Writeup of guilds and organizations--what do you look for?

[Napftor]

When you come upon some kind of guild or power group in a RP supplement, what do you immediately hope to find? NPC writeups? Leadership layout and motivations of group? History of the group? How it interacts with/inside a given setting? New spells/items/prestige classes?

I've read the reviews for Mystic Eye's Guilds and Adventurers and one guild--the Lottery--is almost always singled out as particularly good. Now, even though I was the author for that guild, it astounds me why it is singled out most often. Is it the useful chart? The background or story ideas it inspires?

So, why do I want to know all of this, you're asking? Good question! I'm about to write up a few organizations for my next book and wanted some feedback on what folks like in their power groups. So please fire away!

 

[Olive]

I'd like motivations, plans, histories much more than NPC write ups, although those are nice too. Other crunchy bits are nice, as long as they add to the flavour.

I have to say that the organisation write ups in Dragon of late I didn't like, but those in the FR book Lords of darkness weren't bad.

 

[Hand of Evil]

I do org chart (important NPCs), some history and motovation. Also list friends and foes.

 

[Napftor]

Bumping for the fresh weekday crowds.

 

[Chroma]

Actually, I've liked they way they been doing organization statblocks in Dragon lately; I enjoyed the whole article on creating guilds/cults and am actually quite surprised it didn't make it into the 3.5 DMG (could've dropped a lot of those "paper cut-outs" pages) along with the more detailed city creation guidelines from the DMG web enhancement.

Certainly that statblock is the be-all-end-all for details, but it provides a succincint summary that can be built upon.

 

[Gregor]

For fairly elaborate guilds / organizations I like to see the following things: History, Motivations (broken down between the organization as a whole and different individual motivations for certain members), any Political organization or participation within the given setting, Hieratic Layout etc.

Lords of Darkness does an excellent job with the above-mentioned criteria - especially the section on the Night Masks.

Cheers,