[The Great Art] Self-regulating Social Status Mechanics

[Josh Roby]

Andrew, you've got to make people's respect rating affect the game in some mechanical way, or else respect is absolutely meaningless, and you'll be going to all this trouble of coding databases and stuff for some pretty filligree that everybody ignores.  If it doesn't do something it's dead weight and should be culled.

I'd also suggest that you need to provide an incentive for assigning Respect points -- perhaps a mechanical bonus whenever you support someone who you've invested with Respect -- so that there is a good reason to spend them on people.  Is there some other reward system in place that players can promise to use in would-be supporters favor (you give me Respect, I'll make you Seneschal)?  If this is a game about personal power plays, what does it advantage me to give points to you?

[dindenver]

Hi!
  I agree, you need to figure out:
1) What effect, in game terms, dies Respect have?
2) What incentive do players have to give Resoect toi another player?
3) What incentive do players have to keep their respect?
4) How do players regain their respect?
5) How does TRespect work IRL?
6) Do you want it to simulate that or something else?
  It sounds like you have pretty good answers to most of these, but I thikn you have to work out some other details.
  Good luck man, it should be pretty cool when you are done!

[Andrew Morris]

I agree that respect must have a mechanical function or it is useless. No argument there. I don't, however, think that function must be a mechanical advantage. One of the big things in game is the power of research. Having something like respect would allow you to use research to find out more about other characters.