You can't have courtly intrigue without a court, and the truth is, Vampire: The Masquerade barely provides you any tools to create one. Time to change that. While part 1 of this series gave you the tools to create a city of your own and part 2 made it easier to populate it, part 3 is where your sandbox will truly come to life. We'll start from the very bottom, diving into the personal connections that weave webs of intrigue and moving up to coteries before finally exploring some procedures and mechanics for faction play.
THE TIES THAT BIND
Every important NPC should have three personal connections to other NPCs (or even the PCs): one with a powerful figure, one with a coterie-mate, and one with someone from a different faction. At least one of those relationships needs to be negative, and at least one needs to be positive. Roll or choose on the d66 table below.
Here's an example:
Vincenzo Vallone is a Hecata fledgling with the Thrill-Seeker Archetype. He is just and greedy, favouring trendy fashion, and he craves revolution. He was a disgraced gangster before the Embrace, which was an act of hate. His appearance is marked by thick hair, venomous eyes, and his friendly tone.
Figure of power: He is a thrall to his sire, Giancarlo Putanesca, entrapped by a full blood bond.
Coterie-mate: Vincenzo is indebted to Sniffer, a Nosferatu detective, who welcomed him into their Anarch coterie.
Inter-faction connection: The Toreador Prince, Alanis Whitehall, considers the fledgling an inconvenience, as his clan's very presence is unwelcome in her city.
Establishing these relationships can be tedious, but the payoff is worth it. Once you know who a character's enemies and allies are, it becomes a lot easier to involve them in your city's conflicts. If anyone threatens Sniffer, Vincenzo will be there for him. If the PCs need support against the tyrannical Prince Whitehall, the Hecata fledgling may be willing to stand with them. Instantly gameable, right?
Do note that this isn't meant to be the first step of court creation; it's better to do this once you've already generated all coteries, at the very least. The only reason we're discussing personal connections before coterie creation and faction play is scale — as in, it feels more natural to start at the personal level before moving on to the big stuff.
COTERIE CREATION
Before we start working on your city's coteries, let's get one thing out of the way: while PC coteries should always strive to have functional relationships between all members (as Vampire is still a collaborative storytelling experience, in spite of its themes), the same isn't necessarily true of NPCs. A little inner strife can do wonders for making NPC coteries feel alive and vibrant.
The first thing you should do when creating a coterie is decide its size and its political importance. Naturally, I made a table to help you out with that. Roll or choose away!
Once that's over and done with, it's a good idea to find what the coterie's purpose and focus is. The table below should help you with that, but if you want a coterie to be something else that isn't included in the table, no biggie! As long as there's common ground and/or a shared goal between the coterie's Kindred, it's all good.
And that's it! You can now start creating the individual members of each coterie. My Perchance generators can help you with that, and part 2 of this series goes more in depth into that process, too. If you're following the tables and procedures from part 1 while creating your sandbox city, it's a good idea to stay below (or at least around) the maximum number of Kindred that can be safely sustained by your city's population, but overpopulated and underpopulated cities can both be very interesting, too.
FACTIONS 101
Credit where credit is due: these mechanics were heavily inspired by Mindstorm's blogpost on the subject, as well as Remember Tomorrow's faction mechanics. It's a remix of those, really, with a bit of tailoring for Vampire.
Now, "faction" is sort of a loaded word when it comes to Vampire: The Masquerade. It could mean anything from the sects, to blood cults and even powerful coteries. My personal definition of "faction" includes all of those things and more, as a politically-aligned group of people (or Kindred) who share the same goals. Ideally, you should only turn a group into a proper, statted out faction if they hold at least some sway over the city, or if they have the potential to. Otherwise, they're just a regular coterie or group, instead of a faction.
FACTION ANATOMY
When developing a faction, you should start by looking at your city's lore, its Domains and their rulers, the main coteries and interesting connections between NPCs. Following the procedures from part 1 will automatically give you a few factions to start with, but if you're only interested in faction creation, you can roll or pick on the faction table¹, using the Appetite table to find a goal for your faction.
Once you have at least an idea of what the faction is and what they want, you're ready to stat it out. Giving it a cool nickname/title is always nice, but that's optional. Each faction is comprised of three Fronts: Warfare, Influence and Capital. They each have an associated d10, which is what you'll be rolling during faction play (more on that later). Faction strengths and weaknesses are represented by Assets and Flaws, respectively, which can add Advantage or Disadvantage to certain faction actions (and that works exactly like you expect it to work).
Here's an example of a faction stat block:
• The Broken Tower (Camarilla offshoot)
Members: Prince Alanis Whitehall, Paris Johnson, the Sheriff, Daisy Mae and Wilhelm, the Harpies, and Primogens Wayne, Callum and Jazz.
Goal: The complete subjugation of every other faction in the city.
Fronts: Warfare [-1] Influence [0] Capital [0]
Assets: Popular Elysium [Diplomacy], Blood Trafficking [Bribe]
Flaws: Weak Sheriff [Attack], Unlikable Prince [Recruitment]
Don't worry about balance. Kindred society is unfair by design, so why
should faction play be fair? If you feel like a faction should be far
stronger than the others, then give an Asset to each of their Fronts; as
long as they still have a Flaw, that's peachy keen. If you feel
like a faction should be weaker, stat it with several Flaws and
perhaps a -1 on a Front or two. When in doubt, use the fiction to
dictate the stats.
FACTION ACTIONS
Each Front can perform three distinct actions, as seen below.
Warfare actions are invariably offensive, representing direct attacks against enemy forces and strongholds, strategic surveillance of their movements, numbers and plans, and the underhanded destruction of their troops, equipment and bases. If the Sabbat storms an Elysium in the middle of court, they're launching an Attack against the Camarilla. When they use an infiltrator to spy on the Prince, they are engaging in Reconnaissance. If they plant explosives in the Sheriff's haven while he's out, they're partaking in Sabotage.
Influence actions cover key aspects of social maneuvering, such as forming alliances, bolstering the faction's ranks with fresh blood and spreading (mis)information through the city. If the Camarilla appoints a dissenting Toreador ancilla to the Primogen, they are using Diplomacy. If they allow each Kindred on the Primogen council to Embrace new childer, they are starting a Recruitment drive. When they spread footage of the Anarch Baron mistreating a fledgling, they are disseminating Propaganda.
Capital actions concern the management and application of a faction's resources, like investing in worthwhile endeavours, acquiring any equipment, building or services deemed useful, and buying favours, information or even loyalty. If the Anarchs offer to lend some of their guns to the local Duskborn, they're making an Investment. If they buy a huge supply of blood bags from a neighbouring city, they decided to Procure it. When they pay the neighbourhood's security firm to turn a blind eye to their comings and goings, that's obviously a Bribe.
ROLLING AND REWARDS
When one of a Front's actions is used, roll a d10. A result of 6 or above is a success, while a result below 6 is a failure (the consequences of which we will discuss in a bit). Before a faction executes an action, though, you should first determine which Reward they want, selected from the list below.
Rewards should always be rooted in the fiction. If a faction is trying to neutralize a Flaw, then that needs to be reflected in the fiction somehow. If you can't justify how a certain action results in a specific Reward, then perhaps it would be better to choose a different, more fitting reward for that action.
Failing a roll doesn't result in catastrophe; rather, the faction simply doesn't get the Reward they were looking for, and the fiction should reflect that. Sometimes, a failed attempt at assassinating the Prince's favourite childe can be even more exciting in play than a success.
GAME OVER, MAN
If one of a faction's Fronts ever falls below -3 and that Front already has a Flaw, then that faction is eliminated from faction play. That doesn't mean they simply vanish from the fiction, although that is a possibility. What this is meant to represent is that they simply don't have enough political power to keep playing with the big kids. The faction's remaining members could opt to join other factions, perhaps even becoming prime recruitment targets.
Or, you know, they could all meet the Final Death. Whatever tickles your fancy.
QUICK REFERENCE
• To execute a faction action, choose a Reward and roll a d10
• If the Front used for the action is damaged, subtract the modifier from the result
• If the result is below 6, the faction simply doesn't get the chosen Reward
• When a Front suffers damage, the faction adds -1 to any further rolls with that Front
• Factions can only remove damage from Fronts without Flaws
• Fronts can only be damaged up to -3
• If a faction's Front is damaged at -3 and it already has a Flaw, the faction is eliminated
• Relevant Assets grant Advantage (roll 2d10, keep the highest die) to an action type
• Each Front can only have one Asset
• Assets can only be destroyed when their associated Front is already damaged
• Relevant Flaws grant Disadvantage (roll 2d10, keep the lowest die) to an action type
• Each Front can only have one Flaw
• If a Front doesn't have a Flaw, the faction can take one to negate incoming damage
• It is impossible to remove a faction's last flaw
FACTION PLAY
There are a few ways to go about faction play, and none of them are wrong, per se. Call it a matter of taste.
The first is keeping faction play as a side activity for the Storyteller, something they do between sessions to spice things up in the city, allowing a few factions to pick an action. There shouldn't really be any hard rules to which factions should get an action, though the fiction will often inform these decisions. If the PCs are part of a faction taking an action, you can give them the option to support that action. They count as an Asset for the purposes of that roll.
The second is allowing the players to take control of a faction, while you control the others. Their PCs should ideally be part of the faction they're controlling, in order to avoid conflicts of interest. If you go with this option, you should probably engage with faction play either before or after actual play (that is, at the start or end of the session). You could do both, too. Whatever works for you and your troupe!
The third is a spin on the second; rather than controlling a single faction as a group, each player gets to pick one faction. Conflicts of interest are probably going to be inevitable, but this has the potential to be loads of fun! Other than that, this should work exactly like the alternative above.
FINAL NOTES
On occasion, it might not be immediately clear which action fits what a faction is attempting in the fiction, and the best way to ascertain that is by looking at their desired rewards. Going back to one of the action examples, if the Anarchs wanted to Develop the Duskborn coterie as an Asset (like, say, Duskborn Shocktroops), then they wouldn't really be Investing, they'd be Recruiting. But if they wanted to Accomplish something in the fiction (like diverting the Camarilla's attention towards the well-armed Duskborn), then that's definitely an Investment.
Faction Fronts, Assets, Flaws and even goals are inevitably going to be altered in the fiction due to the PC's actions outside of faction play, and that's okay. Make any necessary adjustments and move on. Faction play is meant to be an add-on, not the main course, and anything that happens during actual play takes precedence over it.
¹ The offshoots from the faction table are meant to represent local schisms — rolling a Camarilla faction and a Camarilla offshoot, for example, could represent a city contested by two Princes. This could also be interpreted as deviations from sect norms, resulting in things like Anarchs with wildly different political structures (think a Parliament rather than a Baron) or unusual traditions.
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