[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?