Yeah. I’m really interested to see what happens to the Minor Houses more than any other faction since I think there’s a lot of really cool potential there for all kinds of fun stuff. However, I won’t be playing as them since I don’t think I’ll have the time to be as “politically” engaged in that channel since I expect there’ll be constant RP going on there between each House. I just hope they can agree on a system that feels fair in such a way that all the “players” in that faction feel like they’re actually worth something and not missing out just because their particular team is poorer than everyone else.
2 Likes
The problem with allowing all the FacCreds to be shared is that the division of power most likely will go towards the most popular house that players join. If there are 8 people in Pyre and 1 Person is in Aquilla, that doesn’t mean Aquilla is weaker than Pyre in the setting.
It just means that more people are interested in creating a narrative for the Pyre setting, and not the Aquilla setting. This causes a problem because any house that isn’t popular to “play as” will get drowned out and can’t achieve their own goals. What’s the point of playing Aquilla if you never get to buy war assets and go kick some ass? Splitting up the economy allows each house to actually choose which direction they wish to go in without being bullied.
The houses divided are supposed to be weak, I look at them like any of the Scottish/Irish clans who were divided until they came under one leading banner to fight against the English.
I had thought of the issue you stated, however I didn’t type out my solution, due to it adding complexity.
Though the idea is that, each House Minor “owns” asset sets, and thus when you buy an asset you pay a bit more in tax, unless your faction owns that tax. So basically we would have to split up all the purchasable assets in the game among the 7 Houses Minor, (either by a spending system or just agreeing on them entirely) and then adding a nominal tax on them. So if you want to buy Cyber Ninja’s as Aquilla, and House Serpens “owns the rights” to that asset instead of paying 6 FacCreds, aquilla would have to pay 6+(whatever we deem worthy as tax) instead. The base 6 goes to spending the FacCreds on the asset as normal and the transfer of the TaxCreds goes to house Serpens.
This way you can still acquire wealth as a House Minor without being part of a wealthy alliance.
Again these are all just suggestions based off of potential issues I see.
1 Like
I think your initial voting system addresses the popularity issue well, since all Houses will have equal votes as you outlined regardless of relative population and engagement. So like, under your system, the theoretical 100 people in Pyxis shouldn’t be drowning out the 50 in Aquilla since they’ll be given the same voting power as a subfaction. That should work out fine. You’ve also designed the system in such a way that anyone who loses the vote for a turn gets a small voting advantage for the next turn, which is a great way to make the minority teams feel like they’re still empowered and participating.
The “tax” system could be a really fun way to balance the system out, but the many added layers of complexity leaves you with many further points of failure and potentially unforeseen balance issues. At the very least, whatever system you guys come up with for the Minor Houses is gonna need a whole lot of analysis and balancing before it’s implemented, and it’s gonna require a lot of book-keeping from attentive players that remain constantly engaged with the campaign (probably a whole team because you don’t want the books to fall out of order when one or two critical people don’t show up for a while or they lose all their data somehow).
Might be worth starting a brainstorming thread and getting crowd-sourced ideas to help work out the possible kinks and run some mock-scenarios.
1 Like
Yeah, that’s why I didn’t include a write up of the tax, lots of book keeping and needs to be worked out a lot. Just wasn’t worth the time to write up. Though if each faction had their own book keepers then I figure even a minimum of 7 people doing it wouldn’t be too bad.
I agree that the voting system allows for the less popular houses to be on par. The problem arises when they have no buying power. IE Aquillas wants to be offensive, they’re the minority, other factions choose to use assets and buy non military assets and win otherwise. It kind of leaves Aquillas in a position where they don’t get to do anything they wish to do.
This is the main reason why I split it up, simply because if economy is split evenly among the minor factions then each individual house minor can decide what they wish to do with not only their vote but their systems economy. Because of the way the responsibility is divided up, I believe that each house should have their own economy simply so they can pursue their own ideals. This also allows the faction to split off later on a bit more fluidly because indisputably, they own whatever they bought.
This means that alliances between houses minor are very important because if Aquilla decides to screw off with all the military force, that leaves the other 7 houses open for attack.
Both sides of the coin have problems, it just depends on what the members of House Minor decide to do.
I had originally thought to propose this system for House Vagrant. But I like the idea of a Pirate King more. So that’s what I’ll be pushing for.
1 Like
I like how this whole discussion already perfectly demonstrates the struggles of the EU for example 
The Council of the Houses Minor will be worth the popcorn everytime :>
3 Likes
SWN Revised edition also has a free version available on drivethru if you want to know the updated rules.
JP’s, although apparently they’ve been making good progress on the Show Discord. Apparently the bots are almost done, and they’ve finally settled on a cast and name, so it should be created sooner rather than later (barring something unexpected happening)
2 Likes
Rolled up a quick (who I am kidding I love him already) little character to decide which faction made sense 
And I guess the universe will be filled with scumbags and villainy, 14 Red Dog Triads got a new hound!
1 Like
One of the other big issues that arise when you divide the faction’s wealth up between houses like that is the fact that A) the economy progression is very slow, and B) all the assets are really expensive by comparison. For instance, a lot of lower-mid tier assets cost maybe 6 to 8 creds per, and dividing the economy would leave each minor house with maybe* 1 or 2 creds per turn. It would be a very difficult economic progression for anyone that doesn’t have the support of over half the faction.
But yeah, as you said, there’s issues either way.
i literally just did it as a goof to help narrow my faction options, but cheers for the heads up
Hounds be howlin my brother!
十四只红色的狗
1 Like
I really wanna join a Fornax sub-house or contractor.
A giant shipyard (think like a very small Death Star), flying through space, building and repairing ships, a company led by the same family for ages that cared for its workers more than for its customers. A company that produces the utmost brilliant ships in terms of durability, speed and overall versatility, extremely expensive and discreet, but always protecting its workers who pay that back with incredible engineering and work ethics.
No idea if @AdamKoebel would allow such a company or small noble branch to exist, but there could be so many cool story ideas in there, including the forbidden Synth. An ever-moving giant spaceshipyard has a lot going on and over time a lot of stories to tell.
I’d love to be in there somewhere.
At least this way the houses that want will have money to spend, and those that want can pool that money with other houses in exchange for favors, and make deals. It would certainly also flavor the purchased asset. If say House Aquila and House Serpentes pooled their money to buy posttech infantry. It might for the sake of flavor contain a psychic if ever seen in action.
throwing the idea out for my Vagrant brethren that don’t use the discord as often, but we totally mine our own asteroid fields to maintain our pirate fleet, right?
I am going to join Serpens because it seems fun. I am also obligated to because of my name. Also having future sight will be interesting.
I would love to be part of the 14 Red Dogs if given the chance. The houses would be fun but playing the role of triad criminal activities *in game * would be for me
2 Likes
Curious to see how the Corporations operate, what their individual goals would be.
Im most interested in ACRE, a large corp with a large role in the universe with an equally large problem, lack of a labor force.
Curious to see if the de nobled nobles are exiled nobles? Or Second sons? Are they all nobles not apart of the major or minors just relative nobility?
How would they function in the universe : “We decide not to supply food to XXX Faction?” or maybe more in line with “ACRE decides to make deals with the 14 Red Dogs for slave labor”
I wonder if ACRE has a paramilitary “Securtity” armed force, and maybe for bigger issues (Probably labor uprisings or some such) we can hire say the Merc factions to help us, even commit them to sabotaging Trill or strike at anther faction giving us issue.
ACRE is very interesting to me personally because I am currently completing my MBA, and what better way to test my managerial skills than with a Interstellar Corporation in need of good managing in a crisis.
FELLOW CORPORATE LORDS UNITE.
3 Likes
I have my eye out for House Fornax. With it having the mayor ship wrights I hope to see a large core of socialist, uniunised, labor party worker class. So big it has significant influence over the govening power.
1 Like
Fellow corporate lord here signing in. Lets make everyone understand why they need us.
1 Like
The Spice must flow…I MEAN…the Food must…grow?
EVERY BODY GOTTA EAT, i dont think one communal farm is going to feed the billions or trillions of lives in the empire…And we need that sweet sweet cash to keep things smooth. Maybe might make a few moves to make a a new minor house for those in the company…