# Factions Factions represent a group of characters (player or non) who are working towards a goal. They may be of different sizes (small, medium, or large), and their category is based on how they work to achieve their goal (primarily through combat, economic, or social means). Factions serve as a tool for the game master to generate interesting stories without having to spend a bunch of time working every week. Factions also represent the difference in scale between an individual person and a group of people. Even the mightiest hero can't do everything. Even if they could, they could not be in every place at once, all the time, always. Having allies, friends who provide support, a pool of supplies, and the other benefits factions offer are essential. Factions can simply operate on a much greater scale then a single person can. Bringing these two parts together, factions are able to leverage massive to an individual amounts of wealth and assets through shared skill, labor, and resources of its members to advance its goals. They can get things like insurance to protect from loss of an asset; or they can bulk buy (for a lower price by taking advantage of economics of scale) things like armour or weapons for their members. It is encouraged that a GM generate their factions after doing [[Subsector Generation]], and base their factions, the assets they have, etc, based on what the generator returns. If the GM is running multiple groups of players, having them all be situated in the same subsector (or generate a sector, 4x4 subsectors) and interacting with the same factions, running through approximately the same number of months for each group. This helps the world feel very dynamic, as different player groups are triggering different NPC factions, whose action impact the other player groups and their allies. Player groups may even end up in indirect through proxy factions (or perhaps direct) conflict with one another after numerous sessions of accidentally stepping on each others toes. ## The Difference in prices Factions are better able to take advantage of economics of scale, and as such they are able to get lower prices on large amounts of individual goods bought in bulk. This is most relevant for ship and gear assets whose price is lower then those listed in the player book. This is because the items in the player book are assumed to be sold to individual people. The values listed here, and the rules for buying items from the player book using these assets reflect that difference. The normal to assume is that total of goods bought as a faction are reduced by 10% + the effect of a [[Normal]]+difference in quality of good from [[Normal Quality]] [[Bargain and Commerce]]. That is, if buying weapons for example, sum the value of all weapons being bought as a faction. _The Face of the party is buying [[Military Quality]] weapons, which is two levels above [[Normal Quality]], thus the face is rolling a [[Normal]] (base tn 9 +2 from effect = TN 11) [[Bargain and Commerce]] check. If the Face rolls a 14, 3 above the TN of 11, then the price is reduced by 13%._ ![[Size and Categories of Factions]] ![[Reading the Faction Sheet]] ![[Faction Debts]] ![[Faction Actions]] ![[Faction Assets and Upgrades]] ![[Player Faction]] ![[NPC Faction]]