STAGE · Your first town
Standing and reputation
Draft — Draft: checked against the game source, not yet read through end to endAvailable from the startThe three standing tracks — People, regional law and guild faction — and how each moves, recovers and gates.
This page is further along your path. Read ahead if you’re curious; you can return when you reach this stage.
Three kinds of standing
Players say "reputation" for three systems. They are stored separately, and improving one does not improve the others.
| Track | What it is | What reads it | What it gates |
|---|---|---|---|
| People | The regional population faction's view of you | Town talk: greetings and the chance of a useful answer | Directions, topics and how much a stranger will engage |
| Legal standing | Your record with the law, tracked per region | The watch, the court, banishment | Whether guards stop you, what a court does, entry to a region while banished |
| Faction standing | Your standing with a guild, temple, knightly order or other faction | Joining and promotion, services, rank tests | Guild membership, rank, some services and training |
The People track is not a shop-discount stat: shop offers come from the counter's own price law and your Mercantile and Personality. The People track is about conversation. See Talking to people and Shops and prices.
What moves each track
Quests
A quest's end pays the faction it was given for. The quest law's values are +5 for success and −2 for failure (questRepute.js QUEST_SUCCESS_REP, QUEST_FAILURE_REP). Individual quest scripts can also carry their own reputation actions (ChangeReputeWith). The handbook's design records state that failing a quest costs no faction standing online, so treat the −2 as the offline/default hook rather than a reliable penalty online.
Crimes
A crime is charged to the region where it happens. Each crime has a fixed legal loss, and the region's People faction takes half of it, truncating down:
| Crime | Legal loss | People loss (half) |
|---|---|---|
| Vagrancy | 1 | 0 |
| Trespassing, Smuggling, Piracy, Pickpocketing, Criminal conspiracy | 2 | 1 |
| Theft, Assault, Attempted breaking and entering, Breaking and entering, Tax evasion, Loan default | 8–10 | 4–5 |
| Murder | 20 | 10 |
| Treason | 36 | 18 |
| High treason | 75 | 37 |
A town Curfew doubles the legal loss only; the People's half stays as it is. See The law and City control later.
Faction service and propagation
A successful guild or temple service can move its faction: a temple donation has a chance to add one point of reputation, where the chance is 2 × the gift ÷ max(|current standing|, 1) + 1 percent (guildServiceActions.js). A faction reputation change can also propagate: allies take half the change the same direction, enemies half the opposite direction, and the walk climbs a faction's hierarchy. Helping one temple can therefore cool its enemies toward you without your doing anything to them.
Bounty contracts
Finishing a bounty contract for a region's board improves that region's legal standing by two points (standing.js CONTRACT_LEGAL_GAIN). It is one of the few voluntary ways to repair a legal record.
How standing recovers
Time. Negative legal and faction standing each recover one point every seven game days (
court.jsRECOVERY_INTERVAL_MINUTES). This runs on the character's clock and continues across an absence — online time model's recovery-only walk. Positive standing instead drifts one point down toward zero every 112 game days of lived play (NORMALIZE_INTERVAL_MINUTES); an absence does not wear a positive standing down.A sentence. Serving or paying a court sentence returns about half the crime's legal loss, minus one (
court.jssentence refund). A fine-plus-prison sentence can refund twice, a classic quirk the port keeps.A temple penance. A temple sells penance that moves five points of the region's legal standing back toward zero, never past it. The first costs 200 gold in a region and the n-th costs n times that (
standing.jsPENANCE_POINTS,PENANCE_BASE_PRICE).A pardon. Murder and treason can bring banishment. A temple sells a pardon that lifts it early; the first costs 2,500 gold and the n-th n times as much (
PARDON_BASE_PRICE). The banishment itself is timed: thirty days on the calendar you see online (BANISHMENT_MINUTES).
What each track gates
Guild joining needs non-negative standing with the faction and two qualifying guild skills (
guilds.jsisEligibleToJoin). See The NPC guilds.Guild rank needs faction standing 0, 10, 20 … 90 for ranks 0–9 (
RANK_REQ_REPUTATION), plus the rank's skill bars. Online, an earned promotion applies immediately when you open the services.Legal standing decides how the watch treats you, what the court imposes and whether you may enter a banished region.
People standing decides how much a townsperson is willing to tell you. It does not change shop prices.
Practical standing habits
Take the court, do not run. Leaving or dying ends the chase but not the record; a plea or a served sentence repairs part of it.
Use the board for a region you need. A finished bounty contract is +2 legal standing in that region.
Bank a penance before a big purchase. Five points for 200 gold is cheaper than the standing you lose by being refused a guild hall.
Watch your allies. A temple favour can lower a rival temple's standing with you; check the faction before donating heavily.
Do not expect a positive score to last. Lived play wears positive standing down toward zero; only negative standing drifts back.
Common mistakes
Treating the three tracks as one number. A guild that likes you does not make the town watch forgive a crime.
Running from the watch. The pursuit ends; the legal mark stays until a sentence or time repairs it.
Donating without reading the chance. The donation's chance falls as your standing rises, so large gifts to a faction that already likes you are poor value.
Ignoring propagation. A change to one faction can move its allies and enemies; a favour for one temple is a statement about another.
Assuming a high positive score is permanent. It drifts down every 112 game days of play.
Next
Sources & checked facts
src/systems/faction/factionRep.js:getReputation,setReputation,changeReputation, propagation (ally,enemy,GENERIC_TEMPLE,GENERIC_KNIGHTLY_ORDER),MIN_REPUTATION,MAX_REPUTATIONsrc/systems/guild/guildFactions.js:RANK_REQ_REPUTATION(0, 10, 20 … 90),MIN_REPUTATION,MAX_REPUTATIONsrc/systems/guild/guilds.js:isEligibleToJoin, rank tests;src/systems/guild/guildServiceActions.js: donation chance, service reputationsrc/systems/quest/questRepute.js:QUEST_SUCCESS_REP5,QUEST_FAILURE_REP−2;src/systems/quest/actions.js:ChangeReputeWithsrc/systems/crimes.js:CRIMES;src/systems/court.js:REPUTATION_LOSS_PER_CRIME,lowerRepForCrime(People takes half),legalRepOf,LEGAL_REP_MIN,LEGAL_REP_MAX,NORMALIZE_INTERVAL_MINUTES,RECOVERY_INTERVAL_MINUTES, sentence refundsrc/systems/standing.js:PENANCE_POINTS,PENANCE_BASE_PRICE,PARDON_BASE_PRICE,CONTRACT_LEGAL_GAIN,BANISHMENT_MINUTES, penance and pardon servicessrc/systems/talk/talk.js:getReactionToPlayer(People faction, biography and social-group moderation)Design records:
docs/23-playing-online.md"Quests are the core loop now" (failing a quest online);docs/27-caps-and-timers.mdResearch:
handbook/research/T3.md(law and crime);handbook/research/T1.md(talk and the People)