Thursday, May 7, 2020

Reputation for Sentinels of Echo City


I am working on the first setting supplement, for Boondock's Hideaway, and was thinking about how helpful it would be to have a 'rating' for how well a hero or villain is known. I started tinkering, and came up with a system I like and will be play testing - this is not "official" yet, but an official set of rules will be with the first supplement in this series. Feedback is most welcome!

***

Reputation

It’s a negative or positive value that reflects how well known a character is. While CHA is your ability to use your personal charm and influence, reputation is your larger popularity in the game world.

Reputation ranges from -20 to +20. It is used as a check in any situation where you might get a public response to your name. Every time you do something that might affect your reputation, attempt a 1d20 check. If you roll on the OPPOSITE side of your reputation in the relevant direction, it moves 1 point that way. When you do something good, you want to roll above your current reputation. It is hard to maintain a strong reputation in either direction; if you want to be greatly feared, you better not accidentally help someone out - you might get caught on camera and have people say nice things about you. A 20 always ‘succeeds’ (moving in the direction of the check) and a 1 always ‘fails’, moving you towards reputation 0. Villains do bad stuff and want a 20 to get 'more negative' in their reputation, and heroes do good stuff and want a 20 to get 'more betterer' in their reputation. Or something like that.

For example, as a new hero, you have a reputation of 0. You rescue a kitty from a tree. The old lady who you helped immediately posts on social media (yeah, old ladies have Facebook, too.) You attempt a check, with a target of rolling over a 0. As long as you don’t roll a 1, you succeed; good news, 95% of the time you are at reputation 1. After several adventures, your reputation is now 7. You are rocking it. Unfortunately, you get some bad press when you get into a fight with Mr. Awesome (it was a misunderstanding that you totally worked out). Unfortunately, Twitter doesn’t see it that way; You roll 1d20, and you want to avoid rolling below your current reputation; if you roll 6 or less, your reputation drops 1 point; a roll of 7 or better doesn’t help you (because this is a ‘negative’ reputation check) but at least the only fallout from the fight is literal fallout from the thermonuclear device that was set off over the Pacific (it was a BIG misunderstanding). 

Reputation in Play

Reputation allows you to make a reaction check when you aren’t there, or when your name alone is being used in some context, but you are not the one making a CHA check. In many situations, you are trying a reputation check before a CHA check. “You’ve never heard of Magnet Master? Oh. Well, look guys… if you could help me out this time, I’d really appreciate it…”

You attempt a check based on your reputation rating. While a reputation of 1 is going to make it unlikely for something special to happen, a reputation of 10+ is going to be helpful. Reputation also works for epic checks; with reputation 14+, you can do amazing things. “Because Lord Wrack threatened to attack the America’s Day Parade, we are canceling the whole thing - and all parades forever until he is in prison.”... “Normally, we don’t just hand out F-16s to civilians, but you are Doc Stalwart after all…”

The default setting for reputation for existing characters would be level x3. Therefore, Lord Wrack as a villain 5 starts you game at -15 reputation, and he's trying to really, really hard to get to -20.



New Talent: Popular

You start with 1d4+2 reputation. You score critical success on a reputation check with a roll of 19 or 20, and you may attempt a Feat to avoid reputation loss when you roll a botch on a reputation check. You automatically receive +1 reputation every time you level up.

13 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. I want to thank Dr Emu a very powerful spell caster who help me to bring my husband back to me, few month ago i have a serious problem with my husband, to the extend that he left the house, and he started dating another woman and he stayed with the woman, i tried all i can to bring him back, but all my effort was useless until the day my friend came to my house and i told her every thing that had happened between me and my husband, then she told me of a powerful spell caster who help her when she was in the same problem I then contact Dr Emu and told him every thing and he told me not to worry my self again that my husband will come back to me after he has cast a spell on him, i thought it was a joke, after he had finish casting the spell, he told me that he had just finish casting the spell, to my greatest surprise within 48 hours, my husband really came back begging me to forgive him, if you need his help you can contact him with via email: Emutemple@gmail.com or add him up on his whatsapp +2347012841542 is willing to help any body that need his help.

      Delete
  2. Hey, folks! I was finally able to post a little thing over on rpg.net. You can check it out here if you're interested: https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/sentinels-of-echo-city.863466/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. THANK YOU. That is a huge boost in awareness for my game. And, you did a fantastic job explaining how it works.

      Delete
    2. You're very welcome! I'll post more of the same as time allows. It's a fun game that deserves the exposure.

      Delete
    3. Nice Aldo! Way to get the word out!

      Delete
  3. This seems like a pretty fun and fast way to work in the "Popularity" stat from the old TSR FASERIP and other supers games! That was always a cool "mini-game" to play alongside the fighting and what not, and it suits the genre well!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Right. I'm even good with it not being in the core rules; it feels like an add-on that is not necessary, but I already see some role-playing opportunities arising from it.

      Delete
  4. Howdy folks! I posted another "thingy" over on the same thread. Go and meet Doc Shadow if you're so inclined. Also, some folks are asking questions that I'm limited in my ability to answer, so there is that too. :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I saw that. It's a great write up, and I like how you stayed committed to 'figuring out' what you were rolling rather than going with something familiar. Good stuff.

      Delete
  5. Thanks! It’s so tempting to fudge options along the way, but it’s so much more rewarding to figure out what to do with what you’ve rolled. You’ve struck a great balance between random generation and customization that makes it possible to do so.

    Quick question: When rerolling ones on the 3d6 for attributes and on Hit Points - do you continue to reroll if you end up with more ones, or do you suck it up and keep any follow up ones?

    ReplyDelete
  6. Keep re-rolling. Ignore 1's forever.

    ReplyDelete
  7. LOL! Cool! That's what I was doing, but the I got to wondering if we were on the same page. :-)

    ReplyDelete