[3.5] Renown, Influence and Adventurer Rock Stars

[MadGreenSon]

A tendency with my three current games, most extreme with the newest is that the characters get famous/ get fans/ use their fame to their advantage, etc.
Often they can behave like rock stars about it. The highest level game's characters are actually nicest about it and not nearly so extreme as they are all Exalted Good and thus Very Nice People (TM).

However the lowest level game, they're really into getting big names. The bard is as much a publicist/promoter as anything with the way she promotes the group, they spend at least half their loot on debauchery and gleefully sleep around, get wildly drunk, get into trouble and generally act like total rock star maniacs between adventures.

Now, I'm cool with this, but I am wondering if anyone else has similar experiences with the PCs having fans, fame and glory in this way?

Also, I'm considering instituting some kind of renown/fame/influence system. Any recommendations on that point?

[Know(Nothing)]

One man's fame is another man's infamy. Get enough attention drawn to you and some of it is bound to be the bad kind of attention. Even if you're the Goodiest of Two-Shoes, evil reads the paper too, and they might not take kindly to do-gooders gaining fame and clout and influence. They might just decide to turn that adoration into a violent cautionary tale for any future would-be heroes.

Notoriety will make things like subterfuge and intelligence gathering very, very difficult. Your enemies know all your movements. They know what you're after, why, and when you're coming. This makes misdirection, obfuscation, and plain old assassination way too easy.

Even if they don't want to kill you, if you're easily manipulated fame-hungry rubes, someone could use you for their dirty work and make you their scapegoat. They could pimp and promote you and just be using your skills to further their ends.

Give them the upsides too, but both the players and their characters should learn that the shiniest apples get eaten first.

[MadGreenSon]

Yeah, I figure the ones most hungry for accolades will be the ones to reap the downside the hardest.
I was thinking of using a mechanic for tracking the reputations, influence, etc. the players gather.

Any systems you or anyone would recommend? The basic one in UA is very...basic. The one from Game of Thrones might have promise on the Influence side at least.

Anyone with any experience with these sorts of systems?

[Altair_the_Vexed]

I came up with a fame / infamy hack which I use in my E6 game, where your reputation for behaviour (based on the alignment axes) alters the bonuses people get with respect to you.

(Here's a link (http://running-the-game.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/morals-ethics-and-character-development.html) - skip to the end for the rules if you like: the rest of the blog post was all about discussing the concept of morality rules in RPGs in general.)

So if your characters are doing all sorts of good deeds, but then acting as rude rock star rogues, they might find their bonuses are cancelling out?

That might make them think about their reputation a little more.

[Know(Nothing)]

The Urban Encounters tables on page 102 of the DMG gives a good starting point, at least for formal encounters. A thing that it factors in is the level of the party-- which makes sense, since if you rise above 5th or 6th level, you're pretty remarkable to the general public just for existing. Add into that intriguing personalities, daring feats, and thrilling adventures, and you got a really potent recipe for fame.

1st-level upstarts who had some wacky hijinks and are now lapping up the fame are pretty forgettable. 8th-level heroes, demigods to the public by comparison, will generate a buzz within a populace just for arriving to a nearby city or county, if they hear about it.

[MadGreenSon]

I came up with a fame / infamy hack which I use in my E6 game, where your reputation for behaviour (based on the alignment axes) alters the bonuses people get with respect to you.

(Here's a link (http://running-the-game.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/morals-ethics-and-character-development.html) - skip to the end for the rules if you like: the rest of the blog post was all about discussing the concept of morality rules in RPGs in general.)


I like the article, it gives me a lot to think about.



So if your characters are doing all sorts of good deeds, but then acting as rude rock star rogues, they might find their bonuses are cancelling out?

That might make them think about their reputation a little more.

Thus far, they've gotten a lot of local hero "points" by slaying the fire-breathing dinosaur creature that was terrorizing local farms and have now embarked on a mission to save a noble daughter and foil a plot by the Cult of the Dragon in a single stroke.

In between they also sparked a Mardi-Gras like celebration in the small city a lot of the action has been taking place in, which resulted in a few "close encounters" with local notables and a lot of opportunity for the Bard to work all the mojo she could (Perform and Diplomacy, not spells :smallbiggrin:)

They're third level at the moment, but the Bard is doing everything she can and being supported by the other to have them make more of a splash than their power level should warrant.

So overall, they're making a good impression, just an out of proportion one due to some phenomenal rolls by the Bard.

This will inevitably bite them, hard. But part of the process is to set them up...

Has anyone had experience with the Influence system from Game of Thrones?

[BWR]

The easiest would be to use Pathfinder's system (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/ultimateCampaign/campaignSystems/reputationAndFame.html#_reputation-and-fame)

You can adopt and adapt the Ars Magica Reputation system.
Bascially, reputation works much like a skill.
You have two elements to it: Reason and Group.
Group is which group of people you have a reputation amongst. Is it a village or other localized geographical area? Is it people in your guild? Is it the nobles of a country? In a clerical organization?
Reason is what you are famous for. Are you known as a dragonslayer? As a charitable person? As a murderer?
You make skill roll to see if people have heard of you. Generally you will only make the most appropriate roll even if you have several reputations. DCs vary depending on what people want to know about you, how long ago you got the reputation, how relevant the location of your reputation is, etc.
Roughly, any time you do something to increase a particular reputation, the score will go up, and you can't really have more than one reputation for any given group.

So you could have Hero/Goblinslayer (local - village of Hommlet) 3, which means people in and around Hommlet know of you because you recently helped kill off a few goblins, but they would unlikely be able to recognize you for your reputation of Strumpet (Waterdeep) 8, but might recognize you are Superstar Bard (entire country) 6.


L5R has a Glory system that can be found adapted to d20 in Way of the Daimyo. It works based on the idea that everyone has access to aboutthe same information. Any time you do something that gets your name known, including bragging about your own accomplishments, your Glory score increases a bit. Prolonged periods of inactivity lowers it because people stop talking about you and start talking about someone else. People make skill roll with a difficulty of X - Glory to recognize you by name or appearance (including retinue).