A two-dimensional reputation system

[mcmanusaur]

Unfortunately, simply arranging nine types of emotional reactions into a dubious grid is like trying to fit square pegs into round holes. This is because these terms and most of their kind are cultural constructs that have been created to differentiate qualitatively distinct experiences that do not necessarily exist along any sort of continuum. While the system you have suggested could produce interesting and colorful results, its internal logic is a bit lacking in my opinion as it draws a false dichotomy between emotion and practicality.

 

The conception of attitudes that prevails in modern psychology is (similar to what some have suggested) that the level of positive feelings toward something and the level of negative feelings toward something are independent from each other. Thus you get something like this:

 

                   Positivity

Negativity     Apathy       Liking

                   Disliking     Ambivalence

 

Even if this system is more structurally sound, it may not produce very interesting results. However, one could even include a third variable of certainty; how valid a person believes a feeling is can be distinguished from how strong that feeling is.

 

At any rate, both of these models focus primarily on single NPC's relationships with the PC. If we're talking about general reputation, that could be slightly different. One's level of fame and one's moral standing are definitely different things, as we can have one kind of attitude without the other. However usually the former only shifts as the PC progresses through quests rather than as the result of any conscious choices on the PC's part; perhaps PE could do that a bit differently.

 

For strictly moral reputation the tried and true good vs. evil and lawful vs. chaos isn't too bad, although I'd tend to phrase the latter dichotomy as principled vs. unscrupulous, but even that gets a bit confounded since we have such encompassing views of good and evil in our culture.

[Ffordesoon]

@AGX:

 

Fair point. I deliberately didn't go into details in that post for the sake of brevity, but it is true that unlimited time and money would ameliorate the issue.

 

Personally, though, I think the current writing and recording process for voiced games is absurdly hostile to any game that isn't strictly linear, and RPGs especially. It's also detrimental to the quality of the writing in all games.