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A Talk About Cooperation

Saturday, May 27, 2017

There are three important duties for every Pathfinder field agent: Explore, Report, and Cooperate. These tenants remain a core foundation of the Starfinder Society organization. Today, I want to talk a little bit about cooperation, specifically factions and how they fit into the Starfinder Society Roleplaying Guild.

Every good Starfinder knows the importance of working together with fellow field agents. Engaging in some 'jolly cooperation' is fundamental to a successful mission. Factions in the Starfinder Society build upon this concept. Each faction is a distinct organization that operates within the Starfinder Society, with each faction pursuing independent goals while aiding the Society's overall goals of exploring, reporting, and yes, cooperating. You're probably familiar with this model if you've ever had a character in the Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild.

So what makes factions in Starfinder Society different? Well, I'm glad you asked!

Fame and Reputation

There are two important scores for every Starfinder Society Roleplaying Guild character: Fame and Reputation. Fame is a collection of points that represent overall good standing within the Starfinder Society and can be spent for goods and services (similar to Prestige Points in Pathfinder Society). Reputation is a growing score that is never spent and instead represents the character's standing with the various factions within the Starfinder Society. The higher the Reputation a character has with a faction, the more services (read: tasty tasty rewards) become available for that character to spend his Fame points on. Building a character's Reputation across factions is an important way for the character to call in special favors, such as requisitioning an enhanced starship component or getting some publicity to reap greater rewards from a Day Job check.

Huh, wait a second, I said factions, as in plural! That must mean...

Illustration by Pavel Rtishev

One Character, Multiple Factions

Characters in Starfinder are not tied to one specific faction. Instead, characters are encouraged to branch out and dabble in assisting different factions. Each time a character assists a faction, or champions them as part of ongoing operations, that character earns Reputation. This doesn't stop a character from fully dedicating herself to one of the Starfinder Society's five starting factions. In fact, focusing on a single faction is still a very viable way to progress a character.

Branching out over multiple factions allows characters to reap the rewards of those factions. A character with ties to the Dataphiles—one of our previously announced factions—might earn enough Reputation to gain the assistance of a 'digital imp' program that acts as an ally able to perform various computer-related tasks. Another character might dive into another faction and earn the ability to requisition important starship components in preparation for an upcoming starship combat encounter. A character who dabbles with both factions could earn both benefits, but miss out on other available bonuses at higher tiers of Reputation with each faction.

For those of you worried about accessing essential rewards; maybe a raise dead so you don't die (or stay dead), or something to cure that awful space leprosy you contracted... well, we've got you covered! While all factions have individual Reputation scores to track, there's also a list of services available to 'All Factions', gained at certain thresholds of Reputation. Unlike the thresholds tracked for individual factions, the 'All Factions' Reputation threshold is determined by totaling your Reputation across all factions with which you have Reputation. So a character with 15 Reputation with Dataphiles and 20 Reputation with another faction, would be able to spend Fame on anything available on the 'All Factions' list with a threshold of 35 Reputation or less.

Championing, Faction Boons and Faction Missions

So this brings us to our last point: how do I gain Reputation with a faction?

As part of character creation, every Starfinder Society Roleplaying Guild character gets to select a free 'champion boon' from a faction of her choice. This boon is a faction boon—we'll be talking more about boon slots in a future blog, but for now just know that you can only have one faction boon slotted per scenario. The champion boon allows the associated character to collect Reputation during the course of a normal scenario. So if you gain 2 Fame during the course of the upcoming Starfinder Society Scenario #01-02: Fugitive on the Red Planet, then you'll get 2 Reputation with whatever faction champion boon you have slotted.

Want to get more faction champion boons, so you can pick-up Reputation with other factions? You sure can! Every faction has the ability to purchase a champion boon between scenarios for a low Fame cost.

But what about faction missions? Pathfinder Society has entire storylines involving its factions. Will Starfinder Society have these too? Yes, yes it will! Not only will faction missions contribute to the overall storyline of a faction, but these missions will also award additional Reputation rewards, beyond the Fame and Reputation of a standard scenario, but ONLY with the associated faction. This means that it could be very likely that if your character is championing one faction, he might end up with some scattered Reputation among other factions as a result of playing scenarios that are faction missions. In fact, the first faction mission will be one of our Gen Con releases, Starfinder Society #01-03: Yesteryear's Truth, which is a mission related to the...

Oh, I can't say the name of the faction? Seriously?

*feels John and Tonya glaring at me as I try to spill all the Starfinder Society beans*

Organized Play Lead Developer's note: *John gives Thursty the stink-eye*

Fine! Maybe we can save exactly which faction for another blog post.

Well, thanks for listening (er... reading?) this post. I'm excited to hear all of your thoughts on Starfinder Society factions as described here and what sort of role you hope to see them take in our shared campaign. Please, post in the comments and let myself and the rest of the Organized Play team know!

Thurston Hillman
Starfinder Society Developer

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2/5 5/5
2 people marked this as a favorite.

Really like the way you're doing factions for SFS!

I am concerned that re-naming Fame and Prestige from PFS to Reputation and Fame for SFS is going to be confusing for those of us who play both.
Liberty's Edge 4/5 5/55/55/5 ****

Thanks for the update.
1/5
-Steve Johnston- wrote:

Really like the way you're doing factions for SFS!

I am concerned that re-naming Fame and Prestige from PFS to Reputation and Fame for SFS is going to be confusing for those of us who play both.

I dunno. Some of us have trouble keeping Fame & Prestige the right way round, so we're already confused :)

2/5

Great! I like that it will be possible to gain standing with many different factions. It also seems very handy to have “all factions” services.

However, I do echo -Steve Johnston-’s concerns about the wording being confusing for those who are used to Pathfinder Society or who end up playing both organised campaigns. I think it would be clearer to either use the same words or choose two words different from those used in PFS.

Sounds interesting, and tempting to start right away with the SFS!

One note: the second sentence was "These tenants remain a core foundation ..." Shouldn't that be "These tenets remain ..." instead? :)
Grand Lodge 4/5 5/55/55/5
4 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Maps Subscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber
Bellona wrote:

Sounds interesting, and tempting to start right away with the SFS!

One note: the second sentence was "These tenants remain a core foundation ..." Shouldn't that be "These tenets remain ..." instead? :)

I hope that the tenants remain the same, so that we will be waken up in middle of the night by a Drendle Brain-in-a-Jar giving us a mission to the Blakros Research Station

Scarab Sages 5/5
5 people marked this as a favorite.
Veltzeh wrote:

Great! I like that it will be possible to gain standing with many different factions. It also seems very handy to have “all factions” services.

However, I do echo -Steve Johnston-’s concerns about the wording being confusing for those who are used to Pathfinder Society or who end up playing both organised campaigns. I think it would be clearer to either use the same words or choose two words different from those used in PFS.

And another vote.

Pathfinder -> Starfinder
------------------------
Prestige -> Fame
Fame -> Reputation

This is just awkward and going to cause unnecessary confusion at tables all over.
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 8

I am curious about how spaceships are going to work in organized play. I totally grok how they will function for home games, but how will a spaceship's continuity be maintained in SFS? Will every character who had access to a the cutter 'Messy Scramble' in session N-3, where that ship gained a +2 targeting system for its pulse cannon, have the option of using that augmented ship in their next session, be that N-4, or P-17? Or will one particular character have to claim the ship, so that only they can access it in subsequent SFS games?
Grand Lodge 5/5
1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Society Subscriber

Thanks to Painlord's PaizoCon bloggery:

Painlord wrote:
The SFS starts with the SFS suffering a major setback in which most of the higher level Starfinder have been killed and the Org Play campaign will need to rebuild from scratch. The player characters will have a voice in restarting the SFS. Year of the Scoured Stars. How will you rebuild the SFS.

Moon glum: from what I understood is that you get options from your chronicles, which allow you to assign that +2 targeting system for a pulse cannon to the ship you are using in the current scenario (I might ofcourse be completely wrong about it, but that's how I understood the chronicle sheets to going to work).

Liberty's Edge 4/5 5/55/55/5 ****
Andy Brown wrote:
I dunno. Some of us have trouble keeping Fame & Prestige the right way round, so we're already confused :)

It will help if they keep the boxes in the same order on the chronicles!

Liberty's Edge 4/5 5/55/55/5 ****
2 people marked this as a favorite.
Raisse wrote:


Pathfinder -> Starfinder
------------------------
Prestige -> Fame
Fame -> Reputation

This is just awkward and going to cause unnecessary confusion at tables all over.

I agree it is awkward but I can see the desire on the developers part to make Starfinder Society not just Pathfinder Society in Space.

How about suggesting a different word for Fame. Three that come to mind are Renown or Regard or Honor.
Grand Lodge 5/5
Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Society Subscriber
Gary Bush wrote:
Andy Brown wrote:
I dunno. Some of us have trouble keeping Fame & Prestige the right way round, so we're already confused :)
It will help if they keep the boxes in the same order on the chronicles!

Yeah, that would help a lot I think. I also remember some chronicle sheets not having two boxes, so you'd have to divide the single box yourself.

I'm not too worried about mixing them up though.
You spend one, and the other keeps ticking up, just make sure you use the correct number when spending ;)

"Yesteryear's Truth"'s Faction is already spoiled in the GenCon Events descriptions...rhymes with slaygrinder...you might as well let that cat out of the bag. :)
Klobbermeister wrote:
"Yesteryear's Truth"'s Faction is already spoiled in the GenCon Events descriptions...rhymes with slaygrinder...you might as well let that cat out of the bag. :)

mayminder? clayfinder? saykinder?

dharkus wrote:
Klobbermeister wrote:
"Yesteryear's Truth"'s Faction is already spoiled in the GenCon Events descriptions...rhymes with slaygrinder...you might as well let that cat out of the bag. :)
mayminder? clayfinder? saykinder?

Def the Saykinder Faction...they are all about promoting a kinder, gentler interaction between races and cultures. Motto is "If you can't say anything nice...just say it kinder." :)

Klobbermeister wrote:
dharkus wrote:
Klobbermeister wrote:
"Yesteryear's Truth"'s Faction is already spoiled in the GenCon Events descriptions...rhymes with slaygrinder...you might as well let that cat out of the bag. :)
mayminder? clayfinder? saykinder?
Def the Saykinder Faction...they are all about promoting a kinder, gentler interaction between races and cultures. Motto is "If you can't say anything nice...just say it kinder." :)

yeh - that's my favourite too

Dark Archive
1 person marked this as a favorite.

Slayfinder faction! We go to exotic new locations, meet fascinating new people, and kill them! For science!

Playfinder faction! We seek to catalogue all the different games people play!

Nayfinder faction! No. Just, no.
5/5 5/55/55/5
2 people marked this as a favorite.

lowest level members of the party required to wear red shirts...
Grand Lodge
1 person marked this as a favorite.

JOLLY COOPERATION!

I hope there is a religious order of sol, or similar, to allow all the praising of the sun i intend to do.
Horizon Hunters 4/5 5/5 *** Venture-Lieutenant, Indiana—Indianapolis

This may have been addressed elsewhere, Thurston, but is there any chance we might see Hats make an appearance in SFS? I mean, he could be to Paizo's lines what Stan Lee is to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

:)
Grand Lodge 4/5 5/55/55/55/5 ***** Venture-Captain, Minnesota
6 people marked this as a favorite.
Mark Stratton wrote:

This may have been addressed elsewhere, Thurston, but is there any chance we might see Hats make an appearance in SFS? I mean, he could be to Paizo's lines what Stan Lee is to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

:)

::Consults my notes::

Future of Organized Play -- Sunday 5pm

Panelists:. Linda Zayas-Palmer, John Compton, Tonya Woldridge, Thurston Hillman

Before the Panel: John Compton discusses whether Hats can be character in Starfinder. “Hmmm. Interesting question. You do realize that one of the main ways for a creature to survive past the gap is to be undead? We can have Bone Sage Hats!”
Sovereign Court 4/5 * Organized Play Manager
4 people marked this as a favorite.

Removed a post referencing NDA material. Will add it back once that's been lifted.
Silver Crusade 4/5

My post was about the content of this blog. I didn't give away any NDA information.
2/5 5/5 **
Fromper wrote:
My post was about the content of this blog. I didn't give away any NDA information.

Don't feel bad. There's so much out in blogs, interviews, and podcasts that there's probably confusion about what has or hasn't been written or said in public, not to mention the actual rule set was published and shipped a week ago.

Silver Crusade 4/5

I did mention the NDA material I'd received in my post, but only in terms of "I didn't notice this before, but once I saw it in the stuff I received for Gen Con, then I came looking, and noticed this blog that had announced the same thing back in May". So I did mention that I'd already gotten NDA material, but I didn't give away any of what was inside it.

I just don't want to get in any trouble for revealing stuff early or anything.
Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento

This conversation should probably happen elsewhere, since continuing to discus the nature of material that was removed to protect NDA risks tripping over the NDA... :)

I didn't get the impression anyone was in trouble.
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