The role of organizations in RPGs

Organizations have the same role in an RPG as they do in real life. To some people, they're important, and to others they are not.

A good example of a useful organization in an RPG is the Pathfinder Society, which directly facilitates the adventuring paradigm. If the PCs are a member of the Pathfinder Society, then that gives them a direct reason to go on adventures.

Saelorn said:

Organizations have the same role in an RPG as they do in real life. To some people, they're important, and to others they are not.

A good example of a useful organization in an RPG is the Pathfinder Society, which directly facilitates the adventuring paradigm. If the PCs are a member of the Pathfinder Society, then that gives them a direct reason to go on adventures.

Click to expand...

Adventuring societies are cool for a lot of reasons, not least of which bc they were a real thing in history!

I also really like letting PCs start organizations, gain rewards related to them, and give them complications and opportunities related to them that send hem on adventures.

LordEntrails said:

As you noticed, I think it fantasy systems, organisations are less well used. In future/sci-fi, they are a more impactful/useful/needed tool.

I think this comes from the inspiration for the system sources. In future sci-fi games, orgs are intricately woven into the systems and the play, because in the movies, books and shows that inspire and set expectations organisations are fundamental.

Star Trek, Star Wars... organisations (Starfleet, Jedi Temple...) are intricate to the way the world (reality) works. So players and GM's weave orgs into their settings and their play.

In fantasy, this is not the case. The movies, books, etc are predominantly about the lone wolf/pack struggle against the BBEG. For example, the King Arthur story works just fine without the Round Table. The org is incidental, not fundamental to the settings.

Therefore, our games (usually) reflect this.

Click to expand...

That is a really good point. I never thought of it that way. Thank you. I think that clarifies my issue.

Imaculata said:

My players are currently in the process of forming their own organization. Their goal is to build their very own pirate base on an island. But in order to do that, they need labor. Building a base takes time, and of course the players don't want to stop and build stuff. So they hire a work force, and they hire guards to protect that work force. The island they want to build on isn't exactly safe, there are cannibals to worry about. So they need to have enough armed guards to guarantee the safety of the workers on the island.

They are also trying to organize the various pirate factions into one unified fleet. This requires a lot of work, time and diplomacy. This is related to the main premise of the campaign: A foreign fleet is approaching to wipe out all the pirates, so they need as many ships as they can gather, to confront this threat. Basically, their organization is now the driving force behind the many adventures that my players go on.

They have just defeated a rival pirate captain in a glorious sea battle, captured him, and plan to deliver him to an ally of theirs, to gain her military support. And if they succeed, this means more ships that join their fleet, and a powerful ally for their organization.

So yes, I'd say organizations have a purpose. They can drive a campaign.

Click to expand...

A very valid point. Just curious, what game system are you playing with?

Blades in the Dark has a very elaborate faction game. Your group of scoundrels are part of a crew - a criminal enterprise looking to establish a foothold in the spirit ridden industrial city of Duskvol. The crew is represented by a shared playbook with its own special abilities, lair features, gangs, turf, and contacts. Your organization advances just like any character. The scores you undertake also have an impact on how your crew is positioned in the setting, represented with a faction sheet that lists your crew's relationship to the various factions that make up Duskvol. A core component of the game is raising your crew's tier - a measure of how powerful your faction is in the setting. To raise your tier you need to gather rep and coin, earned in scores.

pogre said:

Covens, thieves guilds, merchant guilds, secret evil-god worshiping cults - I use these as a GM, but my players don't join them.

Click to expand...

Do your players know they can join them? Maybe they assume they're only for the GM. If you want them to join organizations it might help if the organizations have similar goals to the PCs.

thanson02 said:

A very valid point. Just curious, what game system are you playing with?

Click to expand...

DnD 3.5. But we're using a lot of homebrew rules.

Imaculata said:

DnD 3.5. But we're using a lot of homebrew rules.

Click to expand...

I always thought that 'Prestige Classes' where the single worst idea in 3.X. But, I understood where Monte was coming from when he created them, and I think that his goal was noble however flawed the implementation was.

The core idea of the Prestige Class was that they were supposed to encourage a very large and active role for organizations (particularly secret societies) in the campaign. You can see how they were used that way in his original Ptolus campaign. The reason that they were in the DMG is that they were supposed to be secrets that could be collected much less treasure, after finding and winning membership in secret societies. The DM was supposed to be the balancing factor here, as well as the RP obligations imposed on the PC by the society he joined. Viewed this way, the player focused view of PrC's as a toolkit to mix and match (usually by frontloading) to achieve the desired synergy and phenomenal game breaking power goes away. Instead, the idea is the DM rewards the player for engaging in his campaign world, and dangles these rewards as encouragement for other players to do so.

That core idea of organizations bring some tangible reward to the player that he can put his finger on and once granted not be something he can lose based on DM whim alone is really cool. Unfortunately, as PrC's proliferated they got further and further from that core idea and began to address more and more different issues with the rules - always badly IMO.

But occasionally I think about how things might have been had that strict 'secret society' structure been adhered to, or what different way you might go about achieving a similar effect that Monte seemed to originally intend.

Celebrim said:

I always thought that 'Prestige Classes' where the single worst idea in 3.X. But, I understood where Monte was coming from when he created them, and I think that his goal was noble however flawed the implementation was.

Click to expand...

Yeah, not a big fan here either.

The core idea of the Prestige Class was that they were supposed to encourage a very large and active role for organizations (particularly secret societies) in the campaign.

Click to expand...

And this would have almost certainly made me like them even less; as to become a prestige class would now, in addition to whatever other requirements there might already be, force me to adhere to the code/ethics/standards/alignment/whatever of the particular society behind the class.

Some of the prestige classes as written already had alignment requirements on them, which meant at the time those were the ones I ignored first. A few had racial requirements e.g. only open to Dwarves; I could get behind that a bit more, particularly if the prestige class was somehow specific to that race, but it's not at all necessary.

Lanefan

Lanefan said:

And this would have almost certainly made me like them even less; as to become a prestige class would now, in addition to whatever other requirements there might already be, force me to adhere to the code/ethics/standards/alignment/whatever of the particular society behind the class.

Click to expand...

One way they could have gone is to include the organization requirement instead of those other requirements. What if the only requirement to join the Assassins Guild was to pass their test, instead of needing X ranks in Y skills and Z feats?

The pre-requisites were really what doomed most prestige classes, since it meant you had to plan everything in advance instead of following opportunities as they came to you. The multiclassing rules for that edition didn't help, either, since adding five assassin levels to a wizard would mean you missed out on five spellcasting levels and your next wizard levels required much more experience to gain.