A question about Factions
So, am I just missing something, or does your faction membership not really mean much to your character?
I know there’s the fiction to consider, and that’s great and important, but I’m looking at the faction rules and seeing the way that it gives all this mechanical weight to who belongs to what faction. It’s cool and elegant, the way it reminds you that nobody is really alone, everything’s deeply political, and you only really get anywhere in the city (i.e., character advancement) by knowing the right people.
So it seems kind of odd not to have any of those cool mechanics tie back into your own faction. The faction rules don’t really care about that, they just care about how “in” you are with the four factions, which is all about rank and doesn’t touch on membership at all. You’re not defined by your faction in any mechanically meaningful way.
There are advances that let you change your faction, but all these do mechanically is to change what other people roll and mark when they interact with you–which, I dunno, seems kind of underwhelming?
So, am I missing something? If not, is this worth thinking about?
I don’t think you are missing something, but I am not sure how you see what you describe and faction moves as lacking meaning. Your faction scores records your familiarity with the various factions. Your faction generally means that your score in your faction is higher. This means that you will more likely know and be able to influence those in your faction more than others. Likewise, PCs in your faction will be able to help and interfere with you more easily. In play, the faction scores have a lot of weight and I dont think a shift in these scores would be underwhelming.
Two thoughts:
1) I think that which Faction you’re in is really a matter of fictional positioning. If you’re in the Night Faction, then the Night characters are going to expect you to care about territory, blood, money, guts, sex, etc. They think they know your loyalties and they will play on them to get what you want.
If you go work for Power… well. That’s a different story. Now you’ve left your community to join another, and that’s not easily forgiven.
2) One of the core mechanics that reflects this is in Figure Someone Out. Remember that you get 1 extra question when reading someone from your Faction, even on a miss.
Luke Walker The scores are absolutely meaningful, but the thing is that they’re not actually affected by which faction you ally yourself with. It’s really easy to start off having your highest rank in a faction other than your own–heck, the Fae is guaranteed to be like this, since they start off at Wild -1. And the “change your faction” advances don’t actually affect your faction scores, it’s separate advances that do that.
Mark Diaz Truman I really dig fictional positioning as a way of handling things in general. It’s just that with the way Urban Shadows mechanically weaves together this cool theme of faction politics and who owes what to whom, not touching on your own faction in those mechanics seemed a conspicuous absence. I did miss / forget about that second point, though, so thanks for that!
Your faction is not always your highest but it’s relatively common.
If you ally yourself with a faction then this results in debts in the short term. Alliance doesn’t immediately translate into familiarity/knowledge of that Faction. It would seem common for a PC to back this up through end of session moves with an increase in that faction score (though its not enforced).
The Fae’s -1 Wild was actually typo and is already in the ‘to edit’ file for release. It should be +1.