A way to "hide" the artificiality of the 5 factions that I like is introducing asymetry. 1 big dominating faction but who have a hard time collaborating with any other faction. 2 regular factions with a focus on external trouble. 1 faction having an internal conflict that have 3 sides all trying to get things to go their way, more focused on resolving this internal conflict. 1 faction that is 2+ minor factions merged by affinity but with slightly misaligned goals that hinder them without internal conflict.
Same. I added conflicting factions to my homebrew world/campaign after watching how well it worked in DoD. Definitely going to be a staple of every game I run going forward.
Conflicting factions in campaigns has always been interesting since Matt Colville. Good to know the Dungeon Dudes made this trope much more prevalent with their new campaign.
What if there was a faction of necromancer, but they didn't dig up graves? What if they took in the sick or elderly, cared for them until they passed, then were given permission to use the bodies for research, which sometimes would be reanimation?
Alternatively, burying the dead attracts ghouls and cremating them, I don't know, causes climate change. Actually your comment gave me a cool idea. What if dead people sometimes rise as ghosts if not turned into undead? The necromancers might be doing the right thing by raising them as zombies while the paladins believe in simply smiting the ghosts.
It had never occurred to me to treat a faction at large as a single NPC in terms of "personality," ideals, bonds, and flaws. Great advice that really cuts through the noise and right to the heart of the organization.
At 18:50 talking about MtG having 5 colors/factions, I actually really appreciate how that is laid out. The 5 points of the star’s colors each represent a team-the color on either side of a particular point is kind of who they ally with, and the two colors across the star points are who they oppose. Example: white gets along with green and blue, but they have conflict with red and black. Then you see green gets along with white and red, but is in conflict with black and blue. If you apply that to your factions in a D&D game it adds so many nice textural and emotional layers for your players and can cause a lot of dilemmas particularly in decisions that actually matter.
The Ravnica setting book and very likely the upcoming Strixhaven adventure book are great examples of applying color conflict and alliances to factions. The ten guilds of Ravnica were originally designed with the idea of "What do these two colors have in common?" So both enemy and allied color combos come together to form a cohesive guild. Then you have the Strixhaven colleges which were designed with "What do these two colors fundamentally disagree on?" as their main focus. So while the white red enemy combo on Ravnica takes the form of a military force dedicated to defending the people of Ravnica, the Strixhaven equivalent college is full of tomb delving adventurer scholars who identify Indiana Jones as their spirit animal.
I have used the MTG colour philosophy as inspiration for NPC's and factions a lot. Makes it so easy to make a actor with a world view and knowing how they view different things
Read the first 3 books of the Dune series. You'll get lots of ideas. Also , the TTRPG Paranoia deals pretty extensively with factions. Each PC belongs to a secret society and has a goal to accomplish during gameplay and many characters will be working against one another without realizing it. Playing a few games of Paranoia can give you a good idea of how your players can engage with factions directly.
Really cool that you mentioned Ravnica! Specially because in the latest set the guilds end up having a temporary alliance to fight Nicol Bolas, just as the example you gave about WWII
The "small jobs" at 24:20 might lead to the real world "You're in too deep, you can't back out now" recruitment technique. "It would be a shame if word got out that it was youse that 'acquired' the Book of the Leviathan for us and then later sprung Lady Montecastella. Pity about them jailers." Maybe railroad-y, but if it came from multiple sources it could really heighten the tension at the moment of ultimate decision.
Best of luck! I have been running it for a group and I think it does a good job of introducing factions early and allowing you to see who your party prefers to help in the first chapter or two. Be prepared to adlib some of the faction quests to make them interesting and better tied to your story.
I heavily altered WDH. The book offers you some great tools, but lacks in several departments IMO: - plotholes - some very basic side quests - relatively low stakes - only uses one of the four villains - factions work with renown
Completely blindsided by the relevance of this. Straight up if I were to write you a letter and ask for a video this would have been it. You've already earned my backing pledge and DoD isn't even out yet!
Love how the dungeon dudes are always organized af. No time wasted, every second is great content. You guys rule! Dungeon dudes kickstarter has launched? Yes plz... auto-back that mofo... no thought required.
Your examples and cautions remind me so much of Eberron. That setting is loaded with good factions, most of which are very gray, or can be if you take some time to think about each one.
I'm 2-3 episodes from finishing the first run of Dungeons of Drakkenheim (as a podcast). Having those five factions in there seemed a lot to me at first but after watching this episode, it really makes a lot of sense why there were that many to begin with and balance forces out.
My thieves’ guild in my homebrew world was called the Venomcloaks. There was a chapter in each of the 4 main nations of the campaign, each headed by a dragon that could polymorph at will to a humanoid form. Their goal was to use their intelligence and leadership while masking their identity as dragons to situate themselves among the best burglars and larcenists in order to use the sense of greed found in thieves to amass a large hoard of their own. But, given that they were dragons, their cruelty towards their underlings was powerful, and made it so that they ruled by fear more than true leadership. Our monk player was drawn in by the guild, not knowing its origin and instead just drawn to the gold. He had a huge character development moment when he saw the cruelty of the leader, and one of the victims joined the party after defecting from the guild. This caused the monk to defect too, and the party wound up killing the dragon leader of that chapter of the faction.
A faction of paladins. A faction of necromancers. "These factions may not get along..." I just loved this, made me chuckle! Thanks for all the hard work, you content is pure gold! I rewatch videos all the time, because you touch on so many interesting and useful topics!
Ravnica factions are so well done. One of my favorite fantasy settings. I think subfactions are important. They don't have to play a big role, but can really bring a faction to life. It's realistic that people who are on the same team still have disagreements, and those disagreements can be great hooks for the party to manipulate.
I wanted to run an intrigue campaign. My players said they were into it. But before I started building it, I had the idea to do a test run. I walked them thru a small session. On the way to a delve to retrieve some quest item for their patron, a different NPC met them to ask them to betray their patron instead for intriguing and compelling reasons. Once the players grokked that the entire campaign would be like that X5, they all changed their minds. Saved me from a lot of wasted effort. I was sad, tho. Love learning how my players solve complex problems. Thanks, Dungeon Dudes, for the excellent content.
Please do the rest of the story/ the fleshing out part. I know there are things to learn even for a 45ish year veteran of countless campaigns. You guys are a great source for my homebrew world, thanks for all you do!
Y'all rule. This literally convinced me to run faction intrigue. Funny thing is my homebrewed campaign world already had disparate factions, I just never really made use of them as major players besides "the best one (s)" and "the worst one(s)". This seems a lot more spicy.
Hi Dungeon Dudes, Just wanted to say that I have a campaign with this ad my basic outline: The Ancient Enemy has already been defeated. However, that defeat came at the price. The stability of society fell apart. The ruling Monarch vanishing leaving the throne vacant. A powerful secret society has fallen apart into warring factions over a cache of powerful artifacts left unguarded. (Formerly removed from circulation by that society), and partly to fill the power vacuum left by the collapse of the Monarchy. Is there potential there? More videos about faction campaigns would be SO cool!! Please make more.
I have been trying to build a city campaign with many Factions, Guilds, Alliance, Chapters, Clubs, Councils, Families, House's, Caucus, Cabal, Society, Sects, Confederacy, Conclave, Emissary, Amassadors, Envoys, etc....... This is the first helpful advice I have found .... EVER. There is a deep hole in D&D of this very topic that has just been ignored for far to long.
I love the idea of you guys putting out a bunch of videos that will subsequently teach DMs how to run the Drakkenheim module when we get it next year 😍😍
I am currently DMing "B4 The Lost City" 5th edition and find this video most relevant for this module! Especially with the political intrigue between the Brotherhood of Gorn, the Magi of Usamigarus and the Maidens of Madarua.
Just about to start a campaign in Ravnica, and this video was a huge help. Most of the faction creation heavy lifting is done by the sourcebook, but your guidelines for roleplaying, structuring the conflict and working in the loyalty challenges are all great. As usual, your videos are awesome. Keep up the great work.
I just want to Express my thanks as these videos do come in clutch and especially now since I am starting my next campaign's session 1 for my players tommorrow! You guys are thorough, detailed and a good listen while I'm working.
About 2 years ago, I watched this video and we've had an amazing fraction campaign using the Streets of New Capenna setting. Thank you for the inspiration! I'm rewatching this and just realise how much I've used!
Okay, so been following the videos and reading comments for a long time, and invariably one or more comments are made about hair or t-shirts. What is up with that? Is there some weird DND runway/fashion subculture lurking around the Dudes?!
@@gsentinel7948 Think it's just a matter of staring at a video for 40something minutes and how rarely these guys use images or slides. So when you're just looking at two people for a long time, style often gets noticed eventually
Green - The Rangers of the Hooded Lantern Red - The Queen's Men White - The Paladins of the Silver Order Black - The Followers of the Fallen Fire Blue - The Amethyst Academy Can't believe I didn't see it in the whole campaign, but it checks out pretty well on the MTG color philosophy. Well done Dudes
Please, make the second video! I'm planning on doing something on those lines with League of Legends and the Ionians factions (there are a lot of them, but they could me merged into 4 major alligniments)
Don't be afraid to have a third party outside of your Factions throw some wrentches into the mix too. Give the third party something the players may want, but the cost is something one or more of the Factions want.
The distinction between "unite the factions against common threat" and "factions vie against each other for a common goal" is crucial, and I hadn't thought of that. The lieutenant-mouth-piece and the leader-cardinal also sounds interesting. The number of factions... So much good stuff.
Really needed this, about to start a campaign with 6 clans and one king to overthrow. I honestly think it adds so much having reactive factions, not the least of which it builds in consequences (good and bad) for the player choices.
You mentioned factions as being often played as "gaining points" towards set rewards. In that regard, I find it similar to the idea of a reputation grind in many popular MMORPGs. I like your interpretation much better. Keep up the great work Dudes.
I'm about to start running a game and I wanted factions and patrons to be a big part of it, and I stumbled across this video - I wanted to say thank you so much, this was super helpful! It gave me some codified ways of setting factions up and gave me a good number (5!). I kept worrying about needing SO MANY FACTIONS and this helped me settle down a bit.
currently running a faction arc of a larger campaign and i sort of plunged myself into it, but i am so glad i found this video. i like the idea of making each faction its own "person"
Timely for me. Last night I pinned my players between Harpers and Zhents... and they decided they want to play both sides as if it won't all come down on their heads.
@@andressagredos4325 If they still try playing both sides, when they inevitably mess up, make sure in all comes tumbling down on them in glorious fashion.
Inspiring video. I suggest looking at the shadowrun RPG, since the idea of faction intrigue is very much baked into this setting - corps vs corps vs nature vs gangs etc
I've been planning a Legend of the Five Rings game with a friend, set in a fantasy version of meiji era Japan, and this has been helpful as far as getting me in the right mindset for running political intrigue.
The really big trick is when there are multiple factions and each character in the group wants to join a different faction. -aka the factions in the horde of the dragon queen/rise of Tiamat. Or waterdeep dragon heist-
In my alt-history Colonial America Spellpunk campaign, I have three factions based on the three warlock patrons out of the PHB - the Fae, the Fiends, and the Far Gods. The factions aren't their for the players to join, but to create a power struggle (and adventure hooks). There is no "good guy" out of these (the Fae are ticked that humans chased elves out of Europe centuries ago, and after the elven kingdoms on the east coast of the new world collapsed, the humans started colonizing the new world).
This gives me an idea of making a campaign based on the Manga Pumpkin Scissors. The BIG War just ended, mercenaries (or members of the army, depending on what session 0 brings) are hired to discreetly(heh) check on villages ravaged by the war. Deserters, Bandits, Cultists, Profiteers, the villages themselves declaring independence, those kind of things.
This couldn’t have come at a better time, thank you Dudes so much! I’m two sessions into my campaign and the players will be getting into faction intrigue in a couple of months, and this was so helpful!
I wasn't planning on backing the kickstarter, since I don't really go in for campaign settings, but if it includes information on handling factions, that seems worth it to me, so I'm in.
Something that I was thinking about while you two were going on about this is . . . what if your adventuring group has different ideas about who to join. I've played in games where there are characters had widely different alignments and beliefs. If you have a neutral necro wizard player and a paladin player, their loyalties will each be easy, but makes it hard for the rest of the group who don't have clear beliefs. NPC factions could rip your group apart.
I love the comment about the difference of personalities between a faction's lieutenant and the leader, particularly when it comes to the leader being the distilled essence of the faction's ideals. My campaign has a thieves' guild called "The Brook", whose leader is a centuries-old elven assassin. The man is ruthless, determined, and calculated. When my players first encountered the organization, though, it was through a couple of smart-talking second-story men who cracked wise and helped the party out. It really helps to draw your players into a faction with good roleplay and likeable characters to invest them before you reveal that the organization's Wizard is a kidnapped family man held against his will.
Have to say I really love this video- clear, simple, but powerful ideas. I have recently realized I tend towards "faction based" storytelling when I GM; I often find myself taking a published module, and dividing all the denizens of each location into factions in my head and highlighting faction-based conflicts without meaning to, applying a significant, almost accidental twist to the story. This video is super helpful in clarifying faction-based adventure design, and will be the bedrock of the next campaign I homebrew.
I always found the Factions in the Planescape AD&D campaign setting a fascinating concept, but I could never keep track of the 15 different cliques’ names, philosophies and roles in the campaign… I have to agree with Monty that 5 is a great number of factions to have in a campaign. Otherwise players will just forget who’s who and what they stand for, or confuse one with another, and so on.
Thank you so much for this video. Faction conflicts have been really hard for me to do but your points offer a great way to structure them. This has been one of your best and most useful videos ever. Well done! 👍
I would love a followup video to this one! Factions seem like a whole new layer I need to delve into that I am now thinking about retrofitting into campaign that I am only a few sessions into.
I was recently inspired in faction design by anime "One Piece". In theory, there are 3 big factions- the navy, the warlords and the emperors- but these broader groups split into smaller groups- navy is unified but there is a division of pragmatism and following orders vs heroism and doing what's right, with many navy members sometimes even fighting one another because of it, each of the seven warlords has their own goals which conflict with one another and sometimes a warlord is replaced by a new one, and emperors while in theory being a single faction, in practice are five different factions- although no more than four exist at once at any point of One Piece's story.
Another great Video. So awesome to see how to create and run factions. Thinking of all the memorable NPCs from Drakkenheim and seeing the creative process behind it all is so amazing.
This video was unbelievably helpful for the homebrew campaign I'm running! I wasn't sure how to classify it until now but it's 100% a faction intrigue! The premise (without giving away any secrets in case one of my players stumbled across this video): The last Goliath Conquerer of the city of Aberdell, a joint triumph of the Elf and Dwarf kingdoms, has just died under mysterious circumstances. Now the Elves and Dwarves are on the verge of war over who is at fault for allowing their beloved city to be conquered in the first place. That's 3 factions right there, and then I have plans for a neutral faction and at least one twist baked in.
Excellent video as always but this time there's one thing I have to disagree with. I think you view the number of 3 factions quite negatively while 3 will be the ideal number of factions in many campaigns. The thing is - if I was about to create and publish my own DnD campaign, of course I would focus on at least 5 factions. Why? Well I have no idea what kind of people will be playing my campaign so of course I want to create a wide range of intriguing options for all sorts of players. But what you are forgetting (in my opinion), is that most people watching this video will just be creating factions for their friends where they know what makes their players tick. This is why I believe that for most people 3 factions will be the right number where they can focus on each of them in a lot of detail while making sure it will be very hard for their players to choose one of them. But maybe that's just my point of view.
I merged LMoP and DoIP and adapted the quests in DoIP to originate from a faction in LMoP. This enabled the party to do about 3 quests for each faction. Thus, they gained another level in that faction. Additionally, the party became a faction. Like the show, "Blacklist", the party attempted to integrate the targets of the quests into their own faction. -They subdued Venomfang and allowed him to survive as long as the Lawful dragon owed them a favor. -Iarno was secretly allowed to live if he created common Magic Items for them. -Agatha was given a common MI that gave her a cat Familiar. The undead Horse from the tomb in DoIP was also given to her. She in turn made her divination ability available. -Sister Garaele knew the Banshees and putting the other two to rest earned her thanks. -The Redbrand thugs were subdued and split among Thalia and Sildar, gaining their trust. -Kost was given a common MI and they gave him some spells for info from his faction. -The party's money was deposited in Harbin's bank. -Moesko was captured. By controlling his heart, he agreed to transplant seeds of the Gulthias tree and grow Vine Blights for the party to be used as scouts (they speak Common). The party, the Wild Elf Bunch (WEB) gradually spread their net over the region.
Holy shit this is two for two! This week I want help with intrigue. here's intrigue. Last week I wanted puzzles and traps. You had puzzles and traps. Keep it up guys!
I did a one-shot faction story (a soiree at the caliph's palace) a lot of fun, especially when you give all the sides a dark secret so it might be better to keep them squabbling than to side with a particular faction
Was hoping that you would make a video about how to manage a faction intrigue campaign - perfect for promoting your kickstarter. Additionally, your video here is even better with reference to the examples in your live campaign show
Super amazing video guys! My mind is immediately buzzing with possibilities, and now I want to sit down and make five factions just to try it out. It’s a good combination with CGP Grey’s Rules for Rulers video, as in our own world the factions within a country often represent the keys to power that a ruler needs to manipulate to stay in power. Can be a good way to think through what the factions in a fantasy kingdom might be, based on what the fantasy keys fo power are.
The _Acquisitions Incorporated_ sourcebook introduces templates for "Iconic (faction) agent" and "Iconic (franchise role)" that can give NPC statblocks an extra ability. Seems like a fun way to remind your players who they're fighting against (or alongside) through mechanics.
I think another big thing to consider is the internal philosophical differences within a faction. This could be as detailed as having 3 or more smaller sub-factions within each faction, but that could be a lot for both you & the players to keep track of; instead I'd recommend just asking these 3 simple questions: 1. Who are the moderates? 2. Who are the extremists? 3. Which one is currently in charge? Let's go with the Paladins & Necromancers example. An moderate paladin seems like a contradiction in terms, but you can simply tone down both the good & the bad a little bit: perhaps the moderates don't push their religion on anyone, but also tend to take a more lax "not my problem" attitude to stopping injustice when it's happening farther away, or when the injustice is more abstract. A hardline paladin, on the other hand, might be an archetypical paragon of justice, but is also a massive zealot. The extremist/moderate split might be roughly age-based as well. Necromancers fresh out of school have souls untainted by dark magic, so might have a moral compass more in-line with that of the average person. Only the extremist necromancers actually rob graves, the moderates always make sure to use a system analogous to donating one's body to science, where they have permission to use the corpse; on the other hand, the moderate necromancers tend to have a more intellectual curiosity, but without the experience needed to temper it with caution. They don't really do much aside from study & use the guild like a social group, but if you give them the Necronomicon they'd eagerly study it in a much riskier way than the extremists, who, for all their faults, probably know what they're doing. If you have a leader & a lieutenant as your 2 main NPCs, you could make one a moderate & one an extremist so they serve as foils to each other, where the views of the leader are currently more dominant among the faction. Generally moderates will be much more agreeable & easier to get along with, but they can also come off as spineless stooges lacking in any real conviction. Extremists, on the other hand, are going to be much more prickly & will exaggerate both the good & the bad of the faction's ideology. The extremism of the ideology of a faction will ebb & flow over time, & the players might be able to influence it by persuading members of the faction or changing the leadership. Just like with factions in general, you want to be sure that neither the moderates nor the hardliners are 100% correct. The extremism of 2 factions will change their dynamics; for the following examples, we will be looking at faction A & faction B. Scenario 1: A is moderate, B is moderate, & they are enemies. In this case, they'll have their tensions, but won't generally interfere with each other. They'll try to stay out of each other's way & avoid coming into contact, but the most disruptive they'll be is some passive aggressive comments. If they must, they will readily compromise, even in spite of their alleged values, so long as the other side comes out of it just as bad as them (ie. they'll come to an agreement that makes both sides unhappy, but will refuse if it'd be good for at least one of them). Scenario 2: A is extremist, B is moderate, & they are enemies. A will be mostly acting on B, while B will be on the defensive. A will likely send the party to disrupt or harm B however possible, while B will want some protection, but is unlikely to retaliate. Depending on public opinion, this could go one of a couple different ways: 2a. If the public supports A, A will bully B into submission, making them compromise on several key issues. B won't (usually) give up *everything,* but B's ability to act might be significantly hindered. If the paladins were A & necromancers were B, for example, the paladins might be able to muster enough political leverage to outlaw animating dead, or at least strongarm the necromancers into stopping; the necromancers wouldn't disband, & could still do other necromancy, just not that specific spell. 2b. If the public supports B, B will likely sit idly by, taking only minimal precautions to defend themselves, & just let A make fools out of themselves & tank their public image further: B won't do anything because they won't have to. This will continue until public image (somehow) swings the other way, A becomes moderate (which is the most likely outcome), or B becomes extremist. 2c. If the public is pretty split, they will be stuck in a deadlock until something changes. Most often, B will become extremist, but public opinion might shift one way or the other, turning this into scenario 2a or 2b, or perhaps A will become moderate. Scenario 3: A is extremist, B is extremist, & they are enemies. This is extremely dangerous. A & B will be caught in a runaway feedback loop of each taking greater & greater disruptive action against the other; simultaneously, they will each become more & more extremist, making it basically impossible for one of them to spontaneously become moderate. This will continue until one of them triumphs, they tear each other apart, or something steps in to stop them. One or more mediator factions calming them down might work, but sometimes it takes a complete regime change on both sides to stop this. Scenario 4: A is moderate, B is moderate, & they are allies. Their status as allies will likely be really stable. Not much will change with their relationship unless acted upon by an outside force. Scenario 5: A is extremist, B is moderate, & they are allies. This allyship is a little less stable, but surprisingly not by much. A will tend to domineer B a bit, perhaps even messing with their internal politics to make sure B stays loyal; alternatively, if B is much bigger & more powerful than A, A might be a hanger-on that B finds mildly annoying while A dreams of taking B over. Scenario 6: A is extremist, B is extremist, & they are allies. Not for long they aren't! They will inevitably turn on each other over the tiniest differences until this turns into a scenario 3. They might stay together despite squabbling if they must (such as to handle a bigger threat), but it's only a matter of time before they're at each other's throats, no matter how similar their motives might be. "Disruptive action" here could mean anything from theft or murder of enemies to simply feeding them false information or messing with their goals. How severe the disruptive action is will depend on the details of the situation, the stakes involves, & what each side thinks they can get away with. Note that the extremism of a faction is prone to shifting over time.
Perfect as I'm struggling with this in my Eberron campaign! Thank you for making it easier as the factions are so interesting but I've found it hard to make them interact with one another. Atm the Emerald claw is getting claws into everything and trying to keep them messing with the uneasy peace of Khorvaire is a balancing act I'm still learning to do.
I honestly did not give much thought to making Guilds or how they would be if I did. But this has opened my eyes and for me it is a must have in my future campaign
I just had a very political section of my game where the players were able to approach five distinct factions within a city (Ruling nobility, nouveau rich nobility, mafia, ousted native tribe of ogres, and dissidents trying to overthrow the established system. Each faction had a main leader and at least one character who the character had to approach the faction through at first to get introduced to the leadership. This secondary named character could be given support by the party to replace the leadership of that faction if the players did some stuff to make it happen. Helping certain factions and hindering others yielded different outcomes. The most likely outcome is that the ruling house comes out victorious, as they were set up at the start as the antagonists and were in the best position to win out. I didn't see this video prior to running it, but the advice they have is good. I'll break down what the options were in my campaign. It could give you inspiration for how you'd organize your own factions in game and what sort of benefits they may reap based on their choices. If you aren't looking for any though, the rest of this comment may not be worth reading to you. If the players side with the ruling nobility, the starting leadership attempts to subjugate the nobles and dissidents by staging a war with the ogres. The other options are trying to put a more moderate noble of the same family on the throne by exposing her plotting or to re-establish a living fossil, an undead prior ruler. The former results in a stalemate war with the ogres, neither side having an obvious advantage and a modest monetary reward being given to the party while the latter sees the ogres wiped out, the mafia disbanded, and the demands of the nouveau rich and the dissidents being met, but kicking off an age of empire with the undead ruler trying to conquer the neighboring lands, while yielding positions of authority in the city to the party and a hefty cash reward. This last ending is the one my players got and despite putting a lawful evil undead on the throne, they seem to be happy with this outcome. If they side with the nouveau rich and bump off the current nobility, the nouveau rich take the throne and revitalize the economy, improving life so much that the dissidents and ogres cease hostilities and dissolve as factions, but the mafia begins plotting to take control possibly somewhere down the line. Siding with the lesser leader of this option results in a defensive pact being made with the ogres and continued tension between all other factions in the city, probably the least dramatic conclusion. If the party works with the mafia, they get an extremely sympathetic ally on the throne who gives them excellent gear, but the city enters an unparalleled period of tyranny and all the nobility get axed. If they choose to support the ogres, they end up getting the nobility, the nouveau rich, the dissidents, the mafia, and most of the common people killed or enslaved. The party's reward is being allowed to take as much loot from the sacking of the city as they can carry, the true murder-hobo option. If they side with the dissidents without dismantling the mafia, the outcome ends with the mafia taking things over and no reward for the players. If the party dismantles the mafia and supports the dissidents, the economy collapses and the city breaks up, most people starving to death and the party's reward is a long trek on foot to the nearest neighboring land, living off whatever supplies they can steal or scavenge. Each of these choices determines how the party will be received in the places they visit later in the game, so the effects of this choice has an impact on the larger story, not just the arc itself. As my party put a conqueror on the throne, the next phase of the campaign will kick off with them acting as diplomats to other countries, trying to see if they can forge alliances, force the ruler to submit, put a puppet on the throne, or attempt to backstab their own master by strengthening the neighboring nations up and trying and stage a coup d'etat.
I'm making a lizardfolk nation that's bound in an ancient druidic ritual. The ritual keeps the nation in the mesozoic, and freezes industrial development in the stone age. There are just two main factions at conflict - the House of Evolution (who views the ritual as a curse and wants to end it) and the Amber Circle (the druid circle who originally cast the ritual millions of years ago), but there are multiple smaller groups in the land who may ally with one group or the other and become allies or enemies depending on the players' choices, and a lot of the faction conflict in the midgame is these two groups trying to recruit the other smaller factions to their side.
It's also worth noting that factions can be very small as well. I'm running a Rime of the Frostmaiden campaign where the Harpers are a faction cell consisting of only four retired adventurers spread out across Icewind Dale, which is pretty consistent with the lore I've read about them.
A way to "hide" the artificiality of the 5 factions that I like is introducing asymetry.
1 big dominating faction but who have a hard time collaborating with any other faction.
2 regular factions with a focus on external trouble.
1 faction having an internal conflict that have 3 sides all trying to get things to go their way, more focused on resolving this internal conflict.
1 faction that is 2+ minor factions merged by affinity but with slightly misaligned goals that hinder them without internal conflict.
Drakkenheim has convinced me that adding conflicting factions is great for every campaign!
Me too!
Same. I added conflicting factions to my homebrew world/campaign after watching how well it worked in DoD. Definitely going to be a staple of every game I run going forward.
Just agreeing. Awesome
Conflicting factions in campaigns has always been interesting since Matt Colville. Good to know the Dungeon Dudes made this trope much more prevalent with their new campaign.
Lawls I have over 13 guilds 😂
What if there was a faction of necromancer, but they didn't dig up graves? What if they took in the sick or elderly, cared for them until they passed, then were given permission to use the bodies for research, which sometimes would be reanimation?
“How dare you spend your inheritance on that!” “Shut up grandma you lost the ability to judge it when you died”
@@alexmoskowitz811 "Shut up grandma, or i'll raise grandpa, and the two of you can argue for eternity"
Morally proper necromancy
Alternatively, burying the dead attracts ghouls and cremating them, I don't know, causes climate change.
Actually your comment gave me a cool idea. What if dead people sometimes rise as ghosts if not turned into undead? The necromancers might be doing the right thing by raising them as zombies while the paladins believe in simply smiting the ghosts.
Each member has a contract legally allowing ethical use of their corpse under a set of strict guidelines, after their natural demise.
Obligatory comment for the Algorithm because you guys are the bomb and deserve all the views.
I think if I reply to this comment it also helps the algorithm but I'm not sure
@@cianwade5599 how deep does this Algorithm go?
Obligatory response to obligatory comment meanwhile using obligatory more than I have ever begore.
Agreed
“The bomb?” What is this- the 90s? 😄
It had never occurred to me to treat a faction at large as a single NPC in terms of "personality," ideals, bonds, and flaws. Great advice that really cuts through the noise and right to the heart of the organization.
At 18:50 talking about MtG having 5 colors/factions, I actually really appreciate how that is laid out. The 5 points of the star’s colors each represent a team-the color on either side of a particular point is kind of who they ally with, and the two colors across the star points are who they oppose. Example: white gets along with green and blue, but they have conflict with red and black. Then you see green gets along with white and red, but is in conflict with black and blue. If you apply that to your factions in a D&D game it adds so many nice textural and emotional layers for your players and can cause a lot of dilemmas particularly in decisions that actually matter.
MTG really does have the best foundation, doesn't it? It all fits together so neatly, it's impressive.
The Ravnica setting book and very likely the upcoming Strixhaven adventure book are great examples of applying color conflict and alliances to factions. The ten guilds of Ravnica were originally designed with the idea of "What do these two colors have in common?" So both enemy and allied color combos come together to form a cohesive guild. Then you have the Strixhaven colleges which were designed with "What do these two colors fundamentally disagree on?" as their main focus. So while the white red enemy combo on Ravnica takes the form of a military force dedicated to defending the people of Ravnica, the Strixhaven equivalent college is full of tomb delving adventurer scholars who identify Indiana Jones as their spirit animal.
I have used the MTG colour philosophy as inspiration for NPC's and factions a lot. Makes it so easy to make a actor with a world view and knowing how they view different things
Thank you for explaining that! This will help me better understand how organize everything.
Richard Garfield really was a visionary, huh
Read the first 3 books of the Dune series. You'll get lots of ideas.
Also , the TTRPG Paranoia deals pretty extensively with factions. Each PC belongs to a secret society and has a goal to accomplish during gameplay and many characters will be working against one another without realizing it. Playing a few games of Paranoia can give you a good idea of how your players can engage with factions directly.
Really cool that you mentioned Ravnica! Specially because in the latest set the guilds end up having a temporary alliance to fight Nicol Bolas, just as the example you gave about WWII
I agree with this! I'm running a Ravnica campaign right now and have been doing a TON of guild intrigue. Thanks Dungeon Dudes!
Interesting analogy but who's the USSR then? Niv Mizzet?
The "small jobs" at 24:20 might lead to the real world "You're in too deep, you can't back out now" recruitment technique.
"It would be a shame if word got out that it was youse that 'acquired' the Book of the Leviathan for us and then later sprung Lady Montecastella. Pity about them jailers."
Maybe railroad-y, but if it came from multiple sources it could really heighten the tension at the moment of ultimate decision.
Perfect timing, starting Waterdeep Dragon Heist the day after tomorrow.
Me too!
Best of luck! I have been running it for a group and I think it does a good job of introducing factions early and allowing you to see who your party prefers to help in the first chapter or two. Be prepared to adlib some of the faction quests to make them interesting and better tied to your story.
@@gabsinventions9135 me three!!
I heavily altered WDH. The book offers you some great tools, but lacks in several departments IMO:
- plotholes
- some very basic side quests
- relatively low stakes
- only uses one of the four villains
- factions work with renown
I'm starting it tonight! So excited!
Completely blindsided by the relevance of this. Straight up if I were to write you a letter and ask for a video this would have been it. You've already earned my backing pledge and DoD isn't even out yet!
Love how the dungeon dudes are always organized af. No time wasted, every second is great content. You guys rule! Dungeon dudes kickstarter has launched? Yes plz... auto-back that mofo... no thought required.
Your examples and cautions remind me so much of Eberron. That setting is loaded with good factions, most of which are very gray, or can be if you take some time to think about each one.
Eberron rocks!!!
Yessss
I'm 2-3 episodes from finishing the first run of Dungeons of Drakkenheim (as a podcast). Having those five factions in there seemed a lot to me at first but after watching this episode, it really makes a lot of sense why there were that many to begin with and balance forces out.
My thieves’ guild in my homebrew world was called the Venomcloaks. There was a chapter in each of the 4 main nations of the campaign, each headed by a dragon that could polymorph at will to a humanoid form. Their goal was to use their intelligence and leadership while masking their identity as dragons to situate themselves among the best burglars and larcenists in order to use the sense of greed found in thieves to amass a large hoard of their own. But, given that they were dragons, their cruelty towards their underlings was powerful, and made it so that they ruled by fear more than true leadership.
Our monk player was drawn in by the guild, not knowing its origin and instead just drawn to the gold. He had a huge character development moment when he saw the cruelty of the leader, and one of the victims joined the party after defecting from the guild. This caused the monk to defect too, and the party wound up killing the dragon leader of that chapter of the faction.
This is brilliant and I'm probably gonna steal it. Thank you.
@@ciarajeanr Thank you for the kind words!
A faction of paladins. A faction of necromancers. "These factions may not get along..." I just loved this, made me chuckle!
Thanks for all the hard work, you content is pure gold! I rewatch videos all the time, because you touch on so many interesting and useful topics!
Ravnica factions are so well done. One of my favorite fantasy settings.
I think subfactions are important. They don't have to play a big role, but can really bring a faction to life. It's realistic that people who are on the same team still have disagreements, and those disagreements can be great hooks for the party to manipulate.
I wanted to run an intrigue campaign. My players said they were into it. But before I started building it, I had the idea to do a test run. I walked them thru a small session. On the way to a delve to retrieve some quest item for their patron, a different NPC met them to ask them to betray their patron instead for intriguing and compelling reasons. Once the players grokked that the entire campaign would be like that X5, they all changed their minds. Saved me from a lot of wasted effort. I was sad, tho. Love learning how my players solve complex problems. Thanks, Dungeon Dudes, for the excellent content.
Please do the rest of the story/ the fleshing out part. I know there are things to learn even for a 45ish year veteran of countless campaigns. You guys are a great source for my homebrew world, thanks for all you do!
Y'all rule. This literally convinced me to run faction intrigue. Funny thing is my homebrewed campaign world already had disparate factions, I just never really made use of them as major players besides "the best one (s)" and "the worst one(s)". This seems a lot more spicy.
I just introduced my players to a criminal syndicate that I'm using as a group patron. This video is so well timed
Awesome tips, and really helpful for the upcoming Drakkenheim campaign that ~7,500 people are gonna be starting next year!
Hi Dungeon Dudes,
Just wanted to say that I have a campaign with this ad my basic outline:
The Ancient Enemy has already been defeated. However, that defeat came at the price. The stability of society fell apart. The ruling Monarch vanishing leaving the throne vacant. A powerful secret society has fallen apart into warring factions over a cache of powerful artifacts left unguarded. (Formerly removed from circulation by that society), and partly to fill the power vacuum left by the collapse of the Monarchy. Is there potential there?
More videos about faction campaigns would be SO cool!! Please make more.
I have been trying to build a city campaign with many Factions, Guilds, Alliance, Chapters, Clubs, Councils, Families, House's, Caucus, Cabal, Society, Sects, Confederacy, Conclave, Emissary, Amassadors, Envoys, etc....... This is the first helpful advice I have found .... EVER. There is a deep hole in D&D of this very topic that has just been ignored for far to long.
I love the idea of you guys putting out a bunch of videos that will subsequently teach DMs how to run the Drakkenheim module when we get it next year 😍😍
I am currently DMing "B4 The Lost City" 5th edition and find this video most relevant for this module! Especially with the political intrigue between the Brotherhood of Gorn, the Magi of Usamigarus and the Maidens of Madarua.
Well done! This is perhaps the best video on how to structure an intrigue-based campaign that I've ever come across.
Yes please. More details on how you fleshed out you factions. Thanks for the great video.
Just about to start a campaign in Ravnica, and this video was a huge help. Most of the faction creation heavy lifting is done by the sourcebook, but your guidelines for roleplaying, structuring the conflict and working in the loyalty challenges are all great. As usual, your videos are awesome. Keep up the great work.
I just want to Express my thanks as these videos do come in clutch and especially now since I am starting my next campaign's session 1 for my players tommorrow! You guys are thorough, detailed and a good listen while I'm working.
About 2 years ago, I watched this video and we've had an amazing fraction campaign using the Streets of New Capenna setting. Thank you for the inspiration! I'm rewatching this and just realise how much I've used!
I have a few factions in my world some world spanning and others regional, it helps to give the world depth.
Enjoyed the video immensely.
Cheers
Kelly looks so good in this haircut, he literally has this perfect lenght right now.
Okay, so been following the videos and reading comments for a long time, and invariably one or more comments are made about hair or t-shirts. What is up with that? Is there some weird DND runway/fashion subculture lurking around the Dudes?!
@@gsentinel7948 Think it's just a matter of staring at a video for 40something minutes and how rarely these guys use images or slides. So when you're just looking at two people for a long time, style often gets noticed eventually
Right? Top fluent hair for no reason? Let's freaking go 🤟🏻
Kelly looks good in most hairstyles, and in the past year, he’s had quite a few of them lol
@@JakeLikesJoking Kelly looks good in his T-Shirts too! 😉
Green - The Rangers of the Hooded Lantern
Red - The Queen's Men
White - The Paladins of the Silver Order
Black - The Followers of the Fallen Fire
Blue - The Amethyst Academy
Can't believe I didn't see it in the whole campaign, but it checks out pretty well on the MTG color philosophy. Well done Dudes
Please, make the second video! I'm planning on doing something on those lines with League of Legends and the Ionians factions (there are a lot of them, but they could me merged into 4 major alligniments)
Happy to be seeing more cerebral content like this instead of more "top 10 list" style content.
Don't be afraid to have a third party outside of your Factions throw some wrentches into the mix too. Give the third party something the players may want, but the cost is something one or more of the Factions want.
The last time I was this early, Rat Food was still alive.
Great timing! I'm about to run the second council meeting in Rise of Tiamat and this will really enhance it in comparison to the first one
The distinction between "unite the factions against common threat" and "factions vie against each other for a common goal" is crucial, and I hadn't thought of that.
The lieutenant-mouth-piece and the leader-cardinal also sounds interesting.
The number of factions...
So much good stuff.
Considering we have Ravnica as an official D&D setting and the Forgotten Realms and Eberron have notable factions, this is a SUPER useful video
I pledged to the Kickstarter last night and I’ve never been more excited for something to succeed. Looking forward to diving into Drakkenheim.
Really needed this, about to start a campaign with 6 clans and one king to overthrow. I honestly think it adds so much having reactive factions, not the least of which it builds in consequences (good and bad) for the player choices.
What are the clans general deal? And what's up with the King that needs overthrown?
This is the perfect video to watch as I'm working on my Ravnica campaign. Thank you Dungeon Dudes!
You mentioned factions as being often played as "gaining points" towards set rewards. In that regard, I find it similar to the idea of a reputation grind in many popular MMORPGs.
I like your interpretation much better. Keep up the great work Dudes.
I'm about to start running a game and I wanted factions and patrons to be a big part of it, and I stumbled across this video - I wanted to say thank you so much, this was super helpful! It gave me some codified ways of setting factions up and gave me a good number (5!). I kept worrying about needing SO MANY FACTIONS and this helped me settle down a bit.
This is some great insight into factions and faction conflicts. Thank you, Kelly Mclaughlin, for suggesting that I watch this! Great stuff.
currently running a faction arc of a larger campaign and i sort of plunged myself into it, but i am so glad i found this video. i like the idea of making each faction its own "person"
Yes! Awesome. And of course i want you to do more about factions!
You're a little late on this one, boys. My Waterdeep Dragon Heist campaign ends on Monday. So many factions, so much intrigue.
Timely for me. Last night I pinned my players between Harpers and Zhents... and they decided they want to play both sides as if it won't all come down on their heads.
Timely for me too, since I don't have a campaign going at the moment and watch largely to stave off the ol' existential dread for a while
@@douglaspage7311 My players are on the brink of this decision right now. Harpers vs Zhents is such a cool plotline.
@@andressagredos4325 If they still try playing both sides, when they inevitably mess up, make sure in all comes tumbling down on them in glorious fashion.
Would love to see tips on creating factions! I want to run a faction campaign now!
Inspiring video. I suggest looking at the shadowrun RPG, since the idea of faction intrigue is very much baked into this setting - corps vs corps vs nature vs gangs etc
I've been planning a Legend of the Five Rings game with a friend, set in a fantasy version of meiji era Japan, and this has been helpful as far as getting me in the right mindset for running political intrigue.
The really big trick is when there are multiple factions and each character in the group wants to join a different faction. -aka the factions in the horde of the dragon queen/rise of Tiamat. Or waterdeep dragon heist-
In my alt-history Colonial America Spellpunk campaign, I have three factions based on the three warlock patrons out of the PHB - the Fae, the Fiends, and the Far Gods. The factions aren't their for the players to join, but to create a power struggle (and adventure hooks). There is no "good guy" out of these (the Fae are ticked that humans chased elves out of Europe centuries ago, and after the elven kingdoms on the east coast of the new world collapsed, the humans started colonizing the new world).
That sounds like a potentially very interesting setting!
This gives me an idea of making a campaign based on the Manga Pumpkin Scissors. The BIG War just ended, mercenaries (or members of the army, depending on what session 0 brings) are hired to discreetly(heh) check on villages ravaged by the war. Deserters, Bandits, Cultists, Profiteers, the villages themselves declaring independence, those kind of things.
This couldn’t have come at a better time, thank you Dudes so much! I’m two sessions into my campaign and the players will be getting into faction intrigue in a couple of months, and this was so helpful!
I wasn't planning on backing the kickstarter, since I don't really go in for campaign settings, but if it includes information on handling factions, that seems worth it to me, so I'm in.
great video as always.
also I was so pleasantly surprised to see DUNGEONS OF DRAKKENHEIM as the sponsor of the latest Critical Role episode.
Perfect video to finish off my birthday. Keep up the good work and I wish I could give more on Patreon :) y’all rock
Please more of this. Faction Intrigue is my favorite type of stories to run
Every single video you guys do is useful, but this one was above and beyond!
Something that I was thinking about while you two were going on about this is . . . what if your adventuring group has different ideas about who to join. I've played in games where there are characters had widely different alignments and beliefs. If you have a neutral necro wizard player and a paladin player, their loyalties will each be easy, but makes it hard for the rest of the group who don't have clear beliefs. NPC factions could rip your group apart.
I love the comment about the difference of personalities between a faction's lieutenant and the leader, particularly when it comes to the leader being the distilled essence of the faction's ideals.
My campaign has a thieves' guild called "The Brook", whose leader is a centuries-old elven assassin. The man is ruthless, determined, and calculated. When my players first encountered the organization, though, it was through a couple of smart-talking second-story men who cracked wise and helped the party out.
It really helps to draw your players into a faction with good roleplay and likeable characters to invest them before you reveal that the organization's Wizard is a kidnapped family man held against his will.
Very helpful advice and way of thinking about/planning for factions in a campaign. Thank you :)
Have to say I really love this video- clear, simple, but powerful ideas. I have recently realized I tend towards "faction based" storytelling when I GM; I often find myself taking a published module, and dividing all the denizens of each location into factions in my head and highlighting faction-based conflicts without meaning to, applying a significant, almost accidental twist to the story. This video is super helpful in clarifying faction-based adventure design, and will be the bedrock of the next campaign I homebrew.
This is a pretty good video for a number of systems. World of Darkness and most other Storyteller settings are big on faction conflict and intrigue.
This is must-watch material for any Ravnica campaign.
I always found the Factions in the Planescape AD&D campaign setting a fascinating concept, but I could never keep track of the 15 different cliques’ names, philosophies and roles in the campaign… I have to agree with Monty that 5 is a great number of factions to have in a campaign. Otherwise players will just forget who’s who and what they stand for, or confuse one with another, and so on.
Agree
Thank you so much for this video. Faction conflicts have been really hard for me to do but your points offer a great way to structure them. This has been one of your best and most useful videos ever. Well done! 👍
I would love a followup video to this one! Factions seem like a whole new layer I need to delve into that I am now thinking about retrofitting into campaign that I am only a few sessions into.
As a dm I think this has been the most helpful video from yall, entirely new concept for me
I was recently inspired in faction design by anime "One Piece".
In theory, there are 3 big factions- the navy, the warlords and the emperors- but these broader groups split into smaller groups- navy is unified but there is a division of pragmatism and following orders vs heroism and doing what's right, with many navy members sometimes even fighting one another because of it, each of the seven warlords has their own goals which conflict with one another and sometimes a warlord is replaced by a new one, and emperors while in theory being a single faction, in practice are five different factions- although no more than four exist at once at any point of One Piece's story.
Very good idea. I love One piece.
Great article - My favorite 5:
1. Ruling nobility
2. Religion
3. Military
4. Merchant and/or professional groups
5. Criminal and/or poor people groups
Another great Video. So awesome to see how to create and run factions. Thinking of all the memorable NPCs from Drakkenheim and seeing the creative process behind it all is so amazing.
I was JUST about to introduce a new faction into the campaign. So glad this video came out today!
This video was unbelievably helpful for the homebrew campaign I'm running! I wasn't sure how to classify it until now but it's 100% a faction intrigue! The premise (without giving away any secrets in case one of my players stumbled across this video): The last Goliath Conquerer of the city of Aberdell, a joint triumph of the Elf and Dwarf kingdoms, has just died under mysterious circumstances. Now the Elves and Dwarves are on the verge of war over who is at fault for allowing their beloved city to be conquered in the first place. That's 3 factions right there, and then I have plans for a neutral faction and at least one twist baked in.
You guys are seriously the most useful RPG channel I’m watching right now.
Thank you!
I'm currently trying to write a city-based campaign. This was perfect timing for it. Thanks!
Seriously good tips in here! Your channel is great for new and experienced DMs and players alike.
Excellent video as always but this time there's one thing I have to disagree with. I think you view the number of 3 factions quite negatively while 3 will be the ideal number of factions in many campaigns. The thing is - if I was about to create and publish my own DnD campaign, of course I would focus on at least 5 factions. Why? Well I have no idea what kind of people will be playing my campaign so of course I want to create a wide range of intriguing options for all sorts of players. But what you are forgetting (in my opinion), is that most people watching this video will just be creating factions for their friends where they know what makes their players tick. This is why I believe that for most people 3 factions will be the right number where they can focus on each of them in a lot of detail while making sure it will be very hard for their players to choose one of them. But maybe that's just my point of view.
I merged LMoP and DoIP and adapted the quests in DoIP to originate from a faction in LMoP. This enabled the party to do about 3 quests for each faction. Thus, they gained another level in that faction. Additionally, the party became a faction. Like the show, "Blacklist", the party attempted to integrate the targets of the quests into their own faction.
-They subdued Venomfang and allowed him to survive as long as the Lawful dragon owed them a favor.
-Iarno was secretly allowed to live if he created common Magic Items for them.
-Agatha was given a common MI that gave her a cat Familiar. The undead Horse from the tomb in DoIP was also given to her. She in turn made her divination ability available.
-Sister Garaele knew the Banshees and putting the other two to rest earned her thanks.
-The Redbrand thugs were subdued and split among Thalia and Sildar, gaining their trust.
-Kost was given a common MI and they gave him some spells for info from his faction.
-The party's money was deposited in Harbin's bank.
-Moesko was captured. By controlling his heart, he agreed to transplant seeds of the Gulthias tree and grow Vine Blights for the party to be used as scouts (they speak Common).
The party, the Wild Elf Bunch (WEB) gradually spread their net over the region.
Holy shit this is two for two! This week I want help with intrigue. here's intrigue. Last week I wanted puzzles and traps. You had puzzles and traps. Keep it up guys!
I did a one-shot faction story (a soiree at the caliph's palace) a lot of fun, especially when you give all the sides a dark secret so it might be better to keep them squabbling than to side with a particular faction
Was hoping that you would make a video about how to manage a faction intrigue campaign - perfect for promoting your kickstarter. Additionally, your video here is even better with reference to the examples in your live campaign show
Yes, I'd be interested in hearing details of how you created the factions in Drakkenheim. 😃
I'm 100% interested on more content about factions.
Super amazing video guys! My mind is immediately buzzing with possibilities, and now I want to sit down and make five factions just to try it out.
It’s a good combination with CGP Grey’s Rules for Rulers video, as in our own world the factions within a country often represent the keys to power that a ruler needs to manipulate to stay in power. Can be a good way to think through what the factions in a fantasy kingdom might be, based on what the fantasy keys fo power are.
The _Acquisitions Incorporated_ sourcebook introduces templates for "Iconic (faction) agent" and "Iconic (franchise role)" that can give NPC statblocks an extra ability. Seems like a fun way to remind your players who they're fighting against (or alongside) through mechanics.
I think another big thing to consider is the internal philosophical differences within a faction. This could be as detailed as having 3 or more smaller sub-factions within each faction, but that could be a lot for both you & the players to keep track of; instead I'd recommend just asking these 3 simple questions:
1. Who are the moderates?
2. Who are the extremists?
3. Which one is currently in charge?
Let's go with the Paladins & Necromancers example. An moderate paladin seems like a contradiction in terms, but you can simply tone down both the good & the bad a little bit: perhaps the moderates don't push their religion on anyone, but also tend to take a more lax "not my problem" attitude to stopping injustice when it's happening farther away, or when the injustice is more abstract. A hardline paladin, on the other hand, might be an archetypical paragon of justice, but is also a massive zealot. The extremist/moderate split might be roughly age-based as well. Necromancers fresh out of school have souls untainted by dark magic, so might have a moral compass more in-line with that of the average person. Only the extremist necromancers actually rob graves, the moderates always make sure to use a system analogous to donating one's body to science, where they have permission to use the corpse; on the other hand, the moderate necromancers tend to have a more intellectual curiosity, but without the experience needed to temper it with caution. They don't really do much aside from study & use the guild like a social group, but if you give them the Necronomicon they'd eagerly study it in a much riskier way than the extremists, who, for all their faults, probably know what they're doing.
If you have a leader & a lieutenant as your 2 main NPCs, you could make one a moderate & one an extremist so they serve as foils to each other, where the views of the leader are currently more dominant among the faction. Generally moderates will be much more agreeable & easier to get along with, but they can also come off as spineless stooges lacking in any real conviction. Extremists, on the other hand, are going to be much more prickly & will exaggerate both the good & the bad of the faction's ideology. The extremism of the ideology of a faction will ebb & flow over time, & the players might be able to influence it by persuading members of the faction or changing the leadership. Just like with factions in general, you want to be sure that neither the moderates nor the hardliners are 100% correct.
The extremism of 2 factions will change their dynamics; for the following examples, we will be looking at faction A & faction B.
Scenario 1:
A is moderate, B is moderate, & they are enemies.
In this case, they'll have their tensions, but won't generally interfere with each other. They'll try to stay out of each other's way & avoid coming into contact, but the most disruptive they'll be is some passive aggressive comments. If they must, they will readily compromise, even in spite of their alleged values, so long as the other side comes out of it just as bad as them (ie. they'll come to an agreement that makes both sides unhappy, but will refuse if it'd be good for at least one of them).
Scenario 2:
A is extremist, B is moderate, & they are enemies.
A will be mostly acting on B, while B will be on the defensive. A will likely send the party to disrupt or harm B however possible, while B will want some protection, but is unlikely to retaliate. Depending on public opinion, this could go one of a couple different ways:
2a. If the public supports A, A will bully B into submission, making them compromise on several key issues. B won't (usually) give up *everything,* but B's ability to act might be significantly hindered. If the paladins were A & necromancers were B, for example, the paladins might be able to muster enough political leverage to outlaw animating dead, or at least strongarm the necromancers into stopping; the necromancers wouldn't disband, & could still do other necromancy, just not that specific spell.
2b. If the public supports B, B will likely sit idly by, taking only minimal precautions to defend themselves, & just let A make fools out of themselves & tank their public image further: B won't do anything because they won't have to. This will continue until public image (somehow) swings the other way, A becomes moderate (which is the most likely outcome), or B becomes extremist.
2c. If the public is pretty split, they will be stuck in a deadlock until something changes. Most often, B will become extremist, but public opinion might shift one way or the other, turning this into scenario 2a or 2b, or perhaps A will become moderate.
Scenario 3:
A is extremist, B is extremist, & they are enemies.
This is extremely dangerous. A & B will be caught in a runaway feedback loop of each taking greater & greater disruptive action against the other; simultaneously, they will each become more & more extremist, making it basically impossible for one of them to spontaneously become moderate. This will continue until one of them triumphs, they tear each other apart, or something steps in to stop them. One or more mediator factions calming them down might work, but sometimes it takes a complete regime change on both sides to stop this.
Scenario 4:
A is moderate, B is moderate, & they are allies.
Their status as allies will likely be really stable. Not much will change with their relationship unless acted upon by an outside force.
Scenario 5:
A is extremist, B is moderate, & they are allies.
This allyship is a little less stable, but surprisingly not by much. A will tend to domineer B a bit, perhaps even messing with their internal politics to make sure B stays loyal; alternatively, if B is much bigger & more powerful than A, A might be a hanger-on that B finds mildly annoying while A dreams of taking B over.
Scenario 6:
A is extremist, B is extremist, & they are allies.
Not for long they aren't! They will inevitably turn on each other over the tiniest differences until this turns into a scenario 3. They might stay together despite squabbling if they must (such as to handle a bigger threat), but it's only a matter of time before they're at each other's throats, no matter how similar their motives might be.
"Disruptive action" here could mean anything from theft or murder of enemies to simply feeding them false information or messing with their goals. How severe the disruptive action is will depend on the details of the situation, the stakes involves, & what each side thinks they can get away with. Note that the extremism of a faction is prone to shifting over time.
Perfect as I'm struggling with this in my Eberron campaign! Thank you for making it easier as the factions are so interesting but I've found it hard to make them interact with one another. Atm the Emerald claw is getting claws into everything and trying to keep them messing with the uneasy peace of Khorvaire is a balancing act I'm still learning to do.
I honestly did not give much thought to making Guilds or how they would be if I did. But this has opened my eyes and for me it is a must have in my future campaign
This is probably the best video you guys have ever made!
I just had a very political section of my game where the players were able to approach five distinct factions within a city (Ruling nobility, nouveau rich nobility, mafia, ousted native tribe of ogres, and dissidents trying to overthrow the established system. Each faction had a main leader and at least one character who the character had to approach the faction through at first to get introduced to the leadership. This secondary named character could be given support by the party to replace the leadership of that faction if the players did some stuff to make it happen. Helping certain factions and hindering others yielded different outcomes. The most likely outcome is that the ruling house comes out victorious, as they were set up at the start as the antagonists and were in the best position to win out. I didn't see this video prior to running it, but the advice they have is good.
I'll break down what the options were in my campaign. It could give you inspiration for how you'd organize your own factions in game and what sort of benefits they may reap based on their choices. If you aren't looking for any though, the rest of this comment may not be worth reading to you.
If the players side with the ruling nobility, the starting leadership attempts to subjugate the nobles and dissidents by staging a war with the ogres. The other options are trying to put a more moderate noble of the same family on the throne by exposing her plotting or to re-establish a living fossil, an undead prior ruler. The former results in a stalemate war with the ogres, neither side having an obvious advantage and a modest monetary reward being given to the party while the latter sees the ogres wiped out, the mafia disbanded, and the demands of the nouveau rich and the dissidents being met, but kicking off an age of empire with the undead ruler trying to conquer the neighboring lands, while yielding positions of authority in the city to the party and a hefty cash reward. This last ending is the one my players got and despite putting a lawful evil undead on the throne, they seem to be happy with this outcome.
If they side with the nouveau rich and bump off the current nobility, the nouveau rich take the throne and revitalize the economy, improving life so much that the dissidents and ogres cease hostilities and dissolve as factions, but the mafia begins plotting to take control possibly somewhere down the line. Siding with the lesser leader of this option results in a defensive pact being made with the ogres and continued tension between all other factions in the city, probably the least dramatic conclusion.
If the party works with the mafia, they get an extremely sympathetic ally on the throne who gives them excellent gear, but the city enters an unparalleled period of tyranny and all the nobility get axed.
If they choose to support the ogres, they end up getting the nobility, the nouveau rich, the dissidents, the mafia, and most of the common people killed or enslaved. The party's reward is being allowed to take as much loot from the sacking of the city as they can carry, the true murder-hobo option.
If they side with the dissidents without dismantling the mafia, the outcome ends with the mafia taking things over and no reward for the players. If the party dismantles the mafia and supports the dissidents, the economy collapses and the city breaks up, most people starving to death and the party's reward is a long trek on foot to the nearest neighboring land, living off whatever supplies they can steal or scavenge.
Each of these choices determines how the party will be received in the places they visit later in the game, so the effects of this choice has an impact on the larger story, not just the arc itself. As my party put a conqueror on the throne, the next phase of the campaign will kick off with them acting as diplomats to other countries, trying to see if they can forge alliances, force the ruler to submit, put a puppet on the throne, or attempt to backstab their own master by strengthening the neighboring nations up and trying and stage a coup d'etat.
I'm making a lizardfolk nation that's bound in an ancient druidic ritual. The ritual keeps the nation in the mesozoic, and freezes industrial development in the stone age. There are just two main factions at conflict - the House of Evolution (who views the ritual as a curse and wants to end it) and the Amber Circle (the druid circle who originally cast the ritual millions of years ago), but there are multiple smaller groups in the land who may ally with one group or the other and become allies or enemies depending on the players' choices, and a lot of the faction conflict in the midgame is these two groups trying to recruit the other smaller factions to their side.
Really great advice in this one. This video has directly helped me a lot with this topic.
Definitely interested in hearing your thoughts about traiting out factions. Maybe a video where you create one or two factions?
This gave me great ideas to running Waterdeep: Dragon Heist
Thanks guys
It's also worth noting that factions can be very small as well. I'm running a Rime of the Frostmaiden campaign where the Harpers are a faction cell consisting of only four retired adventurers spread out across Icewind Dale, which is pretty consistent with the lore I've read about them.
looking into dragon heist, planning on running the alexandrian, and your vid helps with the factions available.