Carta Galaxia Development Update #5
Gasp! Less than a week since the last update? What madness is this?
I’ve been tooling around with the presentation/layout of the Factions. See, I definitely don’t want to club readers over the head with a lot of background and information. What I want is to create a portrait, something vibrant and bold to inspire a gut-level understanding of what the faction is and how it behaves.
More importantly, I want the essential information to be clear, concise, and readily apparent. So here’s my 4-page structure that I’ll be using:
Page 1: Brief outline and history of the faction. “At their best” and “at their worst” sub-sections, defining them from the lens of protagonists and antagonists (portrayed differently depending whether the characters side with them or against them).
Page 2: Might, Reach, Structure, Ideology.
Page 3: Politics: How they interact with characters (what Favors they grant, what Debts they call in, what they do to opponents). How they perceive the other factions.
Page 4: Schemes and Resources. This ties directly into the Conspiracy System (be sure to check that out here if you haven’t already https://www.dropbox.com/s/arn7fr41pyufn4w/Conspiracy.docx?dl=0)
I’ve gone through a number of iterations, and I’d really appreciate it if you folks could take a look and give me your feedback.
– Is the info easy to digest?
– Does the structure/ordering flow naturally?
– Does it give you a good sense of the faction?
– Does it give you ideas for play?
– Is there info you feel is lacking?
I’d like to make sure the structure is doing its job before I commit to heavily in writing all the other factions like this.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/9q04lmozqixc35k/The%20Ministry.docx?dl=0
On a quick scan, it’s very easy to get a good overview, and spot areas you want to pay more attention to.
I think it works well.
Having read the whole thing, it looks great. It reads cleanly, I like the use of older phrases to indicate the pertinent, note-size information. It’s a clean layout, and the icons draw the eye to information nicely. I could see opening the book, and looking for the icon for the info I need and going right to it.
I think it’s incredibly detailed and articulate, and as a new GM and player, I’m definitely interested in including this into some gameplay. I think the “At their best/worst” sections are the greatest. I didn’t interpret it as perspectival (protagonist/antagonist) but as conflictual: that organizations don’t have static motives, morals, and actions. There is a really rich history implied in those two paragraphs, and it’s there that I feel the “gut-level” description. The paragraphs preceding it are interesting, but a bit more academic. That section takes the stance of telling us the history rather than letting the game decide (that’s not a critique—it makes my job as a GM easier to just pick up and play). If you wanted to cut that back to a single paragraph, I think you get the flavor with:
“The omnipresent bureaucracy watches at every window and listens at every com-console. They are everywhere, gathering, assessing, evaluating. The organisation is slow, subtle, methodical, and fiercely opposed to disorder. The machinery of its bureaucracy can grind over any obstacle with the weight of laws, edicts and procedures. The empire should run like clockwork.”
This just cuts the history, but the other relevant edit is the opposition to “change.” The way I read bureaucracy is not opposed to change but to disorder. That is, if a new weapon or resource or race is discovered, would the Ministry act to destroy it or to bureaucratize it—to find a place for it within the system? I think the latter. Otherwise it’s a different kind of malevolent force. If it is interested in securing and maintaining “continuity” (as in the ideology) than it is less bureaucratic than authoritarian and traditionalist. The “beautiful” thing about bureaucracy is that it appropriates the new within its structure rather than outright destroying it; it slowly undermines the innovativeness of the new by fitting it within the same.
Great job with this and thanks.
Awesome! Thanks for the feedback.
I went ahead and swapped around some aspects of the first page, and put the History/Founding in its own little subsection which can easily be glossed over.
I love the structure, especially the “At best/worst” part. It is concise, but very evocative. I can immediately figure out plenty of ways that I could bring them into a game.
I think that some more detail/suggestions for retribution would be useful. My players tend to step on toes quickly, so fun suggestions on the sorts of trouble that they land in would be very helpful.
One thing that I find unclear is how an abstract resource like Ministerial Injunction works with the conspiracy rules. It seems more like a scheme that can be used any territory that they are present in. How could another faction interact or the players with it? For instance, disrupt it?
I really like the new Might/Reach/Structure/Ideology format, the keywords give it at-a-glance usefulness and hint at an expanded Faction generator.
Oh yeah! I forgot to mention that, too, Sean: I love calling out the Might/Reach/Structure/Ideology methodology of the core Uncharted Worlds rules and making it clear that they’re a part of the process, and demonstrating how to do it effectively.