Renown FAQ

[Conor (Former ST)]

A copy of this will be posted in the 'website' section where it'll be viewable by anyone who's curious about our game.  In the meantime, it's here.

I don't guarantee that all questions will be answered or that all answers will be posted here/there, but it's a start.


What goes on the "You Are What You Do" report:
Every item that discretely effects someone's renown total goes on this report.  A big part of this is so that, when your character stands up during a Rite of Accomplishment, you can easily look up past actions that have definitely contributed to your current renown total.  When submitting renown reports for yourself, ask yourself: "Would I be willing to stand up in front of the entire sept and brag, in character, that I did this and am therefore worthy of recognition?"  Ask yourself this because you're going to do that.  And you're going to get mocked and lose that renown if people find it lackluster.

Whose opinion counts, and how much:
Everyone's opinion counts, but some are more equal than others.  Extra weight is given to opinions as follows:
* Galliards get extra weight, mostly when they are saying good things.  The Eldest Galliard gets a lot of extra weight and a little more leeway about saying terrible things.
* Ragabash get extra weight when they say bad things about people.  The Eldest Ragabash gets a lot of extra weight and a little more leeway about saying good things.
* The Eldest of any auspice gets a little extra weight when commenting on someone's aptitude (or lack thereof) for that auspice.  "Johnny Philodox is really good at sensing the truth when people speak and I'm proud to have him on my team."
* The Eldest Ahroun, Philodox, and Theurge have an eensy bit more weight when speaking publically to things that are strictly Glorious, Honorable, or Wise.  In theory they're a sept's embodiment of those qualities and so get to define, at least a little bit, what is and isn't Glorious/Honorable/Wise.

Things that won't get you renown:
* Anything that adds an ability, power, etc to your character sheet.  These things are rewarded enough as it is.  This will usually include fulfilling chiminage incurred by buying an out-of-BTA gift, though if the ST running the scene is particularly impressed and says so in their renown report, exceptions can be made.
* Any state in which your PC originally entered play.  Being in a pack, owning a klaive, etc - your Renown is presumed to account for everything you've done as of your background's end.
* Fixing a problem that's your own fault.  Setting your house on fire and then putting it out will not net you Renown. There are sometimes opportunities to trade Wisdom for Glory by putting yourself in a bad situation and fighting your way out of it, but you may lose more Wisdom than you gain Glory.  Or, to look at it differently - fixing problems you cause will gain you renown, but it will be at most the amount of renown you lost by causing the problem.
* Doing tasks that might be considered impressive if your character wasn't already so Glorious, Honorable, or Wise.  Consider that once you hit Fostern and above you're pretty much playing some degree comic book hero, albeit in a somewhat different universe than most comics.  The bar for "impressive" can get pretty high.
* Saying "I have good relations with Kinfolk" or any other NPC.  If the NPC feels you have good relations with them, the ST running the scene(s) will report this.  If the NPC doesn't feel you have good relations with them...  you don't.  If other people think you have those good relations, this may be worth renown, but convincing others of that is something you'll have to do IC.  Note that other people thinking you have good relations with X can get you some renown even if it's not the case, but if the truth comes out you'll probably lose more than you gained.

Things that probably won't get you renown:
* Having a Flaw of any kind is extremely unlikely to generate very much renown, though it isn't impossible.  "So-and-so is blind but..." won't get you far renown-wise, because it already earned you freebie points.
* Things done at a game other than RatC will earn you severely reduced renown, if any.  On the plus side, this probably applies to renown-loss items as well unless the effects follow you home particularly harshly.
* "...without any Garou being seriously harmed."  RatC is a fairly low-threat game.  Werewolf isn't supposed to be.  On the minus side, you don't get much renown for handling threats effectively.  On the plus side, they're much easier than they "should" be for Werewolf, and your PC is less likely to die than in a "normal" game.  This should possibly be handled by downshifting all combat-related Glory awards by a point or two, but I prefer to just gloss over the "seriously harmed" clause unless the staff involved are particularly impressed by how PCs handle a situations.

Things that probably will get you renown:
These are, in part, a matter of public record.

Things that will get you less renown than is listed in the book:
* Everything, unless you're a cub.  We consider most of the rewards and penalties listed in Werewolf: the Apocalypse and Werewolf: Storyteller's Companion to be accurate for starting-character Cliath.  Rewards for advanced characters are decreased, penalties are increased.  Renown awards are adjusted based on the recipient's Permanent Renown in the relevant category, not their rank - an Athro Ahroun is expected to be extremely Glorious, but may (given the rank minimums for each) be held to the same standard of Wisdom as a Cliath Theurge.  Expectations vary by character, based on renown for past deeds, much more than they do by rank.

Wait, what?  That sucks.
When you look at it that way, yes.  But that's not a complete picture, and there are many places where we're streamlining things that reduce the amount of player-and-ST-time it takes up *and*  the amount of IC deeds/play it takes to gain rank.  The normal, per-book, tabletop renown process that these numbers were originally written for works like this:
* You/your pack go off and do some stuff.  Kill monsters, rescue people, sit around get stoned talk about how awesome Gaia is, etc.
* After each tabletop session the ST jots down what you did and how much renown it's supposed to be worth.
* Eventually, you/your pack makes it back to the rest of Garou society, and you've got more than 10 temporary in a category.  You stand up in front of the entire sept and shout "I did this!  I deserve recognition!" which takes time and slows down the game.
* Alternatively you find an elder and challenge them to recognize you, which takes time and slows down the game - in TT this locks up the only GM at the table.
* Either way, all your temporary is converted to one Permanent.  If you end a session at .9, and the next "adventure" you go on you singlehandedly restore the White Howlers and gain 10 temporary Wisdom, those 19 still convert to 1, and it still sucks up table time, which means all the players have less time they can possibly spend gaining renown.
* Any temporary renown you gain in a category while at 10 temp is totally wasted.  You can brag about having done it, but it will never give you any renown.  Similarly, god help you if all your stories get told at once and you gain renown in big lumps.
* If you lose renown from a category and don't have temporary, it breaks a permanent and you're forced to make change.  This can put you to .9 again, making some renown losses capriciously larger than they're supposed to be.

In RatC, the Temporary->Permanent process is 100% automatic and you never risk losing any renown in the conversion.  Instead of needing to acknowledge every single point of permanent you ever gain before you can move on with your life, we require you to acknowledge your two "main" categories once each per rank in seperate games.  We have removed, for your ease and ours, an immense amount of stupid paperwork and bookkeeping.  In return for this, sometimes we give you less than what the book says we should, because the rest of the time we're busy being much, much nicer to you than the book says we should.

It all works out in the long run.