Fame and Renown

Processing through some of the excellent material Alexis handed me,  I wanted to turn my attention to finding a way to document player renown, a fame mechanic.  Looking at what was accessible on the pfsrd and D&D 5's 'faction' system, I concluded that it was a bunch of crock and decided to write my own.

The 'faction' system's problems are numerous, but the core issue is that their use is only for people playing in Wizards' group play thing - parties playing the same modules at the same time.  There aren't any real choices involved - either you are in a faction or you aren't, and since you can only hold rank in any one faction at a time, the most factional conflict one might see is between players who are members of different factions and have been assigned conflicting 'secret tasks' in a given prefabricated scenario (but I think Wizards' would probably have predicted that and made sure that no faction tasks conflict).

The Pathfinder fame system actually has some nice components to it, if you like disassociated mechanics. The DM ad hoc rewards players with fame points for completing CR-appropriate challenges (i.e. level-appropriate challenges, for those who stopped playing D&D before 3rd edition).  At specified amounts of fame points, new fame tiers are unlocked, and these grant players different ways to spend Prestige Points, a consumable resource awarded alongside fame.  These let players call in favors they have somehow earned by being famous, talk their way out of trouble more easily, and so on.  However, there are some problems, too - for example, heinous actions somehow make characters less famous as opposed to giving them a larger reputation for being villainous.

Let's talk about some solutions.  One of the things I like most about the Pathfinder system is its idea of Sphere of Influence - a character's effective fame is wholly dependent upon where they are - if they are only famous within a specific kingdom, then venturing outside it will reduce them to being indistinguishable from Jo Adventurer.  However, in Pathfinder, the sphere of influence is fairly static.  Let's fix that.

Fame should be accrued whenever the party accomplishes a task that the local community (i.e. the community in which the task is completed) finds notable, either in a good way or a bad way.  This could be clearing out the goblins plaguing the town, emptying the dungeon nearby that was discouraging trade, exposing the corrupt city official, whatever.  Depending upon whether the party is remembered favorably or disfavorably, the affected community's view of the party will be increased or decreased.

Now, after the party has finished this task, the affected community will start spreading the stories of how they achieved this mighty deed, spreading their fame along the roads and paths (because fame is fundamentally a construct of civilization).  When these stories meet (two different significant actions in different areas yielding two different stories about the same individuals, their generated fame is added together.

This begs the very important question of how to measure Fame.  Having recently played through Fallout: New Vegas, the game features a very workable reputation mechanic that I think adapts very well to what I'm proposing here.  To summarize, each faction has two ways to track your deeds: Fame and Infamy.

	Helpful Reputation ("Fame")
		Range 1	Range 2	Range 3	Range 4
Harmful Reputation ("Infamy")	Range 1	Neutral	Accepted	Liked	Idolized
	Range 2	Shunned	Mixed	Smiling Troublemaker	Good-Natured Rascal
	Range 3	Hated	Sneering Punk	Unpredictable	Dark Hero
	Range 4	Vilified	Merciful Thug	Soft-Hearted Devil	Wild Child

Depending upon how those interact, your reputation with a faction (and therefore how they will treat you) will change - black for neutral response, green for positive, and red for negative.

I propose having one's fame and infamy progress through specific actions taken by the party.  If the action taken by the party is one that would be doable by common folk, no reputation change is required.  An action that could be successfully accomplished by the local town militia or bandit crews would necessitate one step increase, and a task beyond the capabilities of anyone the community would know constitutes a two step increase.  The highest of a party's fame and infamy would determine the number of cities that would hear of it - a party Idolized in a community would be known two cities away (with a one step decrease in fame at each city)

What this means, then, is that as players journey around a given environment, their deeds will ripple over it and make a network of stories cementing their status.  Bards and storytellers could be hired to expand the party's reputation, or increase it in a given area.

The last thing to talk about beyond reputation is recognition - how much the local governments recognize the achievements of the party and award them perks (or issue bounties for their heads), and that would be largely up to the DM's discretion.