Factions. How many, and how detailed? (Non-political game)

[PhoenixPhyre]

NB: I do not run political intrigue games. Political dealings happen but are not the focus of my games. They're much more "traditional" heroic fantasy.

I'm trying to create factions, both governmental and non-governmental, for my setting and my games. The issue I'm having is not knowing what's important to include or not. And how many factions I should reasonably have.

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There are 4 major nations that just recently came into contact with each other (~5 years ago), with only the beginnings of trade between them. So I'm looking mostly at internal factions.

The Council--big, diverse, bureaucratic. Very traditionally-oriented. Organized into guilds by profession; professions are allocated by divination, not (ostensibly) by birth. Strongly devout in the whole pantheon, but there's the only organized arcane magic school in the setting there.

Stone Throne--jungle-based culture that's a theocratic oligarchy. Caste based, with strong social ordering and social roles. Devout, but much more monotheistic (although tolerant of the others).

Byssia--mostly rural, elected judges + democracy. No divine worship--all ancestor worship and animism. Strongly druidic/nature magic focus. Lowest tech level, but only sea-faring group.

Remnant Dynasty--militaristic monarchy of dragonborn, orcs, and goblins. Just finished a war of survival against monsters, still on a war footing. Religious, but not seriously so. Orcs are shamanistic. Has a tech base that's rapidly growing but still small.

Overall magic--medium/low

How do you go about planning interesting factions as quest-givers or reputation interactions? What do you include in your notes?

[kitanas]

Something you might want to look into is stars without number. It has an entire section around using factions, and the core rulebook is free.

[Goaty14]

You might consider having subfactions that might be of note, but without any land to call their own. I.e a group of bankers that are a part of The Council. Access to them requires being on the good side of the council, and they may be of note whenever the PCs might need a large sum of gold, whether through buying items or stealing the gold. PCs might need to get good with the shamanistic Orcs of the remnant dynasty if they ever need a resurrection spell. etc

As for quests... If the faction particularly needs something done (i.e urgently), then the quest giver might show up at local bars, taverns, etc in look of strong adventurers. Smaller business that might not be as urgent, but still could get done (i.e We've been wanting to use this fortress as an outpost, but it's currently inhabited by a cabal of aberrations) might be handed out to the PCs in the official faction hall by a high ranking member. Smaller side quests might be given out by wandering guards, busy maids, or roguish spies (i.e I overheard X, go disrupt it).

[Lapak]

As a general rule, I tend to lean towards ‘no fewer than 3, no more than 7’ when setting up factions.

With only two factions, the players tend to pick a side and run with it - it becomes “our faction” vs “their faction” and stays that way. When there’s three groups with competing agendas, the players tend to be both more thoughtful about where they throw their weight and more likely to be open to shifting allegiance, playing one against the other, realizing that their current allies have moral complications they weren’t aware of at first, etc.

But going much above half a dozen factions makes it hard for the party to get a clear grip on what they want without full-time politicking and it also can lead to decision paralysis.

This rule has served pretty well at levels from nation-states to schisms within a local faction, so that’s my advice.

[bc56]

For a nonpolitical game, limit factions as much as possible. The PCs have might an employer, that's 1. The employer might have a rival, that's 2. There might be a third, shadowy mysterious faction as well.

No more than 5, to a recommended minimum of 0 would be my advice.

[PhoenixPhyre]

As a general rule, I tend to lean towards ‘no fewer than 3, no more than 7’ when setting up factions.

With only two factions, the players tend to pick a side and run with it - it becomes “our faction” vs “their faction” and stays that way. When there’s three groups with competing agendas, the players tend to be both more thoughtful about where they throw their weight and more likely to be open to shifting allegiance, playing one against the other, realizing that their current allies have moral complications they weren’t aware of at first, etc.

But going much above half a dozen factions makes it hard for the party to get a clear grip on what they want without full-time politicking and it also can lead to decision paralysis.

This rule has served pretty well at levels from nation-states to schisms within a local faction, so that’s my advice.

For a nonpolitical game, limit factions as much as possible. The PCs have might an employer, that's 1. The employer might have a rival, that's 2. There might be a third, shadowy mysterious faction as well.

No more than 5, to a recommended minimum of 0 would be my advice.

As for the numerical limits, that's interacting factions, right? So if there are factions over there (that one particular party might never meet) it doesn't count against those limits, but if they're ones that they have to deal with where they are, it does?

[johnbragg]

As for the numerical limits, that's interacting factions, right? So if there are factions over there (that one particular party might never meet) it doesn't count against those limits, but if they're ones that they have to deal with where they are, it does?

If you want to have extra factions in the background, that's probably okay. But it's more for you to keep track of, so I'd limit that to 3 visible factions, 2 more remote factions that interact with your 3 core factions. Maybe they get introduced after your players (and you) have a handle on what's going on with the three core factions.

Something I'd like to run someday is a kingdom-in-crisis based on the starting position of the Hundred Years' War--a succession dispute, with one of the candidates being from the rival country "next door."

Assume a kingdom, and assume that the kingdom is both a magically and a legally existing thing. Part of the reason everybody accepts the authority of the monarch is that the monarchy and the kingdom and various magical public works are bound up together.

The king is killed by his uncle, which puts the uncle's son on the throne. The magical effects of having a Kingdom are starting to fade and crack because the new King is highly suspect, and putting his own father to death for putting him on the throne doesn't really fix the problem. Plausible candidates for the throne are the dead king's bastard son, a great and respected Paladin (except Lawful--bastards can't inherit, no real proof that the new King was complicit) and the old king's grandson--the Prince of the rival kingdom next door (son of the daughter of the dead king). So you've got three factions ready to go, the crown as the stakes, and a kingdom falling apart.

You could throw in another major political player or two--a non-human kingdom on the other flank (elves, dwarves, orcs, whatever--as long as they are politically organized enough to have state interests to pursue in the turmoil of The Kingdom), maybe a trading-port city with a weak attachment to the kingdom, which has a leadership elite that considers breaking away if things get bad. Maybe the gnomes or halflings or minotaurs on the fringe of the kingdom start getting ideas as The Kingdom weakens.

The non-human kingdom and the Free City factions may not come into play at all for the PCs, or they may depending on how everything else goes.

[Cespenar]

Also, you could make a very simple reputation system to check your players' relations with every faction. Something like:

The faction,

+3: Ally: Actually has your back.
+2: Colleague: Likes working with you in long term, can do small favors.
+1: Professional: Trusts you enough to give small jobs, no favors.
0: Neutral.
-1: Rival: Makes things a bit harder for you, if possible.
-2: Opposition: Bans you service or tries to undermine you.
-3: Enemy: Actually plans for your demise.