Influence!

Just tossing out an idea here -

Influence

Influence with a group varies from -1 to +3. Your default Influence is +0. (You can lose/gain Influence as the result of the Impress/Show Up move.)

At the end of a session, you do a kinda Hx thing with Influence - did you do something that endears you most to a group? Then you get Ix+1 with them. (I don't love the *x thing, but let's use it until I find good parlance for SA.) Did you lose standing with a group? Then you get Ix-1.

When you ask a favor of a group, roll+Ix. On a 10+, choose two. On 7-9, choose one:
- they do it
- it doesn't cost you

"Cost you" can mean -Ix, favors promised, material goods, harm, etc etc.

If you hit Ix+4 with a group, it resets to +1 as usual, but instead of marking experience, a faction peels off and attaches itself to you. You can only reliably retain traitor factions by maintaining +Ix with them, though.

Awesome! Especially what happens when a faction peels off and attaches itself to you. What's your starting "ix" with the "traitor" group? And I could see it being interesting if that group, itself, schismed into another group that's even more dedicated to you. Like a band of warriors defecting from an army to be your personal followers, and then, from the midst of that group, a cult forming in outright worship of you, or something.

As alternatives to +ix, "+rep", maybe? Reputation and Influence aren't quite perfect synonyms, but I think they'd be close enough that I think they'd be similarly applicable in the situations you're using in them.

Ditto what Ben said. That shit is hot right there.

So, are the options on a 7-9, they do it and it costs you or they don't do it and it doesn't cost you? A pick 2/1 of three options would be interesting!

If that's the case, could it read something like:

10+: They take care of the request as a matter of favour, honour and loyality.
7-9: They name a price but aren't offended if you decline.

Ooooh. Yes. This is a good thing.

I like!

I will second Orly's notion that a pick 2 (on a 10+) or 1 (on a 7-9) out of 3 scenario might be cool (but that would take away the 'you totally influence them cos you're that awesome' option).

I really like the way it resets, though. Seeing as that represents a 'new baseline', will it work out that when your influence resets, do you just not even have to test for stuff that you had to before, and you only test for things that are even more of an imposition, or is the only benefit that you stole part of their faction? Either way I can see working (they still like and trust you pretty well, but there's some ill-feeling because of the new loyalties of some of the people).

Yeah, I would lean towards "all the people who really like you are a part of the new faction, and the remainder is the people that only sorta like you".

Another exciting idea: Why not let influence go to -3, and when it hits -4, it resets to -1, and a new faction within the group splinters off, specifically devoted to opposing you, personally?

Awesome! Especially what happens when a faction peels off and attaches itself to you. What's your starting "ix" with the "traitor" group?

I like Reputation. Let's run with that.

As far as your rep with the new groups, the rule in my head is that you've got rep+1 with it, but you also own it like a new retinue under your command, and so you can do retinue moves on it. (Retinues can get Leadership, Largesse, and Emissaries, which I'll detail later, but they are structurally similar to AW moves we know.)

Jeff, right, the idea is that the splinter group is composed of the people that really like you. The benefit is that you can boss them around like a retinue instead of having to ask favors of them as an independent faction, and their rep stat is only there because they're unreliable until you have somehow cemented your hold on them. Maybe when you get rep+3 with a group you own, that makes their rep stat go away and they become loyal to you as a whole, so if someone else steals them they get a splinter group rather than the whole thing.

Ben, I gotta think about -rep...

I love the implications of negative rep and factions directly opposed to you!

Shreyas, that's cool on how 'your' new faction works. I'm trying to think of a smoother way of saying "when your new faction reaches rep+4 with you, erase rep, and they become a gang/faction/whatever subject to the leadership move".

Maybe every faction has some boxes, right? One box might be "Totally Hates you", another would be "Willing to listen to your reputation", and then there are two for "Aligned with your interests" and "Your Personal Faction". I'd assume once 'your personal faction' is checked, there's no going back, but who knows? Anyway, you'd check each of these boxes depending on where your rep is, and erase it when it changes, so you start out with "Willing to Listen to your Reputation" check, when rep gets to -4, you reset to -1 and check "Totally Hates You", when you get to +4 the first time you check "Aligned" and the second time you check "Yours". Or something.

I'm picturing little index cards with Faction info on them, some flavorful, some mechanical. Maybe only the MC can see them until they become aligned to you, and then you get to hold onto the card.

An idea for negative rep is starting each session (or each stretch of downtime) with an, "If you have negative rep with a faction, at the start of each session or after downtime, roll +rep. On a 10+, everything's quiet for now. On a 7-9, pick one, on a miss, (all? pick three if somebody has ideas for other options?):

* They'll take deliberate hard action against you, soon.
* They influence their allies against you (take -1 hx with a group positively associated with them)
* They turn against one of your allies, as well (One of the other PCs on more or less friendly terms with you takes -1 hx with them)
* (Some other stuff, maybe? Or maybe you can choose the last two options multiple times, just for other groups, or other PCs?)

Other characters can help you with this roll, but they have to roll +hx with the faction in question, not their +hx with you.

Hm, maybe?

I think that if I were to add something like that, it'd have to have a number of options, because a group of cultists that don't like you are going to do a lot worse and weirder things than a group of academics or courtesans who similarly don't like you.

Alternatively, put some GM guidance about negative rep in, so such groups maybe act against you, but not in the random unpatterned fashion of terrorists.

The way I saw it, a demon-cult taking deliberate hard action against you would vary dramatically from, as you say, a school of academics or court of nobles taking hard action against you. I saw "appropriate to their skills and resources" as sort of implied, but you could definitely add it in explicitly.