Factions in Traveller

Borrowing bits and pieces from other table-top roleplaying games for use with Traveller seems like a good way to fill out places where it has a few gaps; but I try to do this with care, mindful that the spareness of the original rules-set is more often a feature than it is a defect. Still, while Traveller provides an excellent framework for describing people, space-ships, worlds and star-systems, and creatures, one place where it stumbles a bit is on the social side of things. While it does contain a workmanlike “reaction table” and some assistance in building “patrons” and encounters, it doesn’t really give much guidance on ways to build and represent groups of people and their common interests. Enter the “Circles” rules from the M-Space game: a clean and simple way to define factions, of various sizes and kinds.
rpg
traveller
house rules
Published

July 3, 2020

M-Space provides a formal way to describe “circles”, or groups of people of various sizes and reaches, organized together for one reason or another, sharing common goals or beliefs (see MS p156). This strikes me as exactly the kind of elegant subsystem that can be quickly and easily ported into Classic Traveller for practical use. I think the word “factions” describes better to me what these things are, so I’m going to call them that in my use of them.

wandering earth, Liu Xixin, ComicChina, via FT

I’m building out the notion of factions by first starting with the idea of porting it into Traveller, then building some example factions for use in my game, and then refining the scales and mechanics involved in using them over time. Accordingly, I’ll follow up with another more house-rules type post in the future that delves further into how rules for factions can work. In this post, I’ll start the ball rolling with a summary description of them, and some examples.

Describing factions

As in M-Space circles, factions get described with a light set of mechanics. See the nearby sidebar for the general table format used to present a faction’s description.

Faction name
Descriptive paragraph for the faction; should include both simple capsule summary of the faction's identity, as well as some identifying traits by which one could recognize membership.
Ideas List of Ideas for faction
UFP Characteristics in hex form:
- Influence
- Size
- Resources
Attributes List of Attributes for faction in skill form (Media-1, Political-3)

Type and Descriptor. Every faction belongs to one of five types: Organization, Ideology, Corporation, Location, Polity. When writing down the type of a faction, you also use a descriptor that further characterizes it: for example, “Organization (Charitable)” or “Corporation (Mining Conglomerate)”.

Ideas. Factions are united by motivations, ideals, beliefs, or ideas commonly held by their membership. Some factions will only have one idea, some will have a few. Some will have a public facing idea, and a secret idea, perhaps known only to an inner-circle of membership. I’m taking the list of ideas pretty much straight from M-Space (p166).

Characteristics. Every faction has three characteristics given numeric ratings, just as with characters and worlds in Traveller: Influence, Size, and Resources. We’ll use the same rough valuation scale for these characteristics: ranging from 0 on up to 15 or more, employing the same modified hexadecimal notation as for characters and worlds – we can arrange these characteristics into a “Universal Faction Profile” string (or UFP).

Attributes. As characters in Traveller have skills, factions have attributes. Each attribute for a faction has an associated level just as with characters’ skills. The level gives a rough indication of the strength of that attribute and could be used as a die modifier for throws involving the faction. I’m taking the list of likely attributes from M-Space (p160-1), but I suspect I’ll be adding a few here and there (for example, it seems like there should be one for Research, so I’m using that in one of my examples that follows).

Rank. Characters can have ranks within a faction, using the same scale as employed with ranks during character generation (0 through 6). I don’t use this in my examples here, but I envision that this concept can get used to help rules on factions dovetail with the Traveller character generation and description mechanics.

Hounslow examples

Here’s some examples of factions prepared for my regular Traveller adventures set in the Barbican Subsector, currently on the world of Hounslow.

Business concerns. Because the characters in my current adventures are direct representatives of a Commonwealth merchant prince company (Vargas SL), let’s start with a handful of corporate factions, beginning with a feature of the adventures currently, Engstrom Ltd; the main thrust of the group’s current adventures pits their merchant patron in tension with Engstrom.

Engstrom Ltd
Merchant house native to Hounslow with significant power and influence, with interests primarily in industrial manufacturing and pharmaceuticals. Have long held control over a significant bloc of interest in the Hounslow council, are by nature conservative, but see further development of relations with the Commonwealth as inevitable and therefore seek to remain as central to this development as possible so it can be shaped as much as possible to their benefit.
Ideas Tradition, Power, Wealth
UFP A56
Attributes Connected-4, Legal-2, Media-1, Politics-1, Secrecy-1

To counter-balance Engstrom, we need a business that’s their obverse; Becontree roots rather than Hounslow, different area of business focus, different ideological stance, and so on.

Beinhoff Ferguson Plc
Agribusiness concern native to Becontree with growing influence in Hounslow's corridors of power, BFP's roots are as a settler cooperative placed in some of Becontree's most arable and productive regions. While historically primarily a producer of grains and grasses, BFP has over the past century grown, diversified, and invested heavily in marine agriculture; to the point where a good third of their business is now directly tied to the farming of marine plant and animal life.
Ideas Innovation, Environment, Wealth
UFP 84A
Attributes Connected-2, Legal-1, Politics-1, Research-2, Territory-3

Let’s also throw in a third business concern for more balance; the two already presented can sort of stand in for the worlds of Hounslow and Becontree, so let’s have another that can represent the main source of raw-material wealth at Hounslow’s disposal – it’s mineral rich asteroid belt.

Kaspar Independent Mining
Mining cooperative native to Hounslow's belt, KIM is a massive conglomeration of independent owner-operators and small-family run mining concerns in the belt, united to provide political clout and influence within Honslow's Council. KIM is characterized by internal squabbles and disagreements and are somewhat notorious for rarely settling on any truly united position; their policies are often formed more in resistance to Hounslow's established commercial families than in any kind of united front of their own.
Ideas Independence, Group, Wealth
UFP 5A5
Attributes Dedicated Members-2, Cultural Heritage-1, Memes-1, Politics-1, Spread-2, Territory-2

Political concerns. We also need some factions that aren’t business-oriented, and some that represent the Commonwealth’s footprint out on the frontier. Here are some factions for that; first, the Emerald Path.

Emerald Path
Secretive, decentralized resistance movement dedicated to the cause of liberating Becontree from what's promulgated as Hounslow's colonial influence; as a result, the Path is not warmly predisposed towards the Commonwealth either. They have no intention of replacing one colonizer's boot with another. Overtly employing peaceful measures to achieve their aims, they nonetheless have several cells less concerned with the niceties of non-violence. Somewhat in contrast to their public persona, the Path is also remarkably well-funded.
Ideas Independence, Anti-Colonialist, Group, Resistance
UFP 347
Attributes Black Ops-2, Cellular-2, Dedicated Followers-2, Fear-2, Memes-3, Secrecy-3

Hounslow Station is the primary gateway for in-system and inter-system travel at Hounslow; it’s run by an independent Station Authority given direct remit by the Hounslow Council with the business of managing the Station.

Hounslow Station Authority
The Station Authority runs all space-station facilities in the Hounslow system, consisting of one primary and several subsidiary stations. There exist also many private docking facilities within the Hounslow asteroid belt, but they all fall under the control of private mining interests, or conglomerates like KIM. In many ways, the Station Authority is more efficient government for the Station and its facilities than Hounslow's own Council is for life planet-side.
Ideas Independence, Peace (Order)
UFP 738
Attributes Connected-2, Security-1, Territory-4

Finally, the primary Commonwealth presence in Hounslow is the Scout service who have a base in-system; their primary rivals are the Commonwealth Navy, and not anyone local, although they do meet with some tension in interacting with local factions.

Scout Service (Hounslow Base)
The Scout service is a massive arm of the Commonwealth government, and they have an official presence within the Hounslow system. Much of the infrastructure within the Hounslow Station Authority's control was directly funded by, and requried by, the Scout service who pay the Authority significant fees on an annual basis for privileged use of the facilities. Nominally here to explore and chart the frontier extents of the Commonwealth, the Scout service's representative bureaucracy here is not above involving themselves in commerce and graft.
Ideas Environment, Research, Pro-Commonwealth, Power
UFP 8BC
Attributes Cultural Heritage-2, Info Retrieval-2, Politics-2, Research-4