Fantasycraft: Reputation and Renowned (No Shadzar)

[Previn]

So... over in the Actual Anatomy of Failed Design: Diplomacy Frank mentioned that the Den hasn't actually had a discussion of Fantasycraft's Reputation and Renowned system. A quick search confirms that that's pretty much true.

Now as a quick glance at it:

You get Reputation points for achiveing victories durring adventures, you get some for beating the adventure, and the possibility of some more durring the adventure for some vague mumble mumble.... It doesn't actually give examples beyond 'exciting, cinematic and innovative actions'.

Anyways, you can then spend this reputation to acquire Renown (social standing with various groups/people) or glittering prizes such as Contacts, Favors, Holdings, or magical items. Note that some prizes can also be lost, and if so, you don't get the rep back.

You can keep a number of prizes based on your Renown, you lose all the rest at the end of the adventure. Now, I won't go into the math because while it works, it seems very non-favorable to the PCs. I will note that magic items you find along the way you can keep, but the count against your prizes, so finding and keeping the equivalent of a +4 magic sword might cost you say that small cottage you were going to retire at (the cottage being a holding prize).

So... give the above general gist, what do you think of this system; workable, garbage, on the right track with some changes?

[Username17]

The Renown/Prizes system has a number of weird effects. But the biggest effect is the part where you are directly and severely mechanically punished for doing flavor shit like having cottages or friends. Any prize that isn't a combat ally or a magic item is directly raping you in the combat minigame. That's bad. And not, I think, particularly salvageable.

-Username17

[fectin]

That assessment isn't entirely true, because every prize gives you some mechanical advantage. That is actually more true with holdings than with magic items, but magic items are mostly a pile of suck. If it didn't give you some advantage, it wouldn't be a prize, and you can use that as the basis of an argument with your MC about whether you should be penalized. That's normally as fun and profitable as pissing upwind, but knock yourself out.

Fantasycraft also has a Prudence score, which turns into a percentage of your cash that disappears between every adventure. Leaving aside the shenanigans that causes in a rational party, you could easily say as fluff that part of what you're losing is getting wasted on your magnificent cottage which is always offscreen. If it's fluff, who cares? It's as though you took a minotaurs head and his super-awsome sword. The sword is a prize, because it interacts with the mechanics and gives you benefits. The head is not.

You can also make checks during downtime to earn reputation instead of money, and crafting magic items works by generating an amount of renown equal to the cost of the item.

[K]

The general idea sounds interesting, but as long as the RP game and the combat game are bought with the same pool, it can't work.

[fectin]

The general idea sounds interesting, but

That pretty much captures the essence of FantasyCraft.

as long as the RP game and the combat game are bought with the same pool, it can't work.

That's not entirely true. Imagine a system where all the RP crunch was also balanced and costed for it's ability to contribute to adventures: you're imagining the normative FantasyCraft system. In reality, it's balanced about as well as the CR system, but the ideal makes sense.

You can seriously just buy things like "Imprison 1 NPC without trial", or "Harassment — Abuse 1 NPC, inflicting penalties for the scene". Those are nominally part of "the RP game", but have some pretty significant effects on combat, so I don't really know how to evaluate that.

This is also the game with action dice, which are explicitly a per-session resource. They show up right on your character sheet, and are affected by your in-game abilities and actions, but you spend for game and metagame effects.

It's actually really hard to isolate a single subsystem to talk about, because they all blend together, and while it's all recognizably d20, none of it works quite the same.

[A Man In Black]

I can imagine that, but it's really fucking weird. Like, a folding tent would be much more valuable than a house, because they're both shelter, but a house is only shelter when you're in town.

[fectin]

You would think that, and it makes sense that you would think that.

But you would be wrong: the house has rooms in it, like "Dressing Room: The Appearance bonus of each character residing at the holding improves by +1" or "Kitchen: Once per adventure, you and each guest gain any 1 unspiced food at no cost." It can also hold tradesmen, who generate tiny cash flows whenever you aren't there. It really does align your mechanical benefits and your fluff improvements, but doesn't provide enough bonus to break anything.

It's cool though, because a tent costs Silver, and a house costs Reputation, and there really isn't a conversion between those resources.

It's.. less bad than it sounds.

[ModelCitizen]

Those all sound like noncombat perks from MMOs. Player housing! Prepare over 100 foods with the Cooking skill! Recolor your armor at the in-game dressing room!

I'm all for making the noncombat part of the game more compelling, but I am unthrilled about keeping track of whether my food is spiced or unspiced.

[Chamomile]

In an actual MMO (or any video game), that kind of thing works really well. I'm not sure how wise it is when you don't have a computer to take care of the bean counting for you.