It's A Small World After All
this is my little hack of newt’s rules for court intrigue, made to fit the more relative and incestuous dynamics of political conspiracies, office cliques, friend groups, and street gangs.
Think about the relationship between members of a crew inside the overall structure of the mafia and you’ll have the right scale in mind.
a group is a social unit where everyone is connected by one individual.
everyone in the group has influence (1-18).
determine with 2d6.
+3 if their skills are invaluable to the group or have overlapping membership.
+6 if they are the group’s official leader or have powerful supporters
Aims
each group has one or more driving goals or objectives which can be considered either Core or Fringe to its identity. Aims can be slowly added or replaced by the person with the highest Influence in the group.
Publicly acting against your group’s Core Aims lowers your Influence.
Pressure
Pressure is applied when a group's Aims are attacked or obstructed by an external force and lasts for 2 turns.
+2 for Core Aims
+1 for Fringe Aims
Turns
due to the small scale nature of group dynamics a turn length skews more short term. A week or a month or even a couple of days. There’s no set order for rolling or actions taking place within a frame of that time.
Action
If you helped the group in some way, roll 2d6 (also called an Influence Check) and add +1 for each Aim you advanced that turn. On a 10+ your Influence increases. Otherwise it doesn't.
Group Action
When members of a group rally around a single figure’s de facto mission, that person makes an Influence Check. +1 for each person helping them or +2 if their supporter had higher Influence than they do.
If they succeed, everyone involved gains Influence. If they fail, only that person feels the effects of Pressure that turn.
Resolution
At the end of the turn:
Everyone subtracts current Pressure from their current Influence
-1 Influence for each Core Aim that wasn't advanced that turn.
If a member falls to 0 Influence, they are no longer considered part of the group and can't advance its Aims.