In many genres of role-playing, the risks and rewards for the characters are not always tangible things. A character might suddenly find that his honor, his self-esteem, or even his sanity is at stake. These insubstantial qualities may even be more important to a game than gold and magic.

It is not always necessary to provide rules for such things; players may be more comfortable leaving philosophical matters up to role-playing, and to save the dice for other matters. However, by making these concepts part of the game, the GM can emphasize their importance, and can give players an clear means of measuring their characters accordingly.

A few possible such rules are detailed below. GM's should feel free to rename Attributes and other ratings as they see fit, and should take all charts and listed modifiers as simple suggestions. Any campaign may need to be more severe or more lenient than the numbers listed below would provide, and the GM should use judgment and forethought to determine what numbers to use in play.

Honor

In comic books, a superhero who commits a cruel or unlawful action can suddenly find herself a hunted criminal. In worlds of fantasy, a priestess must maintain strict codes of behavior in order to maintain the favor of the gods she serves. In feudal Japan, a samurai is expected to do whatever it takes to preserve his own honor and the honor of his family - even if it means taking his own life.

Reputation, public image, and honor can be important in almost any campaign. An adventuring party who clears the neighboring countryside of murderous monsters would normally be applauded and rewarded - but if they harass, abuse, and steal from the citizens of the town they are protecting, they will become feared and hated instead. In a different example, a would-be rebel who spends too much time in the company of government agents may soon find that his connections in the resistance will no longer have anything to do with him. When these elements are introduced into a campaign, players must become careful about the means they use to achieve their ends.

The GM can assign a rating called Reputation (or Honor, or Public Image) to each character. This is not an attribute, and players do not buy the rating or choose its level. A high rating represents that the public and the authorities look favorably on this character, while a low rating means that the character is regarded with suspicion or fear. A character's Reputation should normally start at Fair, though certain campaigns may require a higher or lower starting point (for instance, a campaign where the PC's are escaped criminals may require that their Reputation starts at Terrible). The GM may adjust this rating upward or downward during play, in response to the character's actions. The GM should always keep a character's current Reputation in mind when that character is dealing with NPC's, and should influence the NPC's reactions accordingly.

Naturally, a character's actions will only affect his Reputation if those actions become publicly known. If the character's actions remain secret (through discretion, or through elimination of witnesses) then the character's Reputation remains the same. However, if a character conceals an act of wrongdoing that is later revealed, the blow to his Reputation may be worse than it originally would have been.

Here are illustrations of the three examples from the first paragraph of this section:

Superheroes and Reputation

In a standard, four-color superhero campaign, the heroes must maintain a sterling code of conduct. They must defend the innocent, show respect for the law, and apprehend the guilty with a minimum of violence. Here, then, are suggested bonuses and penalties to Reputation for a variety of public actions:

Injure a bystander	Lose one level
Kill a criminal
Take open action against a law enforcement or government official
Kill a bystander	Lose two levels
Associate closely with known criminal or supervillain
Rescue a citizen or citizens unharmed from threat or captivity	Gain one level
Receive public commendation from local official
Join local law enforcement organization
Save entire city or planet	Gain two levels
Receive public commendation from national or international official
Join national or international law enforcement organization

At Great or Superb Reputation levels, the superhero is well-regarded by the press, public, and authorities, and almost everyone will be happy to assist her in her quest for justice. A Mediocre Reputation will mean that the superhero is distrusted and watched closely by the police, and even lower levels mean that the public regards the hero as a vigilante and a criminal.

Priests and Faith

This example presumes that the priest or priestess is a member of a church of nature, where the welfare of plants and animals is just as important as the welfare of normal people. The Reputation attribute is named Faith here, and it applies not only to the church's view of the priestess, but also to her standing in the eyes of her gods. The priestess may receive modifiers to Faith based on the following actions:

Kill an animal for food	Lose one level
Cut down a tree or kill a collection of plants
Perform unnecessary cruelty or violence to people
Display cruelty to an animal, or kill an animal for sport	Lose two levels
Destroy large amounts of vegetation (start a forest fire, for example)
Kill a person unnecessarily
Rescue an animal from captivity	Gain one level
Restore a wounded animal to health
Perform a small quest for the gods
Perform a great quest for the gods	Gain two levels

It should also be possible to atone for offenses against the gods through solitary meditation and prayer. This should become more difficult depending on the level of offense, as shown below:

Current Faith Level	Meditation Required to Raise Faith One Level
Mediocre	One full week
Poor	One full month
Terrible or worse	One full year

In this scheme, it is much better to atone by performing good deeds than by simply sitting around and feeling sorry about it.

A priestess whose Faith is Poor or worse will not be able to use any divine powers that her religion would normally provide her. If her Faith is Superb, then in addition to the powers she has gained through study, she gains an innate empathy with animals and plants. She is able to communicate telepathically with any animal in sight, and she is able to discern the nutritional and medical properties of any plant or fruit with a simple glance.

Samurai and Honor

The samurai of feudal Japan is bound strictly to a code of honor, so much so that his life depends on it. He must strive at all times to do honor to his family, his lord, the Shogun and the Emperor. He must show respect to his superiors, competence and bravery in battle, and moderation and refinement in his daily affairs. To fail in these things brings shame, and when the samurai's shame becomes too great, the only escape is in death.

The Reputation rating is named Honor here, and the following chart provides a short list of possible modifiers:

Commit a social faux pas	Lose one level
Fail to fulfill duty
Display incompetence in profession
Deliberately avoid duty	Lose two levels
Insult a high-ranking official or noble
Receive commendation from superior	Gain one level
Receive promotion in rank
Perform a public act of valor
Receive commendation from Shogun or Emperor	Gain two levels
Cast off the world and accept a monk's vows

A samurai with high Honor will have loyal allies, will be trusted with important affairs, and will be first in line for gifts of land and riches. A samurai with low Honor will be sent to undesirable posts, and will receive little but contempt from his superiors. When a samurai's Honor is Terrible or worse, the best gift he can expect is to be granted the chance to fall on his own blade, thus restoring his honor in death.

Courage

In games of horror, the bravery of the PC's is constantly tested by grotesque and monstrous sights. The GM's role as narrator is especially important in these games, as she must communicate to the players the fearful sights that their characters are witness to. For instance, telling her players that they see "a werewolf" may be accurate, but it adds nothing to the atmosphere of the game. If she were to say that the characters see "a hunched, humanoid figure, bristling with dark fur, snarling with bright, exposed fangs," this will do much more to immerse the players in the terror of the game.

As always, the GM may leave the players to decide what their reactions to such threats will be. However, it is always easy for a player to say, "Sure, my character will stay put and fire his pistol at the monster," regardless of how frightening the monster might appear. Therefore, just as a player might have to make a die roll in order for his character to pick a lock or decipher an ancient language, the player may also have to roll in order for his character to stand fast against the forces of darkness.

The GM can assign all characters a Will Attribute (or perhaps Psyche, or Guts), representing the characters' mental fortitude. The characters also receive a Courage rating, which is not actually "bought" during character creation. Courage represents the character's current level of morale, and starts out equal to the character's Will Attribute.

Whenever a character is exposed to a disturbing or frightening experience, the player should roll 4dF and add the result to his character's current Courage. If the total is high enough, the character can maintain his composure. If not, the character's Courage is reduced. Here are a few suggestions for Courage rolls necessary for certain types of event:

A mild phobia is worth one Fault; for instance, "Dislikes Spiders." A serious phobia, such as "Deathly Afraid of Spiders" is worth two Faults. A six-foot long spider with glowing ruby eyes would be a supernatural form of either phobia, and would result in a Great test for the character with the mild phobia, and a Legendary test for the character with the serious phobia.

When the player fails a Courage roll, the character is overcome by fear, if only briefly. If the test of Courage was Good or less, the character loses one level of Courage. If the test was Great or Superb, the character loses two levels. If the test was greater than Superb, the character loses three levels.

To find the effect of the character's shock, use the character's new Courage level and consult the chart below:

The "threat" mentioned above must be the object or entity that caused the character to make a Will roll. If the character is chased by a monster, then, obviously, the monster is the threat. If the character is informed by his mother that his father is actually a demon, then the threat is the character's mother, since his mother delivered the information.

Gifts and Faults may modify the character's reaction to fear. A character may have a phobia as a fault, as mentioned above. A character may also take a Gift such as "Has No Fear of Snakes" and receives a bonus to all Courage rolls against serpentine threats.

Balance

Role-playing more mundane sources of conflict and stress, such as love, ambition, and depression, is something that normally needs no rules whatsoever. Emotion can be the most powerful element in any story, and the use of die rolls to govern emotion can distance the player from these feelings, making them "just part of the game."

However, for certain genres, it may be entertaining to exaggerate emotion to the point of melodrama, and to use die rolls to leave the character helpless to their instincts and desires. Any campaign with a strong "soap opera" influence, where the developing relationships between the characters are more important than the events the characters are part of, would be able to make use of such rules.

If the GM decides to use these rules, she should make sure that players do not take the results of the rolls too seriously. The players should take both good and bad rolls as opportunities for role-playing, and should should act out both bliss and melancholy in an appropriately dramatic fashion. If your players don't find it interesting or rewarding to role-play unrequited love, or tragic loss, or thwarted revenge, then an emotion-oriented campaign is probably not right for your group.

All characters should have a Balance Attribute (or possibly Happiness, Peace, or Emotion). A character with high Balance is normally cheerful and optimistic; a character with low Balance is easily discouraged and depressed.

All characters should also take three Needs. A character may take more than three, and each additional Need is worth one Fault. Characters may not take fewer than three Needs, even by using Gifts. As examples, here are a few basic character types, and the Needs those characters might have:

A standard Need represents an ambition or desire. These will affect a character's Balance when they are satisfied, or when they suffer. If an event satisfies a character's Need, that character's Balance temporarily rises one level. If an event is counter to a character's Need, that character's Balance temporarily drops one level. Exceptionally profound events may raise or lower Balance by more than one level, but this is up to the judgment of the GM and her players.

A character may also have a Negative Need. A Negative Need represents a set of circumstances that the character will try to avoid. If an event comes to pass that conflicts with a character's Negative Need, that character's Balance drops one level. This lost level will only be restored when the character counteracts the triggering event. For instance, assume that the Loner from the chart has been working closely with a female colleague, and she begins to become attracted to him. When the Loner becomes aware of this, his Balance immediately drops one level. To restore this lost Balance, he must find some way to discourage her feelings for him. He might do something insensitive or cruel to make her hate him, or he might simply disappear in the middle of the night, never to return.

Time heals all wounds, and dissolves all triumphs. Once a week, each character's Balance moves one level closer to its starting level, regardless of whether it was higher or lower than the starting level. Levels lost to Negative Needs are not restored in this fashion.

There are no direct game effects from low or high Balance. The Balance level should merely guide the player's role-playing. A character with a current high Balance should be full of smiles and cheer, while a character whose balance is currently low should be prone to brooding, tears, or sudden surges of anger. A character whose Balance drops to Terrible should be in the deepest pits of depression or rage, and if Balance goes below this point, the character will become a serious threat to others and himself.

Variations and Possibilities

In many cases, the GM may wish to keep track of the characters' Reputation and Honor ratings herself, without revealing them to the players. This prevents players from being able to say: "Well, my Reputation is Good, so even if I beat up this police officer it will only drop me to Fair." Players will never know for sure just where they stand, and may be more careful with their actions as a result.

There are many possible uses for social and psychological ratings beyond those listed here. Consider the following:

• A Humanity or Self-Control rating, to measure how far a vampiric character has succumbed to his demonic nature
• A Resistance or Tolerance rating to measure a psychic character's abuse of ability-boosting drugs, possibly leading to addiction and overdose
• A Soul or Aura rating, to measure the negative energy accumulated in a magician's spirit due to evil deeds
• A Popularity or Cool rating, to show whether a high school student is part of the "in" crowd or the "out" crowd

The GM should take care to use such ratings only when they would be fun to play out, or when they would be useful to provide feedback for a character's actions. These rules should enhance game play, never interfere with it. Used wisely, they can provide extra dimension to your characters and a more thoughtful role-playing experience.