9.6 Earning Dice

PCs can earn faction and engagement dice through play. The GM has two ways for awarding them.

First, the GM can decide that a certain action, turn of events, decision, tradeoff, or other occurrence in the story warrants an award. If the PCs persuade a certain group to support their cause, she might grant them one or more faction dice to represent that support. She can always offer it as a choice or reward, too: “If you bring them the head of the Fiend Lord, they’ll forge some weapons for your rebel army, which would be worth 3 faction dice.” The fun really begins when you make those choices a bit more difficult (“If you wipe out all of their rival tribe’s children as blood revenge, they’ll support you for 5 faction dice worth. Which might just be enough to hold off the demon army that’s set to destroy your nation.”)

Second, the GM can link awards to goals in conflicts. For example, while the PCs are trying to fight their way out of the vampire stronghold, she can create a “Grab the Gems [5]: +1 FD” goal to allow the PCs to gain 1 faction die for their faction. She could also set up the “Obtain the Stronghold Blueprints [7]: +2 ED v. Vampire Clan” goal, which would give the PCs’ faction a distinct advantage when engaging the vampires by giving them 2 engagement dice against the vampire faction.

Factions can also transfer faction dice to each other. This might be a political loan, part of a treaty, or in some way related to an exchange on the character level (such as a bribe).