What are everyone's thoughts on Favors and Renown?

In this case you press a button and get honey. But yes I agree ;)

Favors are not good. They make upconversions a pain! It makes the room at the Royal Beth a pain to get even though I have tons of Mysteries of The Elder Continent.

Tomb-colonists Favours are pretty easy to get; I got 3-4 of them from my last trip to tomb-colonies.

But it’s easier to farm Antique Mysteries directly than it is to get enough through upconversions anyway. Just use the Flit or Carnelian Coast.

I mean, I guess if you already have 1000+ Mysteries of the Elder Continent lying around for some reason, upconversion is the way to go, but I don’t think that’s exactly a common situation.

It was extremely frustrating to have 45 Antique Mysteries, 50 Mysteries of the Elder Continent, and no way to use those to buy my place at the Royal Beth. I wound up giving up and proceeding with my next story goal instead of waiting any longer for a card. My next task was to visit the King with a Hundred Hearts in Polythreme. I was not happy when I understood the mechanics of Polythreme and realized what a huge advantage an extra card slot would provide.

If you’re a POSI, you can spend 5 actions to get Casing with no Shadowy check.

I advise using the 5-action auto-success POSI option if your shadowy is too low. It’s just as fast as the fastest three action ones.

(If you’re not a POSI yet, I personally can’t recommend going for four-card lodgings at all, but Carnelian Coast is probably the most reasonable option)

I was completely against it when it was first introduced - mainly because I completely misunderstood the proposed mechanics… :shakehead:

Now I’m all for it! Yes, the Renown increase for spending 7 Favours could be a bit larger, but not much.

I don’t quite understand the people moaning about how hard it is to grind Renown; why would you do it in the first place? There will probably never be any gameplay-reason to increase more than your one or two favourite factions’ Renown to 15 or more, and that’s doable. If you want to max out more connections it’s only because you want to collect rare items or just enjoy insane grinding; in each case you shouldn’t complain about the difficulty… ;)

I do completely agree with the complaints that Favours should not be used in the item upgrade system unless at the high(est) levels. There are so many better ways to use a Favour having to save one for this purpose seems silly. I like using a Renown unlock idea better, though at a fairly low (under Renown 7) level would be best.

The main problem that I have with Favor/Renown is that I need to keep all my favors to convert them to renown, so I can’t cash them in for profit. Since every faction is getting special pets/items at certain renown points, I can’t really afford not to save my Favors for renown if I want everything (which I do).

I still like the system, though. Gives me another thing to work towards.

I’m pretty sure the Carnelian Coast requires becoming a PoSI and having a ship, among things.

Yep, I agree. It’s very strange that I can sink every single Favour into a box of curiosities and yet my Renown does not increase. “What, 500 of us, tomb-colonists, have exchanged this esoteric knoweldge with you, you say? Nope, have never heard of you. You are entirely unknown to us. We certainly would never expect you to be a reliable provider of curiosities! Why would we? We have no idea who you are”…

it is, until you think of renown as not being someone who deals with them, but a freind. once you think of favors as being your current relationship with them- favors owed and given- and renown being your long-term deeds as a freind. the conflict cards are- some of them, at least- going to break that role, but most of them will still leave you a freind. you might have betrayed one band of urchins, an zeroed all debt in the process, no matter which the gang, but the gangs still remember you as a freind because they aren’t entirely the same entity.

You might have inconvenienced the docksworkers, but not all of them, only a certain subset. Renown is you- instead of cashing in- actively seeking to partake in their society- whether holding funerals for the docks or partaking in one of the criminals races.

It’s the difference between a business partner and someone who joins you in the pub, spread across an entire society.

[quote=Rupho Schartenhauer]I was completely against it when it was first introduced - mainly because I completely misunderstood the proposed mechanics… :shakehead:

Now I’m all for it! Yes, the Renown increase for spending 7 Favours could be a bit larger, but not much.

I don’t quite understand the people moaning about how hard it is to grind Renown; why would you do it in the first place? There will probably never be any gameplay-reason to increase more than your one or two favourite factions’ Renown to 15 or more, and that’s doable. If you want to max out more connections it’s only because you want to collect rare items or just enjoy insane grinding; in each case you shouldn’t complain about the difficulty… ;)[/quote]
There already is one. the rubbery men offer the best in slot of unprofessional gear for two slots persuasive. one’s fate-locked, but going for 25 is still a very good idea. if this will be the pattern for all of them, you’ll need at least 4 factions renown 25 as a stat maxer- which, admittedly, you might not be.

it is, until you think of renown as not being someone who deals with them, but a freind. once you think of favors as being your current relationship with them- favors owed and given- and renown being your long-term deeds as a freind. the conflict cards are- some of them, at least- going to break that role, but most of them will still leave you a freind. you might have betrayed one band of urchins, an zeroed all debt in the process, no matter which the gang, but the gangs still remember you as a freind because they aren’t entirely the same entity.

You might have inconvenienced the docksworkers, but not all of them, only a certain subset. Renown is you- instead of cashing in- actively seeking to partake in their society- whether holding funerals for the docks or partaking in one of the criminals races.

It’s the difference between a business partner and someone who joins you in the pub, spread across an entire society.[/quote]
That’s not how the mechanic was explained, though. The original thread gave the example of unsuccessfully robbing the Brass Embassy - Renown would increase because Hell knew of you, even if they didn’t like you. It was explicitly intended as different from Connections indicating friendship and positive feelings for the player. That’s not how it’s currently implemented, but hopefully that will change as factions continue to be converted.

I find that the renown mechanic is a little like the quirks in that the first few levels are easy enough to reach, but then there’s a weird gap that’s disproportionately difficult to leap over, before you get to the high level actions. And I definitely agree that renoun should be earned through storylets as well. Why did I bother doing the Battle of wolfstack Docks if it didn’t make me known at the docks? The same goes for criminal renown. I own an object that says a legendary story was passed around about my character’s criminal exploits. That oughta translate to something.

That’s not how the mechanic was explained, though. [/quote]
Exactly.

What Grenem describes is how the old Connected quality was. It used to indicate how close you are to a certain faction, and it worked because of two things:

  • It changed with every interaction we had with that faction throughout the game. Every action which had some impact on a faction mattered, because we’d get an immediate indication if our Connection with them (i.e. how close we are) has changed.[/li][li]It could drop as well as grow. This gave roleplay choices meaning. If I choose to hurt some faction, or to go against their interests, my Connection would drop, signalling that we’ve grown further apart.

The current Renown quality was specifically designed to encapsulate both fame and notoriety. This was clearly explained in the introduction post and it’s why Renown can only increase, never decrease. This is problematic from a roleplay perspective, because:

  • There’s no &quotcost&quot to going against a faction’s interests. It’s no longer indicated in a property of our character.[/li][li]The only way to increase Renown (apart from the first 5 levels) is to click a lot on the faction item. It never increases as a result of story choices. Therefore, it is meaningless from a narrative perspective. It’s just a collector item. (with the new Rubbery items, Renown at least makes some mechanical difference - though still no narrative meaning to acquiring it!).

I like the idea of making Renown more like quirks, in that there are many ways to increase/decrease, but they are capped. So the higher your level, less methods will work (and perhaps reserve using just the faction item to the very highest levels, since this is just for completionist players and doesn’t work from the character’s narrative perspective).

As someone else pointed out recently, there are 1-action casing actions in the Flit and elsewhere that are transferable…

I really like the way favors work, however I truly despise how I have to trade favors through connected items to gain renown. It is a huge bottleneck on the mechanical side of things, and from a role playing stand point it effectively kills the way I interact with different groups.

[quote=dov]
The current Renown quality was specifically designed to encapsulate both fame and notoriety. This was clearly explained in the introduction post and it’s why Renown can only increase, never decrease. This is problematic from a roleplay perspective, because:

  • There’s no &quotcost&quot to going against a faction’s interests. It’s no longer indicated in a property of our character.[/li][li]The only way to increase Renown (apart from the first 5 levels) is to click a lot on the faction item. It never increases as a result of story choices. Therefore, it is meaningless from a narrative perspective. It’s just a collector item. (with the new Rubbery items, Renown at least makes some mechanical difference - though still no narrative meaning to acquiring it!).

They might have started out saying that &quotRenown is a neutral and that it could meant fame or infamy,&quot but it is barely so for Criminals since they are more about capabilities and being out for yourself. So you can technically justify any backstabbing you do.

For Docks and everything that came after, it doesn’t remotely make sense to have your Renown be the bad kind of notoriety because Renown are gained by doing significant favours to them - save a Rubbery tenement, help Dockers get out of a bind with Mr Fires, rescue Tomb-Colonist from a mausoleum - and in return unlocks even more situation where they do nice things for you. Rubbery instruments, dockers labour.

If Renown is really independent of how the factions feel about you and is purely about how well they know you, people would have gained like 25 Docks and Rubbery just for supporting Neddy Men and murdering Rubberies left and right for Ambers and in these case it still doesn’t make sense for the Rubberies to gift secret fancy instruments.

I guess you can really squint and claim that you are just instilling terror into people and loudly declare you didn’t help them?

[quote=Estelle Knoht][quote=dov]
The current Renown quality was specifically designed to encapsulate both fame and notoriety. This was clearly explained in the introduction post and it’s why Renown can only increase, never decrease. This is problematic from a roleplay perspective, because:

  • There’s no &quotcost&quot to going against a faction’s interests. It’s no longer indicated in a property of our character.[/li][li]The only way to increase Renown (apart from the first 5 levels) is to click a lot on the faction item. It never increases as a result of story choices. Therefore, it is meaningless from a narrative perspective. It’s just a collector item. (with the new Rubbery items, Renown at least makes some mechanical difference - though still no narrative meaning to acquiring it!).

They might have started out saying that &quotRenown is a neutral and that it could meant fame or infamy,&quot but it is barely so for Criminals since they are more about capabilities and being out for yourself. So you can technically justify any backstabbing you do.

For Docks and everything that came after, it doesn’t remotely make sense to have your Renown be the bad kind of notoriety because Renown are gained by doing significant favours to them - save a Rubbery tenement, help Dockers get out of a bind with Mr Fires, rescue Tomb-Colonist from a mausoleum - and in return unlocks even more situation where they do nice things for you. Rubbery instruments, dockers labour.

If Renown is really independent of how the factions feel about you and is purely about how well they know you, people would have gained like 25 Docks and Rubbery just for supporting Neddy Men and murdering Rubberies left and right for Ambers and in these case it still doesn’t make sense for the Rubberies to gift secret fancy instruments.

I guess you can really squint and claim that you are just instilling terror into people and loudly declare you didn’t help them?[/quote]
Renown is, in my opinion, how associated you are with their society. It’s ultimately neutral in that you can have renown without actually helping them much, but renown is more being that guy in the pub for the docks, for instance. They recognize you. Maybe you’re not going to put them first, but they recognize you- you’re a part of their society in places most outsiders aren’t. You might not always put them first, but you’ve been spending time with them, and have done some people a good turn. You might not be someone they can count on, but you’ve done good things for them in the past.

In some factions this makes more sense- criminals are not properly united, so having renown but betraying them makes perfect sense- they aren’t properly united anyways. Docks have their own internal feuds too. Rubberies and tomb colonists, though. Well, the tomb colonist betrayals are choosing to save someone else in a life-or-death situation or something easy to sweep under the rug, and the rubberies might not be very good at communication. Still, the latter seems dubious, especially since one option is an unprovoked murder.