Creating better factions

[overgeeked]

So what about factions in the wilderness? How do you invent the complex web of alliances, competitions, and rivalries in a place so different from a city or village?

The only difference is the distance between them.

A thieves’ guild competing with the assassins’ guild isn’t really all that different from two tribes of orcs competing or a pack of worgs in a territorial dispute with a chimera.

 

[Tonguez]

Never used 'em.

What exactly are factions and what functions do they have in a ttrpg setting?

So what about factions in the wilderness? How do you invent the complex web of alliances, competitions, and rivalries in a place so different from a city or village?

Factions are collectives of NPCs with a shared goal that should reflect one or more of the Campaigns themes.First thing to do then is decide what you Campaign themes are and how you want the PCs to interact with those themes

In Lost Mines of Phandelver you get a frontier town, ripe for the taking with Factions that include the Phandalin Council, The Lords Alliance, the Order of the Gauntlet, the Redbrand Ruffians, the Zhentarim, the Harpers, the Shrine of Tymora, Merchants (Lionshields, Barthen) and Miners the Cragmaw Goblins.

They arent just places to find quest they help develop the themes and backstory of the campaign, and become a means for the PCs to engage in the setting more fully as allies, rivals, members or enemies. Factions like the Lords Alliance and the Zhentarim tie-in to the larger world making the setting more alive

As to Wilderness Factions - you also need to decide on your themes and how the PCs interact with them. The Cragmaw goblins are an example of a Wilderness Faction - Druid Circles, Hunter-Rangers, Woodcutters, a tinkers cart? are they just random encounters or do they have a story?

 

[Necropolitan]

So what about factions in the wilderness? How do you invent the complex web of alliances, competitions, and rivalries in a place so different from a city or village?

Would something like this work?

• There's at least one owner group, the organization seeking to profit off the work being done in the wilderness and the main group sponsoring people going into the wilderness.
• Two worker groups, one just wanting their fair share and the other seeking to exploit the other workers for their own advancement.
• At least one criminal/black market group trying to get their cut of the take.
• At least group already living in the wilderness, some of whom are fine with the work being done if they're being fairly compensated and the others who want the outsiders gone.
• An ambitious faction seeking to turn the area into their own fiefdom.
• A cult. Because why not?

Etc.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

So what about factions in the wilderness? How do you invent the complex web of alliances, competitions, and rivalries in a place so different from a city or village?

Well…


Ones I’ve seen in fiction:
Druids
The Council of Trees
Fey
Anthro/Awakened animals
Etc.

vs incursions from

Loggers/industrialists/miners
Bandits/armies
City planners

 

[Bohandas]

And remember that real-world factions are boring. They want simple things like money and power.

Not a single one of them wants to turn the population of the world into dinosaurs....

Not literal dinosaurs at any rate. Maybe metaphorical dinosaurs though, in the sense of someone or something that is very old-fashioned and not appropriate or pertinent to the modern world. There are a lot of factions like that.

 

[Bedrockgames]

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.)

Watch a lot of wuxia

 

[Bohandas]

So what about factions in the wilderness? How do you invent the complex web of alliances, competitions, and rivalries in a place so different from a city or village?

Ok I actually already have an idea for this one in my idea notebook. Factions within the governing spirits of the forest - Chaotic fey with a incautious and whimsical approach to nature (to the point of introducing new species to see what will happen) vs some kind of forest-tending inevitables (something similar to the anhydrut from Sandstorm but for forests instead of deserts) with a very narrow understanding of the natural order and unwilling to allow any changes to the forest, not even natural ones completely unrelated to spiritual mischief or encroachment of civilization or anything like that. Perhaps to the point of maintaining a fixed number of every single kind of animal and plant in the forest and not letting it vary upwards or downwards, killing any extras and replacing any deficit using 3d bioprintes located in their chassis (or maybe just putting extras in stasis and reviving them when there's a deficit)

 

[TheHumanHydra]

The Japanese army and society in the ~1930s provides an amazing example of interesting real-life factions. Democracy vs. conservative/militarist, army vs. navy (budget priorities and direction of expansion), then within the army, the Kosei ("control") faction of military-industrial planners vs. the Kodo (Imperial Way) faction of jingoistic "spirit first" folks, then there were various army extremists who assassinated their superiors (in 1936 the "Young Officers," militaristic, emperor-obsessed, and outraged at the plight of farmers, took over downtown Tokyo) and field armies that thumbed their noses at Tokyo to launch offensives of their own (e.g. the Kwantung Army conquering Manchuria in 1931). Then you have a maverick like Ishiwara Kanji, critical to the Kwantung Army's Manchurian conspiracy, sympathetic to major elements of both the Koseiha and the Young Officers' ideologies, who respected other Asian peoples far more than his peers, and who by-the-way partook of an unusual apocalyptic Buddhist ideology that centred all his life on preparing for a Final War with the United States (and who became a pacifist after World War II).

 

[Piperken]

What is your advice for creating factions?

Most everyone's examples I think provide good ways to do so. I feel like a key is to be aware there are several avenues through which you can get to creating a faction, and to be open to them if one or another route doesn't pan out for you.

The tension between grounded and fantastical.

Goodwoman Margery wants to let her goats forage further into the woods near her land, as the herd is growing. Farmer Bill overhears about her intentions at the village pub and seethes in quiet because his still is hidden in the woods, and he'd prefer it to remain undisturbed, unknown by others.

Above is not fantastical, and only grounded in the sense that it highlights the smallest possible disagreement in your typical village. Yet in two sentences we already have two viable factions, and more possibly, to build off it.

Classic literature already has answered the question whether artful narratives can be set among common folk with "small" concerns in tiny places, and be as engrossing as stories set in elite, grand places.

Creating the big personalities that give a face to the factions.

If you happen to come upon a particular character that stands out, you can use them to facilitate building a faction i.e. If they were to join an organization, what kind of organization might that be? Why would they do so?

You can get toward a potential new faction this way.

Not getting silly and creating a faction for ever single thing.

See above re: small villages, with a couple strong characters. Lots of sides already to work with!

 

[Fifinjir]

I think about it as three questions:
1) What needs doing in this setting? People organize to solve (perceived) problems.
2) What are the channels through which they can organize? They can’t tackle the problem if they don’t have a way to pool their resources.
3) How badly can they screw it up? There won’t be much of a story if everything’s running like a well oiled machine.