Factions¶

Creating and Running Factions¶

The Keep on the Borderlands¶

The real feature is this valley with the caves of chaos and the whole idea is that you get a group of murder hobos together and they head out into the wilds and they tame the caves of chaos which are becoming a problem for the good civilized people of the keep; or something like that.

Descriptions of non-combatants in the caves like women, children, etc and what they do if they get attacked. It seemed weird that these monsters would live like people.

This used to be a temple, someone’s home, tons of people live here. There’s monsters for sure but there are also other creatures that don’t seem bothered by this place.

Talking to the people we encountered:

That barbarian chieftain lets talk to him; better yet, let’s charm him and have him tell us what’s going on in the dungeon
Those mongrel people that seem to keep coming out of secret tunnels that parallel everywhere else in the dungeon, can we somehow align ourselves with them and get access to those tunnels
There’s two groups of dwarfs working for the same litch that had divided itself in half and was with war with itself. Different groups of dwarfs were organizing the resistance in different parts of the dungeon. We could play the different groups against each other
Various high level wizards back at home base that I would have to make the nice with to get access to various high level spells
The oracle that lived way out in the middle of the wasteland who was there to identify our magic items

A style of play that had a richness to it. Both the dungeon crawling and the wilderness exploration and the adventures we go into back in town.

All of the good stuff is back in the keep, that’s were all of the treasure is and that’s were all of the XP is.

How to run factions¶

You don’t need that much to start playing with this idea of factions, the movers and shakers in a living world.

My goal is create as little work for myself as possible and to give myself enough prompts so that when the players express interest in something I have enough detail to given them at that moment as well as enough to work on for the next session.

I don’t want to spend a lot of time before they express interest in something but I also want to know enough to dangle in front of them and hopefully hook them with it.

So I’m looking to start with about 4-6 factions.

For each one I want to know:

What their deal is. In the loosest sense possible
- Can I sum them up in a couple of words or a few short sentences.
- What are their goals, attitudes, and how do they approach things or other factions within their environment
Who are the leaders
- What are they like. Are they secretive, are they open minded, do they like to share their resources or hoard their wealth, etc.
Who or what is in their roster
- Agents, minions, foot soldiers, and different monsters
- Magic items and other resources
- What kind of influence do they have
Hook, Quirk, or Trait
Something for the players to care about
- Factions don’t matter if your players don’t care
- If the player is interested in it they will find a way to get their character interested in it

It doesn’t take much at all, just a few sentences but it gives you something to build on later.

Consider the Archanist Cabal from the Weird Wastelands. This is a mysterious organization that seems to crop up everywhere. Anywhere these is some relic of the past or some construct that could be dug up and refurbished they seem to be right behind.

So it begs the questions from the players:

Who are they
Where do they come from
Do they have a store of knowledge some where and is it possible to gain access to it
If they’re the ones that can operate, refurbish, and use the technology of the past age and somehow advance themselves what are they going to do with that
How are they going to affect the wasteland with it

It’s those kind of questions that players might ask themselves in encounters with the cabal that you can hint at and offer hooks for; if the players are interested then you can build on it and if not, you’re not out too much work.

How To Keep It Manageable¶

So they players have bitten the hook and it’s time to reel them in and this is the point where you really need to drill down on the prep. The light touch details from before are just to get you going when you really need stats.

Create a few sample NPCs, at least one, maybe two.

These are the iconics for that faction. These are strong archetypes with:

Secrets
Goals
Something they want out of the players
Things to reward the players with

Prevent campaign cruft by keeping only 3-4 factions in rotation at any given time.

Some factions will just stop the conflict with the player and move into the background as they pursue other goals and what not.

The Oracle¶

Faction oracle. A hand full of dice that I roll whenever I feel like it; it’s an interpretive tool to kick start my imagination in directions that I wasn’t expecting and to create something new.

Each dice represent a faction and the faction’s movement and activity within the world. The smaller the dice size, the smaller the faction.

A 1 on a die represents that faction making a significant step towards their goal.

I use an oracle with a progress clock of 4, 6, or 8 ticks and a 1 on an oracle die fills in one of those ticks. Which will show up on a rumor table or background information for the PCs, or it might be an adventure hook because something grand has happened in the setting.

Matching pairs or any kind indicate that factions have come into contact with each other. If the dice are physically close it’s some kind of alliance and if they’re far apart then it’s some kind of conflict. If possible, I will try to put the PCs in the middle of that conflict just like I would for any faction that rolled a one.

I provides an easy illusion of a living world with out relying on complex simulation mechanics. Pick up the dice, roll them, interpret the results and just re-roll if you don’t like the result.

The big benefit of this and thinking of factions in the world is to generate adventure hooks. Everything you do for your world should be focused on making interesting moments and decisions for your characters to make.

More Tools¶

Blades in the Dark:

An entire game built around factions.

Provides progress clocks.

Stars Without Number and Worlds Without Number:

Strong section on creating factions and faction turns which are a kind of mini-game for the DM.

Night’s Black Agents:

Provides a way for organizing a vast conspiracy, from vast transnational organizations all the way down to street gangs.

5e DMG:

Tons of resources for creating factions, locations, and so on and so forth.