I’m thinking a good blog option will be one to answer some of the rules and setting questions any of you have.
So, here is a thread for that, and here are the how I’d like it to work.
Just post your question, in ideally a simple and short form. Nothing is too weird or odd! If you thought to ask it, someone else may have done as well.
Keep the questions brief and specific. If its going to take a whole blog article to answer one question it won’t be in this type of blog. So ‘how do I recover an asset?’ is fine but ‘How does combat work?’ will be too big an answer.
(I’m not saying I won’t answer the big questions but thats not what this is about)
If you have since had the question answered but it really confused you when you first read the book, feel free to still post it, it may help someone else.
Finally - and this is the big one - please don’t anyone else answer the questions or start a discussion about them here. By all means start another thread and chat there, but if this becomes another general discussion I won’t be able to find the questions for the blog!
Could you explain how the financial (banking) system works in the setting? Including the guild bank. Without an instantaneous messaging tech that spans the galaxy, this must be a bit complicated.
I imagine there are local banks on each planet, that’s fine, but what about the guild bank, how are they running their ledgers and keeping them up to date? How are big payments are done between houses? Is it only cash, or spice? Do they have to wait for the guild to update their accounts? How can someone know if some money hit their account while one is away in a different system? Do the guild update every account in every system via folding there daily?
An in depth explanation would be great on this topic. Thank you
I would surmise that part of BG training is secret communication in all its forms. So a basic sister should be able to do the sign languages as well as coded dots. The Voice takes much longer to master.
I’m a bit confused about the interaction between faction loyalties and faction templates.
Page 109 of the core book says “All of these characters will be loyal to the noble House the player characters serve, but they have other loyalties and ties that cannot be ignored” in reference to characters using faction templates. From that, I assume that means the player would write in both their house and the other faction they have a loyalty to in the Faction field of their character sheet. Does this count as a free purchase of the talent “Dual Fealty” (p.128 Core)? If not, would a purchase of the “Dual Fealty” talent for this character give them a third faction loyalty? Or is the text on page 109 wrong, and characters using faction templates only get loyalty to a single faction (their house or their chosen faction) and have to use one of their 3 starting talents to purchase “Dual Fealty” to have 2 loyalties? Would that mean they only have loyalty to their house and not, for instance let’s say, the Bene Gesserit despite being a trained Bene Gesserit?
As I understand it the Faction field is only used for if you choose a non-house faction, otherwise it would be left blank. You have already recorded your House further up.
If you choose to play as a member of another faction, ie Bene Gesserit, you would only record that in the Faction box.
At this point your motives become suspect to at least one of the factions. Take Lady Jessica as an example. Leto trusted her, but Thufir was suspicious of her as was Guerney and it was made clear that there were suspicions about the BG in general.
"…but they have other loyalties and ties that cannot be ignored” So I read this that they have dual loyalties and may do their best to honestly assist both sides, but there is always that hint of suspicion hanging over the character which may affect how NPCs interact with them.
Always that question of “Are they really on our side or the others?”
So if that player then purchased the Dual Fealty talent, would that just remove the suspicion members of their house have on them? Or is it useless and they’ll always have that suspicion regardless?
Yes, That is how I read it. The talent means that both sides view the character favourably with no suspicion.
In the game I am running one of my players is a noble who took the Spacing Guild faction and also took Dual Fealty.
I have said that she is considered the Spacing Guild honorary consul on the planet. The Guild trust her to represent them while to House Sindri she is a member of the ruling Family and so above reproach.
The rules for the number of traits during planned character creation seem a bit confusing. Page 102 states that a character will have 2 traits consisting of a title/role type trait and a personal trait. It then states that a character might have a 3rd trait from a faction template. At this point it does not mention archetype traits. Are the archetype traits considered to be the first trait of the above mentioned 2 traits? If that is the case then the example character on page 125 is missing the “Commander” trait. Or if the “Commander” trait is implicit in the title of the example character on page 125, then the “Noble” trait that the example character has, is actually a fourth trait and the number of traits stated on page 102 might be incorrect.
I think the key thing here is that the first trait is normally your title, status or role. Archetype traits are just suggestions for this, so you can change or ignore them if it seems appropriate.
In the case of the example of Kara Molay they mention that she has chosen ‘Noble’ on page 110, but it is not very clear that this is instead of the default suggestion of ‘Commander’.
The player must have decided that the position of Noble was more important to how the character thinks about themselves than the rank they may hold.
Here’s a thought on that though, wouldn’t her trait of Commander be part of how outsiders see her? Maybe Noble is in play more often during interactions, but her military title would be how she’s viewed as well, right? that title she holds may carry more weight with some than her noble status.
True, the player could make the argument either way. One of the things I like about the system is that it is pretty flexible.
From a mechanics viewpoint though you have to choose one.
In this case if the player couldn’t really decide they could always choose ‘Commander’ and then use their remaining personality trait to take ‘Noble’. For thou art Noble in deed (No, I’m not fudging honest )
There is also the ability to spend 2 momentum and add traits for the scene. So if she was leaning on her military title with some troopers she could create the trait ‘Commander’ that way as well. As long as the GM OK’d it.
I’ll answer this one as its not quite a rules question.
Simple answer - yes.
But I’m afraid I can’t say more, other than it will be on the way in one of the current projects we are working on.
From my understanding, if the PC has the talent ‘Dual Fealty’ then he is loyal to both factions and both factions are ok with that. Without that talent the PC in question would be loyal to the house but also to a faction - both of those will not be ok with that. The talent makes it ‘ok’ so to speak.
This one isn’t as complex as it might sound.
When the player is trying to do a test involving speaking they can use Voice as part of that roll.
They pick 1, 2 or 3 and the number they pick is an amount of automatic successes they add to the roll, but also an amount of Threat the GM gets.
The automatic successes are in addition to any that the player gets on the dice roll. As they are automatic, they are just added to the test’s final result of successes.
The difficulty of the test is determined as usual by the GM just like any test. Basically, Voice gives the player an extra bonus for the test, but doesn’t change the test itself. That is all dealt with as normal.
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