Having just finished reading "Android Free Fall" by William Keith, I could not help myself but to imagine a new faction putting us players in the role as Captain Harrison from the New Angels Police Department (NAPD). Fighting crime and putting either or both hackers and nefarious Corp operators behind bars. But I had a hard time tryIng to figure out if the NAPD would be a runner or a corps faction. One option would be to make them be able to switch between giving them both runner and corps cards. Another option would be to make them a third type of faction, law enforcement, with their own card where they can run against either.

The idea for an independent law enforcement faction may make agendas a bit of an issue, especially if they run against both. So instead of even days being what is scored the NAPD would instead set out an investigation plan, let's say 4 cards that would advance based on the number of agenda points scored. The four cards would represent how much time the NAPD wants to spend on each phase of an investigation. Card 1 represents "crime scene investigation"' card 2 "forensics", card 3 "personal investigation/pursuit" and card 4 "prosecution". Each card type could have a 1, 2 or 3 point variant that would give the NAPD some action benefit once scored. If the NAPD player is investigating a corporation (I.e, he is running) he would score agendas and the agenda points would count against his investigation plan. If the NAPD player is investigating a runner (e.g he is playing corps) he scores his agendas in the usual way.

Had to share my idea. May not go anywhere but at least it is out there.

I'd only accept a new runner faction if they were to include a new corp faction along with it. The game is balanced the way it is now and there is already a near infinite amount of design space with just the current factions. They could add police/independent investigators to shapers/criminals/anarchs pretty easily, they just need a narrative reason for it, which shouldn't be too hard to come up with.

It could be part of the Criminal big box, for example, just theme all the cards around a bunch of law enforcement/government agent runners. In the world of Android: Netrunner or all these other futuristic societies, corporations are in complete control of government operations and control the worlds economies so anyone going against the Corporations would be branded a criminal anyway.

A lot of people were really annoyed with how the Silver Twilight were added to CoC and they were added around 2/3 cycles into the game, not to mention how unbalanced/OP or un-usable they were to begin with. Star Wars/AGoT and Warhammer: Invasion did it better by including a few cards for the other factions in the Core set, fully explaining in the rules that more would be added in later expansions.

As interesting as the ideas are that people come up with for new factions, I think it is extremely unlikely that we'll ever see new factions introduced to the game as long as its release model remains unchanged. Any new addition would just further reduce the number of cards each individual faction gets (and 20 cards per pack is not a lot of room to begin with) -- provided you want to expand the new faction's cardpool beyond an initial deluxe expansion release.

I agree with Internutt that they could well introduce new themes within the faction system that we already have. I can easily imagine them releasing more thematic deluxe expansions in the future (once all the factions have been covered once) that center around a theme or story by providing appropriate cards for each faction. They may even introduce a new little mechanic (nothing that turns the game on its head, but something that plays to the story or theme), though introducing new mechanics is always tricky because they can easily be underwhelming or broken and they usually lose support over time as other mechanics are introduced. A Game of Thrones has suffered a lot from this (something they're trying to rectify a little with the current cycle that focus on old mechanics).

I genuinely hope we never see a new faction enter the game. I don't know what they'll end up doing for the fourth deluxe box, but I think this game would benefit from another faction about as much as UK tourism would benefit the Tower Clock being replaced with a giant digital watch.

As Saturnine points out, it'll further dilute every datapack that follows, plus the new faction would have to do something REALLY interesting to make it more compelling than the existing ones (with all the cards already in their respective pools). There'd be a huge danger of making them overpowered in an attempt to make them attractive enough to play, and that starts off a whole power-creep thing we can do without.

Great points. I like Intermutt's ideas of the NAPD looking more like a runner faction. I agree the game mechanics are great right now and overall well balanced. I don't want anything to mess with the goodness that is right now. My enthusiasm for the storyline from reading Freefall floods my mind with ideas for the different directions this game can go. We have all seen games die from poorly crafted expansions or game mechanic changes. Sharing ideas and testing the pro and con of ideas for the game is a must for a vibrant discussion of the way forward. Thanks for your analysis of my ideas.

I would definitely say that the lore would lend NAPD as being a "runner" faction, due to the Board Game conspiracy leading back to major power structures and the imperfect relationship that Caprice and Floyd have with their owners.

That said, Lukas did tell me in Chicago, "I don't think another Runner faction would add much to the game," so I'm not holding out for it.

There is some precedent--the original AGOT CCG was just Lannister/Baratheon/Stark, with Martell, Targaryen, and Greyjoy being added in subsequent expansions before it was ever converted to LCG. But, I do agree with CFeesh--AGOT chapter packs have six factions to cover, Netrunner already has seven, and eight would make it harder to cover the spread with the addition of Neutral cards.

I must admit, first thought about addition to the game was a new runner faction focusing on private investigators / corporate spies. Its a fun thought but doubtful it'd be in. Though I would not go far to change the core of the system but I did have a fun thought on a unique twist for such a faction. Thinking about the 3 faction, simply implied, Anarchist just want to burn things, Criminals are out for Selfish Wants, and Shapers exploring possibilities. What could a 4th Runner Faction do differently?

Looking across at the corporation side, Idea popped. Why not have a runner that can bluff? Now thinking about it, What would connect someone investigating or a corporation saboteur? Probably a faction specific (no influence) type card. Along with normal runner cards placed face-up, this type, played face down, like corporate player does and do things like a trojan horse, or false run on this server making the corp decide to res the ice on the server some blank space is going down. Ends up hes going to your HQ. In a way by rezzing that trojan
I did think of how could the corp counteract this? Tags. I could not see this runner wanting to be traced, or found. Immediate trash of all the runners face-down cards. Flipping those up could initiate a trace with some kind of subroutine that the runner started. (reversing the normal order of bids possibly)

Weak or expensive ice-breakers, relying on other sources? Lower influence points? Probably poor'er or more pricey hard-ware, so you'd have to balance what your bringing in As you cannot take from the other guys to provide the limitations of your faction's own. Or even like that HB(I can't remember) The runner Identity's block out one faction, or two for influencing.

Theres probably millions of ideas how I can go off on that but, its a different way to play with its own gamble without overhauling the rules terribly. In my opinion, that's why I didn't like The Collective which seemed less a gamble. Leaning much to pure gain for them, as the other had a chance of being rather risky, but possibly beneficial.

That was rather fun swirl of thought. But I doubt there would be another faction.

Along with normal runner cards placed face-up, this type, played face down, like corporate player does

I believe the original Netrunner had cards that were "hidden resources", resources that were played face down. I'm not exactly sure how those worked, or if they would be a good addition to the new Netrunner, but at least there's precedent for this type of mechanic. But I do firmly believe that if something like hidden resources is added to the game, it'll be added to the existing factions and not as an exclusive mechanic for a new faction.

I don't think the idea of hidden resources would work for A:NR but, I was twirling the idea of it being Programs. Trash with use and begin trace during a run. As that seems more of a gamble. But at the risk, I wouldn't like the idea of that diluting the runner side. I'm really liking the idea of the Caïssa programs. Though, with implied reasoning behind each of the runner factions, I see that as something added to Criminals with influence cost, rather than Shapers and Anarchist. if it were.

I don't think we'll see a new faction any time soon, and I don't have the in-setting knowledge to throw possible names on the ideas, but there's plenty of fertile ground to cover if you look at private military corporations like Blackwater.

Ironically, I see a better option for PMCs in Runners than I do Corps. You'd want a corporate paramilitary Corp to play aggressively, if recklessly, yet think strategically and defensively. I don't know that you can get more aggressive than NBN, or more violent than Weyland. I do think that Weyland has a strong argument for a Martian counter-insurgency force as a division, but the Weyland cards don't bring home the military theme.

As a Runner faction, I think you can create a strong, individual theme for a faction around white-hat security hackers, government or corporate "cyber-warriors" and drone pilots, or real-time battlefield hackers. The Red Queen is one of these latter runners, but she's a rogue agent, where a Soldier-faction runner could rely on agency support, credits, and a fragile credibility. The icebreakers could run as hard as Criminal's, but the hardware and resources would be hardened against trace effects. The downside would be that the Soldiers have to meet "mission parameters" for the more powerful cards, like a Server Diagnostics.

What do you think about a Judge runner identity ?

I'm working on cards around this theme.

A) Judge Dredd is a licensed property and not canonical in the Androidverse.

B) The ability is interesting but uses poor grammar/templating. I would suggest:

The first unrezzed piece of ice approached each turn cannot be rezzed during that run. The runner cannot jack out immediately after passing the unrezzed ice.

C) it's potentially quite powerful, possibly not balanced. Compare Rielle: her ability helps with the first piece of Ice she hits, but she still has to break it. Reina Roja only boosts the rez cost by 1, again just for one piece of ice. Perhaps may need to specify "the runner cannot jack out for the remainder of the run" or even "You may not jack out of runs" full stop.

I think the wording as written is supposed to mean the runner can't jack out at all on that run.

Interesting idea for a runner ability, but I still don't see why it couldn't be incorporated into an existing faction.

Hi,

1. please sorry for my poor english grammar level (I'm writting from France).

2. yop, I know, Judge Dredd can not be used by FFG in his Android world (but it was not my first goal). I love the idea of an independent law enforcement faction (thanks to Keegantdad) and Judge Dredd seems (at least for me ) so "cool" in this spirit of mind.

3. no Grimwalker, it is not what I mean (I agree with you, it will be too powerful) : the power of the runner Judge Dredd means "the corpo cannot rez her peripheric ice for the first run in each turn. The runner cannot jack'out at all (as CommissarFeesh well understand it) on that run".

Two others ideas for Judge runners identity.

Judge Cassandra Anderson - 1 link - Psi cop - one time in her turn, she can see the first card of R&D.
Judge Lex - 0 link - Corrupted cop - at the end of her turn, the Corpo must give 1 credit to the runner if she can.

Along with normal runner cards placed face-up, this type, played face down, like corporate player does

I believe the original Netrunner had cards that were "hidden resources", resources that were played face down. I'm not exactly sure how those worked, or if they would be a good addition to the new Netrunner, but at least there's precedent for this type of mechanic. But I do firmly believe that if something like hidden resources is added to the game, it'll be added to the existing factions and not as an exclusive mechanic for a new faction.

Yes, that is correct that the original Netrunner had those hidden resources. It was a great addition that made the game even more devious. The cards often mirrored other cards but to a slightly higher cost due to the advantage "hidden" resources gave the runner. F.x. there was a card that gave you access to three additional cards during an R&D run, and the nature of such resources made it possible to rez it after having succeeded with a run by flipping it face up, pay it's cost (often one bit, or credit in today's terms, more expensive than the prep (now they are called events) would cost) and trash it in the process.

This made the guessing game pretty intense since it was near impossible for the corp to guess what all those hidden cards were, and therefore had to take every precaution during every step. Those hidden resources could be played in response to events too, f.x. if taking meat damage there was a card that prevented a couple of those, so the corp could not count on flatlining the runner if there was even a single hidden card in play.

Hidden resources changes the game completely and I am not sure this game, in it's current state, is ready for that just yet.