Hi Mint,
I’m wondering if you have any games to simulate faction-level play? I know of some games where you’re individuals working within factions but I’m looking for mechanics that work on a group level if that makes sense. Thank you for all the work you do, I’ve found so many cool games through you already!
THEME: Faction Play
Hello friend! Thank you so much in your patience as I work through these requests. I think most of what I found today is within the realm of what you're looking for, so I hope something here fits your play style!
For Guild & Glory, by guildandglorygames.
For Guild and Glory (FG&G) is a fantasy game about a party of daring characters building an enterprising guild. We play to find out if the fledgling guild can thrive amidst the teeming threats that surround it and if they become more than “just another guild.”
Like its predecessor Blades in the Dark, For Guild and Glory has a big focus on the faction the group represents, although I don't know if it's quite as zoomed out as you're looking for. You're still playing individual characters, but if you want faction politics to be a big part of the game, you can certainly put your focus there. Each guild has an extensive character sheet, including special abilities given to the entire group, a number of advancements and pieces of your enterprise that can be expanded upon, and a vault of wealth that you slowly accrue.
That being said, because of the game FG&G is built on, I think a lot of the faction play is still likely to be found in the hands of the GM. The Games Master will be making decisions about the actions of rival guilds, and how their projects may interfere with yours.
Project Crown, by quigjam.
Project Crown is a faction-first PBTA political fantasy TTRPG about the dynamics of family and corrupting power. It takes place in a world of dark magic and feuding houses.
In Project Crown, you take on the role of rival factions within a medieval kingdom. You are pledged in service of the Crown, an artifact that protects your lands but also renders the wearer unknowable. To fulfill your house's objectives you must scheme with and against the other houses to gain the Crown’s favor and possibly, its power.
We play to find out how your house and the realm will change over time, who will be tempted by power, and who will fall to its corruption.
Inspired by The Quiet Year (Avery Alder) and Legacy: Life Amongst the Ruins (Minerva McJanda), amongst some other powerhouses, Project Crown also feels like a strong contender for what you're looking for. Each player represents a house, with resources, goals, and opportunities that they will want to pursue. Each player also plays a character (a carryover from Legacy games), whose actions will help us navigate the changes in the game's political landscape. You will typically only ever represent one house, but you will play multiple characters.
Characters will go on missions every season, but who is able to go depends on the balance of power in the capital city where the Crown resides. If a character's house is too favored, they may be stuck at home, elbow-deep in bureaucracy as you serve both the Crown and your house's interests. Between each mission, the campaign phase will likely shift each House's position, pushing time along and detailing changes between each faction.
Unlike the Quiet Year, which typically only allows players to express discontent amongst characters while distancing you from any one person enough to prevent overt competition, Project Crown has the potential to be a fairly aggressive game. The players' factions cannot wholly get along peacefully, although you as a group can decide to keep the conflicts personal, rather than political if you like. If you like however, you can each play houses that want blood, willing to completely conquer or destroy their rivals in pursuit for the choicest seat at the table.
If you want a game with otherworldly threats that only flavor the political conflict that defines the game, you might be interested in Project Crown.
The Streets Are Ours, by Clipartman.
The city promised it had everything you could want. It lied. Instead of a better life, you find yourself subject to the whims of those in charge: the wealthy, the important. They mold this metropolis to suit their desires, uncaring of the trouble they leave in their wake.
…Maybe it's time you took a page out of their book. You don't have money or power, but you do have a lot of friends with a common goal.
The city never liked you. So you're going to change it to your liking.
A one-page, system-agnostic setting, The Streets Are Ours casts each player as a Crew, with a defined neighborhood and role in the city, which is also definitively not a role of power. Powers are the forces that you as crews will attempt to grab assets, minimize debts, and exert influence over their holdings.
The game uses a deck of cards to generate prompts that will either spark events in the city or describe the changes that happen to the Powers over time. Players will roll 1d6 +1 dice per relevant asset you control to take advantage of the Powers' shortcomings. By the end, the city will be a changed place - what will your crew's new role be?
Mosaic Matrix, by countercheck.
In Mosaic Matrix, players take control of competing factions (or other powerful entities) and take actions to achieve goals. Through persuasive arguments and consensus-driven resolution, the group collaboratively builds a narrative of conflict, co-operation, and consequence.
Mosaic Matrix defines itself as a GM-Full game, in that each player has the same amount of control over the story, and an equal role in the game. It's also MOSAIC Strict, which means that it isn't linked to any specific set of game mechanics - and therefore I think you could likely use this in conjunction with another game if you want to observe the moving and shaking of various groups in between zooming in on specific characters.
The game itself is only two pages in length, and includes a series of Rounds, through which each player gets a turn. Each faction will get an opportunity to present an action that they believe needs to be taken, with arguments as for why it should succeed. The other factions will argue for or against the action, and use a deck of cards to determine whether the motion passes. Each faction has resources that they can leverage and reputations that they may need to uphold; you can also use some optional rules that you can use to change up the stakes, from having a bid for your turn in the round, defining a collective threat to add pressure, or removing argument limits to allow a longer, more organic-feeling game.
Legacy: Life Among the Ruins, by UFO Press.
The world of man is dead.
The shining cities and glittering skies have been sundered by the Fall. Now their corpses lie in pools of pollution and the twisted creations of arcane artifice haunt their halls.
The world of man is born again.
Refined by apocalyptic fires, the survivors have emerged into the light. With remembered lore, keen blades and fierce loyalty you will retake the world.
Legacy is a game of survival and rebuilding in a world ravaged and altered by incomprehensible calamity. Craft characters and families, head out into the wasteland and create true, lasting changes in the world. With cutting edge rules, a highly flexible multi-generational system, and more than a dozen character playbooks to choose from, Legacy has everything you need to start playing.
Legacy games feel like the most true to what you are looking for in faction play. In Legacy, at least half of the time you spend in game is zoomed out, as each player makes choices representing a faction that spans not just territory but also generations. Legacy games are complex and reward you the most when you engage with them over a long period of time, so you can watch characters rise and fall while the family or faction itself waxes and wanes in both power and influence.
The original game of Legacy is post-apocalyptic, but UFO Press has a number of Worlds of Legacy to explore, including Free From the Yoke, a game about Slavic Fantasy Houses rebuilding a new land, Worldfall, a game about the challenges of forming a new colony on a distant planet, and Primal Pathways, a game about evolving civilizations across time and space.
Additionally...
Before the Flood and other map-making games may carry with them some pieces that feel resonant with faction play.
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