Telepathic reputation meters

[rusty_shackleford]

But what do YOU think? Should there be a system in place that keeps track of the player's moral compass? And which games handle it best?

D&D-like alignment sucks ***. Chaos-Order substitute sucks balls.
There should be a reputation system based on faction-specific "sins", not morality check system. If you kill elven kids, elves (including your teammates) should hate you, Khorne should meh at you and dragons might despise you even though they're enemies of elves.
There also shouldn't be just a single "current rep" slider, because it's too shallow. It should be reinforced by "all time high/low rep" and/or "specific deed" triggers, because being a hated enemy and being a hated traitor are different.
But, most importantly, rep system should change NPC interactions, otherwise there's no point in it.

This was a very interesting post, but it reminds me that most games with factions/reputation tend to have it reflected immediately. Does any game NOT do this and take time for reputation to propagate? Especially between locations?
I understand why they do it and this is probably kinda hard to implement otherwise, maybe. From the technical side, you'd probably need to do something like keep a history of where each reputation gain/loss happened at and be able to re-calculate faction values when the value is needed and it's outdated, checking if each gain/loss would have propagated yet.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

This overlaps with instantaneous communication in games. I remember there being an American Civil War RTS (forgot the name) where when you order a unit to do something, they do not instantly start moving there as if they received an instaneous communication. Instead a rider is dispatched from your HQ and has to travel across the battlefield to that unit's officer, and then that unit begins moving. So now you need to much better setup your forces beforehand or send orders earlier knowing that there will be this delay. It'd be neat if this was applied more broadly to RPGs, ie performing a killing spree in the middle of town in one province, but you get on a horse and gallop to another province and the people there haven't received word yet to be on the lookout for you.

[J1M]

This overlaps with instantaneous communication in games. I remember there being an American Civil War RTS (forgot the name) where when you order a unit to do something, they do instantly start moving there as if they received an instaneous communication. Instead a rider is dispatched from your HQ and has to travel across the battlefield to that unit's officer, and then that unit begins moving. So now you need to much better setup your forces beforehand or send orders earlier knowing that there will be this delay. It'd be neat if this was applied more broadly to RPGs, ie performing a killing spree in the middle of town in one province, but you get on a horse and gallop to another province and the people there haven't received word yet to be on the lookout for you.

I think an emphasis on this would move a game from real-time strategy or tactics into one of logistics. Not sure it would be a popular genre, but certainly one I'd like to see people attempt.

[Tweed]

But what do YOU think? Should there be a system in place that keeps track of the player's moral compass? And which games handle it best?

D&D-like alignment sucks ***. Chaos-Order substitute sucks balls.
There should be a reputation system based on faction-specific "sins", not morality check system. If you kill elven kids, elves (including your teammates) should hate you, Khorne should meh at you and dragons might despise you even though they're enemies of elves.
There also shouldn't be just a single "current rep" slider, because it's too shallow. It should be reinforced by "all time high/low rep" and/or "specific deed" triggers, because being a hated enemy and being a hated traitor are different.
But, most importantly, rep system should change NPC interactions, otherwise there's no point in it.

This was a very interesting post, but it reminds me that most games with factions/reputation tend to have it reflected immediately. Does any game NOT do this and take time for reputation to propagate? Especially between locations?
I understand why they do it and this is probably kinda hard to implement otherwise, maybe. From the technical side, you'd probably need to do something like keep a history of where each reputation gain/loss happened at and be able to re-calculate faction values when the value is needed and it's outdated, checking if each gain/loss would have propagated yet.

DND's alignment system has never translated well into vidya games anyway. It's there to keep players in check at the table and give them something to go off of for roleplaying. I can't think of any game that uses reputation like a ripple-effect. Supposedly, LeFay's new game was going to do this.

[TKVNC]

But what do YOU think? Should there be a system in place that keeps track of the player's moral compass? And which games handle it best?

D&D-like alignment sucks ***. Chaos-Order substitute sucks balls.
There should be a reputation system based on faction-specific "sins", not morality check system. If you kill elven kids, elves (including your teammates) should hate you, Khorne should meh at you and dragons might despise you even though they're enemies of elves.
There also shouldn't be just a single "current rep" slider, because it's too shallow. It should be reinforced by "all time high/low rep" and/or "specific deed" triggers, because being a hated enemy and being a hated traitor are different.
But, most importantly, rep system should change NPC interactions, otherwise there's no point in it.

This was a very interesting post, but it reminds me that most games with factions/reputation tend to have it reflected immediately. Does any game NOT do this and take time for reputation to propagate? Especially between locations?
I understand why they do it and this is probably kinda hard to implement otherwise, maybe. From the technical side, you'd probably need to do something like keep a history of where each reputation gain/loss happened at and be able to re-calculate faction values when the value is needed and it's outdated, checking if each gain/loss would have propagated yet.

Most developers are ******* who don't know what life is like outside of the internet.

[Tadeusz]

Does any game NOT do this and take time for reputation to propagate? Especially between locations?

Pathologic 2 has different reputation meters for different areas of the city. Propagation in the area is instant though.
What will the game get from the delayed reputation propagation? I can think of the situation where the player had done something bad for the city then went there. Rumors about player's misdeeds has finally got to the city and now everyone is hostile to the player. Are there more hypothetical interesting situations that can come out of this?

[DemoGraph]

Does any game NOT do this and take time for reputation to propagate? Especially between locations?

I don't know of the game like this.

I understand why they do it and this is probably kinda hard to implement otherwise, maybe. From the technical side, you'd probably need to do something like keep a history of where each reputation gain/loss happened at and be able to re-calculate faction values when the value is needed and it's outdated, checking if each gain/loss would have propagated yet.

Well, you can imagine making a simpler version of this propagation. There're "information nodes" (NPCs or buildings) that exchange faction-wide info between each other instantly. And then there's a downtime for each NPC to travel to such a node. So that, e.g. if you kill everyone in a border patrol, nobody would be left alive to tell others that you did this. But if you let some patrolman to run and he got to such a node, you instantly turned into enemy of the state.

Are there more hypothetical interesting situations that can come out of this?

You lie to a maiden that you're a local hero to have your way with her, then she sees a real hero, then your reputation gets altered (or maybe not if she's ashamed to admit she was fooled).
Replace maiden with some other honor-based situation. Use a relic pretending to be a paladin, then repeat it several more times, before getting legal access to those relics (clerics hush it down as to not sow dissent among the peasantry (but the relics are tainted now)).
Or make the lie even more time-dependent. Run to the trading post pretending that the capitol was raided, sell them weapons at a premium, run away before they contact the capitol, repeat on other posts before your reputation spreads, retire rich. Organize insider trades. Change faction allegiance and then run back to your base to get your stuff out before the news of your betrayal spread. Keep troop morale high before they found out that the second army was crushed.
Or make it item-based. You're a new king, but some of your subjects disobey, because the new coins with your face hadn't reached them yet and you don't look like the previous king. Or maybe you killed the dragon and go around showing off his head as a proof and some time later get attacked by wizard guild henchmen, because wizards want to get dragon teeth for free. Or maybe you kill the weakened dragon-killers, get the head and wave it around pretending that you did it.

This overlaps with instantaneous communication in games. I remember there being an American Civil War RTS (forgot the name) where when you order a unit to do something, they do not instantly start moving there as if they received an instaneous communication. Instead a rider is dispatched from your HQ and has to travel across the battlefield to that unit's officer

There was also some old space wargame with a nice idea. Each fleet there had to have a commander. Each commander had several stats, including "delay rating" in turns. You issued orders to fleets. Commanders began to execute orders on turn = issue turn + commander delay + time lag (that depended on distance to capitol or some other communication relay). It added variety to commanders - e.g. there could be a strong but slow admiral or mediocre but agile one. And some tactical traps were possible because troops just didn't get their orders in time.

[Bertram_Tung]

Ultima Online had this.

You could steal from people in one town, say Moonglow, and if you got caught or did it enough, the other characters would start getting mad at you, or call the guards on you, or attack you.

If your reputation was too low in that town, you could go to another town, say Vesper.

When you got to Vesper, nobody would know who you were and you could start fresh. UNLESS someone from Moonglow came by and saw you!

Then if you went back to Moonglow later, there's a chance nobody would recognize you. But if one of the characters from earlier was there, they might attack you, or hide, wait for you to steal, and call the guards on you!

Devs were much better at designing AI back then!

[Demonic Fate]

IIRC there was an Oblivion or maybe Skyrim crime mod where the consequences of your crime would spread in a geographic radius, i.e. for a minor crime you'd only be wanted in the city/region in which it was committed, while more serious crimes would be enforced in neighbouring regions as well, but you could still escape by going further away, and the bounties would eventually be forgotten.

I think propagation was still instant, though if you disabled fast travel the point was semi-moot - a guard could plausibly have been dispatched on your trail at the same time as you travelled.

[J1M]

I think a problem with a lot of these ideas is that as a player I would assume it worked in a lazy traditional way. There'd need to be a lot of overt signals as to why something happened before I believed it was systemic.

[MrTwinkls]

I say get rid of reputation/fame systems in RPGs altogether (it's all subjective anyway just like moral alignments) and implement cause/effect based one with possible deceitfulness by NPCs/player in mind.

[Red7]

i thought its tread about measuring telepathic powers of rpgHQ users.

very jewsappointing

[rusty_shackleford]

What will the game get from the delayed reputation propagation?

This is a fair question, I just think it adds to the believability of the world which I place a lot of emphasis on.

e.g., I remember going into a library in Morrowind and being impressed that all the books there were actual books I could pick up, TES games remain some of the very few that actually have environments like that a quarter of a century later.


Contrast when I tried to replay KCD earlier this year:

Also, I forgot how much of the gameworld is completely uninteractable compared to TES games. Perfect example of when I previously posted how the Creation engine heavily carries Bethesda. If you see something in a TES game that might be something you'd want to interact with, you can probably interact with it.
Seeing entire bookshelves that are just static uninteractable props is sad.

Minor details that end up adding a lot to the world…

[Tadeusz]

This is a fair question, I just think it adds to the believability of the world which I place a lot of emphasis on.

Believability and game mechanics sometimes clash but I think some games can win from the delayed propagation. Since you mentioned KCD there's a delayed propagation of sorts with witnesses who report crimes. You can catch a witness before he reports a crime to a guard which is nice.
A more global simulation may be something like this as well - one NPC who witnesses your deeds can share information about you with other NPCs when he talks with them. When enough NPCs share the same rumor your overall reputation within the town changes. If it's some merchant who travels between cities then your reputation may change there as well.

[Kalarion]

What will the game get from the delayed reputation propagation?

This is a fair question, I just think it adds to the believability of the world which I place a lot of emphasis on.

e.g., I remember going into a library in Morrowind and being impressed that all the books there were actual books I could pick up, TES games remain some of the very few that actually have environments like that a quarter of a century later.
...

On that note, I think this:

I say get rid of reputation/fame systems in RPGs altogether (it's all subjective anyway just like moral alignments) and implement cause/effect based one with possible deceitfulness by NPCs/player in mind.

Would significantly detract from the intent of world reactivity, because morality and reputation figure hugely into real-world interaction (and therefore, believability). Maybe it could be a case of starting small? Get a handle on the technical implementation with a strictly material and pared-down C&C system before working up to a full reputation system?

[Tweed]

What will the game get from the delayed reputation propagation?

This is a fair question, I just think it adds to the believability of the world which I place a lot of emphasis on.

e.g., I remember going into a library in Morrowind and being impressed that all the books there were actual books I could pick up, TES games remain some of the very few that actually have environments like that a quarter of a century later.


Contrast when I tried to replay KCD earlier this year:

Also, I forgot how much of the gameworld is completely uninteractable compared to TES games. Perfect example of when I previously posted how the Creation engine heavily carries Bethesda. If you see something in a TES game that might be something you'd want to interact with, you can probably interact with it.
Seeing entire bookshelves that are just static uninteractable props is sad.

Minor details that end up adding a lot to the world…

It's why filling your game with useless clutter is important.

[Tweed]

I think Morrowind captures the "lived-in" aesthetic far better than either Oblivion or Skyrim because of the amount of clutter and how its placed. You don't even notice most of it, but you'd know if it was gone.