefits and disadvantages one might receive for different levels of different jobs, so I'd rather focus on that. Now, tell me guys. Does anybody want to see their profession become a little bit more goal oriented, or am I just daft? I feel like the shield points system has really encouraged people to become squires and interact with their fellows, and that's what I want to inspire in other jobs. I'd especially like input from someone who might be able to tell me if this system is just too radical or seems like too much of a pain to implement and it would never get approval by founders or DSes or whoever has the authority to simply state "This is not going to happen" or "Go ahead and develop it". 'Cause without that, this is all just idle talk. Assuming that it does, the issues that need to be worked on and worked out are: 1. What fringe benefits or detriments would be associated with a particular reputation level for a particular profession? 2. Would there be an increase in base pay for certain jobs, as a higher reputation means the person is a more highly sought after employee? 3. Would a high enough reputation level mean that people who have never met you could possibly recognize your name or features (if sufficiently unique, like a famous Akalak seamstress)? 4. How quickly or slowly would progression be? Would it vary based on profession? Would it vary based on the quality or length of the thread from where you are receiving your Rep points, or would it be a static amount for every thread that qualifies (in which case it would probably need a cap)? 5. What to do for the odd profession where a high reputation means you're probably not doing your job very well, like spy or thief (or at least some thieves)? Do we use a different term for it, like say "Shadow Reputation", which would be how well someone is known not by name, but by the effects of their actions? 6. Would members of any organizations that already have a hierarchy progression scheme (such as the Syliran Knights) be subject to this system? 7. Would some jobs, within the same profession, require a certain Reputation level to undertake? For example, as a Mercenary, you might to be able to be a bodyguard for someone without an appropriate level of Reputation. That's all for right now, but please, feel free to give me any critique you deem necessary. This is going to take a lot of work and a lot feedback to even get off the ground.

[Zhol]

Having a reputation based on every individual skill might be a little bit too big / complicated a system, because there are just so many skills; graders already have a lot to evaluate when they grade posts, and character sheets are already pretty full of content as it is.

What if fame / renown / reputation was it's own skill or set of skills, though?

One option might be to have things like "Renown (Wind Reach)" be a skill. If I do something in a thread that other people in Wind Reach might hear about, the grader gives me a few points in that "skill", and the more points I accrue, the better known I am. If I go to Lhavit though, I have no Lhavit fame, so that's a separate skill - just like there are separate sub-skills for wilderness survival in different environments, etc. Perhaps once your fame hits "Competent" you are known throughout that city; at "Adept" you're know throughout that region; and at "Expert" you're known throughout the world?

Sure, that doesn't reflect specific skills, but if you are "renowned throughout Kalea", and you are a master chef, then that's one of the things about you that people would know. One (or a few) skills, instead of a separate reputation for every single skill.

Alternatively, or as well, reputation could be tracked as something that can be positive (fame) or negative (infamy). Everyone starts out with their reputation at zero, and if they do something that a grader feels is good and noteworthy they get positive points; if it's an act of villainy, you get negative points, and can even end up with a minus value for your reputation. If you are "renowned" in Wind Reach, with a negative "reputation", and are an expert in Interrogation, that sums up how famous you are, and alludes to what you might be famous for.

[Sayana]

I like Zhol's simplification. Having a separate renown for each skill would greatly increase the number of things a grader has to check for. I think if you had 25 points of renown, then it could be assumed that people tend to know you for your best skills rather than for your weakest skills. So if you're an expert chef - then they'd tend to know you for that. But if you have strong skills as both a chef and a rapier, then they'd know you for both.

This somewhat defeats the purpose of separating the 'renown' versus the actual skill level itself but it greatly simplifies the game mechanics (and grading) and still has at least some distinction of how famous you are.

I think fame and infamy should be separate and not simply positive vs negative points. This is because you might have a character who saved a family from a burning building, yet also assassinated a popular NPC. If it was merely positive vs. negative points, then it might sum to zero and know one would know them. But in reality, people would know this character and have mixed feelings about them because they are doing both good and bad.

I also like Zhol's idea of the renown being location specific, which can later broaden into regions etc at high levels. However, you'll have to figure out what to do if PCs are traveling and they have 15 exp in Renown: Lhavit and 20 exp in Renown: Wind Reach. Do they stay separate? Or do they add? What if it's Renown: Lhavit 55 and Renown: Wind Reach 60 - and at this point it should be a regional renown for all of Kalea? Now do they add? It might get rather finicky. So you'd have to think about the game mechanics.

Another thing to be careful about if it's lumped all into fame vs infamy is that if it doesn't have a strict definition, it might become inflated like the socialization and observation skills. Socialization and observation can potentially occur in all sorts of threads (social, combat, job, etc) and thus tend to be inflated. So if fame and/or infamy can occur in all sorts of threads (to represent the different skills) then it might similarly become inflated.

[Zhol]

Fame/infamy is perhaps the wrong word choice on my part. I was more thinking of it in terms of alignment, in a manner similar to quite a lot of RPG video games. Fame is usually seen as the positive version (good/light/paragon/etc), whereas infamy is usually seen as the opposite (bad/dark/renegade/etc). It would be there to represent what your "reputation" is, and by extension what someone's knee-jerk reaction to you should be. If your reputation balances out as 0, that just means you're either not known for being especially good or especially bad; or you are known for being such a mixed case that no one is entirely sure if you're a good guy or a bad guy.

That's separate from what I described as "renown", and by using the two together, I think it skirts around some of the problems you're pointing out. If someone has a renown of 25, but a reputation of 0, then they're "famously neutral", either in the sense that they're equally good or bad, or in the pacifist/neutral sort of way.

The city versus region one is a bit of a tricky one. I would argue that your celebrity is still localised, though? Think of it in terms of the real world, and with actors or museums. In fact, lets say Benedict Cumberbatch. He has done a lot of acting work in Britain that a lot of people in America don't know about. In fact, people in America only know about Benedict Cumberbatch because he managed to reach Expert in his Celebrity (Britain) skill, and that celebrity brought him to America's attention as "That guy from Britain." He then did a bunch of movies in America, and has now managed to reach Expert in Celebrity (Hollywood) as well. People from Hollywood though don't necessarily know the intimate details of the stuff he did in Britain, they've just heard of him because he's "well-known".

It's the same with Mizahar. If I am an Expert in Celebrity (Wind Reach), then people in Lhavit will have heard of me, vaguely, because I am well-known. But, their specific local knowledge of my actions is a separate Celebrity (Lhavit) skill. If I get Celebrity (Lhavit) to Expert too, and then go to Kalinor, they'll see me and think "Oh wow, it's that famous guy who does stuff in Wind Reach AND Lhavit; we don't know the details, but we've heard he's a swell guy."

Am I making any sort of sense at this point?

[Matthew]

I personally think it would add just another mechanic to a game that already has plenty of mechanics for players and mods alike to keep track of, especially when there aren't even enough mods to cover the large player base. Granted, to some of us, the current mechanics might not seem like a big deal at all. To others, the skill and lore system is something more advanced than they've ever encountered before in a play-by-post RP. There is already a learning curve when it comes to these mechanics, already things for moderators and players alike to absorb. I feel like rolling out a system like this would be too much effort for a forum that already has a stretched staff. There are a ton of other things that need developed.

There are systems like this in play already, as well. When it comes to Syliras, what about Shield points? Would this completely replace that? Operate along side of it? What about skills like Cooking, which actually mention the reputation of the cook in the levels of the skill?

Then, this also forces players to check a Reputation stat on a CS to see if they have ever heard about the character in question. It is just another barrier to jumping straight into an RP, while also being another thing for mods to monitor and a system for the admins to develop.

I don't mean to be a wet towel or anything like that. I just have a hard time accepting the idea of trying to develop a new mechanic when there are cities that need Storytellers and threads that need grading.... and some cities already have a similar concept in play, like Syliras.

If anything, it might be an idea to try and edit the skill levels of pre-existing skills so that they mention the reputation of a person who has mastered that profession. That would need pre-approval of course, but that would just be fleshing out a skill description instead of trying to add on another mechanic entirely.

Again, I don't mean to be the downer. I just think these are some things that should be considered.

[Yisanareysin]

There's also the issue of "fame" being so general, and the potential for metagaming. If you had, say, a mercenary who got a lot of renown from fighting, but also happened to have a high auristics skill, then PCs who meet them would probably look at their CS and assume this character is famous for using auristics, and assume that that would be public knowledge even though, realistically, it wouldn't.

[Zhol]

Not meaning to seem like a smartass or anything... but should everyone not be reading people's character sheets before they interact with them anyway?

As it stands, if someone is famous and people "should have heard of them", the only way to currently know that is to read through the character sheet in depth, to find it in their character concept if the player has remembered to keep that up to date, and so on and so forth. There are already people that you should "probably" have heard of. Roleplaying correctly, people in Wind Reach may well have heard of the Symenestra who works as a seamstress, or the "Horse boy" who works in the stables, or the Kelvic woman who shapeshifts into a wind eagle, but right now the only way they would know that Drusilla and Sira and Zhol are those people is by reading through their entire CS.

If reading a CS isn't an expectation that we have of everyone, for convenience reasons, then isn't some sort of fame/renown rating that people can see at a quick glance actually an improvement? Doesn't that actually make people's lives easier than the existing situation does?

[Matthew]

I don't think you sound like a smartass at all.

We should be, yes. To me personally, it just seems a bit fiddly to search down a reputation stat and understand what that reputation applies to, then figure out if my character is the sort to actually be in the loop when it comes to popular personalities in so-and-so town.

And I don't think people are expected to read through the CS of each character the city has so they understand who does what and who fits in where. I wouldn't expect a player to read through a reputation chart so they understand the social rankings in a town either. Why not RP actually hearing about the character through word of mouth, either from another character or the character itself instead of basing it off of a stat? I've found that a lot of people build their reputation perfectly fine by simply interacting in whatever city they are in. Fallon for instance has built a reputation for herself through roleplay and involvement in her city, not through a point system.

[Khida]

I also think this adds a mechanic which is going to take more effort to maintain (ETA: and interpret) than most people will gain in benefit. Anyone can mention to their partners before starting a thread, 'hey, my PC's won a lot of duels or cooks really great meals at that pub or whatever, maybe your character's heard about him'. Without a system, the onus is on you to say 'hey, my character's famous', but if you're brainstorming a thread idea, wouldn't that come up naturally? You can incorporate many fringe benefits (or detriments) into threads on your own, as long as you don't abuse the benefits. I don't see there being any kind of systematic recognition like an increase in base pay; that already comes with skill level. One-off events like getting a discount at a shop or being singled out for a particular job are within the scope of self-modding. And if your character's earning a widespread reputation in your domain, e.g. of the criminal or merc or hero variety, you are probably on the local ST's radar if not already plotting closely with them. This is where things like holding office or bodyguarding a high-rank NPC or spying on government facilities or whatnot come in. Those kinds of things involve matters at the domain level, at least peripherally, so it would be plotted with the ST if not modded by them. I don't see some kind of 'metric' being the best answer to publicizing reputation. Something as simple as adding a short paragraph to the Character Registry, 'this is what I'm known for' would I think add more context and potential plot hooks than 'Renown (Wind Reach): 45'. In fact, that's one thing I find missing from a lot of the Registries -- plot hooks beyond "what kind of threads do you like/dislike". Prompts like "what are your goals this season" and "what would others know about your character" could be very effective additions.

[Zhol]

Having a section in character sheets and registries would definitely be a beneficial approach as well.

Playing devil's advocate though, I see a lot of character sheets around that don't always remember to keep those sorts of things up to date. If you know things about the character in your own mind, if you're on the ST's radar, and so forth, there's less of an emphasis - less of an enforced need - for you to keep those sorts of things up to date. Unless you're a prolific CS updater, it's probably been a while since you updated your character sheet to represent any recent changes and updates... and there's no harm in that, it's an easy thing to neglect.

The parts of the CS that do receive scrutiny and updates though are the lores and skills and ledger sections - the hard, cold numbers. Those are the parts that graders meticulously check to make sure that everything is kosher, and those parts are relatively easy for graders to check, because it's a quantifiable number.

I agree that it's not "necessary", that it won't necessarily benefit everyone, and that it does add another thing for graders to check / bear in mind (though I don't think it's quite as enormous a task as has been implied). However, in terms of harsh objectivity... if it's a skill/stat type thing, at least you know everyone is going to make sure they keep it up to date.

As far as shield points / etc goes, that's a good point. However, not all cities have (or rather, not all cities use) that kind of system. Rather than using shield points as an argument against having some sort of fame/notoriety/prestige system, perhaps it's a potential basis / source of inspiration instead?