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Dispatch → Meta → Gameplay
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The Barren Remains of Wasteland Alive.
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Step 4 - What Are Your Perks?
Custom factions are allowed what we call Perks. Perks are backstory-related faction bonuses that help distinguish and differentiate your faction from the rest of the world. Does your faction have a bonus to food growth? That's a perk! Is there an old ironclad sitting in your harbor? Use a perk to start out with it repaired! Every faction gets two perks in addition to their origin.
Perks can cover a variety of situations and bonuses, but they do have restrictions. For starters, Perks CANNOT modify anything already covered by the SPECIAL system. In other words you cannot perk your way into higher science or higher population growth. Perks also cannot modify the restrictions of an Origin. If, for example, your Origin restricts you to a starting population of 1,000, then you cannot use a perk to bypass that - you're stuck at 1,000.
That being said, you can use your Perks to rearrange your Starting Tech Tree. If you feel like the tech tree of an origin doesn't adequately represent the technological character of a faction, you may use a perk to redistribute up to two (2) points from any category to any other category or categories. This can only be done once; ergo, you may not use both your perk slots to rearrange your tech tree.
Perks can also be used to start out with normally prohibited things like working vehicles or heavy weapons. There is a limitation, though - a perk may only reference one type of vehicle (a particular model of tank, vertibirds, etc.) and is limited to a small number (defined in our region as 4 or less, depending on the vehicle). Vehicles should either be thematically appropriate to your faction or a reference to a real-world museum piece in your starting tile.
WARNING!!! Perks are intended to help establish the character of your faction, not bypass rules. Moderators reserve the right to deny equipment perks if deemed unrelated to a faction's backstory or inappropriate to your chosen Origin.
To request a perk, write down the information in a factbook and submit it to the Moderators in the #ask-the-council channel on Discord for review. A Perk should have a Title, its effect, and a short blurb describing the history of the perk and how it relates to your faction's backstory. Moderators will review the perk to make sure it makes sense or is not too OP (or breaks rules, etc.). If approved, the factbook should be maintained throughout the life of the faction. Once approved, a perk may not be rescinded, modified, or replaced*.
*Perks may be changed out 1 time during the course of a faction's life, to simulate the evolution of a faction over time. The process is the same as requesting the original perks.
Example Perks
Combat Specialization
Effect: +2 Combat in Urban Areas, -2 Combat everywhere else
We’re scrappy survivalists, rats living in the ruins of the big pre-war metropolises. Doesn’t matter what ruin it is, we know (or can figure out) every nook and cranny, hiding spot and tunnel, every way to ambush you. We’re a bit agoraphobic as a result and suffer in combat outside our ruins.
A Pirate's Life for Me
Effect: Starts out with 2 small sailing or scrap ships of choice.
The apocalypse drove our ancestors to the sea. The sea was our salvation, our nourishment, and most importantly, our highway to the resources we need to survive. The fact that those resources are owned by others is but a minor inconvenience, one usually overcome with ease.
