When I write factions I kinda developed a 1/1/1 rule. 1 Word for the name, 1 sentence for what they want, and 1 paragraph per game for how they're going to go about getting it. I've found that's all I've ever really needed, and whenever I tried to flesh them out more than that it ended up being time spent that could have been coming up with more factions doing stuff for the players to stumble across. I've actually run two adventures now that are just lists of factions with a "what are they up to this week" on a calendar, and they went great
When doing names, at least for houses, 1 word works for settings like name stuff like House Atreides or House Harkonnen however if you want a name that's morre symbolic usually adjective noun structure like Jade Falcon or Smoke Jaguar. Adjective noun is my preferred way to do it cause it's a good way to get a creative theme going.
I don't think you touched on this much, but I think it's important to have an idea of what a faction's resources and limits are, in a vague sense. This establishes how they will act to achieve their goal and why they haven't achieved it already. Notably in Dune, it's a big issue that the Atreides are better fighters than the Harkonnens, so they need the Emperor's help - otherwise the Harkonnens would have wiped out the Atreides on their own. An example of how I'd start on a faction would be: -- Concept: King's spies. Faction Name: "The Crowned Eye" Outsider Perception: "Open secret - official but publicly-denied intelligence arm of the Kingdom. Their charter: Proactively defend the Kingdom by gathering information enabling the King to pre-empt threats, or spy at the Crown's behest." Internal/Private Motivations and Goals: Loyalty to the Crown (not specifically the king who is on the throne at this moment). Infiltrate and control as many groups in the Kingdom as possible to ensure no challenge to the Crown's political power. Maintain status quo. Resources: Many informants: "An eye in every court, an ear in every tavern, and fingers in all the guilds" (figuratively). Access to the Kingdom's treasury and the arms of the government. Advises the King himself directly. Limits or restrictions: Has no militant arm of their own. Mostly active in towns in the Kingdom and those of surrounding states. Unable to infiltrate Thieves' Guilds, Mage's Guilds and Monster Factions - mostly mundane, fairly competent informants & agents. Uninterested in matters that won't affect the Crown's power. --
The idea of putting factions on a spectrum of specificity vs nuance is really cool. I hadn't thought of it that way before, but it does echo how I think about factions: my starting point was very much on the low nuance end of the spectrum, as I used Bethesda-style factions which mostly serve as plot hooks to optional side quests and a way to express your character's aesthetic. So I had factions of druids, of bards, of fighters, etc. A bit like how the Forgotten Realms presents the Emerald Enclave, Harpers, Lord's Allince, etc. But since Bethesda makes single player games, I would run into issues where, for example, one player would want to join the faction, but nobody else in the party had any interest because the factions were too specific. So I had to dial down the specificity and dial up the nuance a bit, and instead make factions like "this faction stands for freedom" or "this other faction stands for profit and power". That's when factions started to really click at my table, because now joining a faction or becoming enemies with a faction was a group decision rather than an individual one.
We definitely should have talked about Fallout New Vegas in more detail in this video. The way they make small factions lead to bigger factions is genius, and to have three (technically four) factions that all have their pros and cons is such good writing! - Frank
I once planned a one-shot adventure where the players were a group of mercenaries hired to retrieve an item. All they knew was that the item was going to arrive at a small fortress, be put onto a boat, and sailed away. The other factions were other parties of mercenaries also trying to break into the fortress to steal the item (which granted wishes, spoiler) How the party approached the challenge would determine which faction they would most likely run into. For example; one faction tried to ambush the carriage before it arrived at the fortress. Or a different faction tried to just brute force their way through the fortress walls. A different faction tried to sneak in all stealthy-like. And then another faction had taken over the boat. I'd be giving the players full reign on how they approach the problem, and which faction they end up meeting is depending on how they what they did.
According to factions. The Dungeon Dudes have a good video on factions too, where they talk about why having 5 factions is a good idead for storytelling balance etc. I have thought about having a Tier-system for factions, where A-tier factions are ever present: ex. Zhentarim, Harpers, Emerald Clave, Order of Gauntlet and Lord's Alliance. B-tier factions are those semi faction your players can meet end/or defeat. A band of werewolves in the woods, or a gang in a city, the eksile elves etc. C-tier factions would be the monstrous factions, like the goblin tribe, the fish people etc, where PCs wouldn't think about fighting then etc.
Cool convo. I often wonder why more games (this would work better for video games but can work in tabletop also) don't have some factions actually emerge DURING the game, rather than having the faction full formed at the start. Or at least REbuild a broken faction. That's one of my favorite things in a game, when you come across some dilapadated HQ building and you know you're about to rebuild something great fromt he ground up. No better way IMO to induce a sense of loyalty and belonging
Video idea: Alternate sytems to track Spell components. I think the "challenge" is that small nature components can seem ridiculous from a PC perspective. A small chared leaf etc. I mean a lot of expectations can be settled in a session zero. I like the idea of consumables, but halting a campaign because a spellcaster needs something, while travelling the woods, can quickly become boring for other PCs. Also a 100 different comsumable components seem unnescessary for me. I have thought about using specific gems instead. (I thought of gems from Diablo 2 - Diamonds, Amethyst, Emerald, Topaz, Sapphire, Ruby). So each gem gives a level of spell casting and can be accumulated. Example. Diamonds = lvl 1 Amethysts = lvl 2 Emeralds = lvl 3 Topazes = lvl 4 sapphires = lvl 5 rubys = lvl 6. (skulls from humanoids) = lvl 7 So to cast a lvl 1 spell, you need 1 diamond or higher. To cast a lvl 3 spell, you need 3 diamonds, or 1 diamond and 1 amethyst. (1+2 = 3) or any higher ranked spell. It also reduces it to "one" spellcaster-currency, instead of 100+ different components. Also by purchasing gems in the city, I would go with Dungeon Dudes system, where the spellcaster visit a shop, and roll 1d4 and so many gems they can buy each week. Of course in a remote village only a few diamonds would be available and so on. The closer to a big city the higher chance of supply. Other scenarios could be visiting a dwarven mine, to buy gems from the source etc. You could also make another system, or combine with that above, which is: Emeralds to make acid/poison damage Topaz to make lightening/radiant damage sapphires to make cold / wind damage rubys to make fire damage Amethysts to make necrotic damage Diamonds are generic spell component. A revivify would need at least one of each gem, + the skull + maybe som extra. so a lvl 3 fire spell needs 3 slots of gems, but at least 1 ruby. a lvl 5 cold spell needs at least 1 sapphire. a lvl 7-8-9 spell would need at least 2 of the gems. Lvl 8 fire spell needs 2 rubys. I hope this makes sense.
Dune was such a formative book for me when I was young! It's definitely a gold standard for complex, politically-minded factions. On the subject of having a captain: interestingly, in actual pirate ships in history, the "captain" was really only in charge during battle. The thought being that in the chaos of battle, you need one voice to call the shots. Outside of that, it authority was more dispersed among the quartermaster, boson, and first mate. It was pretty democratic, oddly enough! (I've played in and run many a pirate themed game) Lastly, Charles' shirt is excellent.
@@WhatisTableTop Yeah! We ran some super detailed campaigns, it was great. Each player had a different role on the ship, like helmsman, boson, quartermaster, captain, etc.
Ok I may be wrong because I’m not a hardcore fan… but wasn’t Peter pettigrew a gryfindor? And then the defence against the dark arts teacher in the second movie was hufflepuff? Correct me if I’m wrong but that was my assumptions
@@silverpenguinx3884 based on further research (aka Google 😂) Peter Pettigrew was in fact a Gryffindor and Lockhart (DATDA teacher in the 2nd movie/book) was a Ravenclaw. Frank isn’t a huge fan of the franchise. - Charles
harry potter houses aren't factions, they're classifications. a literal personality test. the death eaters and dumbledore's army are factions. just as simple but they're actually a group doing something. just saying.
I guess the agreement here is do you think sport teams are factions or not. I personally think so because they are groups fighting over the same thing, they just don’t have the capacity to join forces against other teams which is why I would say they are simple factions - Frank
Ran a stars without numbers game, and had a few news segments every faction turn. so when the players came to a new sector, or i needed an intro. or someone watched a hologram on space faring planet, i'd read them the news from the rest of the world (not all, just one segment here, one there). And they loved it. Unless they were on a totalitarian propaganda regime planet, i'd just repeat how great the faction was. Like "The Liberty Solidarity" - "Bringing Freedom through Solidarity of military force for 200 years!" They got a hook up and bought a howitzer from them... to put on the side of their ship.... fuck me....
@@WhatisTableTop Check out the Sheet for Worlds without numbers, its the faction turn adapted for Fantasy settings. got em both in a Excel spread sheet with build in asset tracker and everything! It makes world building a lot of fun as it points the faction in a direction and let you play it out!
![Felix "Unfair" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Oswujxm2Ag0/mqdefault.jpg)
What’s your favorite way to make a faction? How many is too many?
i get a cool concept and brainstorm around that idea until it starts working
When I write factions I kinda developed a 1/1/1 rule.
1 Word for the name, 1 sentence for what they want, and 1 paragraph per game for how they're going to go about getting it.
I've found that's all I've ever really needed, and whenever I tried to flesh them out more than that it ended up being time spent that could have been coming up with more factions doing stuff for the players to stumble across.
I've actually run two adventures now that are just lists of factions with a "what are they up to this week" on a calendar, and they went great
This is probably the best way to run factions. Start small and then expand as needed! - Frank
When doing names, at least for houses, 1 word works for settings like name stuff like House Atreides or House Harkonnen however if you want a name that's morre symbolic usually adjective noun structure like Jade Falcon or Smoke Jaguar. Adjective noun is my preferred way to do it cause it's a good way to get a creative theme going.
I don't think you touched on this much, but I think it's important to have an idea of what a faction's resources and limits are, in a vague sense. This establishes how they will act to achieve their goal and why they haven't achieved it already.
Notably in Dune, it's a big issue that the Atreides are better fighters than the Harkonnens, so they need the Emperor's help - otherwise the Harkonnens would have wiped out the Atreides on their own.
An example of how I'd start on a faction would be:
--
Concept: King's spies.
Faction Name: "The Crowned Eye"
Outsider Perception: "Open secret - official but publicly-denied intelligence arm of the Kingdom. Their charter: Proactively defend the Kingdom by gathering information enabling the King to pre-empt threats, or spy at the Crown's behest."
Internal/Private Motivations and Goals: Loyalty to the Crown (not specifically the king who is on the throne at this moment). Infiltrate and control as many groups in the Kingdom as possible to ensure no challenge to the Crown's political power. Maintain status quo.
Resources: Many informants: "An eye in every court, an ear in every tavern, and fingers in all the guilds" (figuratively). Access to the Kingdom's treasury and the arms of the government. Advises the King himself directly.
Limits or restrictions: Has no militant arm of their own. Mostly active in towns in the Kingdom and those of surrounding states. Unable to infiltrate Thieves' Guilds, Mage's Guilds and Monster Factions - mostly mundane, fairly competent informants & agents. Uninterested in matters that won't affect the Crown's power.
--
The idea of putting factions on a spectrum of specificity vs nuance is really cool. I hadn't thought of it that way before, but it does echo how I think about factions: my starting point was very much on the low nuance end of the spectrum, as I used Bethesda-style factions which mostly serve as plot hooks to optional side quests and a way to express your character's aesthetic.
So I had factions of druids, of bards, of fighters, etc. A bit like how the Forgotten Realms presents the Emerald Enclave, Harpers, Lord's Allince, etc. But since Bethesda makes single player games, I would run into issues where, for example, one player would want to join the faction, but nobody else in the party had any interest because the factions were too specific. So I had to dial down the specificity and dial up the nuance a bit, and instead make factions like "this faction stands for freedom" or "this other faction stands for profit and power". That's when factions started to really click at my table, because now joining a faction or becoming enemies with a faction was a group decision rather than an individual one.
We definitely should have talked about Fallout New Vegas in more detail in this video. The way they make small factions lead to bigger factions is genius, and to have three (technically four) factions that all have their pros and cons is such good writing! - Frank
I once planned a one-shot adventure where the players were a group of mercenaries hired to retrieve an item.
All they knew was that the item was going to arrive at a small fortress, be put onto a boat, and sailed away.
The other factions were other parties of mercenaries also trying to break into the fortress to steal the item (which granted wishes, spoiler)
How the party approached the challenge would determine which faction they would most likely run into. For example; one faction tried to ambush the carriage before it arrived at the fortress. Or a different faction tried to just brute force their way through the fortress walls. A different faction tried to sneak in all stealthy-like. And then another faction had taken over the boat.
I'd be giving the players full reign on how they approach the problem, and which faction they end up meeting is depending on how they what they did.
I do like the idea of which faction they interact with being determined by their actions! - Frank
According to factions. The Dungeon Dudes have a good video on factions too, where they talk about why having 5 factions is a good idead for storytelling balance etc.
I have thought about having a Tier-system for factions, where
A-tier factions are ever present: ex. Zhentarim, Harpers, Emerald Clave, Order of Gauntlet and Lord's Alliance.
B-tier factions are those semi faction your players can meet end/or defeat. A band of werewolves in the woods, or a gang in a city, the eksile elves etc.
C-tier factions would be the monstrous factions, like the goblin tribe, the fish people etc, where PCs wouldn't think about fighting then etc.
I m making a trpg and this videos help me alot, thanks
@@rutheland1730 Awesome! I can’t wait to hear more about it! - Charles
Cool convo. I often wonder why more games (this would work better for video games but can work in tabletop also) don't have some factions actually emerge DURING the game, rather than having the faction full formed at the start. Or at least REbuild a broken faction. That's one of my favorite things in a game, when you come across some dilapadated HQ building and you know you're about to rebuild something great fromt he ground up. No better way IMO to induce a sense of loyalty and belonging
Definitely an interesting idea, is your idea to have the players start this faction or have them join in?
1:01 reminds me of a card game I've played before, "Bears vs Babies", I believe.
Great video. I think maybe game of thrones would have been a good dynamic to have explored, but I loved the content!
Are you talking about just the Show/Books or is there a GoT RPG that I’m not aware of?
@WhatisTableTop the show/novels as you mentioned harry potter etc.
Fair enough, if we ever do a sequel to this topic we will definitely cover this! - Frank
@WhatisTableTop either way, great job!
Video idea: Alternate sytems to track Spell components.
I think the "challenge" is that small nature components can seem ridiculous from a PC perspective. A small chared leaf etc. I mean a lot of expectations can be settled in a session zero.
I like the idea of consumables, but halting a campaign because a spellcaster needs something, while travelling the woods, can quickly become boring for other PCs.
Also a 100 different comsumable components seem unnescessary for me.
I have thought about using specific gems instead. (I thought of gems from Diablo 2 - Diamonds, Amethyst, Emerald, Topaz, Sapphire, Ruby). So each gem gives a level of spell casting and can be accumulated.
Example.
Diamonds = lvl 1
Amethysts = lvl 2
Emeralds = lvl 3
Topazes = lvl 4
sapphires = lvl 5
rubys = lvl 6.
(skulls from humanoids) = lvl 7
So to cast a lvl 1 spell, you need 1 diamond or higher.
To cast a lvl 3 spell, you need 3 diamonds, or 1 diamond and 1 amethyst. (1+2 = 3) or any higher ranked spell.
It also reduces it to "one" spellcaster-currency, instead of 100+ different components.
Also by purchasing gems in the city, I would go with Dungeon Dudes system, where the spellcaster visit a shop, and roll 1d4 and so many gems they can buy each week.
Of course in a remote village only a few diamonds would be available and so on.
The closer to a big city the higher chance of supply.
Other scenarios could be visiting a dwarven mine, to buy gems from the source etc.
You could also make another system, or combine with that above, which is:
Emeralds to make acid/poison damage
Topaz to make lightening/radiant damage
sapphires to make cold / wind damage
rubys to make fire damage
Amethysts to make necrotic damage
Diamonds are generic spell component.
A revivify would need at least one of each gem, + the skull + maybe som extra.
so a lvl 3 fire spell needs 3 slots of gems, but at least 1 ruby.
a lvl 5 cold spell needs at least 1 sapphire.
a lvl 7-8-9 spell would need at least 2 of the gems. Lvl 8 fire spell needs 2 rubys.
I hope this makes sense.
I know this is a faction video, but then you guys and viewers could have something to think about 😀
I’ve actually toyed around with this kind of idea before. Maybe if I get a chance to flesh it out we will make a video on it! - Frank
Dune was such a formative book for me when I was young! It's definitely a gold standard for complex, politically-minded factions.
On the subject of having a captain: interestingly, in actual pirate ships in history, the "captain" was really only in charge during battle. The thought being that in the chaos of battle, you need one voice to call the shots. Outside of that, it authority was more dispersed among the quartermaster, boson, and first mate. It was pretty democratic, oddly enough! (I've played in and run many a pirate themed game)
Lastly, Charles' shirt is excellent.
Was not aware of the captains fact; always learning something new! - Frank
@@WhatisTableTop Yeah! We ran some super detailed campaigns, it was great. Each player had a different role on the ship, like helmsman, boson, quartermaster, captain, etc.
Ok I may be wrong because I’m not a hardcore fan… but wasn’t Peter pettigrew a gryfindor? And then the defence against the dark arts teacher in the second movie was hufflepuff? Correct me if I’m wrong but that was my assumptions
@@silverpenguinx3884 based on further research (aka Google 😂) Peter Pettigrew was in fact a Gryffindor and Lockhart (DATDA teacher in the 2nd movie/book) was a Ravenclaw. Frank isn’t a huge fan of the franchise.
- Charles
harry potter houses aren't factions, they're classifications. a literal personality test.
the death eaters and dumbledore's army are factions. just as simple but they're actually a group doing something.
just saying.
I guess the agreement here is do you think sport teams are factions or not. I personally think so because they are groups fighting over the same thing, they just don’t have the capacity to join forces against other teams which is why I would say they are simple factions - Frank
Ran a stars without numbers game, and had a few news segments every faction turn. so when the players came to a new sector, or i needed an intro. or someone watched a hologram on space faring planet, i'd read them the news from the rest of the world (not all, just one segment here, one there). And they loved it. Unless they were on a totalitarian propaganda regime planet, i'd just repeat how great the faction was. Like "The Liberty Solidarity" - "Bringing Freedom through Solidarity of military force for 200 years!" They got a hook up and bought a howitzer from them... to put on the side of their ship.... fuck me....
I really need to look into Stars without Numbers for the faction turn alone. Seems incredibly interesting! - Frank
@@WhatisTableTop Check out the Sheet for Worlds without numbers, its the faction turn adapted for Fantasy settings. got em both in a Excel spread sheet with build in asset tracker and everything! It makes world building a lot of fun as it points the faction in a direction and let you play it out!