D&D 5E Factions in your game

[I'm A Banana]

I feel like most settings have gods.

Gods are factions - or at least their churches are.

I'm a big fan of 13th Age's Icons as well, and those are definitely factions.

 

[Imaculata]

In my pirate campaign, there are various pirate factions, and individual captains within those factions, who may not quite get along. The players are trying to form an alliance between all of them, and some how get them to all work together. Often I'll throw in a sort of loyalty quest to get a certain captain on their side. I'm also still trying to come up with quests that would allow the players to secure resources and upgrades for each faction. The end goal, is for the players to form an armada of pirate ships, to face off against a massive fleet from the east who have come to eradicate the pirates forever.

 

[JohnLynch]

While it is quite understood that the factions added in the updated Basic Rules is meant for the Adventurers League organized play, I was thinking if any DM has any idea of giving these factions a role to play in their game other than organized play?

Harpers will be present in my game. How much of a presence they have in the spotlight will be up to the players. However they will have a consistent presence in the background. A second faction that will be present is one of the threats from the 4e FRCG.bthey won't be interacting with the main plot, but will be around as a sidequest. Like the Harpers they could remain unnoticed by the players for the whole Campaogn (although their effects will be felt). The Cormyrean government will be an obvious faction in the campaign as will another two factions which are completely homebrew.

No, I won't be using the Adventurer's League factions except by accident. The fact the Harpers are an AL faction had no effect on my decision to use them ( I've been planning this campaign for 2 and a half years, so the Harper inclusion was decided long ago).

One reason I asked this is because in the starter adventure, the PCs are given an opportunity to join these factions when they meet with certain NPCs in Phandalin, though I'm thinking of dropping these options entirely.

I kept the Lord's Alliance but dropped the rest.

The idea of every player having a faction feels somewhat gimmicky to me except when it's a central premise of a character (e.g. Cormyrean spy working for the crown). I instead prefer groups to work with factions.

 

[fixitgeek]

I converted over my Pathfinder campaign awhile back into 5E, all of the characters had decided to retire at the end of the last hurrah so we made new characters and came to this world. But everyone liked Golarion so much we kept on so this let me keep using their factions. In place of the Zhentarim I have The Whispering Way or Church of Razmir to use as evil factions and generally have the players work with the Eagle Knights, Pathfinders, or Mendev Crusaders. If the characters want to join a faction so long as I make sure they aren't using one that is so opposed to another faction or the populace in general this works well. For example the rogue (assassin) joined the Red Mantis Assassins who are generally neutral in flavor (despite being generally evil aligned) and there haven't been any conflicts in the past 6 months.

 

[sleypy]

I had to think about this, but I actually use a lot of factions. I don't give every group of people associated with each other a title. Often times they are associated with the dominant personality or most talented person in the group. The names they do have usually are how they are referenced instead of names they choose for themselves.

 

[maceochaid]

But I am curious to know how are people ACTUALLY using them. In Princes of the Apocalypse there are references to the factions, but there are no downtime rules (only for the league play game which takes place somewhere else) and there are no rules for awarding renown points throughout the game.

Personally I really want to have them gain renown but don't have a meaningful way to do it. I get that in PoA it might be a lost cause. Moving forward how might I do it? Just give a chunk of points at a quest to bump them up, maybe just enough points to get them close for a quest of their level but then require that some of it be spent in downtime? What are the kinds of rewards people are giving? Or is it just for flavor sake?

Have people come up with their own downtime activities that work for made up factions?

 

[discosoc]

Factions are huge in my setting, but they are also quite different in many ways from the AL presentation. For example, Onthar Frume started out as a harper, and friend to Leosin (this is the Horde of the Dragon Queen campaign, obviously). The players had several choices later on, that resulted in Onthar leading an expedition in the Chult region in search of an artifact that resulted in his death. They were then called in to retrieve his body (or part of it) for resurrection and, if possible, finish his mission.

They did this, but Onthar was a somewhat changed man post-resurrection, ultimately suffering a bit of PTSD both in the way he died (black dragon acid) and in being pulled back into life afterwards. A big part of this was to illustrate how resurrection, while possible, shouldn't be considered a simple solution to the problem of death (a common theme with my campaigns). Anyway, after being resurrected, Onthar was nothing like the jovial paladin they had first met and come to know, and became more of a dour extremist bent on exacting vengeance and bringing the light by force.

Thus the Order of the Gauntlet was born about halfway into our campaign.

 

[bgbarcus]

To make it a little easier using Tyranny of Dragons I made several factions that echo the FR factions in the modules. My game is placed in Mystara so my factions fit the history of Mystara.

For instance, instead of the Zhentarim I have a Black Network that is a confederation of traditional thieves guilds. I've set set the modules in Norwold so my Spears of Odin faction fills the militaristic role of the Order of the Gauntlet, except the Spears are based in the Heldannic territories and loosely allied with the rangers who want to take their land back from the Heldannic Knights. Both of those factions match interests of some of my players.

My goal is to make these factions something the players want to use to further their own stories rather than just background setting.