Dev Diary #3 - The PCs and Faith

Unlike last week's dev diary, where I talked about the different stats and basic moves, this one shouldn't be too long.

Today, I'll be talking about the Crew, the Faith mechanic, and the assumptions about the players over the course of the game.

As with all my diaries, nothing is final until release, but what I show reflects how things currently stand.

The PCs and the Crew.

Here are a few assumptions the game makes about the player characters and the dynamics at the beginning of the game.

1. The PCs all know each other from the start.
2. The PCs operate as a crew (or multiple crews). 
3. Your crew as a whole are rebels, serving the interests of the people and resisting Imperial subjugation.

The first seems pretty basic as far as PbtA is concerned. It helps a lot to avoid the "meet in a tavern scenario" and decide on some established relationships from the get-go. You don't want to spend your first session with your players fumbling around introducing themselves.

The second is not really as ubiquitous in PbtA as far as I can tell, but this is meant to help ease the burden of the GM. It's difficult juggling multiple scenes happening simultaneously. 

If the crew is ever split up (or starts that way), there should ideally be at least two PCs in a given group. It's important for players PCs to interact with each other.

The third requires some explaining. Your crew, as a whole, serves the interests of the people. On some level, all PCs care about that. Whether or not you're already openly at war with the Empire, you serve the people.

I also mention that you resist Imperial subjugation - that is a little more complicated. For most players, that will probably be more straightforward. But some characters (such as the Exile playbook, more on that in future dev diaries) will have tethers pulling them back to join the side of the Empire like we see with Zuko in Avatar: the Last Airbender Season 2 and Catra from She-Ra and the Princesses of Power Season 3.

Yes, if I have my way, you will be able to play your Zuko/Catra analogs. Something I loved about both characters and their arcs is how loved ones split along factional lines navigate their interpersonal conflicts. And that is definitely something worth exploring in a game where you fight an oppressive Empire. An important part of this game is each PC's trust in each other, represented in the relationship stat called Faith.

Faith

This represents the level of trust you have in your crewmate. Note, this doesn't mean confidence in a crewmate's abilities, necessarily. To have Faith in a crewmate means to trust in their worldview, their ideals, and their judgement.

As Faith is represented by a stat, then there are definitely moves associated with them.

The first move is aid a crewmate, rolled + your Faith in them.

The second is get in a crewmate's way, rolled + their Faith in you.

These are standard aid and interfere moves found across PbtA, though notably they do not rely on the same Faith stat. With this I wanted to represent the nature of trust. When you trust in someone, you're more willing to support them, but you're also, necessarily, more likely to listen.

I am currently considering having Faith interface with the Basic moves from the previous dev diary with some gaining bonuses and others penalties depending on Faith, but nothing is final on that front. PbtA thrives on simplicity and I do not want to overcomplicate the system if I don't have to. If you have suggestions, feel free to let me know in the comments!

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Thank you all for reading!

Next week, I'll be talking about Combat and the conditions system called Lights and Shadows.