Trust is a way of assigning the trust relationships between entities and the party and the ways it can be pushed and pulled during encounters. The Trust scale ranges from -3 to +3. -3 means the entity distrusts anything they are told by the party including information they had thought was legitimate prior. +3 means they trust the party implicitly with almost any information including almost bold faced lies. There is no 0, as it is difficult to simultaneously have no trust and no distrust of an individual at the same time.
Trust Table
Trust starts at -1 by default unless other factors make a different starting value make more sense.
| Trust Level | Description |
|---|---|
| -3 | Complete and total distrust of anything stated by the party potentially including any previously cleared information. |
| -2 | Majority distrustful of the party, they take most things with a grain of salt, but will believe things that don’t sound absurd or that counter preexisting information. |
| -1 | The kind of distrust one holds for an acquaintance, things said to the entity by the party are trusted if previously known, but otherwise might be subject to fact checking. |
| +1 | The party is trusted by the entity enough to be taken seriously, but statements that sound wild or are overly counter to previously held truths may be dismissed. |
| +2 | The party is well trusted by the entity to the extent that they may distrust other sources the party contradicts. |
| +3 | The party has absolute, implicit trust with the entity. So long as information or actions they make do not directly harm or contradict explicit truths they can get away with saying and doing many things. |
Using Trust
When your players interact with an entity that has a trust level consider what is said between the two. If information is shared, or the players attempt to convince the entity of something do the following.
Contextualize
How well is the question roleplayed, is the information pertinent, and how does the entity at its current trust level perceive it.
Example
The party is invited to a meeting by the hamlet’s local priest, his current trust level with them is +1, he has just met them, but one of them is a holy man for the same deity he worships. Kabel, the holy man in question tells him:
Kabel
There is a tribe of goblins who have taken up residence about 2 miles out of town, we can’t help you for we are needed elsewhere, but we believe you should send for aid.
Now I think to myself, the goblin tribe has been established as true within the world, so it is likely sightings have been made within the community. It would also be odd for the group to lie about such a thing. So his likelihood of believing and executing on his information is high.
Roll if necessary
Depending on the context you may have players roll, remember only roll if it makes sense in the context DCs are always based on the Trust level of the entity but if the RP was good and things make sense you can just make the decision then and there either way. If the player’s have presented evidence, or are particularly RPing well then feel free to give them advantage or a bonus of some kind. But remember, things like evidence and good RP should already be shifting your player from rolling unlikely, to rolling vs. the likely DC, so don’t give out extra benefits to frequently.
| Trust | Likely to Believe DC | Unlikely to Believe DC |
|---|---|---|
| -3 | 17 | 22 |
| -2 | 15 | 20 |
| -1 | 12 | 17 |
| +1 | 9 | 14 |
| +2 | 6 | 11 |
| +3 | 3 | 8 |
Make the outcome fit
Now you should have your outcome, make it work within the bounds of the RP and the rolls if they were made. If the DC is beat the entity believes the party, but what they do with the information still depends on the entity in question. If the party fails the roll the entity does not believe the party, but that doesn’t mean they don’t look into it later.
Gaining and Losing Trust
There are explicit and implicit ways a party can lose or gain trust. Explicit ways involve the roll of the dice, implicit involve roleplay and the context of the game/session.
Explicit
If a player rolls 10 over a DC then trust moves down the table by one. If a player rolls 5 under a DC or half a DC whichever is less then trust moves up the table by one.
Implicit
If the outcome of something said to an NPC or of Roleplay + a roll deems it then you may increase or decrease Trust as you wish. Just make it believable, its not realistic or interesting to drop trust to -2 from +3 because of one mistake made by the party, just as its not very engaging to go from -3 to +1 thanks to a single piece of corroborated truth.
Individuals vs. Groups
In some cases you may want to give a group of important individuals an average trust score based on the individuals’ own scores. Then if an important statement and/or roll is targeted at the group as a whole you may use the average score to make a single very important roll.