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General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Creating Factions: Large or Small?
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<blockquote data-quote="Baldurs_Underdark" data-source="post: 7534020" data-attributes="member: 6880355"><p>Everything is a part of a bigger picture. Always. Perhaps a local noble house seems to act independent, but if the king demands it they will be loyal. A local gang rules the streets of a town, but they may still pay tribute to a larger syndicate, or export stolen goods to a different town. </p><p></p><p>However, as long as the players don't interact with that faction, its relations to the rest of the world are irrelevant. </p><p></p><p>I typically don't think at the scale of the world at the start. Far too tiring, and my players usually take a direction that I didn't expect anyway.</p><p></p><p>I give them a plot hook. Then I imagine a few groups that might also be interested in this plot hook. For example, news breaks that a ship has sunk off the coast, loaded with trinkets. Multiple local factions then race to loot it - and the players are (hopefully) one such group. As the players interact with the world, they take decisions and perhaps one of these factions becomes more important in the game. </p><p></p><p>I start placing this particular faction into a bigger picture only <em>after </em>I find out which factions has become more important... otherwise I have to place them all into a bigger picture and my players never find out 90% of the work I did. </p><p></p><p>tl;dr, I let my players interact with the world first, and fill in the big picture only when I know which direction the players are going.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Baldurs_Underdark, post: 7534020, member: 6880355"] Everything is a part of a bigger picture. Always. Perhaps a local noble house seems to act independent, but if the king demands it they will be loyal. A local gang rules the streets of a town, but they may still pay tribute to a larger syndicate, or export stolen goods to a different town. However, as long as the players don't interact with that faction, its relations to the rest of the world are irrelevant. I typically don't think at the scale of the world at the start. Far too tiring, and my players usually take a direction that I didn't expect anyway. I give them a plot hook. Then I imagine a few groups that might also be interested in this plot hook. For example, news breaks that a ship has sunk off the coast, loaded with trinkets. Multiple local factions then race to loot it - and the players are (hopefully) one such group. As the players interact with the world, they take decisions and perhaps one of these factions becomes more important in the game. I start placing this particular faction into a bigger picture only [I]after [/I]I find out which factions has become more important... otherwise I have to place them all into a bigger picture and my players never find out 90% of the work I did. tl;dr, I let my players interact with the world first, and fill in the big picture only when I know which direction the players are going. [/QUOTE]
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Creating Factions: Large or Small?
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