Effective use of Influences can be one of the most difficult things in Ji Dian Station as they represent a very abstract concept. Because this game encourages the use of them, we figured we'd write a primer on their use. We'll break it apart in sections below that cover "What Do You Want", "What to Spend", "Devil in the Details", "An Example of Using the System", and "Influence Execution Tips".

What Do You Want
This is sometimes the hardest bit of thinking work required, as a lot of people have jumped right in and not thought through the details of what it is they want to accomplish. For example, Jake Marlow wants to shut down the docking rings, to prevent boats from coming in. The easiest route would be to use 4 Transportation Influences, as that is what he has.

What to Spend
So Marlow could just spend the 4 Transportation and be done with it, but this approach has a couple of draw backs to it. Primarily, it ties up all of his Transportation Influence, blocking him from doing anything else for the month. Secondly, it makes a lot noise, so to speak, by generating a Transportation 1 rumor--let's just assume that 4 is the highest number of Transportation Influence in play-- so anyone with any Transportation Influence knows that someone is mucking about with the docking rings and have shut them down. Because Influences are abstract, they have a lot of flexibility. Marlow also 3 Medical Influence and 3 Bureaucracy, and 4 Wealth levels at his disposal providing him some options. This allows him to convert Influence of one type to another type or to augment an influence action with Wealth.

The Devil is in the Details
The biggest problem we see with Influence expenditures is a lack of details. What happens is that we then have to fill in the details and make assumptions about the character's aims and goals. However, this rarely matches up with what the player actually wants. The moral of this story is to be as detailed as possible, because we will not come to you to fill in the gaps of an action. One detail people normally don't think about it response times and how they are determined.

Once you have created your Influence Action there is a three-day window it has to pass to avoid interference. After three days we check, because there is a time on these things (Thank you, Plot Engine!) and if no one has poked at it, we clear the action. If someone investigates the action or attempts to interfere or hijack it, we pause for more resolution time because of these outside actions. Once the three-days have passed for all actions related to the first and they have been answered, then we answer the original action.

An Example of Using the System
Here is the cast of characters in this example.

• Fred has 4 Underworld, 3 Wealth, 2 Allies, and 1 Contact.
• George has 3 Underworld, 2 Police, 4 Wealth, and 2 Contacts.
• Alice has 2 Underworld, 1 Street, 2 and 1 Wealth.

George is attacking Fred's Underworld Influence.

George spends 1 Contacts to determine the number of Underworld Influence Traits that Fred has, which is 4 traits.

In order to destroy another character's Influence Trait, you must spend a number of Influence Traits equal to the number of traits of the same influence type the victim has plus one. So to destroy one of Fred's Underworld Influence Traits, George has to spend 2 Underworld traits, 2 Police traits that are converted into 1 Underworld trait, and 2 Resources for a total of 5 effective Underworld traits.

Much like any other Influence action, there is a 3 day window in which it can be investigated or fiddled with by any outside interest by spending Influence on a one for one base to either hinder the action or hinder it.

Alice decides that George is a loose cannon and should not be attacking Fred. She expresses her opinion by spending 2 Underworld Traits to hinder his action saying, "I am hindering action 546." Fred is notified by e-mail that he needs to spend to 2 more Underworld Traits or the whole action collapses.

George, mildly annoyed, spends two more Underworld Influence Traits.

With no further interruptions, George's attack concludes, reducing Fred's total number of Underworld to 3 traits upon the start of the next game. Fred is refunded the XP spent on the last trait purchased. If Fred had spent 2 XP on a new Influence, he gets 2 XP back.

Since this does not take effect until the next game, Fred still has 4 Underworld for the time being and could mount an investigation and assault of his attacker.

If anyone else wishes to attack Fred as well prior to the next game, they must also spend 5 traits to do so.

Influence Execution Tips
Conversion - You take two traits from a related influence and put them somewhere else as a different type. Example, I can turn two Street influence into one Police. Make sure they are related, or at least justifiably so. Somehow, I don't see University rolling into Street so well, but if you can come up with a good reason (meaning you convince the Game Marshalls), we'll let you have it.

Boosting - Certain boons act as boosters. Allies, Resources, Mentor, Fame, and Infamy all work to pump and boost your actions, giving a greater flexibility to your capacity to be an Influence Monger.

Loaning - Loaning an Influence has a cost of 1+X, where X is the amount you're loaning to another character.

Contacts - Contacts are specific individuals with their own spheres of influence as defined by the Game Marshalls based on a general concept from the player for new contacts or an established NPC.