House rules for Renown?

[Cdre Bob Wesley]

Do you use all, some, or none of it? How much Renown applies to just the Captain, and how much to other crew members? How much does it differ between settings?

Edit: Also, how do you apply Renown as a rule mechanic? How does ship renown (Starships p. 30) differ from player character renown? Why not simply use ship renown?

[K.G. Carlson]

Renown gives a modifier to social interactions, functioning similarly to Reputation in the d20 revised edition Star Wars. I don't use ship renown, but I guess it could be applied in certain bluffing type situations if a ship has a reputation for shooting first and never asking questions.

One of the books (I believe it was the SoM) had optional rules for promotion via renown rather than the Promotion edge, but I have already house ruled the promotion situation.

[Fugazi Grrl]

I use Ship Renown when the situation applies more to the ship than the crew or the captain.

ie.: the USS Legacy has just dropped out of warp and surprised 2 Ferengi ships. Once they recognize it is indeed the Legacy will they turn tail and run, power down their weapons, or what ?

Once contact and communication is established then I use the renown of whomever is in command on the bridge. Whoever is doing the talking.

In my above example the Legacy herself (Renown/21) may be an imposing force but if Isaac Foley is in command (Sci Off. - Renown/16) he wont have as much pull as Captain Northcote (Renown/24).

In some cases one might use both, at Narrator's discretion.

[Thakowsaizmu]

I tend not to use renown that much at all. I don't really care for the way it works, adding to social rolls and so on. I understand what they are going for, but to me it has always seemed strange that the entire Universe knows the name of one ship. Sure, within Federation space (or Romulan, what have you) a given ship or person may be known pretty well, but I can't see that many people, races and so on knowing of a single ship or person.

For example, and this is an Earth example, I know who Ts'ao Ts'ao is. He's pretty renowned. Chances are, though, that a good ammount of people do not. He is a figure from Earth, well known and so on, but there are still a lot of people that blink and nod slowly when you talk about him. So, though he is renowned, many Earth people have no clue who he is. So, if a good ammount of Earth doesn't know who he is, how would the Universe know who Captain Bob is?

[K.G. Carlson]

I tend not to use renown that much at all. I don't really care for the way it works, adding to social rolls and so on. I understand what they are going for, but to me it has always seemed strange that the entire Universe knows the name of one ship. Sure, within Federation space (or Romulan, what have you) a given ship or person may be known pretty well, but I can't see that many people, races and so on knowing of a single ship or person.

For example, and this is an Earth example, I know who Ts'ao Ts'ao is. He's pretty renowned. Chances are, though, that a good ammount of people do not. He is a figure from Earth, well known and so on, but there are still a lot of people that blink and nod slowly when you talk about him. So, though he is renowned, many Earth people have no clue who he is. So, if a good ammount of Earth doesn't know who he is, how would the Universe know who Captain Bob is?

But I think that is why Renown is broken out into a separate category instead of automatically factoring into the Social skills, so that as a Narrator you can apply or disallow as the circumstances dictate.

Tripped through that wormhole to the fringe of the Beta Quadrant? They probably never heard of you. Facing off against a Klingon flotilla when your crew has a habit of shuffling turtle-heads off to Sto-Vo-Kor? Oh yes, they know your name indeed.

A high Renown doesn't mean people have automatically heard of you, but it does increase the likeliness. To borrow your example, a lot MORE people have heard of Adolf Hitler, but I suspect there are some that haven't.

And thats another reason to break Renown out as a separate modifier: sometimes it works AGAINST you. If you are attempting a skill check that runs counter to your normal modus operandi, it should serve as a penalty to the skill check in question.

[C5]

My personal house rule for renown was actually to import ICON's handling of renown to CODA, specifically the breakdown of renown into different categories.
I don't have my notes at hand and it's been sadly a few years I have not gamed, but if I remember correctly, I ruled that 1 renown point in CODA was rougly 10 ICON renown points, and broken down into the ICON categories, which were something like Skill, Agression, Diplomacy, and one or two more I can't remember.

That way renown awards were a cool way to reward players for outstanding actions (good or bad), and to celebrate some particular moments at the gaming table.
For instance, I remember the Science Officer having to send an urgent report to Starfleet, but rolling a critical failure when gathering data... This led to the character gaining a negative renown in skill.

As for actual use of renown, it was not something automatic. Either the player decided to actively use it ("Do you know who I am ?"), or I wanted to spice things a little ("The Ferengi smiles crookedly and asks if you were not by any chance the same Starfleet Officer who was helped by his cousin Sniok"), but not every encounters led to automatic renown dice rolling.

[Thakowsaizmu]

But I think that is why Renown is broken out into a separate category instead of automatically factoring into the Social skills, so that as a Narrator you can apply or disallow as the circumstances dictate....

I do understand the reasoning for renown. It is just something I don't care for, and my players don't seem to really care for it either. I have them record it just for the sake of having it on the sheet, but it pretty much never comes into play. At best, it'd provide a minor bonus, at worst it'd turn into a huge argument with one of the players who feels he should get it every time.

I can see the usefulness of Ship renown as well, if the ship is famous in a given sector or some such, but I wouldn't use the mechanic so much as use it as part of the story. I suppose I don't so much not use renown as leave it up to whether the story/situation requires it or not, and even then, I don't tend to say anything to the players. Somewhat like Rank, I leave renown in the hands of the story (I also don't use the promotion edge or the department head edge...).

[The Tatterdemalion King]

I kind of wonder why Renown isn't just another Edge, like Promotion...