I am currently in the process of creating the skeleton of a campaign by adapting quests and adventure hooks from a videogame myself and a few players have enjoyed. The said game has various conflicting factions and groups with colliding interests, and choices made in said game will impact future quests, along with opening some doors for new quests, and closing doors for others. For example, one such quest may be to infiltrate a city and execute a powerful figure on behalf of one faction; successfully completing the quest may open up further opportunities with the hiring faction, while refusing to complete the task may allow the party to work with the targeted faction in this scenario.
To emulate this process, I have drafted some arbitrary rules that seek to represent gaining (and losing) reputation based on the successful completion of tasks, but I am still working on the specifics and I am heavily debating the merit behind including this ruleset in the first place. The party is intended to take sides in conflicts (or purposefully stay neutral) in order to further the campaign, and this is meant to be an actualised system where this can naturally occur.
Has anyone accomplished something similar in their campaign(s)? Would anyone recommend changes to the said system, or recommend an alternative? Any feedback is much appreciated.
System ruleset (so far):
The party has a specified number of ‘Reputation Points’ with a certain tribe, faction, or person, starting at Zero for entities the party has not previously met.
The completion of a quest will result in the increase of the party’s Reputation Points equal to 1d4 + the party’s average Charisma modifier, or a higher number, depending on the importance of the quest to the recipient.
If the quest is detrimental to another entity that has Reputation Points with the party, and the entity finds out the party is responsible for this detrimental quest, the party loses an equal amount of Reputation Points with this entity as they have gained with the beneficiary of the quest.
As the party’s Reputation increases with a certain ally, they gain certain benefits exclusive to that ally. Further quests will be unlocked by increasing your Reputation with that entity. The converse is true with having a negative Reputation score, which seeks to represent forming enemies.
I agree with mog. There's no real need to mechanically quantify exactly how much an NPC likes or dislikes the party. In fact, doing so ends up removing your agency as DM -- Well, they just earned a new reputation point, so I guess, technically, the duke has to give them his best horse and a pile of silver.
That said, if you really want to, you could consider using a modified piety system (from Theros) or the system that lets you move up ranks in Ravnica's guilds. Those should at least give you an idea for what kinds of things you need to do, and what benefits accrue over the long term.
The DMG presents arenownsystem as an option, specifically for game worlds where characters will be interacting with varied factions (I want to say it's even adapted into some of the big published adventures). There's also the social interactionsystem. They both provide something going for the effects or record you seem to be looking for, but are a bit more streamlined, and successfully play tested. And yes, they are also reflective of the "reputation" factor a lot of open world style video games incorporate.
I usually approach homebrew and house rules with a "why reinvent the wheel?" approach when it comes to mechanics. I see the RAW (or technically rules as offered, as the renown system is presented as explicitly optional) in the present edition pretty well integrated. When introducing a new system, something that has impressive mechanics adapted from a video game, can be ported, but you're sort of putting a game over a game when there's an alternative more in sync with the rules. I'd say check the systems in the actual game (and these would be the rules some of your players or a new player would be familiar with rather than, "hey folks, learning curve time") and if they seem inadequate, determine why and build from there. Sometimes I want things a bit more deeper (like a morale system to determine when different types of foes would be routed) but I'm often surprised at "oh, the rules handle that" more often than I find myself empty handed with the RAW in 5e.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Thank you for the responses. MidnightPlat, thank you for the elaborate post! I was entirely unaware of the renown system's existence, and it is pretty much what I was looking for.
I only intended to have seven different organizations to track over the entire campaign, and I was mostly looking for a way to track affiliation with a certain faction better than writing a flowchart of notes that dictates what happens after what.
I am currently in the process of creating the skeleton of a campaign by adapting quests and adventure hooks from a videogame myself and a few players have enjoyed. The said game has various conflicting factions and groups with colliding interests, and choices made in said game will impact future quests, along with opening some doors for new quests, and closing doors for others. For example, one such quest may be to infiltrate a city and execute a powerful figure on behalf of one faction; successfully completing the quest may open up further opportunities with the hiring faction, while refusing to complete the task may allow the party to work with the targeted faction in this scenario.
To emulate this process, I have drafted some arbitrary rules that seek to represent gaining (and losing) reputation based on the successful completion of tasks, but I am still working on the specifics and I am heavily debating the merit behind including this ruleset in the first place. The party is intended to take sides in conflicts (or purposefully stay neutral) in order to further the campaign, and this is meant to be an actualised system where this can naturally occur.
Has anyone accomplished something similar in their campaign(s)? Would anyone recommend changes to the said system, or recommend an alternative? Any feedback is much appreciated.
System ruleset (so far):
This involves a lot of record keeping. Too much for many people to enjoy. The more things you have to keep track of, the less fun.
I prefer to simply wing it. You saved his daughter, he loves you. You killed his sewer Otyugh, he hates you.
I agree with mog. There's no real need to mechanically quantify exactly how much an NPC likes or dislikes the party. In fact, doing so ends up removing your agency as DM -- Well, they just earned a new reputation point, so I guess, technically, the duke has to give them his best horse and a pile of silver.
That said, if you really want to, you could consider using a modified piety system (from Theros) or the system that lets you move up ranks in Ravnica's guilds. Those should at least give you an idea for what kinds of things you need to do, and what benefits accrue over the long term.
The DMG presents a renown system as an option, specifically for game worlds where characters will be interacting with varied factions (I want to say it's even adapted into some of the big published adventures). There's also the social interaction system. They both provide something going for the effects or record you seem to be looking for, but are a bit more streamlined, and successfully play tested. And yes, they are also reflective of the "reputation" factor a lot of open world style video games incorporate.
I usually approach homebrew and house rules with a "why reinvent the wheel?" approach when it comes to mechanics. I see the RAW (or technically rules as offered, as the renown system is presented as explicitly optional) in the present edition pretty well integrated. When introducing a new system, something that has impressive mechanics adapted from a video game, can be ported, but you're sort of putting a game over a game when there's an alternative more in sync with the rules. I'd say check the systems in the actual game (and these would be the rules some of your players or a new player would be familiar with rather than, "hey folks, learning curve time") and if they seem inadequate, determine why and build from there. Sometimes I want things a bit more deeper (like a morale system to determine when different types of foes would be routed) but I'm often surprised at "oh, the rules handle that" more often than I find myself empty handed with the RAW in 5e.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Thank you for the responses. MidnightPlat, thank you for the elaborate post! I was entirely unaware of the renown system's existence, and it is pretty much what I was looking for.
I only intended to have seven different organizations to track over the entire campaign, and I was mostly looking for a way to track affiliation with a certain faction better than writing a flowchart of notes that dictates what happens after what.