[Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Reputation

[johndallman]

A negative Reputation [-1 to -20] is a mundane social disadvantage, which affects reaction rolls others make to you, if it applies. This disadvantage first appeared in GURPS at 1e, and hasn’t changed much.

A reputation has four elements. The first is the specific details of what it’s about. A negative reputation might be for body odour, cowardice, greed, rudeness, or anything else that is reasonably widely disliked. It does not have to be for something that is in itself a disadvantage, and it doesn’t have to be accurate.

The reaction modifier for a reputation is -1 to -4, priced at [-5] per -1. That gets you a reputation that applies to everyone, and is always recognised. You can have reputations that apply only to groups of people – reducing the price as the groups get smaller – or are less widely known, reducing the price as you become more obscure. It’s entirely possible to have multiple Reputations, overlapping or not, positive, negative, or mixed, and some GURPS players enjoy have them add up to zero points.

Negative reputations can also be a consequence of other traits, such as a revealed Secret, and can be useful when using some skills, such as Intimidation and Streetwise. Reputations can definitely be acquired in play, but negative ones will just reduce your point total, rather than giving you points to spend.

A negative Reputation is a surprisingly common disadvantage on the Discworld, where most people have clearly defined social (and narrative) roles. It’s quite rare on templates in other GURPS supplements, although it shows up on plenty of published NPCs.

I deduce that if you have a reputation for something that is a disadvantage in its own right, the reputation will make the other disadvantage more widely known, and increase the frequency with which your enemies exploit it.

I don’t seem to have made much use of bad reputations as a player or GM, and don’t use good ones a whole lot. I tend to prefer obscurity for my characters. How have you used this disadvantage?

[vicky_molokh]

A PC of mine had a mixed reputation, including a negative one among the setting's equivalent of SCP, due to not really agreeing with the idea of restricting the trade in mysterious artefacts. It was a small group, and didn't meaningfully come up throughout the campaign, at least as far as I noticed.

[evileeyore]

I used to use Reputation very frequently, but since I've mostly run DF the last decade it's never been used once.

Technically I suppose giving the PCs a ±X Reaction Bonus in a specific town or with a specific group constitutes an "always recognized" Reputation... but since I don't put points on sheets, I just hand wave it.

[RogerBW]

One important aspect, I think, is that a negative Reputation is not "people don't like you"; it's "people are less likely to do what you ask them". When Butch the Five-State Spree Killer waves his famous machete at you, you are more likely to comply with his requests if you know who he is. That is therefore a positive Reputation ("merciless killer"). Ditto the scary crime boss – if a trait makes things more likely to go your way, that's a positive point value for the trait.

There's one PC in my WWII game with some mixed Reputations: roughly, "he's going to drag us into some crazy dangerous plan" and "but there might be medals in it". When the group requests aid from allied forces, the reactions tend not to be neutral.

[Ezra]

Originally Posted by RogerBW

One important aspect, I think, is that a negative Reputation is not "people don't like you"; it's "people are less likely to do what you ask them". When Butch the Five-State Spree Killer waves his famous machete at you, you are more likely to comply with his requests if you know who he is. That is therefore a positive Reputation ("merciless killer"). Ditto the scary crime boss – if a trait makes things more likely to go your way, that's a positive point value for the trait.

There's one PC in my WWII game with some mixed Reputations: roughly, "he's going to drag us into some crazy dangerous plan" and "but there might be medals in it". When the group requests aid from allied forces, the reactions tend not to be neutral.

Would Status have more influence over the control you can exert on others than Reputation? B27 of the Basic Set says that Reputation cost is governed by the bonus or penalty to Reaction modifiers.

[RogerBW]

Originally Posted by Ezra

Would Status have more influence over the control you can exert on others than Reputation? B27 of the Basic Set says that Reputation cost is governed by the bonus or penalty to Reaction modifiers.

Status is an overall measure of regard in your society.

Butch the Killer has negative Status.

Al the Crime Boss may have Status if he's trying to buy his way into respectability, but not necessarily much of it.

My point is that people may help you because they find you appealing, or because they find you terrifying; but either way, if they're helping you, that's a positive trait.

[Phil Masters]

I seem prone to giving my PCs a whole bunch of low-level Reputations for chrome. Terry "the Idaho Kid" Norris had both positive and negative reps among boxing fans, both on 10 or less ("Coulda been a contender"/"Dirty fighter"), plus minor positive reps among the underworld and the fae as someone who knew what he was doing, a bit, while Lieutenant-Colonel Kingsthorpe has modest positive reps in the occult community and Fleet Street, because he knows some useful things and can write about them, and a -1 rep among devotees of Alistair Crowley (as "a blundering dabbler with the soul of a suburban bank manager"), which has never come up as such that I know of, but which is a key part of his characterisation

I also still have fond memories of the proto-Dungeon Fantasy character I had who had a negative Reputation among "people he'd been anywhere near in the recent past". He was an archetypal adventuring warrior (and Longsword stylist) who had a long trail of smashed-up barrooms in his past.