I've dug around on the forums a bit, and I haven't found an answer to this question, so if I am repeating something, my apologies.

I'm trying to figure out the difference between Good Standing and Peer (and the flipside, Enemy and Rival). My first instinct is that Good Standing is their opinion of you, and Peer is your opinion of them. But some of the other text seems to contradict that and make it seems it's just different levels of fluffy feelings toward one another.

Any help?

Peer - They like you a bit.

Good reputation - They really like you.

Rival - They don't like you.

Enemy - They really hate you.

And that makes sense, in a way, but then why wouldn't Peer be a prereq for Good Standing? And things can get you good standing w/o peer.

Good Reputation has the pre-reqs Fel 50 and Peer.

To read into the literal titles of the talents, Peer indicates that the organisation considers the PC "Truly one of us." Good Reputation makes them "Of high standing amongst us."

If there is any situation where the rules suggest that Good Reputation can be taken without first having Peer, I would guess that's a mistake.

Enemy doesn't have a pre-req as such, because it's not a talent you buy (although you can buy it off), but one that is inflicted upon you -- and it's plausible that you could go directly from "No standing either way" to "Enemy" without any intermediate period. In this case, IMO, the PC should gain Rival at the same time they gain Enemy.

SableWyvern said:

Not always. It could mean that you did something to really impress them while you were more or less unknown to them. For example, undertaking the Rite of Duplessence.

Fair enough. I'll rephrase. Only rare and unusual situations should allow a character to go directly from "No particular standing" to "Good Reputation", and in those situations, the character should gain both the "Peer" and "Good Reputation" talents. In any event, it is mechanically, if not abstractly, redundant to allow "Good Reputation" without "Peer", as the mechanical effect of GR is simply to improve the benefit of Peer.

You are right about the prereq for Good Reputation, not sure how I missed that. But there isn't any prereqs for Enemy/Rival.

I'm fine with houseruling it, just curious if I was reading it wrong.

Enemy doesn't really need a pre-req, because it's not a talent the PCs buy. It's a detrimental attribute that is applied due to character gen decisions, in character actions or by mutual agreement between player and GM.

Having said that, it wouldn't have hurt to make it explicit that it's designed to add on to Rival, and not to stand alone.

I'm guessing that while mechanically, they're just a malus to your interaction rolls, I'd probably at least try to roleplay the fluff of it somewhat to show the difference - despite this being the Grimdarkness of the 41st Century, I'm assuming the common folk still work off the same principles we do. A guy with Rival wouldn't want to help you, or maybe they would (good rolls), but specifically to get you into a situation where they could one-up you, and show you up. Or prove that they're better than you. Whereas Enemy would be anything from a heavier version of this, to all-out hostility...