Hey all!

Hey all! More information about The Sword, The Crown, and The Unspeakable Power (SCUP) coming your way! Once again, this is shareable.

So SCUP is trying to emulate dark, political fantasy. Think Game of Thrones, or the First Law series by Joe Abercrombie. As such, Tom and I thought it was important that it was a HIGH INFORMATION GAME. In other words, players have a LOT of ways to get information on each other and the world. We also thought it was important that the world had a lot of interesting places and people in it, the kind of places and people that bring a dark fantasy world to life.

Towards this end, as you finish up character creation, you collectively, as a group, create PLACES and FACTIONS for each character at the table. Your Place is where your character feels most comfortable and at home. Where you belong, so to speak. We encourage players to not go for the obvious choice. Sure you can say the Queen’s Place is her castle, but wouldn’t it be more interesting if her Place was actually the forest beyond the town’s wall where she meets her forbidden lover each full moon, or perhaps the rowdy, local pub she hangs out in incognito on those cherished occasions when she’s able to slip out of the throne room? 

Your Faction, on the other hand, are the people who you relate to. They’re your tribe, your clique, your crew, your clan, your peeps. It can be as narrow as “those who sit on the royal council” or as broad as “the starving artists of the city.” When you are among your people, you feel at home. You may or may not be a “leader” among them, or even recognized by them, but you get them. You move among them with ease. You know the lingo, you fit in, you blend. They’re your Faction.

Once again, this is created as a group. You get final say on where your Place and who your Faction is, but you don’t get FIRST say. Other players get to make suggestions before you do. Why? Because we want to leave some room both for collective buy-in to the world and the characters as well as room for you to be surprised by your own character. Sometimes, in play tests, someone has had an idea of who their character is and when the player next to them says “perhaps your people aren’t the noble folks in the community, but are actually the local musicians because art and dancing are so important to you,” it shifts their understanding of their character in really cool ways. Once again, you get FINAL say on your character, so no one can tell you what to do, we just want to leave the space for you to be surprised.

So what does having a Place and Faction do for you? Well, first off, it fleshes out your character a little bit. It also gives the MC something to play with, telling them who lives here and where those people hang out, helping to map out and populate your world. Beyond giving some color and shape to your character and world, however, there are direct mechanical benefits. When you are in your Place or among your Faction, you can use moves that allow you to hear rumors of interest to you, gain information on people you might want to know about, or get a bonus to trying to figure things about the world out or manipulate other characters. Once again: we are trying to create a HIGH INFORMATION game, which means it should be easy for you to learn about the world, learn about other characters, and find out things of interest to you. We want to give you all the tools you need to know who to trust, who to double cross, and who to take care of… permanently. That’s why we’ve given these mechanical benefits to Factions and Places: so you not only have some extra color for your world, but also some extra ways to find out everyone’s dirty little secrets in it! 

Tomorrow, we’ll talk a little bit about another tool for how to make the social system of your world work: Pull.