The one thing that I sometimes sgruggle with is Fronts that are for facrions that are directly opposed to one another, for example in a city where two factions battle it out for the throne. You can’t be neutral and you can’t advance one without it affecting the other. Have people got a good way to get around this?
The one thing that I sometimes sgruggle with is Fronts that are for facrions that are directly opposed to one…
The one thing that I sometimes sgruggle with is Fronts that are for facrions that are directly opposed to one…
Why do you need to get around it? Have them interact in an interesting way.
Make their struggle one front that escalates around the PCs instead of two that escalate each other.
Depending on the circumstance, the conflict may be a front, especially if the faction’s agendas are otherwise mundane. If the guild of bakers and the candlemakers association only drive adventure because they’re fighting for power, that fight may be the front.
If the factions are already jerks, then the conflict may become an additional front if it creates new & different sorts of problems (like a lot of collateral damage).
Otherwise, if the conflict is just an excuse for the factions to do stuff, then it’s a data point, not a front. If the players are in the thick of it (playing one faction against the other and such), this may be most appropriate.
My 0.02
Think dangerous. How much collateral damage can the feud cause? Who do the characters know in each faction that can make a sympathetic case for the characters’ cooperation? How will the characters’ families, church, friends or profession be ruined by one side or the other achieving their goal? What sorts of vital quests or errands outside of the city do the characters need to perform to affect this crises? Play to find out.
Why would you want to get around that?
Play to find out what happens includes letting the characters affect the world though their involvement or interactions with the fronts.
That said, if you’re afraid you’re setting things up so that only one of the two opposing fronts can survive, then you might want to reword the impulses and grim portents for the two factions to make them independent of the others opposing faction (e.g. use Grim portent ‘Gain control of the city’ rather than ‘Eliminate the other front’)
Wouldn’t both of them be gain control of the city though? How would you decide which one you advance?
Decide by following the fiction. Which is the more interesting choice? How have the characters interacted with them? Maybe both factions weaken each other until a new group jumps in to seize control.
Here’s how I would do it: Both sides offer necessary services to the pcs. When the pcs do business with the one or the other side, it antagonises the other side. Force them to choose sides. Then make the side they chose turn on them. Then make both sides hate them. Then have the one side recruit them to take out the other side. And so on, and so on.
Think Game of Thrones. The possibilities for conflict are endless. It is a veritable gold mine.
Yeah there is a lot of options and thats why I love to do those fronts, but I have trouble advancing fronts at the the best of times(especially if they are off screen) and fronts that are opposed to each other are even harder so thats why I asked.
Thanks for the advice.
Further on what Rob Donoghue said how would a war front look like? A lot of the things in the front opions seem to be either individual or group related. And the locations don’t really seem to fit either.
I would play it like this: each faction sees a different path to victory. This has the added advantage of making them feel clearly different in play.
Maybe one is the obvious, straightforward type. They control, say, the military and a bunch of mid level nobles.
The other is sneaker, more willing to get their hands dirty because they’d lose otherwise. They appeal to the merchants, thieves, and lower level. It ambitious nobles.
So, it’s not two fronts with “instinct: rule the city” and Portents of “control the town guard”, “control the council”, and “coronate their favorite”.
It’s one with, say, “instinct: protect our glorious tradition”, with portents: “the town guard imposes a curfew”, “top merchants and thieves are arrested”, etc, and one with “instinct: usher in a new order”, and portents like “a string of assassinations among the officers and council”.
That way, you just decide who feels the need or opportunity to make a move: either desperately unleashing a new offensive or pushing an advantage. The good thing is, every time you use one for one side, you’ve set up the fiction to use one of the others next time.
Make sure the players care, though. The assassination victims included a patron, the curfew shuts down a supplier, that guard captain they hate is in line for a council seat.
What Russell Williams said ^