I should start by saying that I develop Factions & Feuds when it brings me joy. Letting it sit for periods of time helped my mental space and gave me perspective.
Factions & Fueds has been kicking around in my head for about four years, with its inspiration firmly in the middle of the COVID-19 lockdown. I started with an idea: how can interactions among multiple organizations and the people shaping their paths be simulated during a four-hour, six-person convention game? What happens when there are competing objectives and levels of information fog?
At the time, I was running convention one-shots using two systems, Sagave Worlds and the Bookmark HP RPG. I knew that Factions & Feuds would be a free-form game in which players would respond to rapidly evolving, large-scale events, such as a potential alien invasion or the unexpected death of the emperor. So, I went with the Bookmark HP RPG, with Lester Smith’s permission. After writing up rules for organizations, factions, as a character, and how factions and characters interact, I started playing the game at conventions and with friends.
These games were a blast! Players had a great time. I had a great time. Great stories were created that players still bring up when we run into each other. Trouble set in when I tried to explain how to run Factions & Feuds to other game hosts. Sure, I could run a great game, but I struggled with helping others do the same.
About a year ago, as I was reflecting on a couple of just finished convention games, it hit me that the Bookmark HP RPG was not the right rules to base Factions & Feuds on. Thinking through what I needed, the Bookmark HP RPG was too far off the beaten path, and the one die roll did too much. While Factions & Feuds needs a simple rule set that provides some mechanics and then gets out of the way of the table interactions and story, the Bookmark HP RPG was too light. Factions & Feuds needed just a touch more from the mechanic.
Thankfully, Lester had recently released another mechanic, d4ce, about that time. It fit the bill. While the core rules all fit on a single trifold, including the character sheet, d4ce has a little more to it and operates a little more like a traditional mechanic.
Converting from the Bookmark HP RPG to d4ce went smoothly and highlighted other areas for enhancement in the mechanics. Then it was off to more convention games. I’m rather pleased with how the system performs, and players are still having a good time.
Over the last few months, I’ve been working on explaining how to run Factions & Feuds to game hosts. Once that is done, who knows…
