Faction Support

Factions are groups that a character can join and try to help gain power and intrique over the course of the game. An example might be a gang that they slowly level up from a group of street thugs to a large criminal syndicate.

Factions can have stats and skills just like characters, though they have different ones.

Their stats, or attributes, are as follows:

Personnel: A measure of the size of the faction in terms of members or employees.
Intelligence: A measure of the decision making capability of the faction
Resources: A measure of the gang's wealth and ability to locate specalized equipment.
Area: A measure of the gang's coverage area, can be as small as a building or a few blocks or as large as being a global organization.
Clout: The gang's political influence.
Strength: The gang's muscle or intimidation influence.
Magic: The gang's magical ability (the only score which can be a 0).

Their skills can be measured as follows:

Public Opinion: The gang's ability to garner public support.
Recruitment: The gang's ability to recruit new members or to increase it's intellgience score.
Income: The gang's ability to create income for itself or its members or to increase its resources.
Growth: The gang's ability to increase it's area.
Politics: The gang's ability to increase it's clout.
Brass: The gang's ability to increase it's strength.

The GM sets opening scores for the gang based on it's specifics. (The "gang" could be a lover lodge, which would have higher magic but less brass, or it could be street thugs with no magic but good brass.)

There are several ways to increase the power of a faction.

Money: Money, weapons, or other items donated to the faction can help increase it's income score. It needs $20,000 * (1 + current wealth bonus) to increase the income score by 1 point.

Karma: Players may spend karma on behalf of the gang. It can level up gang skills as if they were action skills (with no specalizations). So to increase politics from 3 to 4 it costs 8 karma.

Missions: Certainly at GM discresion, certain missions may increase skills or attributes on the part of the gang.

To increase attributes, the gang must make successful checks using their skills. They roll a skill check with a TN equal to the new attribute total they want. They need a number of successes equal to that attribute number to increase the attribute. (So to increase resources from 3 to 4, they roll an income check with a TN equal to 4 and must get 4 successes).

Gang Actions: A gang can attempt a number of actions each month equal to its intelligence score. Some actions include:

Create Income: The gang can attempt to create income for its members by rolling an income check TN 4. Each success gives $1000 to the top members (usually the PCs who helped set up the gang). They must split this. This can be done multiple times with multiple actions.

Find Goods: The gang can roll an open resources check. The number achieved indicates the largest availability item the gang can get for its members (the item must still be purchased at street price). Any month this is not done, the gang can not find any special equipment for the players.

Increase Attribute: The gang my roll a skill check to increase a linked attribute. (Like rolling income to increase wealth or recruitment to increase either personnel or intelligence). Each roll is 1 action regardless of success. This represents taking new members, taking over territory, etc.

Increase Magic: The gang must "initiate" to increase magic, which costs a karma point total equal to the initiation cost. If no PC wants to pay this, the gang can roll a resources check (DC 5+ new grade desired), and each success contributes 2 karma to the cost of group initiation with ordeal. This can be done to get from 0 to 1 magic. The gang does not gain metamagic feats.


Gang Advantages:

A gang can provide other services to players without using actions.

Group Initiation: A gang can provide groups to intiate with with a total available grade equal to the gang's magic rating.

Lifestyle: A gang can provide a free lifestyle to members based on its resources (1-2 = squatter, each 2 points raises a step).

Buy/Sell Equipment: The gang can purchase or sell equipment to/from players with no questions asked, though regular prices apply.

Bail out PCs: The gang can roll a clout check to try to bail PCs out of a tough spot. They can also try this with strength if the pcs are in trouble by a rival gang.

Provide Backup: A gang can roll a personnell check to try to bring in assistance to PCs. Special skills (decking, magic) are TN 8+ at GM call. Grunt help is TN 4, multiple successes mean more support.

Requisition: A gang can try a resources check with a TN = to the availability of the item you want to requisition, and provide it to you, so long as it's not expendable and they can reasonbly expect to have it returned. (Cars yes, poison and cyberware no).

Safehouses: When in a foreign city, the gang can make an area check against a TN 4 for same country different city, TN6 for different country same continent, TN 8 for different continent, TN 12 vs small island or remote areas. Success means there is a small safehouse available for the PCs to hide out in while out of town which is faction controlled. Multiple successes increase the level of the hideout using lifestyle levels. (6 = luxury!).

Find Work: The faction can make a public opinion check to try to find a job for a PC, number of successes = better job, and TN based on specifics set by GM.

Answer Questions: The gang can make a personnel check against a TN set by the GM related to the difficulty of the information. Each success means that gang members are able to supply information to the PCs relevant to the topic. The max TN the gang can even attempt is limited by its intelligence score.

While gangs can be expensive to maintain and support (both in terms of money and karma), they can be an excellent source of missions, and once you build them up they can really help you find better equipment and johnsons.