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Roleplaying Networking

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Wed, 2013-03-13 05:15

Glenstryder Glenstryder's picture

Hello! I am a new (french!) Eclipse Phase GM. So first hello to everyone in here! it seems to be a great game with a great community. I have never actually played EP but I will in a few weeks. I am planning on running Glory which seems quite nice for a first session. I am struggling with some areas, not really in terms of how they work in the settings, but how to narrate them during a game and especially Networking and Favors. It's said at some point that to retrieve some specific piece of information ( relation status between two transhumans ) one would need to spend a @rep high favor. I clearly understand how to manage favors when the players knows what he want to obtain (a gun, a good hacker, etc...) and so may decide to pay or not the price (in terms of favors) but how to do so when the player does not know the information and the value of it? is it like "NPC: hello I have found out that you are researching data about mr jones, I may have some spicy stories about him and one of his teacher. Only a few know about that and it might be relevant for your current research" and then as a GM I told him it's a level 4 favor? and the player might be disapointed by the usefulness of the info? And sometimes to streamline the game do you do things like that? "GM: someone may have a information about mr jones but it requires a level 4 favor. Are you ok with that?" Thanks in advance and again hello everyone!!!

Wed, 2013-03-20 01:41

Joe

Favors

Bonjour. Since no one else has weighed in, I guess I'll throw in my $0.02. (And Kudo's on your mastery of English. I'm nowhere near you in French!) I think there are different 'levels' of role playing. If I were playing in your game, then either one of your proposed methods would be fine with me, where the second would be more of a mechanics based game and the first more of a role playing game. To me, it all depends on the style of game play you and your players enjoy most. A third option would be to take the mechanics jargon completely out of the discussion by role playing the discussion and then you secretly rolling for the favor. Since you are the GM, you would know all the details about the favor level, the character's Rep level, and Networking skill level. If the character pushed really hard for the information, you could treat it as burning rep, and the character's muse could notify the character after the transaction is completed. Alternatively, the NPC might want something in return. Since characters literally have a rep score in game, you could also have the NPC make a comment about their rep rating to particularly obtuse characters/players. As far as the character being disappointed by the transaction, I would have the following opinion, which I would like feedback on from someone/anyone on the board: It seems to me that the PC and NPC are not exchanging a certain amount of rep between them, like currency. Instead, the NPC will be dinging the PC's rep based his/her perception of the size of the favor, and the PC will bump the NPC's rep based on his/her perception of the same, but their perceptions may not be the same. The objective in a reputation based economy (maybe) is for the service you provide to not be a big deal to you (thus dinging your customer's rep very little) but to be a big deal to your customer (thus boosting your rep by a lot). This would make both parties happy with the transaction and promote repeated business. For standard items like a gun, these ding and bump quantities would be rather standard based on location, gun type, etc. For non-standard items like information, it becomes much more subjective, so I think the source should be feeling out the customer on what information the customer is looking for to make sure that the source's rep will be boosted by a sufficient amount to make any consequences worth while. -Joe

Fri, 2013-03-22 11:51

Glenstryder Glenstryder's picture

Thanks a lot for your comment

Thanks a lot for your comment (and for the reply ;p) It makes a lot of sense. I think I will give hints to the player about the favor level ( roleplaying accordingly the ego on the other side) and he will decide then.