You Are Who You Know

[greentongue]

EPT seems like the perfect setting to have a game based around gaining power based on who you know, and by that I mean "Favors".
Experience Points would be gained from "Favors". The size multiplied by the importance of who that owed it.
A base value favor would be to acknowledge your existence. From there they can step up based on how inconvenient they are to the person indebted.
(The character owning a favor would be its own penalty, no negative against experience. As would extracting a favor in a way that harmed the grantor.)
Obviously you can gain early personal power by being useful to other members of your own clan.
Each patron will have their own connections that you can then interact with and gain favors from.

Am I the only one that thinks this is a good way to play?
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[kesher]

You are not alone.

This'd work slick as butter. Another possibility would be for the characters to gain favors of different magnitudes (say 1-5), and every time they "call one in", it actually costs the character XP; in the world of EPT, you lose both personal honor and social standing by relying on the actions if others (it's far more impressive to have favors owed but never use them...)

[greentongue]

I can see that it would help 'mechanically" building webs of relationships.
family / money / sex / religion

Question, how would you rank family/clan relationships as static values?
On a scale of 1 to 5 is blood a 5 or a 3? This of course assumes that family comes first and immediate family comes before extended family.
Must you do what the head of your clan "requests"? What if it goes against the Emperor's "request"?
Would family/clan relationships be static values?
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[Deleted]

I really like this! In our games, the network of 'owed favors' make a huge difference, and adds to the fun as the players try to balance their obligations to each other and all the social entities that they belong to. You don;t 'have' to do anything that might be requested of you, but the eventual issues from being noted as 'difficult' do affect your prospects.

I also don't think it's a static situation - Tsolyani society is very dynamic, with all sorts of groups and factions milling around, and it can get pretty complicated pretty quickly. And, to our advantage as gamers, it makes for all sorts of adventuring possibilies. Most of my career was spent following up on 'favors', and it made for some exciting situations.

yours, chirine

[Deleted]

And sometimes, the easiest way to deal with everybody who seems to think you owe them a "favor" is to march your Legion out to the frontier and hope you get safely killed...

[Deleted]

FGU's old Bushido game had some rules for this sort of stuff. You'd keep track of your rank within each group you were a member of as well as the rank of that group within society as a whole. Each week you'd roll to see if any members made requests of you. Sometimes it would be from your superiors, other times it'd be from those beneath you. You could even make requests of other members as well.

Because your personal status was based not just on your membership but on the status of your group, you could raise your own standing by being promoted within your group or by increasing your group's standing in the community.

[greentongue]

I just happen to have a copy of "Bushido". I'll have to dig it out and review it. I tend to run "my EPT" with more of an ancient China slant so, it might be just the thing I was looking for.
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[greentongue]

Nov 23, 2013 23:19:39 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

And sometimes, the easiest way to deal with everybody who seems to think you owe them a "favor" is to march your Legion out to the frontier and hope you get safely killed...

You sound like an Old School player. Dying gloriously was part of playing the game not a thing to be avoided because of the background creation investment.
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