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Reputation Awkwardness

Posted: Sun 07 Jan 2018, 12:35
by JargogleBamboozle
On page 37, there's a somewhat awkward and clumsy approach to the effect of Kin on Reputation. It states that if a settlement is primarily composed of a different kin, then you suffer a two step reduction in Reputation. On the face of this, this might seem reasonable; after all, settlements are likely to respond more favourably to someone of the same kin. However, surely there's still just as good a chance that they've heard of you if you're famous/infamous regardless of kin (especially if you're a mixed kin party)? If this is indeed intended to get across the idea that different kin may not react quite so favorably to each other, I'd simply note that the various kin seldom treat famed members of different kin quite so well and do away with the mechanical modifier.

Doing away with the modifier for being a different kin also means that it it fits better with the approach to THE GROUP Reputation on the same page as well. After all, what if the individual with the highest Reputation score is a different kin to the settlement, but another member of the adventuring party is of the same kin as the settlement? It starts to get overly complex and opens up questions such as whether or not the two step penalty applies to only the rest of the group and not the member of the same kin, etc.

Jargogle

Re: Reputation Awkwardness

Posted: Sun 07 Jan 2018, 12:48
by lupex
I would apply the -2 step modifier to all characters not of the same Kin as the settlement. This may change who has the current highest reputation score in the party for this settlement but locals are more likely to pay attention to the deeds (good or bad) of someone from thier own Kin and I think this rule is a good representation of this.

Re: Reputation Awkwardness

Posted: Sun 07 Jan 2018, 12:55
by JargogleBamboozle
Perhaps, but in that case, a note of applying the penalty ONLY to members of the group that are of different kins would need to be added to the rules for exactly such a (common) situation. Even then though, I think two steps might be too severe a penalty; sure, you might pay more attention to the deeds of the human in that motley group, but you'd still hear somewhat of what the other members of the group were involved in during their shared escapades. I'd lower it to a one step penalty.

Re: Reputation Awkwardness

Posted: Sun 07 Jan 2018, 13:13
by Fenhorn
Isn't it natural that people recognize people from their own culture group over people from other culture groups. Just because you are recognized doesn't mean that you are going to be welcomed with open arms. They might dislike you and refuse to help you just because of that. Although when you try to persuade them to help you, you can use your reputation (they might fear you) to your favour. Ironically in this example is that if you would be an unknown person you wouldn't have to persuade them to help you in the first place.

When it comes to group reputation, I don't know what would be so complicated with that.

Example: A Dwarf (Rep 3), a Human (Rep 2) and an Elf (Rep 3) walk into a human settlement (sounds like a start of a really bad joke). The actual reputation in this settlement is for the Dwarf 1, for the Human 2 and for the Elf 1. So 2d6 are rolled to see if they are recognized.

Re: Reputation Awkwardness

Posted: Sun 07 Jan 2018, 14:07
by JargogleBamboozle
Except that the rules don't actually explain how the two-step Kin penalty and Group Highest Reputation rules actually interact with each other.

Do we:
a) Use the Group's highest Reputation as the basis and THEN modify each individual Reputation according to kin.
OR
b) Do we apply the Kin modification to all of the group members and THEN use the highest Reputation in the Group.

You could get very different results depending on how they interact, and I'm not willing to assume they must work a certain way, because you know what they say when you "assume".

Re: Reputation Awkwardness

Posted: Sun 07 Jan 2018, 14:19
by Fenhorn
Use the Group's highest Reputation as the basis and THEN modify each individual Reputation according to kin
To be honest, I don't get the logic in that.

Re: Reputation Awkwardness

Posted: Sun 07 Jan 2018, 14:35
by JargogleBamboozle
Use the Group's highest Reputation as the basis and THEN modify each individual Reputation according to kin
To be honest, I don't get the logic in that.
That's exactly one of the points though; given a lack of direction on how the two elements interact, it does need to be made clear. I can see two possible ways in which the rules could be applied. In a) for example, they may apply the highest (unmodified) Rep for the Group, but then use the Kin penalty to modify individual Reps in dealings within the settlement. An entirely reasonable-sounding approach. On the other hand, if we assume that b) is the correct approach (which is also reasonable), they just need to add something along the lines of the following to the rules:
* Apply the two-step kin penalty to each individual's personal Reputation before using Group Reputation.
Jar

Re: Reputation Awkwardness

Posted: Sun 07 Jan 2018, 15:40
by Eldhierta
Use the Group's highest Reputation as the basis and THEN modify each individual Reputation according to kin
To be honest, I don't get the logic in that.
That's exactly one of the points though; given a lack of direction on how the two elements interact, it does need to be made clear. I can see two possible ways in which the rules could be applied. In a) for example, they may apply the highest (unmodified) Rep for the Group, but then use the Kin penalty to modify individual Reps in dealings within the settlement. An entirely reasonable-sounding approach. On the other hand, if we assume that b) is the correct approach (which is also reasonable), they just need to add something along the lines of the following to the rules:
* Apply the two-step kin penalty to each individual's personal Reputation before using Group Reputation.
Jar
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but Group Reputation is just derived by taking the highest reputation score of a single PC at any given moment, right? So as soon as you enter that hamlet full of halfings ALL characters that aren't halfings will suffer a -2 penalty to their repscore, prompting a recalculation of the current grouprep. I really can't see how you'd interpret it in any other way.

I mean, if we had a situation where your PC recieved a -2 penalty to a skill because of circumstances pertaining to that specific encounter you wouldn't "save" that penalty till after the roll, right?

Re: Reputation Awkwardness

Posted: Sun 07 Jan 2018, 20:13
by lupex

To be honest, I don't get the logic in that.
That's exactly one of the points though; given a lack of direction on how the two elements interact, it does need to be made clear. I can see two possible ways in which the rules could be applied. In a) for example, they may apply the highest (unmodified) Rep for the Group, but then use the Kin penalty to modify individual Reps in dealings within the settlement. An entirely reasonable-sounding approach. On the other hand, if we assume that b) is the correct approach (which is also reasonable), they just need to add something along the lines of the following to the rules:
* Apply the two-step kin penalty to each individual's personal Reputation before using Group Reputation.
Jar
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but Group Reputation is just derived by taking the highest reputation score of a single PC at any given moment, right? So as soon as you enter that hamlet full of halfings ALL characters that aren't halfings will suffer a -2 penalty to their repscore, prompting a recalculation of the current grouprep. I really can't see how you'd interpret it in any other way.

I mean, if we had a situation where your PC recieved a -2 penalty to a skill because of circumstances pertaining to that specific encounter you wouldn't "save" that penalty till after the roll, right?
I would take this approach and the RAW seems to support this but an extra line of text for clarity wouldn't hurt.

Re: Reputation Awkwardness

Posted: Sun 07 Jan 2018, 21:54
by Jizmack
Using a parallel from the real world, there were three stand up comedians touring together about a decade ago, calling themselves the “axis of evil”. One was an Iranian, another an Arab, and the other was a Korean. They were all equally funny, but if you asked people from Iran, for example, they would typically only know the name of the Iranian comedian. Same for the other two comedians. Despite being in the same group and doing the same act, people preferentially focused on the one comedian who was of their own nationality.
I would assume a medieval setting to be even more extreme. So, yes, I would apply the -2 before rolling group reputation.