I am just curious, why is reputation needed for such RPG's as BG, BGII, IWD and IWDII?
Has it some important purpose for the gameplay?
Chosen
Reputation?
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The Chosen One
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Reputation?
Xal Lloth inbal kalith pholor dos, rivvil!
Also it helps to determine how NPCs react to you, ie if you are evil then good characters wont talk to you or attack against you or something like that, depending how low your rep is.
"As we all know, holy men were born during Christmas...
Like mr. Holopainen over there!"
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Like mr. Holopainen over there!"
- Marco Hietala, the bass player of Nightwish
This probably should be in the RPG forum.
But, yeah, it's essentially a measuring stick for your party's actions. Meaning, it's a way for the game to measure how joe average NPC should react toward you. If you've committed unacts of untold evil, NPC reactions should reflect that. Likewise, if you've committed acts of great justice, it should reflect that.
Among the things it, practically, affects is buying/selling prices to vendors. I believe if your reputation is too low, you may incur the wrath of guards, as well. But I can't recall if that's true for certain or not.
The reputation system in the Infinity Engine games is fairly primitive. By BG2 it nearly ceases to have meaning, as its easy for even an evil party to keep it moderately high. It would have been good if it was more intrinsically related to alignment, in a way similar to what PST and NwN do (though, more nuanced). The Virtue mod in BG2 does this to some extent.
But, yeah, it's essentially a measuring stick for your party's actions. Meaning, it's a way for the game to measure how joe average NPC should react toward you. If you've committed unacts of untold evil, NPC reactions should reflect that. Likewise, if you've committed acts of great justice, it should reflect that.
Among the things it, practically, affects is buying/selling prices to vendors. I believe if your reputation is too low, you may incur the wrath of guards, as well. But I can't recall if that's true for certain or not.
The reputation system in the Infinity Engine games is fairly primitive. By BG2 it nearly ceases to have meaning, as its easy for even an evil party to keep it moderately high. It would have been good if it was more intrinsically related to alignment, in a way similar to what PST and NwN do (though, more nuanced). The Virtue mod in BG2 does this to some extent.
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Luis Antonio
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[QUOTE=The Chosen One]I am just curious, why is reputation needed for such RPG's as BG, BGII, IWD and IWDII?
Has it some important purpose for the gameplay?
Chosen[/QUOTE]
Also Elder Scrolls.
It is important to measure what you're up to. So you cant be lawfull good with a low reputation, you wont receive the benefits of being lawfull good, or at least that is what they wanted.
Anyway, it get pretty useless, once you've created the "priest bribe" sistem on BG (dunno if that is used on every D&D) where you can just be a bastard and keep paying tribute to the temple.
Has it some important purpose for the gameplay?
Chosen[/QUOTE]
Also Elder Scrolls.
It is important to measure what you're up to. So you cant be lawfull good with a low reputation, you wont receive the benefits of being lawfull good, or at least that is what they wanted.
Anyway, it get pretty useless, once you've created the "priest bribe" sistem on BG (dunno if that is used on every D&D) where you can just be a bastard and keep paying tribute to the temple.
Flesh to stone ain't permanent, it seems.
Thread moved to the RPG forum.
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fable
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I really wish more games would make use of reputation, perhaps splitting it into rising/sinking reputations for various opposing and allied factions. But typically, that's not seen as a major selling point when trying to market RPG titles to the broadest age spread possible. Lowest common denominator dictates that it's more important to provide a largest possible variety of weapons, armor, spell effects, etc, while the niceties of environment where people act sensibly upon greeting a new arrival go by the board.
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It would indeed be fun if reputation played a significant part other then storeprices and such things as seem to be the case in most games. 
However for reputation to be implemented properly in a game, it requiers a much more dynamic gameworld then we seen in most any games. Reputation in roleplaying seem to be mostly a term for PnP Roleplaying.
However for reputation to be implemented properly in a game, it requiers a much more dynamic gameworld then we seen in most any games. Reputation in roleplaying seem to be mostly a term for PnP Roleplaying.
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Reputation can be pretty useful. Like at the low reputation in BG, guards and wizards spawning in to deal with you. Never had that happen to me, but I believe it is in the manual.
Without reputation, people just get bored when they can't solve a problem and start annhilating everything in sight, whether a character is plot important or not. Reputation adds more depth and responsibility to your actions.
Without reputation, people just get bored when they can't solve a problem and start annhilating everything in sight, whether a character is plot important or not. Reputation adds more depth and responsibility to your actions.