Design personality and reputation

[cubap]

variables for decisions and motivations which are not directly trainable, but react to experiences

[cubap]

concepts:

If a player acts in a way that affects their alignment, generosity, aggression, or membership, that would leave a sort of impact on their appearance (more readable by some) and be evident to others who see them for a period of time. For example, if someone otherwise evil rescues a kitten, a stranger who sees them just after that will probably skew towards trusting them. This is a mild impact, but someone who just got back from hunting should reek of aggression. The next level would be hearing a convincing story about someone. A step up from this would be actually witnessing one of these acts (more noticeable for some) and forming an opinion about this person. To simulate gossip and idle chatter about people, there may be a sense of powerfulness to some of the stories (the most egregious good and bad, the most often repeated) that puts them at the top of the queue for communication.

Let’s say player A kills player B unprovoked in front of player C with no other witnesses. A’s alignment is immediately -50, aggression +50. In C’s mind, A is (ali:-25, aggr:+50). C doesn’t know A or B, so B could have been a bad guy, but it was definitely unprovoked. C walks off east and A leaves west. A is now sharing a local area with M and N; C is in an area with U and V. Since A just left the scene, M and N both can tell A did something bad. For M, with no skills otherwise A is (ali:-10, aggr:+10). For N, who is a bit more intuitive, A is (ali:-20, aggr:+30). As long as A doesn’t talk to anyone here, that won’t change, as the first impression is made and the impact of the recent act only diminishes with time. This effect, however, is instant, since it is a snap judgement. Over with C, U, and V it is different. C makes no impact for A upon arriving because no time has passed and chatter would not have ensued. Let’s say, though, that C stays in the area to barter for 5 minutes. Certainly in that time, C has spilled the beans about what he saw and for U and V (with no particular buff) now believe A is (ali:-10, aggr:+10), as that is a pretty good story. As they share space longer, more people may be gossiped about who have less interesting stories. Now if C talks to U, the witness account of the event overwhelms the gossip and for U, A is (ali:-15, aggr:+25 (or -5,+15 from current)) with only a small decrease because U is not a good storyteller yet. When U and V move on, this is still a powerful story and U will passively spread the (-15,+25) to others (at, say, -10,+15), but V will spread the (-10,+10) story at (-5,+5) with diminishing power over time. Back with N, the story is so good that he speaks with M about it to see if there is more to it. M confirms that there is no new information (no other rep events in memory), but they influence each other as they have mismatched perceptions. M goes from (-10,+10) to (-17,+24) while N remains at (-20,+30), since she knows it is about the same impression and she is more intuitive than M. As a result of this exchange, both become a little more intuitive (as they has intentionally talked about an impression) and maybe a trust between them arises, since they agreed. I don’t know. Now when A comes back through town in a day, G knows something isn’t quite right, because he has heard something about her from N, the bartender.

Now A also has some things to think about. If she intends to be a marauder, perhaps this is worn like a badge. If it was a terrible mistake, she may wish to downplay it. A gains abilities that allow for the setting of certain priorities of rep. If I am good at bragging, I may actually come off better to others than my actions. If I have composure, perhaps bad things can go completely unnoticed. If I have high manipulation or convincing, I can adjust impressions, but only by talking directly to someone, who may in turn spread pleasantries about me.

This will take balancing, but I love the idea that a reputation can follow population flow without the original.

[cubap]

alignment

The light-side vs. dark-side stuff. Murder, theft, and swindling is bad; sharing, helping, and trading is good. Plenty of stuff will be neutral.

generosity

Taking vs. giving. Charity (a one-sided trade) would improve it for sure. Stealing would diminish it. I like the concept of this, but it may not have enough in-game application to be worth considering.

aggression

Fight or flight by some measure, temperament by others. Distance travelled to start or avoid a fight with a known or possible hostile, the balance of needing something someone else has against the challenge of obtaining it.

membership

In a civic setting, contributions to community stockpiles, work completed on civic buildings. In tribes, the ability to follow orders, participate in hunting/gathering equitably. For some liminal characters, this is where politicians and hermits are created.

[cubap]

Sarah (wife) had a neat idea here. She thought at first about being able to "rate" someone else to influence their reputation, but then we talked about building in some charged emote options (high five, thank, scowl, laugh) which could impact both the giver and receiver. Someone who is often friendly with others would get more hugs and high fives.

[ladmeyer]

So would these "emote" options be something the player did, or something the player had? If there were something the player could choose to do, then a player could set a parameter like "spend 5 days high-fiving people" nd get a great reputation/alignment.