In the factions section each has a star with a variable number of points. I can’t determine what the number of points represents. What does it mean?
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Those Stars are just stylized Progress Clocks for the Factions. They are suggested “activities” a faction may be engaging with and around to further their goals. Each point is a Stage. So for example, the 51st Legion has a 6 Stage Clock for rooting out disloyalty.
These Clocks are marked typically during Downtime, between sessions, perhaps as an immediate/ direct consequence from a player’s action or inaction, or maybe even a Devil’s Bargain.
I’d say the most typical way to fill these Clocks is to consider if the Faction played a predominant roll during the session/ the Crew’s Sphere of Influence and determine if the Faction has the fictional means to work towards their goal. Make a Fortune Roll using their Tier as a rough dice pool. Add or subtract dice due to any fictional advantages or disadvantages they may or may not have. 1-3 is 1 tick, 4/5 is 2 ticks, 6 is 3 ticks, and a Crit is 5 ticks (just like filling Long Term Project Clocks in Downtime). Always consider what they metric of progress might look like in the fiction and how it can be portrayed to the Crew- if needed.
You are always welcome to make your own long term goals for factions as well- you need not abide by the suggestions in the book. You also need not roll for every faction in the game- only the ones in the immediate sphere of influence of the PCs (typically those related to character/ crew creation). If other factions start to crop up later and you want to know what they have been up to- you can make some extra fortune rolls to “catch them up.”
Hope that helps.
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Thank you. That makes sense now. I’ll have to go take a look with that in mind.