Factions and Clout

Within Planetfall a multitude of Factions exist. Characters are able to gain and lose Clout with these Factions by virtue of their actions. Generally, a successful Mission will result in directly gaining 3 Clout with the Faction that organised or requested the Mission, or 1 Clout that can be spent with any faction. Clout can also be won or lost with powerful individuals, but cashing this in requires a means of contacting them first.

Levelling up Clout with a Faction unlocks abilities to leverage your connections. Beware: you can lose Clout with a Faction if you displease them - particularly someone with a higher level of Clout than you. You can have negative Clout if you are particularly displeasing.

Anyone can give their Clout to another Character. Bear in mind that endorsing someone in this way inherently associates you with them and if they cause problems you could find yourself in a difficult position. You cannot trade Clout you don't have (i.e. you can't go negative from trading Clout).

Factions include, but are not limited to:

• Spacefarers
• Various Forges
• The Elegy
• Mystic Sects
• Altarian Dynasty
• Science, Technology & Research
• Any Ship in the System
• Any Planetary faction

• Someone in this Faction knows who you are and might hold the door open for you but you'll have to leverage them hard for anything else.

Someone in this Faction knows who you are and likes you enough to maybe swing a favour for you and give you the latest gossip.

• Before each adventure you may ask this Faction what their opinions are on a matter and get a straight answer.
• Once per adventure, with persuasion as to what's in it for them, you can swing a minor favour.

You're a proven trustworthy ally to this Faction and can get a few people to help you out.

• Once per adventure, if you can contact them, you can ask two direct questions and get reasonably straight answers.
• Once per adventure you may ask for an actionable minor favour.

You are trusted by this Faction and can influence them to a lesser or greater degree depending on your choice of words.

• During downtime you may attempt to influence the policy or methods of this Faction.
• Once more per adventure, you may ask for an actionable minor favour.
• Once ever for this faction, you may make a request of this Faction on the level of a player-request Mission, and they will put their resources behind it.
• No matter how much clout you amass beyond 15, this is the highest level of influence you can have on a Faction while your character is active.

• By choosing to retire your character, you can imbue a new direction or imperative into the Faction for a long time to come.
• You have become a pillar of this Faction and become a part of it.
• Your character may potentially return as an NPC after this point.

• This faction doesn't know or care who you are.

• Somehow you have really aggravated this Faction.
• They will be unlikely to trust you and will be unwilling to do even the smallest of favours for you without considerable compensation to them.
• They will not proactively try to impede you.

• What did you do???
• This organisation hates your guts. They will actively attempt to impede you in your activities and will relish opportunities to cause you problems.
• With negative Clout in double digits you may even find yourself on an Elegy Contract (OC: this will be NPC Spectres unless you explicitly opt in to being hunted by PC Spectres).

Who says money can't buy you friends? Levels of Clout can represent having a certain degree of wealth in a particular planet or with a particular group (e.g. “Chips” for Ace's World, or “Tabs” on Mytene). Players that accumulate wealth will have it represented in the form of Clout with the location they have that wealth with.

Wealth may be spent or traded just as Clout is by giving it to other people. Ultimately, Clout is an abstraction to allow us to have multiple different cultures and economic systems working together in harmony - if in doubt, give some Clout.