I once ran an Impulse Drive session that was all about faction play (three factions involved), yet we used just the basic social move and one playbook-specific social move. You as GM can certainly handle factions solely through the fiction and the regular rules, but it is great when the game supports factions mechanically. Your characters help this faction, but in doing so run afoul of that faction, and the GM tracks this in some way.

When the game doesn’t have faction mechanics, you can import structures from other games to help.

At the least, a faction should have goals, resources, and needs. What is it trying to accomplish? What tools does it have to do so, and are those valuable to the PCs? What does it need to achieve its goals, and can the PCs fill those needs?

For instance, secret societies in Hex Describe are factions with a leader, a goal, resources (typically spells), and loot.

The entire Blades in the Dark architecture around factions is licensed under the Creative Commons and fairly easily ported to other games, especially PbtA systems. Factions have:

  • Tier (size of the faction)
  • Hold (how well they maintain their size: weak or strong)
  • Advancement (development of the faction via reputation, REP)
  • Turf (places you control, dominate or intimidate)
  • Claims (assets belonging to other factions, for you to take).

Compaction Action, What’s Your Faction?

You’ll want to prep your faction with an agenda for the next session or two:

  • Monster of the Week’s Mystery Countdowns – Think of your faction as a monstrous leader with minions then outline what the faction immediately wants to accomplish this session, if they’re not stopped.
  • Progress Clocks – In this case, use clocks as timers triggering advances to the faction’s agenda. Incrementing the timer can happen on missed rolls, when it’s a logical consequence within the fiction, or even when you as GM just need to shake up things.

Factions Over Time

If the faction is going to persist for more than a session or two, you’ll want a way to record the faction’s attitude toward the PCs. Here’s how Blades does it:

  • +3: Allies. This faction will help you even if it’s not in their best interest to do so. They expect you to do the same for them.
  • +2: Friendly. This faction will help you if it doesn’t create serious problems for them. They expect you to do the same.
  • +1: Helpful. This faction will help you if it causes no problems or significant cost for them. They expect the same from you.
  • 0: Neutral
  • -1: Interfering. This faction will look for opportunities to cause trouble for you (or profit from your misfortune) as long as it causes no problems or significant cost for them. They expect the same from you.
  • -2: Hostile. This faction will look for opportunities to hurt you as long as it doesn’t create serious problems for them. They expect you to do the same and take precautions against you.
  • -3: War. This faction will go out of its way to hurt you even if it’s not in their best interest to do so. They expect you to do the same and take precautions against you. When you’re at war with any number of factions, your crew suffers +1 heat from scores, temporarily loses 1 hold, and PCs get only one downtime action rather than two. You can end a war by eliminating your enemy or by negotiating a mutual agreement to establish a new status rating.

One way to make the world come alive is for the GM to think about what the key factions are up to offscreen and between sessions. The Faction Turns system, by Among Cats and Books, is one way to do this.

Check out AW threat maps as a way to track and position factions, amongst other threats.

Factions Across Outer Space

Despite having integrated the Blades’ faction game into Fantastic Worlds, I’ve not added much mechanical support for factions into Planet of the Week. Mainly because factions are tied to specific planets and so typically aren’t around for more than a session or two. Factions just use the standard discovery countdowns I use with all my planets.

However, because one style of mission in Planet of the Week is the diplomatic mission, the Diplomat has an advanced move they can take, Summit:

When you arrange for two opposing factions to meet, roll DPL. Choose one per hit (4+):

  • They will meet where you choose
  • They bring proposals, not just complaints
  • They share crucial information beforehand
  • They agree to a temporary ceasefire
  • They allow humanitarian aid during talks.

Cue a Jump Cut. On a miss, your intervention escalates the situation.

And factions come up enough that there is a Cultural Anthropology skill related to understanding alien factions.

My primary prep around factions for Planet of the Week is light. In addition to goals and assets, I also prep: Appearance (typically a forehead-style alien race), a Secret (to be discovered through play), and a prominent NPC as their representative.

For diplomatic missions, I like the inherent stability of three factions, with the assumption that shifting alliances will keep the current leader in check and that the PCs will be typically forced to choose sides.

For more on prep techniques, check out my ebook, The Best-Delayed Plans: The Game Master’s Guide to Adventure Prep.

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Photo by Evgeny Strzhalkovsky on Unsplash.