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Given some talk about how to make Factions better/work better, I thought we might start a thread on community ideas...if there is already one out there, my apologies, I didn't see one.
1. Faction-specific rewards, past just module boons.
Boons are great, but they usually are for the whole mod, not just a faction.
For example, have some special weapon that isn't in any books or a neat favor/boon for completing a faction mission. It would take a bit more work and creativity, and maybe these special items would have to be created by Hyrum/Mark instead of the authors, but this would be something neat for us to play for within the faction instead of just Prestige Points.
Rewards like this add to the fervor of completing the mission and sting just that much more if you don't complete it. For this to work though, the mission tied to the reward would need to be harder....bringing up my second point.....
2. Make Faction missions a bit more challenging.
Recent mods seem to be doing this, which is great...a lot of earlier mods seemed like either a.) you got the faction mission if you just simply completed the mod as written or b.) if you just asked someone a question, you were golden (simplified, but I think you get my point)
More challenging missions make it more rewarding when you actually get it.
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2. Make Faction missions a bit more challenging.
Recent mods seem to be doing this, which is great...a lot of earlier mods seemed like either a.) you got the faction mission if you just simply completed the mod as written or b.) if you just asked someone a question, you were golden (simplified, but I think you get my point)
More challenging missions make it more rewarding when you actually get it.
Not speaking for myself, but for the rest of my group, this would go over like a ton of lead bricks. We ran a more recent module with a significantly more challenging mission and one of the players just about lost it when he failed his mission. This was a module with no "easy" mission but rather two "hard" ones. Some players (like a lot of Americans these days) want the reward every time, and it's already hard on them to only get one PA an adventure. Other players agreed.
In a way I agree with him (in a very minor way mind you). I've seen more and more players walk away with zero PA with some of the later modules. A lot of GMs will adjudicate that a faction mission can't be completed because the module is so strict on its interpretation of what a success is (the classic "why do I need a stealth 20 check, I'm disguised and nobody recognizes me" issue comes to mind). Because PA is so fundamentally tied to equipment purchases, as it's currently written, major changes, such as making PA harder to earn, wouldn't work terribly well.
I would much rather see a complete revamp of the system, but I'm not sure that's likely.
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OR...
Option 3: Change the way PA works so it can be earned in, say, Season 3 modules for just accomplishing the module objectives. It's pretty well stated that short of a TPK you can always get 1 XP for a module. Perhaps have PA tied to two society objectives (1 PA being minimal to complete the module, 1 PA for something that may be a bit harder to do but doable regularly). PA becomes more about how well you're ingratiating yourself with the society and gaining a better foothold for your faction.
Faction Missions for every faction in each module ceases to be the norm. Instead a few faction missions show up in each module with an even distribution in each season. Missions appear ideally in specific instances where a faction's interest would be relevant. I'm not going to lie that this is probably the making of an editorial nightmare ("Sorry, can you change that module you submitted? We've hit quota on Taldor Missions. Rewrite it for a Cheliax one.) Some very meta plot focused modules may in fact have missions for everyone, but these would be exceptions, not the norm.
Make missions something a bit more than one or two skill checks (make sure X person survives/dies; steal this for us; deliver this envelope to X dangerous locale during normal course of the module are good examples based on what currently exist), but not totally derailing and still in line with the kind of character types the faction encourages. Have special access to items/unique items/Special Snowflake Boon for accomplishing the mission, but don't screw a person's gear progression for not having a specific skill.