Re: On being Feared
 

This angle seems worth pursuing. Even with rock-solid loyalty, the employees are always putting on an act because they're afraid of their employer. There's a fundamental lack of trust. This might be expressed as lots of little lies to cover for minor mishaps or some larger fudging of bad news. Maybe the hirelings mention things a bit too late. The hiring process might also involve some extra wrinkles like someone accepting the job and then never showing up for work. (Maybe they just said yes because they were scared, having no intention of taking the job, or maybe their family and friends dissuaded them once they got home.) All in all, this wouldn't be a big deal most of the time, but it could lead to interesting roleplaying scenes where the PC needs to wrangle an awkward truth out of one of their hirelings.

Re: On being Feared
 

All of that sounds useful.

Re: On being Feared
 

Most of this sounds like a Poor or worse result on the Reaction Roll.

Re: On being Feared
 

"Note that a very loyal potential hireling might exaggerate his abilities out of desire to join the party." (p. B518)

Re: On being Feared
 

I suppose I agree with Bill's premise that Social Regard (Feared) calls for some creative interpretation of the reaction table results. (But that's always how I use the table anyway.) I wouldn't seek to nullify or reverse the reaction bonuses most of the time, but I would flavor it quite differently than I would for Charisma or Status or Social Regard (Respected). Other factors might mitigate any perceived negatives. For example, the servant who struggles to deliver bad news in a timely fashion may be even more loyal and hardworking than expected. As a player, this would feel both believable and fun to me, so I wouldn't feel cheated out of my advantage. YMMV.

Re: On being Feared
 

Note, for example, that there is a quirk, Inappropriate Manner, which says that you constantly use a particular Influence skill, whether it fits or not, and that you sometimes get unfavorable reactions when you've used it inappropriately. For example,

Pushy: You can’t shut off your Intimidation, even when that might earn you a punch in the face (or worse!).

This is handled by applying a substantial penalty to the Influence roll.

Now, Feared doesn't actually involve making an Influence roll, and you can have it without Intimidation skill. It's not your manner or words that intimidate the other person; it's who you are socially known to be. So the "penalty to Influence skill" mechanic doesn't apply. But if you're trying to do something where intimidating people is likely to have bad results, there should be some similar consequence for having Feared.

Re: On being Feared
 

Which has little to do with what Dalin posted, which to me sounds like the effect of a Poor result on the Reaction table, not a positive one and has nothing (in general) to do with competence of a hireling.

In other words, Nergul goes out to hire some housekeepers. She get's a Poor result. But they are afraid of her so they agree to show up in two days. The npcs instead decide to move to a different town to escape the wrath of the Necromancer.

That's a Poor result, not a "Fear Flavored" Good result.

Granted... she hires hirelings that are ecstatic about the work but lie to get the job and are incompetent also sounds like a Poor result. Except that they won't lie to her about their failures, they'll just fail and grovel afterwards (unless they are compulsive liars or have some other similar flaw of character). They won't stab her in the back deliberately, but they might get drunk (or even do it while sober) and spread gossip about her all over town.


Hmmm. My kneejerk is: I don't like it. I don't like saddling a Player with the effects of a Bad Result when they didn't roll it. I do also get that some hirelings are just going to be useless. However that should come from some other roll, not just a 'Flavoring' of the Reaction.




I rather disagree that it requires reinterpretation. Flavoring yes, giving bad results to good rolls, no.




Which I've never liked because it gives extreme results for the price of a Quirk.

There is a penalty to Feared. Feared people don't make friends easily.


Personally, I'd be more inclined to lower Bonuses to to Loyalty building based on 'friendly' actions. Treat your employees well*? Get a bonus, but at half the rate non-Feared would. Give bonuses and perks†? Get a regular bonus.


* IE speak to them kindly, praise them, overlook the occasional mistake, risking your life for theirs, general 'friendliness' treatment.
† Second choice of the kill, second choice of loot from the conquered, excesses given to only the best of employees, rewarding 'cutthroatedness', etc.






I think a lot of this (on my part) comes from my general hatred of "Oh, you have Immunity to Disease? Okay, the villain tailor made a disease just for you and since your immune to bacteria that's the only way to cure it! Have fun with this!" IE: Playing Dirty.

Re: On being Feared
 

Well, you know, I think I don't quite care for having your bad experiences, or your assumptions about the unfairness of GMs, lead you to, in effect, accuse me of planning to treat my players unfairly. Everything I've been asking here has been in a spirit of "what follows from the way the trait is defined in the rules?" Not what can be contrived as a way to hurt the character, but what was the player implicitly choosing from the very beginning when they put Social Regard (Feared) 3 on the character sheet.

The trait in question gives +3 to reactions from other characters; that's a benefit. It does so without requiring active interaction, an advantage relative to Charisma 3, and without requiring you to pay an extra cost of living, or ceasing to operate when you deal with high Status people, an advantage relative to Status 3. And in compensation, it's limited to producing one specific type of favorable reaction, which can occasionally have inconvenient effects. Those effects are even specified: It's as if you had intimidated the other person, rather than gained their cooperation in some other way. That is, you've used "the skill of hostile persuasion." So I'm asking how that might work when you're trying to hire someone for a job.

Re: On being Feared
 

Charisma also gives skill bonuses that feared doesn't. A better comparison would be Reputation.

Re: On being Feared
 

Well, okay. At the 5-point level, a Reputation affects everyone, and you are always recognized as the person it applies to. That's a lot like Social Regard. But a Reputation must be for something specific, and what that thing is is surely going to influence how specifically people react to you. So say you have "Reputation +3: Can command the spirits of the dead." How does that differ from "Reputation +3: Wise elder" or "Reputation +3: Endows wilderness preserves to save endangered species" or whatever?