Faction Action Resolution
Whenever the Duration for an Action taken by a Faction comes up on the Calendar, run through the procedure below.
1) Save Modifiers
Factions don’t have Facts other than for Debts, although a Leader’s Facts can still impact his Faction. Instead, every time a Leader performs a Save for his Faction, he must run through this list of questions. For each question, give +1 if it resolves unquestionably in the Leader’s favor, and penalize -1 if it’s unquestionably against it.
- Institutional Knowledge: Is this within the Faction’s role as an organization to do, as determined by the social context of what the Faction is?
- Power: Is it obviously within the Faction’s power (financial, military, social) to accomplish?
- Precedent: Has this ever been done before (to local knowledge)?
- Foreign: Is it reliant on foreign technology/methods that aren’t adopted locally?
- Opposition: Is at least one Faction strongly opposed & in a position to interfere/deploy at least some countermeasures?
2) Faction Opinions & Counter-Moves
Whenever an Action is completed, scan the Faction List for Factions that were harmed or aided by the outcome:
| Faction is… | Harmed/Offended | Given opportunity | Directly Benefited |
|---|---|---|---|
| Busy | Grows Angry & alters Move to undermine, oppose, confront, or attack perpetrator or outcome. | Nothing for now. | Grows Pleased with the perpetrator. |
| Idle | Grows Angry & immediately starts plotting revenge, payback, or confrontation. | Immediately starts a new Action to seize the opportunity. | Grows Pleased & starts a new Action if opportunity exists |
If more than one Faction is Angered by an Action’s outcome, they will join forces if appropriate & scheme together to bring about their revenge or adaptations to the outcome of the Move.
3) Inform the Players
Whatever the effects, find a way to inform the Party that it happened. Gossip, town criers, briefings by castellans or stewards or courtiers; if a Faction did it, it comes up soon after with the cause-effect relationship reasonably clear.
4) New Move & Outcomes
Next, the GM comes up with a new Action for the original Faction to pursue.
If it isn’t obvious what the Faction would do next based on their current Debts, agenda, enemies, or situation, roll on the table below to generate a new Action.
| 1d6 | Faction Action |
|---|---|
| 1 | (Conquer/sabotage/subjugate/destroy/supplant) the most vulnerable neutral/hostile Faction, whichever is most appropriate. |
| 2 | Build/expand on either the easiest or most substantial advantage available to either create a new Subfaction or to gain powers/resources/manpower directly |
| 3 | Form a friendship, alliance, exploitative partnership, exchange/trade agreement, or vassal protection scheme with a Faction who has common interests |
| 4–6 | Do something related to satisfying the Leader’s personal interests or agenda. |
Then, try to fit it to the Faction. The final Move should be both:
- Applicable to the agenda & capabilities of the Faction;
- Capable of impacting the PCs, their environment, or any party they care about.
If you try as hard as you can & fail to find an Action that meets both of these criteria, ask yourself if the Faction is still relevant to the PCs:
- Yes: The Faction becomes Idle, working on nothing in particular.
- No: The Faction becomes Veiled & you must roll a Random Faction Event Faction.
5) PC Recruitment Event
At the outset of any new Move, if members of the Faction believe any PC in the area can potentially help with it & that seeking their assistance is unlikely to compromise their goals, one of them will reach out to one of the viable PCs (chosen at random) to recruit them.
6) Random Faction Events
Roll a Random Faction Event only if a Faction’s current position makes it ineligible to develop a new Action to pursue.
| 2d6 | Event |
|---|---|
| 2 | Development. The Faction with the most developed (1d6: 1–2 technological, 3–4 social or cultural, 5–6 economic or legal) capabilities has their primary advantage wiped out by a brand-new advancement that makes it (1d6: 1–3 too common, 4–6 too expensive or niche) & that brings about a new Faction who principally benefits from & represents the change. |
| 3–4 | New Desire. The least interesting Idle Faction spontaneously develops a brand-new agenda/desire. Roll a random Move, then pick a Faction & figure out why the new Move puts them in conflict with that Faction. If in doubt, they were offended. |
| 5–9 | New Faction with a new randomly-rolled Move suddenly fulfilled for the advancement of a new, broader agenda that frightens at least one existing Faction. |
| 10 | Disastrous failure. The most megalomaniacal Faction’s attempts to achieve their Action suddenly becomes a public crisis (affecting at least half of the active Factions) in the most plausible way possible. |
| 11 | Resource shortage. The least stable Faction’s primary advantage is wiped out via a shortage of whatever was most critical to it. |