Influence System

The Influence Stat

Influence is a standard Background bought with Background dots, Freebies, and Starting XP.

Each dot of Influence belongs to a Sphere. A sphere is an overarching influence archetype, like "Police" or "Law". There is a standard list of Spheres.

Each Sphere has Specialties. A specialty is a sub-set of that sphere. For example, Criminal influence is a Sphere, like "Drug Trafficking" is a Specialty. The list of specialties is standard and pre-defined.

Lastly, when you pick influence Specialties, you pick a Niche. This is a free-form description of the sorts of people that your character's network is composed of. Someone who takes 'Drug Trafficking' might pick a particular gang, for example, or even just a particular drug.

When allocating dots of Influence, you can invest all of your dots into one Influence type or you can diversify (like 2 dots in Drug Trafficking, 2 dots in Arms Trafficking).

Influence means you know people who know people. Although dots of Contacts, Allies and Retainers come with NPCs who have sheets, dots of Influence does not allocate NPCs with sheets. Instead, for each dot of Influence represents a larger, more valuable, extended network of people with increasingly valuable contacts. You know some of them, but not all of them, since your instructions are carried out to people who know other people.

That said, storyteller(s) might flesh out NPCs who represent the manifestation of your Influence. This is for narrative purposes. It's more fun and immersive to read something like, "Your mousy intern calls you in a panic to alert you about the files and what horrible fate this could mean for the company!" instead of "Yeah, uh, so, ... someone is attacking your Influence for 3 dots."

Spheres And Specialties

Academic Influence

Criminal Influence

Financial Influence

Government Influence High Society Influence Industrial Influence

Legal Influence Media Influence Medical Influence

Occult Influence Police Influence Political Influence

Transportation Influence