Social Regard and Stigma from the same trait?

[CeeDub]

Salutations!

Suppose a character belongs to a single group that is simultaneously popular with one crowd, unpopular with another group, and regarded indifferently or reservedly by the rest. Assume the first two groups are of roughly equal size.

Example:

In the campaign I'm world-building, superpowered people have fans to whom they are celebrities. Those fans have internet fora for news and gossip, and there are even commercial print magazines about supers, much like the real-world US Weekly, OK!, Star, InTouch, etc.

There are also large numbers of people who dislike superpowered individuals. (Unfortunately my English is not good enough to find a collective name for them. Any help?) Their reasons include fear, envy, and even legitimate concerns about possible civil rights issues or questions about constitutionality that may arise from (masked) vigilantes acting as de facto law enforcement, testifying in court as their hero persona, etc.

The rest are either undecided or otherwise neutral, judging individuals only based on their actions. Like most fence-sitters, they can become biased, of course. Lose a child to a villain attack, supers are a menace; have a child saved by a hero, regard supers as a (net) force for good.

Is that Social Regard and Social Stigma, even though it applies only to a part of the culture? Should I apply the appropriate group size modifiers from Reputation? Or is it just a feature and the two cancel each other out? Am I completely wrong and it's not a character trait at all, but an NPC Reaction Modifier?

I know that SR/SS needs to be obvious, and while powers are not necessarily obvious like sex or skin color, between magazines, wikis, and Clark Kenting not working in this game world, most superpersons don't even bother with an actual secret identity. Most do, however, wear costumes or at least Civvie Spandex in action.

Keep in mind that this is based purely on having powers. What one does with them, i.e. heroic or villainous acts would create an individual Reputation.

Also, how would you handle a faction of the fan-group that has a somewhat inverted reaction to individual supers, i.e. "heroes" are tools of The Man™ and villains are Draco in Leather Pants - because Evil Is Sexy. I'm thinking that this will not be reflected on the character sheet at all, it's just a feature of the campaign world.

[Maz]

I would actually set this as Reputation and Intolerance instead.

[whswhs]

In the situation you describe the character has neither Social Regard nor Social Stigma, because they aren't well thought of or ill thought of by the society in general. What they have is Reputation with two different groups. (Maz's suggestion about Intolerance isn't quite right; Intolerance is your negative feeling toward another group, not others' negative feeling toward you.) I would build it as a pair of Reputations, probably with the same frequency of recognition but with different group sizes and modifiers, and figure the net point value.

There is at least one case where you could have both: Social Regard (Feared) and Social Stigma (Monster) could go together. You'd have to decide when to apply which modifier.

[Maz]

Originally Posted by whswhs

(Maz's suggestion about Intolerance isn't quite right; Intolerance is your negative feeling toward another group, not others' negative feeling toward you.)

Sorry my message was a bit unclear, posted from my phone so kept it a bit too short.
I meant it as: They, the supers should have reputation and the group that dislike them should have Intolerance.

[Flyndaran]

For a real world example, my mind immediately went to obese people in wheel chairs. Some of us would give them social regard for their handicap, while many others would stigmatize them for "laziness induced handicapping".

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

For a real world example, my mind immediately went to obese people in wheel chairs. Some of us would give them social regard for their handicap, while many others would stigmatize them for "laziness induced handicapping".

Sure, but that's two different groups having the reactions.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Sure, but that's two different groups having the reactions.

On the other hand, special legal protections combined with bias is fairly unsurprising; usually special legal protections exist for a reason.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Anthony

On the other hand, special legal protections combined with bias is fairly unsurprising; usually special legal protections exist for a reason.

Sure. But you wouldn't represent them with this specific mechanic. I'm not objecting in the slightest to the concept; just to the rules representation.

[jason taylor]

Isaac of York in Ivanhoe. Has social regard from Jews for business prowess and stigma from gentiles for same.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Sure. But you wouldn't represent them with this specific mechanic. I'm not objecting in the slightest to the concept; just to the rules representation.

The original concept is probably reflected adequately by "reaction rolls are random" and a zero point feature. I'm not sure what special rights would be actually; it appears to be some sort of Privilege (B30), but not any of the standard ones.