An idea for the Freaks rule

[JadeDragon]

I was thinking about an option that could allow for more freedom for role playing freaks with the freaks rule.

How about inventing a Good Reputation clause for players who play freaks?

How it would go would be as such:

Each freak has a base amount of negative reputation points. "Accepted" being 0.

Each time the character participates in certain plots the DM could award them with reputation points, if the plot was suitable to allow it. For example: If the plot helped save a well renowned person in Arabel, and the character involved was a freak and helped in such a manner that wasn't questionable, then their reputation points would improve. Even if very slightly.

If they ever reach 0 points while in their freak form, they will still be considered accepted as the reputation of said freak has satisfied enough common folk as they know him/her not to be a threat to Arabel.

This could take a long time to obtain enough reputation points. The math is obviously up to you all. Also, reputation points could go down just as easily.

Just a thought. I think of how Drizzt eventually became accepted through his heroic actions over time. It just makes sense to me.

[Fire Wraith]

We tried implementing a reputation system in the past. It was pretty widely disliked, none of the DMs made use of it, and it was eventually taken out.

The second issue with this suggestion is that past experience has told us that players tend to emulate the behavior of other players, and don't pay attention to things like "Bob is a known champion of the realm, he can go about openly because of it." So the moment you have one drow walking around openly, others see that, assume it's okay, and do the same. We've had to wrench this back several times, and tell players to stop ignoring what the setting rules actually specify.

[Arya]

As a player and someone who has played many ECLs in the years, both type and against type (but still conforming to the spirit of lore), I am sympathetic to the idea of reputation being great in idea. However, as pointed out, it seems what works in theory does not always work in practice. There are also many things that go into reputation in practice, too, when you think about it (see below).

People, as Fire Wraith         had noted, also do not ask about whether a person earned trust through hard-earned roleplay and just assume what they see as normal. We had noticed that previous people who earned good grace (and sometimes lost it) set a precedent for others in the past.

The way I see it at this point is that even in the case of influential NPCs who may sometimes know what a character is after having proven themselves, they are not going to want someone creating waves and not putting in minimal effort to be mindful of how the rest of the population will act. Even more, they will not have sympathy for someone who is careless of how the majority of their kind are like in the case of commonly or great majority evil (or good in the case of evil places). I also do not see them caring about anyone who does not think about how they might present. This, honestly, is something else that can (and often is) a factor in reputation (regardless if we had/have a system for it or not): how much are people disturbing the peace and acting nonchalant about the baggage they carry with what they are.

I am pretty sure Drizzt still may at least wear a hood in places where people do not know him or who he is, in all fairness.

Do not get me wrong. Baked-in prejudice in a setting is my least favorite part of it for me because of our history of bad actors who like to use it as a way to judge people's quality of roleplay or project their own OOC problematic ideas and behaviors into the gaming experience. They make it harder for good people who are legitimately roleplaying various characters and thought experiments. Still, prejudice is a part of the setting short of a few places.

For me, I just learn to love something for the good and the bad, just like many of my hobbies and hope I can contribute something better in the future.


Best,
Arya