Reaction Rolls and Reputation

As usual thinking about ability scores was keeping me awake at night, and—after yet again unsuccessfully trying to square the circle OF STUPID ABILITY SCORE MODIFIERS—I started thinking about reaction rolls. One may well assign the notion of ability score modifiers to the status of "only for the combat mini-game", but then you miss out on the UNADULTERATED POWER of having an 18 charisma character getting involved in this murky business:

None but a nincompoop would deny the beauty of the 2d6 table: indeed, many have tried to use it as the basis for whole systems. I am certainly a fan of the above interpretation (taken from the red box), as there's it runs the whole gamut of monster emotions! In all seriousness, I enjoy that it suggests multiple stages of negotiation, with charisma perhaps playing second fiddle to other circumstantial modifiers.

Incidentally, during my research I found that RAW, from the 70s right up until the publication of the Rules Cyclopedia, CHA had a separate modifier table exclusively for reaction rolls. While I was familiar with the wonky modifiers of 0e & 1e, it had somehow escaped my attention that this carried over into the basic D&D series, right up into the first edition I owned (the above Menzer basic):

What is this devilry!

Clearly an example of the Mandela Effect and not my faulty memory. I checked up in the Rules Cyclopedia (released after Red Box and some of the BECMI rules) it had this to say:

Standard adjustment... but not until the second date roll.
Also back when "he" wasn't gender neutral (as today) but books would begin with a paragraph claiming it was* 

Interesting! I accept though that does rather depend on one's definition of interesting... in any case, the standard modifier would apply but not to the initial roll. Clearly high charisma individuals just skew the roll too much.

Anyway: the point is reaction rolls are good, especially for random encounters, and charisma should modify them to an extent.

Reacting to a Band of Pariahs

Pariahs are outcasts, and other hunter-gatherers can spot this. They band together in heterogenous groups sharing little in the way of common culture, and carry with them their shame, their guilt and their misery. Such people carry bad luck with them: why were they cast out? Were they thieves or sorcerers or worse?

To the settled peoples pariahs are just like the other people of the wilderness: dangerous and foreign  and opaque. Unfamiliar tribes usually come to the settled lands to raid, to pillage: why would the pariahs be any different?

And so, on meeting a pariah for the first time, the reaction of hunter-gatherers or settled people is rolled as 2d6-5. As the party negotiate (if they have the chance) this reaction might adjust, in accordance to their words and deeds... and of course, a hostile reaction won't lead to violence if the pariahs outnumber those they encounter.

Animals, spirits and other pariahs react in accordance to their usual behaviour and the individual charisma of the pariah leading the negotiation. 

Reputation

The Two Tribes Meeting for the First Time by Andrea Christodoulides
Not really relevant but Saatchi make it so difficult to share their images I had to post it. FAIR USE YOU FUCKERS.

In the above scenario, other humans react to pariahs at -5. In other words, as though they were 0 CHA Nameless Ones (p.56, PARIAH Vol. 1).

Looking at page 15 of PARIAH Volume 1 you'll see a short note about REPUTATION:

Enter “0” in this box on the band sheet.

Reputation increases over time: see

“Between Trips” (p.19).

Of course, if you turn to page 19 you'll see a note apologising for having run out of space to right up all the rules.

 

Well here they are! The rules, I mean...

Collective charisma

Reputation functions in exactly the same way as the CHA attribute, but it is shared by the whole PARIAH band. If pariahs earn a free X they may place it next to this stat instead of on their own sheet.

When there are 3 Xs beside the band's reputation, they may test it by rolling 1d20: if they roll equal or higher than the stat, it increases by one point.

Initially the band's reputation will increase quickly (assuming the PCs are invested in this), though reputation may only be tested once per session.

Of course, the higher the band's reputation, the less likely it is to increase as it becomes harder to pass the D20 test.

As an option, this test can be automatically passed if a talented member of the party impresses a group of non-pariah humans with a song, story or musical performance describing their adventures.

As with the ancestral shrine this mechanism rewards players putting the needs of the group before that of their individual character, though of course their characters will benefit equally from the improvements to the band's reputation.

Collective Identity

Throughout their adventures the pariahs may develop their collective as well as individual identity, extending beyond tales of their deeds and into the relationships they have with one another, the wider human community and the spirits of nature and their ancestors.

Along the way customs and rituals might develop which mark the pariahs out as belonging to a particular group with a particular reputation: the players may wish for this to manifest as a name and/or a visual cue: tattoos, tribal colours, body paint, body modifications etc.

Gaining Followers

Each month the band's reputation determines if they gain any new followers:

Reputation	Youths	Elders	Pariahs	Other tribes*
0	1d4-3	1d4-3	1d6-5	1d10-9
1	1d2-1	1d2-1	1d4-3	1d8-7
2-3	1d4-2	1d4-2	1d2-1	1d6-5
4-5	1d4-2	1d4-1	1d2-1	1d4-3
6-8	1d4-2	1d4-1	1d4-2	1d2-1
9-12	1d4-1	1d4	1d4-2	1d2-1
13-15	1d4	1d4	1d4-1	1d4-2
16-17	1d4	1d4	1d4	1d4-2
18-19	1d4	1d4	1d4	1d4-1
20	1d6	1d4	1d6	1d4

The band cannot grow any bigger than 152 members: at this point, the band will divide into two bands of equal size.