Fade Rift Mods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
faderifting) wrote2018-03-11 07:31 pm
faderifting) wrote2018-03-11 07:31 pm
Reputation & Consequences
REPUTATION & CONSEQUENCES
Not everything characters do requires or warrants a plot request, but even smaller things could have an impact on the Inquisition's reputation, your characters' reputations, or the plot overall. This page is to report things that your character does outside of plots that need to be taken into account by mods or other players.
For example, there's no need to submit a plot request to us in advance if your character is going to start a fight that destroys a local tavern, but that is something that could impact the Inquisition's reputation or result in IC consequences if word gets back to their superiors, so you could submit a report for that here. More positively, if your character is spending their free time cleaning up a street in Lowtown or helping a respected elder in the neighborhood with chores, that might help the Inquisition's reputation.
These reports are not required for everything your characters do or say in public. However, if we don't know something happened, we won't take it into account when writing news or plots, and we won't be able to revise to retroactively change news or plots if you tell us after the fact. So if your character does something significant and you want the mods or other players to acknowledge or respond to it IC, this is the way to let us know and help us keep track of what's going on!
GUIDELINES
For the most part, things you post here won't get a response/approval, other than being unscreened for everyone else to view. We'll contact you privately if we need more information or have concerns. So to help everyone feel more confident taking smaller-scale actions without first doing plot or info requests, here are some specific notes and guidelines for common issues!
SCALE: Kirkwall is a large city, much larger and more densely populated than implied by the small segments of each district displayed in Dragon Age II. This means there's a lot of diversity of all kinds, problems are large and complicated, and the Inquisition members in Kirkwall are probably not going to be able to fundamentally alter the city's character or landscape. On the bright side, this means you can definitely get kicked out of a tavern or two—Kirkwall has a lot more than just the Hanged Man.
NOBLES: Kirkwall's nobles range from the silly to the shrewd, but the vast majority of them share common prejudices against non-humans and concern about the Inquisition's presence and rifters' general existence. Efforts to win them over have had some success, but there's really never going to be a way to please them all, and they will always be temperamental and prone to suspicion. Additionally, Hightown is heavily guarded, with watchmen at the entrances and posted throughout the district. Because the nobles and the guard have the ear of the Provisional Viscount, misbehaving in Hightown could have serious consequences for the Inquisition or for individual characters. Non-humans, obvious mages or rifters, and anyone who looks weird, shady, or poor are going to have trouble getting into the private areas of Hightown to begin with, let alone getting up to any mischief there without being caught.
CHARITY: While many characters may be interested in doing charitable work in Kirkwall, we ask that you keep a few things in mind. First, most characters are employed by the Inquisition to do work related to the war effort, and that should be their primary, full-time focus if they'd like to keep their jobs. And like characters' time, resources such as money and goods will be limited. It's not that the Inquisition doesn't want to support philanthropic efforts, but after three years of constant expansion in its mission to fight Corypheus on all fronts across Thedas, its funds are stretched thin and need to be carefully conserved to be sure that the Inquisition can afford to keep fighting for as long as it takes. This means that any charitable efforts undertaken by the Inquisition officially will generally need to be narrowly focused and directly supporting war-related goals, rather than generally improving the status quo for its own sake. Lack of Inquisition funding doesn't mean characters can't move forward, but keep in mind that its employees aren't paid enough to have much disposable income, and unless they're skiving off they should have fairly limited free time for side hustles. Even with generous donations from wealthier PCs, there's a limit to what can be accomplished.
Additionally, keep in mind that Kirkwallers are, in general, fairly proud people who do not respond well to outsiders. (Examples: the years of prejudiced comments about Fereldan refugees and the related difficulties Aveline had as Captain of the Guard, NPCs walking around Darktown in DA2 whose ambient dialogue is more along the lines of "better to be free down here," "if you don't like it, leave," etc., than "please save us.") Some people will, of course, be grateful for assistance! But many others will not be. And making significant changes to the city without consulting with the locals will almost definitely receive a negative response for the presumptuousness, even if the changes are good.
MISBEHAVIOR: The Inquisition is a military organization that has the right to discipline its members, and it also remains in Kirkwall at the pleasure of the (Provisional) Viscount, meaning that bad behavior in public will be difficult to get away with totally unscathed. Consequences in canon include things such as time in the stocks for fighting, banishment from the Inquisition, or death for deliberate sabotage. We will always do our best to plot around extreme IC consequences (or help IC leaders do so) to keep characters playable, but that may also mean your character will still suffer some unpleasant repercussions. For instance, they might spend a few days in a cell or be docked pay to cover the costs if they start a brawl that causes significant damage to people or property. If you aren't willing to accept the consequences we may have to ask you to dial back or mitigate major screw-ups to prevent anyone else from having to be OOC in order to allow your character to remain in play.
GENERAL NOTE: Our goal in FR is to provide at least a somewhat accurate version of Thedas, complete with its prejudices, poverty, and other difficulties. We know many characters are motivated to try to fix those problems, and that's great! But realistically even if they had all the free time and money in the world, there's a limit to the change that can be effected over the few years covered by the game. With that in mind, please try to be realistic about NPC reactions and IC hardships in your own RP, and remember that if we have to put limits on the success of certain endeavors or enforce consequences for certain behavior, it's not because we're trying to restrict players from RPing the things that interest them, we're just trying to make sure we preserve Thedas' faults for players who want to engage with them.
FORM
To report something, reply to the appropriate comment below. Please use a descriptive subject line, like "Fire at the Cleverly Named Tavern" or "Planting Flowers in Northern Lowtown," to help people find things quickly. If your character files a report about something with a project or division head, it is not necessary to also post something here.
General Help in the Alienage
Timing: Solace, ongoing
Location: Alienage
What Happened: Iorveth has moved into the big house he's put down a big amount of rent for in the Alienage and has been making a point to help out the families around the area. Helping out meaning helping to repair or build things, clean up, go out hunting and bring back food and herbs and the like for anyone to have, probably do some gardening, making some basic herbal stuff. He'd also hung out in the Alienage in the months before, doing some of these things off and on (more so just bringing resources and giving them to kids to take to their parents), but not nearly as much as he does now that he's living there. He's also done his best to be completely non-violent while he's there, despite clearly owning weapons and carrying a single sword on his person at all times, unless going out of the Alienage (then he's taking the whole arsenal). This is done with the Inquisition insignia on his person somewhere, so Kirkwall guards don't harass him for being an elf carrying weapons. If people straight up don't want help from him, he just drags in food/herbs, leaves bundles at doorsteps, or drags in wood from the forests outside and starts constructing things (probably with Nari's help/instruction) like benches, tables or bedframes and just leaving them out to either be public property or for anyone to take into their homes.
Who Knows: Just anyone who lives in the Alienage and guards that might patrol it? This isn't something he's doing with Inquisition funding at all, or while using the Inquisition name other than keeping it on his person/weapons for the 'it's ok for him to be armed' thing. It's just Iorveth trying to gain some trust with the Alienage elves.