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Title

Personal Reputation and Reaction (PRR) system 2.2

Author

Vendalus

Submitted / Updated

07-12-2004 / 08-01-2008

Category

Scripting routines

Expansions

HOTU-1.64

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I. Introduction

The Personal Reputation and Reaction (PRR) system is a set of scripts designed to enhance the sense of depth and consequence in your Neverwinter Nights module by adding the following optional capabilities:
- Allows Charm spells that will make NPCs friendlier.
- Allows NPCs to react dynamically to players actions, factoring in one-on-one interactions, faction standing, differences in alignment and charisma adjustments.
- Allows these reactions to affect other NPCs reactions, creating a true sense that player choices affect the world. This means that over the course of an adventure, player actions can push faction standings over the edge, causing open violence.
- Allows NPCs to own doors, chests and other containers, confronting players when they unlock, disarm, open or disturb these doors and placeables. 
- Allows for these infringements on property to cause a shift in how that NPC feels about the player with continued offenses eventually resulting in hatred or violence.
- Allows for security creatures to be assigned to come and watch over a door or container if an owner calls for help, so that guards can deal with mischievous players instead of having poor unarmed farmers trying to single-handedly stop that beefy warrior who carries a huge axe.
- Allows personal reactions to affect skill checks on a creature, providing a situational penalty or bonus along with the d20 roll.
- Allows bards to attempt Perform checks to increase reactions on NPCs.
- Allows NPCs to provide the players with rumors, where better reactions mean better rumors.
- Allows module builders to flush all PRR variables to a standard Bioware Database for use in sequels or for use in a persistent world context.
Because this is all done with a collection of scripts, this system can easily be modified for custom uses. All of it is optional, and once installed, requires only basic scripting modifications to be used. The PRR system is not for every module, and not every module will use all of its features, but if you are looking for a way to increase the importance of role playing in your work, these scripts may be the answer.
This document will walk you through playing with and implementing the Personal Reputation and Reaction system in your module. It also contains appendices for working with the system. 


II. Advantages of PRR

The key advantage of the PRR system over traditional scripting is that it is based on a matrix style of play. In a typical module, in order to get to the next plot point a series of if-then statements have to be satisfied. For instance, in a module that consists of two plot lines, or acts, the party must complete quest A, then quest B, then quest C in act I in order to get to act II of the module. Another example is that in order for the NPC to give the PC an important clue, a certain set of dialogue choices have to be correctly chosen. If there is an attempt by the module author to give a sense of free will, it usually comes in the form of a binary choice. For instance, you can take the pass or the plains; you can choose to be selfish or to be kind, etc.
This is usually a result of the module�s author only being able to provide a set number of options due to time and resource considerations. As a result, a macro-level set of choices is offered to the player. The problem is that due to the nature of standard if-then scripting techniques, players sometimes feel like their choices don�t actually matter that much, because the way has already been mapped out ahead of time by the module author. 

The PRR system is an attempt to make decisions important on a micro-scale, where individual dialogue choices and quest completions adjust how an NPC reacts to you. This reaction is based on a number, where the higher the number the better the reaction. In an attempt to make the module seem more fluid and open, this numerical representation allows the order of these adjustments to become less relevant by allowing more options to base the if-then structure on. The PRR system is a set of tools to help module authors turn decision-making into a more cumulative effect on the story of their modules.
For example, an alternative to the A, B, and C quests can be offered so that the movement into act II happens when a certain other conditions have been met, be these faction standings, personal reactions, etc. Quests A, B, and C each becomes a means to and end, instead of the only way to propel the story. Additionally, choices such as whether to take the mountain pass or the plains, to act selfish or kind, etc., all become vehicles for meeting these conditions.

As a caveat, it is also important to note that a module cannot hinge completely on these reactions. The implementation of the charm line of spells provides a quick way to force these reactions to happen, and some characters may find it much more difficult to make these reaction changes happen than other characters.

In order to complete this sense of decision-making, these reactions must be able to get worse as well as get better. This lends itself to a certain style of module where there are multiple factions that the party can align themselves with and work for. Character creation choices, dialogue choices and quest choices will close some options to the party, meaning they must look elsewhere for support, but it will also open other options. There must also be a way to play the lone wolf who aligns with no faction or the diplomat who attempts to make all factions� reactions remain at least neutral. As a result, the standard dungeon crawl will probably not use the entire PRR system. 


III. Playing with the PRR system

There are several things to keep in mind when playing a module with the PRR system.

First, remember that every conversation choice could potentially be very important. Take your time with conversations and don't rush through them. You can tell how an NPC feels about you by paying attention to how they greet you and how they react during conversations. When the standard greetings and NPC gives you starts changing, he or she has probably shifted how they feel about you.
Second, remember to check for rumors from the NPCs you meet. There are three kinds of rumors, normal, good and excellent. NPCs with nuetral reactions to you will give you 2 normal rumors. NPCs who are warming up to you will give you up to 4 rumors of either normal or good quality, depending on the roll of the dice. NPCs who are friendly with you will give you up to 6 rumors of any type. NPCs who don't like you are usually not inclined to give you any information. As your reaction improves check to see if the NPC is willing to share more information.

Third, remember that chests other placeables may be owned by important people. If someone sees you damaging their property they will be more wary of you. By default, this will result in a -10 adjustment to your reaction with that person. If they think they caught you actually taking something of theirs, the default adjustment is a -20. Clearly, you can quickly ruin your relationship with the NPCs in a module if you run through looting every chest you see.

Additionally, security forces that get called in will not be happy with you. Word will start to spread that you are a causing them problems. In game terms, this results in a -2 reaction with the entire faction that the security forces belong to.

Getting spotted messing with someone else's property is dependent on a number of factors. The owner has to be in the area and has to actually perceive what you are doing. Even if they can see or hear you, if you take something out of a chest, a pick pockets check will be rolled against their spot check to see if you can get at the contents without being caught. Be warned, even if you don't get caught, stealing and destruction of others' property is an inherently chaotic act and will carry a minor alignment shift for you and your party.

Fourth, remember that the charm spells are a powerful way to manipulate NPCs. Casting charm on a friendly NPC results in a bonus of 100 to the PRR historical value. You will get the full +2 on all PRR skill checks, the maximum number of rumors (6), a possibility of getting the best grade of rumors, and any other rewards for having a friendly reaction with the NPC that the module author has put in the conversation file. The effect lasts as defined in the PHB, meaning that a 15th level enchanter with an extended Charm Monster spell could ensnare an NPC into his or her service for roughly a full month in game time. There is a risk in using the charm spells, however. Every time your target NPC makes a saving throw against the spell, that NPC will notice what you were trying to do and become a little more suspicious of you. This translates into a -5 PRR adjustment with each failure. Low-level casters should be careful how they use this spell. When casting on a hostile creature, charm spells use the standard Bioware code.

Finally, remember that your reactions with an NPC will affect skill checks. Try chatting up NPCs before rushing in to try a persuade. Be careful though, some NPCs are not what they seem. A duplicitous rogue may be agreeing with everything you are saying, all the while becoming more and more certain that he wants to burry his knife deep in your self-righteous back.


V. Conclusion and Contact Information

There are a lot of scripts in this package and a lot of functionality. Most of these scripts are meant to be placed in conversations and there are only a handful of core scripts. Even though you may not use all of it, I hope that there is something in here that will help your module. If so, please send me an email and let me know so that I can feel like the two years of playing with this on Saturday afternoons was worth it to someone besides myself. Also, if you have any suggestions, concerns or questions, don�t be afraid to email me and ask. I know how daunting it can be jumping in to a new system, and I want to make it as easy as possible for everyone.

Vendalus
sbf5000us@yahoo.com

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Format

Module and Code

Type

Type - Structs

Includes

BioWare Standard

Description

Updated to version 2.2 on December 14th, 2004: - Fixed several small issues in the stealing and bashing scripts where they were not checking to see if the owner was dead. - Added subjects to romurs in an attempt to keep NPCs from talking about themselves in the third person. This is a comma delimited list. See the demo module for examples. - Added a timer for alignment adjustments due to stealing and bashing that can be controlled. Also pulled alignment functions out to a central location. - Added a function called PRR_AdjustPartyPRR, which will adjust an entire party's PRR value for a single NPC.

Files

Name	Type	Size	Downloads
prrupdate22.zipprrupdate22.zip Submitted: 07-12-2004 / Last Updated: 12-14-2004	zip	490.03Kb	3819
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SCORE OUT OF 10

9.86
27 votes
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Comments (73):

1 2 3 Next>

Posted by Henesua at 2011-11-19 23:47:00 Voted 10.00 on 11/19/11

Upgrading my vote. I was wrong about the pause at the start. That was caused by DMFI code that I had inadvertently merged in my PRR module. I have since been working with PRR without DMFI and found it to be efficient and effective.
_________________________
Vault Submissions | Arnheim | Beyond Vives

Posted by Henesua at 2011-03-19 07:17:42 Voted 10.00 on 11/19/11

Found another odd issue with these scripts. The onload scripts cause a long pause just before character creation. I'll look through them and post the fix when I find it. But in the meantime I am downgrading my vote. These scripts are very useful, but with this number of of bugs and inefficiencies a 10.00 is an inappropriate vote.
_________________________
Vault Submissions | Arnheim | Beyond Vives

Posted by Henesua at 2010-12-31 00:37:20 Voted 10.00 on 11/19/11

Found another database bug in _prr_main
Since NBDE now has its own function for unloading the NBDE database objects, I believe these lines should be commented out:

// object oDatabase = GetLocalObject(oVault, "NBDE_DATABASE_PRR_"+IntToString(nPlayerKey));
// DestroyObject(oDatabase, 0.1);

And then this line should replace them:

NBDE_UnloadCampaignDatabase(IntToString(nPlayerKey));

Also you can replace the sample scripting for on_client_leave with a single function call to:

void PRR_OnClientLeave(object oPC);

HOWEVER - you will need to change this function to the following:
[script]
void PRR_OnClientLeave(object oPC){
// old object oPC = GetExitingObject();
SendMessageToPC(oPC, "Cleaning up for "+GetName(oPC));
object oVault = GetObjectByTag("NBDE_VAULT");
if(GetIsObjectValid(oVault)){
// get database item
int nPlayerKey = PRR_ConstructPCIdentity(oPC);
// old NBDE_FlushSingleCampaignDatabase(IntToString(nPlayerKey));
NBDE_FlushCampaignDatabase(IntToString(nPlayerKey));
// old object oDatabase = GetLocalObject(oVault, "NBDE_DATABASE_PRR_"+IntToString(nPlayerKey));
// old DestroyObject(oDatabase, 0.1);
NBDE_UnloadCampaignDatabase(IntToString(nPlayerKey));
}
}
[/script]

_________________________
Vault Submissions | Arnheim | Beyond Vives

Posted by Henesua at 2010-12-28 00:47:12 Voted 10.00 on 11/19/11

Got it integrated, and found some bugs along the way. I am using the latest NBDE, and it looks like NBDE was not fully developed when PRR was finished. So all the bugs arose from incompatibilities between the latest versions of both of these systems (PRR 2.2 and NBDE 1.0).

PRR has three problems:
(1) PRR declares constants that are also declared in NBDE. My fix was to create a master file for constant declarations, and strip constant declarations from both systems. Then I included my master constants file where ever these constants might be needed.

(2) PRR uses an old name for a function. So I changed this to the new function name as declared by NBDE.
Old: NBDE_FlushSingleCampaignDatabase(IntToString(nPlayerKey)
New: NBDE_FlushCampaignDatabase(IntToString(nPlayerKey)

(3) PRR documentation instructs you to add the NBDE_VAULT placeable to a faction area, but NBDE has already done this for you in its own area. Do not add a second NBDE_VAULT.

_________________________
Vault Submissions | Arnheim | Beyond Vives

Posted by Henesua at 2010-12-26 20:52:31 Voted 10.00 on 11/19/11

Amazing system and too complicated to comment on yet. curently working on integrating it into a new mod.
_________________________
Vault Submissions | Arnheim | Beyond Vives

Posted by PoisonTheMonkey at 2010-11-03 12:25:20

Working on implementing this now, this is a brilliant system. Will rate when I'm finished. :)
_________________________
Obsidian Shore, a HoF 9.8 heavy roleplaying PW. Dark and gritty fairytale world with the opportunity to do and change the world as you wish. Link

Greycliff, a brand new NWN1 heavy roleplaying PW. A broken kingdom is all that remains from a bloody civil war. Link

Posted by azak30 at 2009-07-11 21:20:54 Voted 10.00 on 07/11/09

very nice system, one of the best.

Posted by Kolyana at 2009-05-16 10:04:59 Voted 9.50 on 05/16/09

Love the system and use it in all of my modules; it's - without a doubt - a core component of any believable system and consider it to be more essential than CEP. Would never build a module without it.

Posted by -vendalus- at 2008-08-14 10:12:36

Thanks all for the votes and HOF status!

Posted by ffbj at 2008-08-02 07:23:31 Voted 9.75

Cool, made the HOF!

Posted by 2R_Duke at 2008-07-07 16:36:36 Voted 10.00 on 07/07/08

A nice and innovative system that can add a great deal to a world.
_________________________
Lawful Evil Builder/DM

Posted by Saduj at 2008-06-28 22:06:50 Voted 10.00 on 06/28/08

Very Cool System :)
_________________________
Carcerian/Saduj's Submissions: (169 Portrait/Soundset Unlocker) (12 NWN Fonts) (30 NWN Fonts) (Auto-Emotes) (Custom Dragon Disciples) (Dynamic Wildshape) (Keyring) (NPC Schedules) (Sacred Shields) (Spawning Undead) (Shayans Subrace Engine for 169)

Posted by calsailx at 2008-06-09 17:17:29 Voted 9.75 on 06/09/08

Been using this in a module I'm working on and
I just want to say thanks, Really makes things come alive. Every NPC that hooks into it seems a bit more believable. Adding it was a bit of a chore, but I feel it was time well spent!
_________________________
TNI01 Usable Beds || TNI02 Useable Beds || TWC03 Usable Beds

Posted by -vendalus- at 2008-06-08 11:30:44

Thanks for the votes! As I said before, I've stopped supporting this for nwn1 and moved over to nwn2. In the newest version I've gone back to the original "category" element on rumors and added a new "quality" element. If you're interested, it should be pretty easy to convert it over and would give a lot of the flexibility you're looking for there. If anyone wants to take this over, just let me know and we can work something out. Thanks again!

Posted by Ondaderthad at 2008-04-12 21:39:57 Voted 10.00 on 04/12/08

It looks like i never voted before for this excellent system.
Thanks Vandalus. This is truly Hall of Fame Material.

_________________________
The Best PW system is getting even better.
PLATEMAIL Tech Preview

Posted by Carcerian at 2008-04-05 17:58:49

Very intersting stuff, voting a 10!
_________________________
Carcerian - Beholder Eye Powers & AI, CEP Dragon Disciples, Color Text Functions, Dynamic Wildshape, Faerie Fire, Palemaster Arm Powers, Spawning Undead

Posted by azak30 at 2008-03-27 09:56:39 Voted 10.00 on 07/11/09

I found this very useful and made my pw building go smoother.

Posted by FrikaC at 2008-02-25 15:14:19 Voted 9.25 on 02/25/08

Well built and well commented. Must get into HOF!

Posted by Gonzo_og at 2008-02-09 12:49:43 Voted 10.00 on 02/09/08

Easily a ten. Easy to use, and it makes a tremendous impact in the feel of the game.
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stuff

Posted by Kraven_Khor at 2008-01-21 00:19:07 Voted 10.00 on 01/21/08

this is HOF material, very nice, well done!

Posted by Argonbeam3500 at 2008-01-14 02:09:12 Voted 9.75 on 01/14/08

Brilliant work; this allows for both fame/infamy, and makes roleplay choices for good/evil/law/chaos SOOOO much easier to script. Thank you!
_________________________
argonbeam3500
*** * **** *** *

IA! IA! Cthulhu ptarmigan!...er...um...IA! Cthulhu ptatohead!...or...uhh...whatever.

Posted by MyHouse at 2007-10-20 17:42:00 Voted 9.50 on 10/20/07

I had given up on a NWN2 Vrs. This is great! Any chance you can add area specific rumors? 9.5 only because it's not to flexable. Still awsome work.

Posted by Shargast at 2007-10-20 02:01:49 Voted 10.00 on 10/20/07

Gangbusters! just great! The work and the attention to detail is amazing! After coffees and a half a pack of marlboros I understood it and put it into a new PW that I'm working on! A three way faction war. The Ondeath scripting mixed with codis AI and a custom time stamped respawn on Location script gave me a headache, but now I have a custom nw_c2_default7 script for each faction!

A great additon to the NWN community!

Best
Sai aka Shargast
_________________________
Realms of Shargast V1-V5ab, LOTR V15, The Undeath Clave & Faithful of Aerth

Posted by -vendalus- at 2007-06-24 14:49:19

Good to see some people are still getting use out of this!

Just wanted to stop by and post a quick update. I'm working on a new version of the PRR 3.0 for NWN2. I'm hoping to get it posted in the next few weeks. If someone is looking to take on maintenance of PRR 2.2 for NWN1, let me know and maybe we can work something out. The best way to contact me is as [email protected]

Posted by hexmendacious at 2007-06-10 01:29:44 Voted 9.50 on 06/10/07

I'm loving using this... what a great system, with good docu

Posted by hexmendacious at 2007-05-12 22:09:38 Voted 9.50 on 06/10/07

Awesome, I'm using it...

Posted by rikki.o at 2007-04-02 08:55:09 Voted 9.00 on 04/02/07

It is great to see such wonderful work.
rikki.o

Posted by hexmendacious at 2006-10-09 01:47:13 Voted 9.50 on 06/10/07

I hope someone takes this over and updates it, this is a cool set of scripts!

Posted by MyHouse at 2006-10-01 10:31:12 Voted 9.50 on 10/20/07

VA�.
First I want to thank you for this awesome system. It allows me to really make the PC responsible for their actions.
Ok. I have several questions.
First: How do I set a rumor that is spread by only one NPC or one Faction? Or better by area�
Second: How do I call a rumor on an INT? Does the INT have to be set to the mod or can it be set on a PC?
Third: Can I have a rumor only given to a certain alignment?
Forth: What is the sSubject for and how is it used? (Does it somehow call/Change the reputation of the tag of sSubject?)
Fifth: Can a journal be set to one PC/All PC�s or PC�s in a party?
Sixth: You have categories set like
int CAT_NORMAL = TCRM_CATEGORY_1;
int CAT_HIGH = TCRM_CATEGORY_2;
int CAT_HIGHEST = TCRM_CATEGORY_3;
But there are 31 categories. Can I set int CAT_(area) =TCRM_CATEGORY_4;?
Explain how to use this-
// This was one of his sample calls - Vendalus
// newRumour = TCRM_GetRumour(FALSE, 1, TCRM_CATEGORY_ANY, TCRM_CATEGORY_NONE, CAT_CITY_DUSKAR|CAT_PROFESSION_BLACKSMITHS);

Please be gentle. I know some basic scripting but not nearly as advance as you�.:)

Posted by twinj ( 203.213.xxx.xxx ) at 2006-06-04 09:09:54

I cant believe I didnt find this earlier!! I was actually in teh midst of creating a very very similar system! Most of the base work is done already! LOL. Then I find this and its almost exactly the same... :) Oh Well.

Good work mate!

Maybe we can get together on it and we can improve it. Or I can takeover the project ( if your not still working on it? ) and get those updates people want. ??

I am creating a BASE module with plugin capability and will be using something almost exactly like tihs.. rewritten with this and what Ive already done to suit a GLOBAL switched up module base for everyone.

BLAB! Thank for the work mate.

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