To be honest: I actually havn’t thought about it, yet. Having one of my players demoted was never a thing to think twice about. I think there are very good arguments for both approaches:
On the one hand, keeping the rep status low after a demotion would be logical, because the delinquent would have to prove theirselves again. Basically, what @SSiron said.
On the other hand, resetting to 10 would very much reflect your “lesson learned, punishment served”, liberal approach, @Citizen171. I like that very much, too (also, it’s very, very compatible to the law-system of the society I am part of).
So, my approach would be to look at the mechanics of things. I think, in STA, reputation has a tendency to get up. Players are essentially depicting “lawful good” heroes, so there are probably more chances for the rep to get up than there are, to get down.Also, I do not think that a demotion should hit a player/character purley because out of bad luck. In my humbly opinion, this is a change to character that has to be induced at least somehow by the player in charge. Otherwise, I would see the risk of interfering with the player’s character too much. At the same time, STA is a very “static” system, regarding character development. There are changes, but they take their time. In combination, I think, the problem of a reputation score too low would be easier to solve than a reputation score, too high. So, considering this, I would probably handle demotions differently from promotions, meaning that I would reset the reputation (or at least reduce it by several points; maybe in a progression [see below]) with promotions but would leave it untouched with demotions.
As to the progression: This idea just came to my mind and I am presenting it now, because I am not sure about it: Maybe it depends on the rank whether your reputation changes or not. For example:
- Ensign → Lieutenant junior Grade: reputation does not change
- Lieutenant junior grade → Lieutenant: reputation -1
- Lieutenant → Lieutenant Commander: reputation -2
- Lieutenant Commander → Commander: reputation -3
- Commander → Captain: reputation -4
My idea was that this would reflect the idea of @Mr-Flibble that e.g.
What do you think?