Creating better factions

[rhythmsoundmotion]

What is your advice for creating factions?
Representing the working parts of a setting.
Fueding and competing.
The tension between grounded and fantastical.
Creating the big personalities that give a face to the factions.
Not getting silly and creating a faction for ever single thing.
(I am trying to get to the meat of the subject without being too verbose.)

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Step 1: look at real world factions, in friction or in solidarity with each other.

Step 2: analogize them & their interplay into your setting.

For example, there’s lots of different worker’s unions, and they often coordinate with each other. But they’re not all allied, all of the time. They may even butt heads when their goals differ enough, such as when there’s an issue over who gets what share of a finite resource (like money) that they’re both using.

Sometimes, those squabbles turn deadly- see American farmers vs ranchers vs industrialists.

 

[Aldarc]

What does the faction want? Who/what stands between them and their goals? What are they willing to do to get what they want? Who are their allies? Is this faction using another faction or are they "useful idiots" for another faction?

Also, I sometimes think about Magic the Gathering's Color Pie. Every color has two allied colors and two enemy colors. If you create a game with five major factions but think of them in terms of how the MtG Color Pie structures allies and enemies, then you have your game.

 

[overgeeked]

Factions need three things. A goal, resources, and a representative.

The goal is what the faction wants.

The resources are what the faction has to leverage to achieve their goal.

The representative is the most common NPC the PCs will interact with that is associated with that faction.

The trick, I think, is to align the faction's goals in opposition to the PCs' goals. Either they're competing for the same thing, like possession of an item, or they're oppositional goals, like wanting different people on the throne of a kingdom.

That's really it.

If you want the verbose versions, check out The Game Master's Guide to Proactive Roleplaying or Matt Colville's series on politics or any of the great videos (#1 or #2) on guilds or factions on YouTube.

 

[aco175]

This book from 2e days has several organizations that are generally evil. They could be a start or upgraded to something better.

 

[zakael19]

Probably the single best expression of factional play in a game is Blades in the Dark. Each faction a) says something about the setting, b) has specific goals and situations they're involved with, c) has a couple of well-tagged NPCs defined, and d) has reasons to either press against the players or assist what they do. All in a couple of paragraphs total.

 

[payn]

Are you world building from scratch? Sometimes it’s easy to just start nation building and reflect on the major cultures within them.

Then, look at the major conflicts and think of ways a faction might interact. Try to change the balance? Try to maintain the status quo?

Lastly, I think of factions that don’t care on a global level. This is where thieves guilds and secret cults fall in.

After all that, anytime a major event happens think how factions react. Sit back and benefit? Go into full on defense mode? Look to take advantage?

 

[dbm]

Worlds Without Number by Kevin Crawford has great rules for creating factions and running them to give the feeling of a living world. All his books (and especially the ‘Without Number’ series) have great GM tools in them which you can use irrespective of the game system you are running.

The free version includes the faction rules, the Deluxe version has bonus content but that covers other things.

 

[Black Dougal]

This book from 2e days has several organizations that are generally evil. They could be a start or upgraded to something better.

View attachment 400813

This is a great book. They did a 5e version on DM's Guild. "WATERDEEP CLOAK & DAGGER"

 

[Committed Hero]

The trick, I think, is to align the faction's goals in opposition to the PCs' goals. Either they're competing for the same thing, like possession of an item, or they're oppositional goals, like wanting different people on the throne of a kingdom.

As long as the differing factions' goals interact with the PCs' you are in business. An "evil" faction who wants the party's rival not to be king is just as interesting as a "good" faction who does.

One other consideration is how easy it is for the PCs to discover a faction's goals - especially the clandestine goals. For one thing, a group with a secret goal presumably has the sub-goal of keeping it secret. That makes investigating them mini-scenarios in themselves.