Factions.
My group wanted a lot of factions, so now everybody is making one. So now, in our setting, there are six factions fighting or scheming for influence while most of the galaxy is under Citadel Council-esque control.
I wanted each faction to get a single turn between our weekly games to help the galaxy feel alive and encourage player involvement, but I’m stuck on two competing ideas of how to do so. How do you use factions?
First Idea: Each faction assigns +2, +1, +0, -1 across Might, Reach, Structure, and Ideology. Then those scores are used for their own faction moves which are just Face Adversity, Get Involved, and Assessment. Using these they can try to get an edge on each other, or The Party, or even dangle a forgiven Debt or Favor in front of The Party to do their work for them. If they roll low, other factions get to see their weaknesses.
Second Idea: Use Might, Reach, Structure, and Ideology as stats that change with the board. Your Might score controls how many fleets/armies you can have and your Reach directly corresponds to how many planets (not systems) you can control. Structure might determine how many moves or actions you could take in a round, and Ideology could be used like Might to defend or extend your influence.
Third Idea: I just ask players what they want their faction to be up to between sessions and make something up with a sort of galactic news network.
I’d probably merge the all three ideas – because the factions were player authored, I get a sense they may still want to “play” them. So I’d ask that player what they’d be up to, but then I’d take the actual turn between sessions. The stats both determine what they have access to and the stats that are rolled to accomplish things. Stats can go up or down based on what happens in this turn.
At the beginning of the next session, I’d give them the news broadcasts
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If I had to chose only one, I would go with the third. Sounds like a great way to add plot hooks, rumors, and red herrings to the setting.
Yeah. I liked the idea of turning it into some sort of weekly Diplomacy/Risk game but considering I have an AI Overlord faction that controls the galaxy, I’m not sure what their endgame would be.
Plus by keeping mechanics out of it, I maintain more narrative control over that. It remains to be seen if that’s a good thing or not, but we’ll see.
But I really want to know how you guys narrate or work factions into your game!
My only exposure so far is listening to Chad Jacobs which is entertaining, and seems to be working quite well.
Heh, I treated them as backdrop and sources of friction. They’ll abuse PCs and leave them in a cross fire holding the bag. They’re always scheming. If they offer one hand, watch the other.
sunday-skypers.podbean.com – Uncharted Worlds, part 1
I like to use prompting to get the factions to move forward. I try to make it as “in universe” as possible, and give a character the chance to narrate for a bit.
“[Character], what’s the big news on the Sectornet? What did [Faction A] just accomplish.”
“[Character], while there’s nothing official, the rumor-mill is running overtime. Seems like [Faction B] is up to something. What’s about to go down?”
Sean Gomes That almost makes me wonder if I should use my idea for galactic news at the start of sessions (after the Cramped Quarters rolls) or have my own character that works as a sort of relay to the rest of the galaxy, like Chad Jacobs’ character, Gideon.
My players created factions too, one each, but they didn’t get attached to them and the PCs had a mixture of favours and debts that worked out quite well.
I had factions act in the background to pursue their goals, and they would automatically succeed unless: 1) the players intervened to stop them, or 2) those goals would conflict with another faction.
In the case of conflncting goals, each faction would request a PC to help (secretly, between sessions), and pretty much every session, each player would try to help their faction without giving away too much to the other players.
Dan, I’d suggest spreading it around, rather than having a dedicated character; after each downtime, have a different character provide information about how the universe/factions have progressed from their perspective.
Each character archetype will have different sources of information and different biases as to what information is “relevant”. This is doubly true for characters who are members of a faction or have a vested interest in what a faction is doing. Targeted prompting will add a lot of personal context to an otherwise “big picture” faction power play.
Sean Gomes I appreciate the input, I have a bad tendency to over-do rules or situations and PbtA isn’t built for that.
Keeping it as a simple question to ask a few players keeps them thinking about the world, and includes factions made by people that can’t make it that session or respond during the week.