Figures of Note, Scene Currency and other stuff

[Count Zero]

We burned up our setting and have created the FoN. I have three players and myself. We have six figures of note. One of which is a PC that is a Forged-Lord.

The Forged Lord player really wanted his character to be 13 year old kid whose father was the Forged Lord and died recently. So he has the rank and the lifepath, but not much else. He is actually a 3 Lifepath Character. I thought about giving him more, but we already fudged the age for those three lifepaths. We balanced that by having his advisor being a 7 lifepath character. I figure that is okay. He is the only PC FoN (as stated before)

So I have control of the other five (two for the human side, three for the Vaylen side). One question I have does that mean I get a color, interstitial, and building for each.. and one conflict for the Vaylen side? That is a lot of scenes to fiddle with. Am I understanding this correctly?

Also, during world burning, the Vaylen came out with a lot more points. The points worked out like this

Vaylen INF 24 USP 30 INV 24
Human INF 20 USP 22 INV 29

So the humans don't get an advantage until Invasion... is this typical? I already know which factions my side is going to activate, but I assume the my GM Human FoN's can activate factions and create a faction war.

Any tips here. I am starting to feel a little overwhelmed, because this seems like quite a bit to manage in terms of FoN. Also, I am worried I am going to trounce my players because they seem kind of caught off guard by all the meta-game stuff (i.e. scene currency, the game being competitive). With such an advantage, I don't know if they have a chance. All of them are far too cheap to buy the book, so I will be teaching them the rules. Any tips there also.

Oh... one other thing, I have a first printing of the book and now that I am actually using it (it basically sat on a shelf for about a year), it is starting to come apart. I heard there were issues with the first printing and the binding. Is this accurate, or just some unfounded rumor?

[artellan]

You're correct that according to the rules (pp. 428-429) you do have that many scenes at your disposal if you need them. However all of them are optional (bottom of p. 428) so you'll probably never want to use all of them.

It is weird that only one of your players is an FoN ... you actually don't need 3 FoNs on each side, you know. So you could 'demote' the other two human FoNs to just basic but powerful NPCs.

I'll let others wiser than me tackle the issue of the 3LP kid and your players' disadvantage in the Infection!

Regarding the book problems, you should PM/email Luke, he's pretty good about that kind of thing. Since the book is so thick I'd recommend all new books be broken in using the process found on page 6 here. (http://www.ioba.org/StepByStepBookRepair.pdf)

[Dave Lucas]

Also, during world burning, the Vaylen came out with a lot more points. ... So the humans don't get an advantage until Invasion... is this typical?

Yeah, it's typical. I have found it difficult as a GM to pull all of my FoNs into scenes (because that's how I roll) so even though you can totally rock the PCs, it doesn't mean it will happen.

Also: seriously talk to the players about why they don't want to be FoNs. There's no downside to it, and it's not a measure of your position in the political structure of the world. Really, it measures how important the character is to the story - and I'd figure they'd want to be the big shots!

edit: Hah ha, Mike, I have more posts than you!

[Count Zero]

Regarding the book problems, you should PM/email Luke, he's pretty good about that kind of thing. Since the book is so thick I'd recommend all new books be broken in using the process found on page 6 here. (http://www.ioba.org/StepByStepBookRepair.pdf)

Actually, I e-mailed Luke and hadn't gotten a response, so I thought maybe I hadn't done what I needed to do, but today I came home and there was a book sitting in my mail box. Thanks Luke.

[Count Zero]

Yeah, it's typical. I have found it difficult as a GM to pull all of my FoNs into scenes (because that's how I roll) so even though you can totally rock the PCs, it doesn't mean it will happen.

Also: seriously talk to the players about why they don't want to be FoNs. There's no downside to it, and it's not a measure of your position in the political structure of the world. Really, it measures how important the character is to the story - and I'd figure they'd want to be the big shots!

edit: Hah ha, Mike, I have more posts than you!

The characters they wanted in the game didn't fall right. We have the following FoN:

Human Side
-Corwin Abernaty - 13 year old Forged Lord - PC

-Matriarch Farah Pahlavi - powerful noblewoman who is trying to help Corwin

-Ommjot - Kerrn Ghetto Sheef who is trying to work with the nobles to gain basic rights for the Serfs on the planet.

Vaylen Side
Daysun Carwright - Nobleman trying to place himself as Forged-Lord. He is trying to establish an Imperial presence to prop up his grab for power.

Cotar Jarvis - Jarvis is a Cotar of the Mundus Humantatis. Corwin's father ousted the church leaders because they were trying to take power. Now Jarvis is trying to overthrow the current power structure and install a Theocracy on the planet.

Citizen Hitachi - Hitachi is a serf who has hidden his psychology from the nobles. He is a mule. He is fed up with the status quo and trying to establish popular rule. He wants to throw out all the nobles and the church.

To be honest, there aren't really any Vaylen in this game. The players really don't like the worms that much. One of the guys thinks it is a tired concept and doesn't want to play "invasion of the body snatchers" as he puts it. So I hav decided to go ahead and throw out the Vaylen. The planet is a Core World in the Shattered Houses region.

[Dave Lucas]

Sounds cool. What are the PCs?

In my current game, we've had references (colour only) to the Vaylen. But they've never shown up, and no GM FoNs are Vaylen. I don't know if they will appear or not. I have plans, but contact with the enemy and all that.

BE is pretty robust in the terms of stories it can tell. My last game seemed to be (from what I got from it) was the high price of love. The current one, totally different.

[Count Zero]

Well one of the PC's is Corwin Abernathy. Another is a psychologist and spymaster who advises the young forged lord. The final one is Larspur "Lark" von Gelding. He is a merchant from the Karsen League who is there to export the planet's primary industry.

The planet specializes in arms manufacturing. Each noble house specializes in various weapons, vehicles or components. For example, the rival house, Cartwright, makes tanks and heavy armor and Corwin's house makes Hammer. The planet is called Harmony, but players are jokingly calling it Planet Hallibruton.