Complete Victory = Extraordinary Support
Major Victory = Total Support
Marginal/Minor Victory = Ordinary Support
Tie = Neutral
Marginal/Minor Defeat = Objection
Major Defeat = Forbiddance
Complete Defeat = Condemnation
In order to acquire community support, a hero may be required to succeed in a contest. There are a number of approaches to this: one can test the relationship alone; enhance it using an ability such as Leadership; test an ability such as Leadership enhanced by the relationship; or play around with sundry combinations of Leadership, relationship and reputation. Each has its merits, and can be used interchangably. The ability chosen should take into account the nature of the community as well as the support being requested. Should the community consider a hero to be deserving of its respect (or fear) based on his or her possession of a certain ability, then that ability could be used in attempts to garner support. Modifiers should be awarded for the use of especially appropriate or inappropriate abilities, as well.
EXAMPLE: To convince the clan elders to support his or her suit against a rival clan at the tribal moot, an Orlanthi hero might choose Lawspeaking or Just, both culturally significant abilities; Hate <Rival Clan>, if shared by the elders; or perhaps even Intimidate, were the elders fearful of the hero and believed him or her capable of carrying out any threats. Any reputation the hero might have (as an honest man, a maniac killer, etc.) could also be used to enhance, if appropriate to the ability chosen (I personally like using the relationship rating itself best, enhanced by reputation and abilities like those mentioned above).
The resistance for this contest should be based primarily upon the community's size. A large community, although possessed of greater overall resources, will have difficulty reaching a consensus in the first place, as well as coordinating its efforts effectively once a course of action is chosen. This contest may be modified by the supplicant's intent and the degree to which the community would benefit. Here are some sample resistances, using community size as an Orlanthi would; the base is 10, plus a modifier taken off the Community Participation Table for number of people:
Household = 20
Stead = 5W
Clan = 15W
Tribe = 10W2
If the household, stead, clan or tribe is other than the hero's own, tack another +5 or +10 onto the resistance. These are only fast and loose numbers, and could easily be tweaked down or up as needed. The modifiers from the Number of Targets Chart are a trifle less forgiving, but may be more representative. The best advice I can give: scale according to the scope of your own campaign. The result of the ability test, Simple Contest or Extended Contest gives the level of support which the hero obtains, according to the chart at the beginning of this missive.
The purpose of all this is to provide a method for adjudicating the amount of resources, in terms of manpower, material, information, etc. which the hero can beg, borrow or bully from his or her community. Greg's ancient "Epic System" draft touched upon this at one point, but the feature is missing thus far from HERO WARS... perhaps "Sartar Rising" will remedy this. I hope this provides a useful and interesting thought-experiment for the systems-hackers.:)
Thoughts? Opinions?
-- Michael Richard Schwartz | Language is my playground, mschwartz_at_... | and words, its slides and Ann Arbor, Michigan USA | swingsets. -- yours truly
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