Factions

Faction is a broad term covering all kinds of human organizations that act as one. A faction is a major or minor corporation, an NGO, a boostergang, a government agency, a labor union, a nomad pack, a military unit or anything else where people have come together for a purpose. Factions are the key actors in driving the change and defining the edge in the dark future.

A faction is defined in Edgerunner by its characteristics, aspects and its competencies, the faction-scale equivalent of skills. They also have a concept and their own stress tracks with consequence slots.

Aspects

A faction has five aspects, plus its concept for a total of six. When determining a faction’s aspects, consider things like its vision and mission, its assets and relations with other factions and its culture and attitude.

Concept

A faction’s concept is its defining aspect. It should summarize the type and definition of the faction into a single phrase. It should be the brief answer to the question: “What is it?”. Some examples are: Ruthless boostergang, Elite marine company, US branch of European agricorp or Nationalist political movement

Characteristics

A faction has three characteristics. Each one is a number between -4 and +4, representing the the magnitude and direction. These numbers represent the effectiveness of the faction in different scales, against other factions, progresses and single characters.

The total of a faction’s Disposition, Focus and Influence must be zero

Disposition

The disposition of a faction defines how it positions itself in the social landscape. A positive number indicates a progressive attitude, striving to advance the society and embracing change. A negative number is a conservative attitude, trying to keep things as they are, or as they were in the extreme end.

−4 Luddite	Bent on destroying the new until only the old remains
−3 Nostalgic	Trying to bring back the old ways
−2 Conservative	Holding onto the status quo with vigor
−1 Cautious	Keeping to good old methods as long as possible
±0 Adaptive	Going with the flow and adapting to change, rather than driving it
+1 Optimistic	Welcoming, adopting and advocating progress
+2 Progressive	Actively pushing for change
+3 Revolutionary	Attempting to bring about major change
+4 Radical	Set on crushing the last vestiges of the past

The disposition of a faction is used when it is trying to affect issues.

Focus

Focus describes the amount of commitment a faction has towards its goals. Higher numbers mean that the faction puts more weight behind its objectives.

−4 Lost	Don’t even know why they are still here
−3 Apathetic	When the mission is just an insider joke
−2 Distracted	Drowning in TPS reports
−1 Preoccupied	Doing the small things first
±0 Aware	Everything according to the plan
+1 Enthusiastic	Going the extra mile
+2 Committed	Trying to do their best
+3 Passionate	The mission comes before everything
+4 Zealous	No mercy for whoever stands in the way

The focus of a faction is a modifier when using competencies against individuals. Factions with low focus are ineffective against single characters while high focus faction can project their power with surgical precision.

Influence

Influence defines the faction’s ability of affecting or being affected by the world around it, with whatever means available. It is also an indirect measure of the faction’s means and strength.

−4 Futile	Laughing stock for friend and foe
−3 Weak	Hardly a threat for anyone, easily manipulated
−2 Vulnerable	Open to exploitation if you know how to
−1 Incompetent	Not the best it can be
±0 Neutral	Capable of holding their ground
+1 Efficient	Adept at making a small difference
+2 Influential	Others take notice when they do something
+3 Powerful	Hard to stand in their way
+4 Dominant	Opposing them is suicide

The influence of a faction is used as a modifier when using competencies against other factions.

Competencies and upgrades

Competencies are a faction’s equivalent of skills. Although some competencies overlap with character skills, their application almost always represent the coordinated actions of the whole faction and not any single individual.

A faction’s upgrades are not much different than character upgrades in what they can do. The only difference is that the player of the faction can choose any stress track to absorb stress caused by upgrades.

Stress and consequences

Factions also have stress tracks and consequences of their own. Just like a character, when a faction is taken out, its fate is determined by its opponent, be it stock value crash, bankruptcy, hostile takeover, union strike, crippling legal action or just being wiped out to the last man.

Faction stress tracks have a base threshold of 3.

Leverage

The leverage track represents the faction’s ability to get things done. If a faction loses its leverage, it is rendered incapable of doing anything. This may mean loss of physical assets, personnel, money or any other tangible resource essential to the operation of the faction.

Prestige

Prestige represents all the intangible assets of a faction. Loss of prestige causes the faction to lose its value in the eyes of whoever matters. A faction taken out on the prestige track loses its allies, business or image. It may be subject to the scorn of other factions.

This track also receives any attacks made to lower the morale of the personnel.

A faction has three consequence slots just like a character.

Download the faction sheet in PDF format.