Geas

Is it possible to improve your own reputation and/or even karma by killing people in an area with a bad reputation?

If you're asking about NPCs, then yes.

As for player characers...I'm not sure. It would make sense though.

Yeah, and it would lead be a good stimuli...

If this is true, it might be better to make it a very very small increase... I don't want to see cities full of holy saints again because most people these days seem to live nonstop in monster camps.

As far as I know (at least for karma, not entirely sure about reputation) increases already exist for killing certain monsters.

I think Sun is asking about killing player characters. I'm not absolutely sure if there are increases (or decreases for that matter), but it would seem they would need to be fairly significant to have any impact at all. After all, player killing is rather uncommon.

Does reputation drop standardly?

Xuchal (the custom-dwarf in Elvandar) used to do business with me only right after delivering a big load of Thilden scalps. Now that I can't get to the Thilden anymore, I'm quite clueless how to improve my reputation with Elvandar/get him to make me more custom items.

People forget with time, were your deeds good or evil.

Zekiel, try the helpfile for reputation in the game. There are many things that will affect reputation, some of which you might not expect and are deliberately not told to you.

Some obvious "good" deeds: giving to the poor, sacrificing to the city's patron god, engaging in peaceful trade.

Some obvious "bad" deeds: spreading disease, backstabbing, stealing, hanging out with outlaws.

Generally the code tries to match your roleplay as best as it can. Hanging out with people of poor reputation will be noticed, as will hanging out with people of good reputation. Reputation increases faster in the negative direction than the positive.

Reputation slowly shifts back to neutral. It's a lot like gossip: when it's new, everyone knows about it. When it gets old, people tend to stop talking about it and eventually forget.

Bleh.

At some points, I really like the complete lack of transparency in the game's underlying mechanics, because it enforces RP to a level where admin-controlled (manual) enforcement could never reach.

At all other points, I could really use the help of knowledge to see what I'm doing wrong and why things don't go as I want them to. xD

How significant is fair trade with vendors? How many coins should I pass to Gandalug for point ears to like me? Does worshipping Zhakrin rather than Taniel have major influence on my reputation in his hometown? Why can't people remember a broad-shouldered red-eyed 3 meter frog that always stumbles into town with another limb broken, but good intentions and probably some scalps for Lanshea (to keep the realm safe)?

Makes me so sad. xD Is there any way to tell what your current reputation is, other than asking an NPC about yourself? (In other words: Is there a precise test to show how much reputation you've farmed and how much more you need to get that Dwarf to work?)

Lot of questions... And I can't answer any of them. Can anyone else help out?

(BTW! I spent at least half an hour in one room with Caelia and Tehanu, at the fountain in Elvandar the other day. They -still- didn't like me! =( )

(In other words: Is there a precise test to show how much reputation you've farmed and how much more you need to get that Dwarf to work?)

The most precise test is to ask. Second best is observing how the various NPCs react to your presence. I'd say that is it. And yes, it requires some effort to get the custom dwarf hammering again.