Reputation

“What goes up… better doggone well stay up!”

-Morgan Gravitronics Company Slogan

Over the course of the game, your character may gain (or lose) reputation with various factions or faction sub-groups. Reputation is the mechanical marker of these groups’ opinions of your character, be that for good or ill, and how likely they are to take heed of your character’s actions and opinions. Some elements of this system will be obfuscated to allow the mysteries and fickleness of social standing to take their course. Reputation can affect:

• Attempts to influence policy, politics or actions taken by members of a faction or faction sub-group

• Attempts to gain positions of power, such as Base Command roles

• A character’s chance of success within downtime, as reputation may provide them with valuable opportunities to call in favours (potentially at the cost of some of the reputation that enabled this in the first place)

Each character can have a total reputation of up to 100 points per faction. The wider status of society within the game may affect your character’s reputation - for example, if your character is a member of a faction that is currently at odds with another, without effort their reputation will automatically be considered lower with that faction.

Faction Sub-Groups

Each faction has a sub-group aligned with each of the ten ideologies. All of these groups are named known entities, and may have their own agendas and ideals they wish to push, both in session and in downtime. On their character sheet, your character’s reputation with each individual sub-group within their own faction will be visible.

For factions your character is not a member of, you will only see a sum-total rating for that faction’s opinion of them, as your character is not privy to the minutiae of that faction’s society. If your character gains or loses reputation with a sub-group in another faction, their total faction rating will be adjusted accordingly.

Mitigating Failure

In downtime, if your character is on track to fail at their goals within an action, the ref team may consider any positive reputation they hold with a narratively appropriate group. By default, your character may call a favour from this group to help mitigate the impact of this failure, or even prevent the failure altogether - however, this will cost reputation as your character is calling upon their resources.

It is possible to prevent this by explicitly stating your character will not be asking for aid from groups they hold reputation with when downtime actions are submitted, otherwise this will be done when appropriate.

Reputation and Technology

When a character deploys a technology within a faction, they will gain reputation. How significant this reputation boost is is determined by whether they are taking the glory entirely for themselves or if they deploy this technology with the aid of others. It will also be influenced by which other factions already have access to the technology - if the faction a technology is being deployed in is the first to receive it, this will have a significant positive impact. More recent, cutting-edge technologies will also provide a greater increase.

Sharing or selling a faction’s technology without prior approval from faction command is universally considered a crime, and will likely have serious consequences, including a negative impact to reputation. However, someone with sufficient reputation may gain permission to do so - and a character with this authorisation may be provided with the schematics and notes for a given technology to share/sell. Of course, these schematics could well be stolen or copied from their person, if they do not take sufficient precautions to prevent this…

Downtime

In downtime, characters may embark upon various missions or quests to achieve a given goal in collaboration with others. These quests may be player organised, or on occasion an NPC may present player characters with an opportunity to embark upon one in the interests of their sub-group. These quests are generally of a larger scale involving both PCs and NPCs, and will require 3 (or more) successful checks to achieve the desired outcome.

Quests that bring about some level of risk to those involved will often cause an increase in reputation with relevant parties if they are successful. Failure, especially failure from botched checks with negative consequences, may have the inverse effect. Unrelated parties may also reconsider their view of a character dependant on the actions they take; for example, despoiling the planet is likely to draw the ire of Gaia’s Stepchildren regardless of who the character was acting on behalf of.

Character Generation

At character generation, your character will start with a total of ten reputation points within their own faction - this will include an automatic negative one reputation with the sub-group aligned with their aversion, and an automatic plus one reputation to the group matching their role ideology. Reputation can also be positively or negatively impacted by certain Advantages and Drawbacks. The reputation they hold with other factions will not initially be based on their own personal merit, but will be based entirely upon the faction they originate from.