Status and Privilege

After doing some more research on the topic of Persuasion - my social resolution mechanic - I think I'm ready to roll out some rules.  The first, and most important part of the groundwork is coming up with a mechanical way to figure out how status and privilege affect the persuasion attempt.

As I looked at other RPGs for rule suggestions, I came up essentially empty.  The reason for that is that status is intimately connected to the culture in which the interaction is happening.  Thus, rather than one status system, I need one for each culture: Archivists, Areinians, Bairnedred, Ferocia, Southerners, and Tarluskani (with the Confederacy being lumped in with the Tarluskani).

Level	Archivists	Arein	Bairnedred	Ferocia	SK	Tarluskani
0	Non-Archivists	Unemployed poor	Non-elders	Non-Ferocia	Confederate slaves	Confederate slaves
1	Exiled Archivists	Employed poor	Elders	Regular Ferocia	Rural commoners	Nonhumans
2	Apprentice Archivists	Scribes/barristers		Tribe elders	Urban commoners	Southerners, Areinians
3	Regular Archivists	Merchant class			Nobility, priesthood	Ethnic Tarluskani
4	Conclave members	Oligarchs			Beacons	Tarluskani military
5						Generals

The way this works is by first determining in which social sphere the persuasion attempt occurs, and this generally will occur in the context that gives the most advantage to the target of the persuasion (unless this person is wildly out of their area of expertise).  Additionally, if the persuader is in a group of individuals, they will assume the lowest status of anyone in their group.

Here's an example: the party, which comprises of 3 Southerners and a Bairnedred, is attempting to persuade a Tarluskani guard in Reyjadin to let them into the city after curfew, when the gates have been shut.  This is a Tarluskani operating within their official capacity, so the interaction will use the Tarluskani frame of reference.  The guard has a status of 4, whereas the party (with their Bairnedred companion) has a status of 1.  Since the guard has an effective status of 3, all of the party's attempts to influence the guard come with a -3 penalty.

This -3 works in my game, with my skill system.  For a d20-based system, I'd recommend doubling the modifier, to -6 in this case.