Why you should make a newspaper (Factions System)

A newspaper, or broadsheet can act as a fantastic way to hand deliver news about the world and plot hooks directly to your players. Between news articles, advertisements and "help wanted" posts you can provide wealth of information to your player relaively easily.

One of the main tricks to get intresting news for your paper is a faction system. This system is based off of the games by Sine Nominee Publishing and Blades in the Dark. The use of dice rolls can give you unexpected results, which can pump up your creativity and make your world feel more alive to both you and the players.

Faction System

Each faction is made up of a few elements, you can include your faction in the Faction Sheet:

Name: The name of the faction

Teir: Ranging from I-V (or I-III for smaller groups) these are the sizes and powers of your factions. Generally start with your largest scale and smallest scale (eg. town, region, principality ect), and figure out the steps between them. When factions fight they will roll with these numbers as a bonus.

Strength: There are 3 strengths a group can have Might, Wit or Wealth. Mighty factions have martial superiority, Wit factions have secrets and politics, Wealth factions leverage resources and money. 

Characters: Come up with 3 characters that will be relevant to a party meeting the faction, the first should be the leader generally. These are the characters the party will meet so they don't need to be the biggest or most powerful characters just approachable or iconic ones.

Relationships: The Enemies and Allies of the faction.

Base of Operations: The home turf of the faction, this could be a city, kingdom or building depending on the scale of your campaign.

Goal: Each faction should have a current short term goal they are working towards, this will likely be achieved during the course of the game. This should have a clock with 4, 6, 8, 10 or 12 segments depending how hard it will be to achieve.

Extra Components (can be ignored for a simpler game):

Bases: Factions can have additional bases, of a number equal to their Teir. This base makes a location their Turf, giving them a +1d for their turns. Building a base must be completed as a goal.

The Faction Turn

A faction turn occurs between sessions or adventures, it is a non-specific amount of time where the factions act in the background. The GM should select which factions are Active, meaning currently involved in the story or of intrest to the story, factions can become active or inactive as their role waxes and wanes. Each faction should then take a turn, from smallest teir to largest, they will try to achive their goal by rolling a check, first however:

• If the goal is on Enemy Turf the factions make contested rolls of 2d6+teir, if the defender wins the attacker does not get to take an action.
• If the goal is on an Allies or their own turf they can add half of the allies tier (rounded up) extra dice to the roll.
• If the goal is in line with the factions strength they may add +1d to the roll.
• If the players have influenced a goal or action, just change it in accordance with their effects, or grant bonus' if the outcome is unclear.

Check: to roll a check for the faction roll 2d6+tier+bonus dice, filling in their clock as below:

12+: Critial! 4 segements

11-9: 3 segments

8-6: 2 segments

5 or less: 1 segment

If factions goals bring them into direct conflict they may enter a War, factions at War have the goal "War with <faction>", with segments equal to 2+2×[Teir of enemy], they will make a contested roll to fill their clock whomever fills their clock first wins. The losing faction must either lose 1 teir or change their base of operation/lose a base. 

Finally a faction can increase their tier as a result of a large enough goal or set of goals. If the setting is constrained then a faction might have to win a war in order to increase in teir.

The Newspaper

With this we arrive at the newspaper, I have written a few of these for my games. They add flavor and hooks into the world. Each faction turn look for remarkable, fun or flavorful events that have occurred and write them an article, embellishing as much as you wish. You can then add fluff articles, additonal plot hooks or even retellings of the player characters deeds.

You can also include the writers of these articles, either having one writer for a broadsheet, or a handful of writers giving you a varity of tones. 

1d6 Writing Styles:

1. Robotic. Writes like wikipedia and avoid biased language

2. Impassioned. Writes emotionally and with a clear objective or side

3. Informal. Writes in a casual and personal manner

4. Pretentious. Uses large words and dramatic metafore, usally incorrectly.

5. Neutral. Writes similar to Impassioned but tries to be neutral.

6. Dramatic. Wrties like an epic or story, embelleshing every detail.

Now at the next session you can hand your players a broadsheet, which they are able to look through, find hooks, local politics and fun flavor for the world. Here's an example of one I wrote, canon spelling mistakes included.

But remember the first rule of Prep: If you aren't enjoying it, and it's not vital for the next session: Don't do it. Hopefullly this tool can help add something to your game but if it isn't find a tool that will.