Renown is an optional rule you can use to track characters’ standing, individually or as a party, within a particular group, such as a faction, an organization, or a community.
A character’s or party’s Renown Score starts at 0, then increases as characters earn favor and reputation with respect to the group. You can tie benefits to a character’s renown, including ranks, titles, and access to resources.
Players track renown separately for each group their characters are associated with. For example, an adventurer might have a Renown Score of 5 with one faction and a Renown Score of 20 with another, based on the character’s interaction with each group.
You can use renown over the course of an entire campaign or within a single adventure. At a campaign scale, you might set up factions or guilds that characters can join, individually or as a group, and the characters pursue ranks and rewards by gaining Renown within their organizations. At an adventure level, you might decide that the characters as a group need to earn a Renown Score of 5+ with the council before the council trusts the characters enough to share resources with them.
At your discretion, a character or party can increase their renown in the following ways:
Completing Missions. Advancing a group’s interests increases a character’s Renown Score within that group by 1. Completing a mission specifically assigned by that group or that directly benefits the group increases the character’s Renown Score by 2. Hugely significant quests might grant Renown Score increases of 3 or 4 at once.
Group Involvement. Once a character has established a Renown Score of 1+ with a group, the character can gain renown by spending time between adventures undertaking minor tasks for the group and socializing with its members. After doing so for a number of days equal to 10 times the character’s current Renown Score, the character’s Renown Score increases by 1.
Use these guidelines when determining the benefits of increasing renown.
A character who has a Renown Score of 3+ with a group is a respected member of that group. Other members of the group are Friendly toward the character by default and provide the character with lodging and food in dire circumstances.
Some groups have hierarchies that characters can ascend as they improve their Renown Scores. Other groups have positions of honor that characters can apply for if their Renown Score is high enough. Characters can earn promotions as their Renown Scores increase. You can establish certain Renown Score thresholds as prerequisites (though not necessarily the only prerequisites) for advancing in rank. You can set these thresholds however you like, creating ranks and titles for the groups in your campaign.
Earning renown within a group might come with certain benefits. A character with a Renown Score of 3+ might gain access to a reliable contact, a safe house, or a discount on adventuring gear. With a Renown Score of 10+, a character might gain access to Potions and Scrolls, the ability to call in a favor, or backup on dangerous missions. A character whose Renown Score rises to 50 might be able to call on a small army, acquire a Rare magic item, gain access to a helpful spellcaster, or assign special missions to members of lower status.
Disagreements with members of a group aren’t enough to cause a loss of renown within that group. However, serious offenses committed against the group or its members can result in a loss of renown and rank within the organization. The extent of the loss depends on the infraction and is left to your discretion. A character’s Renown Score with a group can never drop below 0.
If you want to use the benefits of renown without tracking Renown Scores, you can use a character’s level as a shorthand for the character’s Renown Score with a group, assuming the character has worked with or for that group for most of the character’s career. The Level-Based Renown table shows equivalencies between Renown Score and character level.