DM Factions
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I am just waiting for Moloch to bring up the qutoes from a few months back where people were asking for factions to be more open with less strict paths, and more conflict/confrontation heavy that everyone asked for.
:)
Ahem. Anyway, yeah, I agree with the folk saying factions should have a defined and obvious goal, and I personally loved having city factions all working together if some big bad occured, but vying for power in the mean time politically.
I think at the time that was working beautifully for me personally, a lot of people said it was "Just groups fighting to change the colour of the guard uniforms in sections of the city" Though, but I enjoyed it while there were things like the adventurers guild hiring mercenaries to watch over East arabel "To save the city money on guards" and the mages guild were demanding power over magical crimes "Because the militia don't have the expertise, and the Eclestians are crazy"
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Zool, I'm purposefully holding off using anyone's quotes from a few months or years ago against them.
I'm nice that way.
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I made a suggestion a few months back about more open paths for other Citadel based and Old Town gang factions. I still stand by it, thinking it would be neat to see and still having it easy to access as the Council and Court are, especially with the boom in Player count. (Dracohorn loyalists, Thayans in Citadel and Chaos Brigade, Dwarves of Thunderholme in Old Town).
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I'm pretty sure we all know that the server is a never ending experiment and that things change. I think open ended factions work. I think specific factions work. I think too much of either and lack of player or DM interest in either is boring. Both have worked in the past, both will probably work in the future, just keep things fresh and new ultimately and things will always be fun.
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I'm pretty sure we all know that the server is a never ending experiment and that things change. I think open ended factions work. I think specific factions work. I think too much of either and lack of player or DM interest in either is boring. Both have worked in the past, both will probably work in the future, just keep things fresh and new ultimately and things will always be fun.
That's largely what I'm thinking the general gist of things is too right now, but its nice to confirm and ask people how is it going right now too.
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I skimmed through the thread but I have not enough time to read everything. However, I can tell you what I find frustrating about the two factions.
Everyone wants to join. There seem to be few influential freelancers, and there seem to be many chars who fit into their faction like trousers on a donkey.
I know there are very few players these days, but I felt being hindered by not belonging to either just because it wouldn't make sense for my char. -
I like how open (both in ease of access and open-endedness) the factions are. Basically, nearly everyone can find a place in either the Old Town or the Citadel, and joining is easy, and the perks give some serious quality-of-life improvements (even without the faction loot). Involving others are easier when you don't have to form your own player faction for everything, but can instead direct plot stuff to other roughly likeminded (or at least not directly opposing) characters in the faction forums.
The factions also make a lot of sense. I could never join any of the four noble houses back in the past because none of them ever felt to fit any character I had, joining was clumsy and timetaking through apping, and it wasn't really clear what the factions were after. I mean, sure, they felt like they were "I like law" "I like commerce" "I like evil stuff" and "I like, uh, mercenaries?" but apart from that, I felt that it was really hard to properly grasp what they were about or what they were pushing for. I might have tried to join Bhaliir but the app would have been "I'm evil too, I guess, and I want to find out more about House Bhaliir. Can I come in?" and wouldn't have been approved.
There could be a similar faction for nature folks, I think. Eveningstar player faction kind of worked like one - One that was ment for people who aren't so much concerned with Citadel or Old Town or their squabble. It could be based in the Glade in the Maze, or Eveningstar - Not too far away to be hugely inconvenient, but not inside the city either.
I think the Agents work kinda well for a militia/law-enforcement faction. There could be added emphasis in Old Town for "lawkeeping" as well, maybe "Enforcers" who'd work in somewhat similar fashion (maybe with less emphasis on "law").
More paths - or rather, clearer paths, inside the factions. It could be just me, but I get the feeling that raising in rank in the factions is a lot more feasible than before - but there could perhaps be a bit clearer guidelines on what certain NPC's wish to see to in order to catch their attention.
I suppose my dream faction would be like the Court, but a bit more emphasis on evil, less on the "protect the weak", and maybe more emphasis on cults and dark faiths. Basically, temple of the unquiet night faction, but at the moment I think it would just overlap too much with the Court.
Edit: Addition: Factions that can support wide range of different concepts, with NPC's and internal paths towards a few different focused plots. With smaller player base, I don't think we have enough people for factions that have a single goal or focus, because they'll have just a few people in them. I like to see factions that are larger and provide the players with choices and directions, rather than providing them a singular goal towards which they must work for. Sure, there can be a larger, underlying goal, but freedom of choice on how to pursue it (or what direction to emphasize) is important.
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The amazing thing about the two factions is that they are open ended but to a point. Each NPC has a goal, a purpose and a motivation. You move up in rank and appeal mainly to that particular PC. A good aligned revolutionary could ally themselves with Brus or the temple of truth, the same with good aligned but rebellious Lathanderites (Amaunator), Darmosians and ilmatari. Evil or criminal PC's could ally themselves with the more sinster Knights of the Court. The citizen rewards anyone who upholds any of the virtues of any of the established Knights of the Court.
The flip side works with the citadel. You work to appease your favorite councilor and they reward you accordingly for your actions. You could be good aligned or evil aligned in the council, so long as your actions push the agenda of one of the councilors.
The big problem with the two factions is not a DM or organization problem but instead a player direction problem. We sometimes have a "Too many chiefs, not enough Indians" situation from time to time. Everyone wants to push their personal goals but no on wants to work together within the faction to push any joint faction goals. Now, disclaimer, I haven't been in the council forums for… months but my last PC's in there I noticed this and I always notice it in the court. The forum spying tends to kill motivation on at least the court side all the time too. It's really hard to organize anything for the court when every other court member is actually a citadel spy.
Summary: The factions as they stand are great, they just need more people uniting behind a common NPC ally to get stuff done and people need to just DO THINGS instead of waiting for an NPC to weigh in. Personal request: People who are forum spying need to do more IG to give a chance to be caught... like actually showing to faction events, actually making face to face interaction with ANY faction members, etc.
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Maybe split the two metafactions up into branches?
Plebs could have something else than just a ranking system. Think of Night's Watch in GoT with differnet branches. They got builders, rangers and stewards, each with a ranking. Now adding this to CoA in a way so ppl don't just call themselves Builder of Plebs and ppl are are like "yes yes, fancy title without meaning". Add something and grant them tasks they can fulfill with each specific roll that will eventually lead to some greater goal for Plebs over all. Only change some conversations of npcs and write something on forum.
Same thing could be done to Citadel.
Imo it should also be easier supporting meta factions with player factions in some way without being member of the metafaction, just to add some versatility.
In generel, make things easier and more obvious for the players. But it's a no go making more factions from dm-side as long as there aren't more than 35 different players online each week. But definetly concur with you.
EDIT: Latok, my last pc was a henchman but the various "leaders" that were somewhat aligned with my pc had too little going on for it to be fun for me.
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Maybe split the two metafactions up into branches?
Plebs could have something else than just a ranking system. Think of Night's Watch in GoT with differnet branches. They got builders, rangers and stewards, each with a ranking. Now adding this to CoA in a way so ppl don't just call themselves Builder of Plebs and ppl are are like "yes yes, fancy title without meaning". Add something and grant them tasks they can fulfill with each specific roll that will eventually lead to some greater goal for Plebs over all. Only change some conversations of npcs and write something on forum.
Same thing could be done to Citadel.
Imo it should also be easier supporting meta factions with player factions in some way without being member of the metafaction, just to add some versatility.
In generel, make things easier and more obvious for the players. But it's a no go making more factions from dm-side as long as there aren't more than 35 different players online each week.
This is already sort of done. When you move up in rank in the council, you become either a Knight of one of the Councilors or you become an Agent. If you become an Agent you get specific jobs, powers and gear. If you become a knight, you get specific faction gear and titles from your knighting councilor. The same goes for the court. When you become a Duke, your gear and your status is almost directly related to the Knight of the Court you appealed to most.
It boils down to this:
Entry level: Everyone gets a resting place, shared storage and an item that everyone gets
First Promotion: You keep your previous perks but get your own room, storage, status, and faction armor relating to the NPC you supported
Second promotion: Upgraded custom equipment for your character's concept and direct say in the direction of the faction (in essence you become one of the NPC's in a way)Your first promotion is kind of like your "branch" so to speak. And you get to that promotion by breaking off into that branch from the get go. That is why the faction joining quests gives you several options to complete it and tells you which option each NPC would prefer. it is laying out the general path to your promotion. The DM's have been leaving hints and clues everywhere but we wanted BIG BOLD LETTERS!
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Well, with the Council particularly, we kind of dropped the ball on the 'branches'.
You were suppose to start as an Advisor and then get promoted to Agent, or Retainer of Lord XYZ, or Purple Dragon Knight (depending on your level of awesome).
Instead, most promotions just went to a 'generic' knight. Not sure exactly how we managed to not do that right.
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Well, with the Council particularly, we kind of dropped the ball on the 'branches'.
You were suppose to start as an Advisor and then get promoted to Agent, or Retainer of Lord XYZ, or Purple Dragon Knight (depending on your level of awesome).
Instead, most promotions just went to a 'generic' knight. Not sure exactly how we managed to not do that right.
Earning retainer to one of the council lords opens up alot of opportunity and plots. That sounds nifty! Imagine if each lord had specific perks and uniforms?
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@Khamal:
Well, with the Council particularly, we kind of dropped the ball on the 'branches'.
You were suppose to start as an Advisor and then get promoted to Agent, or Retainer of Lord XYZ, or Purple Dragon Knight (depending on your level of awesome).
Instead, most promotions just went to a 'generic' knight. Not sure exactly how we managed to not do that right.
Earning retainer to one of the council lords opens up alot of opportunity and plots. That sounds nifty! Imagine if each lord had specific perks and uniforms?
Huh… I honestly assumed this was how it was already. The only "Knights" I remember seeing were wearing Lhal colors so I just assumed they were knights of Lhal and the agents were mostly hardcastle controlled. Guess there was an even better system in the backdrop that I didn't know about. COOL!
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@Khamal:
Well, with the Council particularly, we kind of dropped the ball on the 'branches'.
You were suppose to start as an Advisor and then get promoted to Agent, or Retainer of Lord XYZ, or Purple Dragon Knight (depending on your level of awesome).
Instead, most promotions just went to a 'generic' knight. Not sure exactly how we managed to not do that right.
Earning retainer to one of the council lords opens up alot of opportunity and plots. That sounds nifty! Imagine if each lord had specific perks and uniforms?
They were suppose to…not sure we as DMs did it as well as we could--but these metafactions were suppose to resemble the Mage Guild (you earn promotion by allying to a specific NPC who then gave you specific perks and jobs to do). You gained promotion by impressing and fulfilling tasks each NPC would appreciate.
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Yeah, what actually ended up happening was a council and court free for all and those that got promoted just happened to hit the lucky magic plots to impress someone. I definitely think if people understood to focus on one NPC in particular you'd get more cooperation and more fun plots moving. As of right now it seems that people join a faction first, and then just go free for all, where they should probably be planning what NPC they will be serving from the time they take the quest and focusing on the best interests of that NPC. I mean… that's how the old Player faction sponsor system worked and it was great. I always thought the two factions were supposed to be an improvement of that but it never fleshed out that way.
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Opening up the promotion tree a lot would be a lot better, but in general I think there should be a couple more levels of promotions to be gotten.
Like a step between Advisor and Agent, and then between Agent and Councillor or whatever. These could even be DMless promotions, able to be given out by players granting only a couple extra bonuses and a little extra authority over the regular advisors, but still under the DM promoted PCs.
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Pleb Court would be better if it was branched out to the other gangs. Certain concepts would fit better for promotions in the chaos brigade over the plebian court
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Pleb Court would be better if it was branched out to the other gangs. Certain concepts would fit better for promotions in the chaos brigade over the plebian court
The gangs as they are just wouldn't work together though. So you'd end up with three separate factions. (which might not be bad but isnt what was being said right now)
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The reality for me is, you could make the only faction a band of bakers, and as long as I can go out and kill orcs with a loaf of bread I will push that plot to stop the evil blob of yeast the best I can. There are a few things with the current set up that I would love to see changed;
First, Aasimars and Tieflings in the same faction. This isn't a slight to either player that happen to be in the same faction, but rather on the way the faction is set up to allow it.
Second, ic friends in opposing factions. I've seen this happen in a few instances over the past few weeks since i returned, and I would like to see more consequences for something like this. I've always been cool with spies and stuff, but being able to openly consort with a member of the court when you are a member of the advisors not only seems like something that doesn't make much sense icly if I understand the two factions correctly, but could also give a lot of ooc power to two players who played friends in two opposing factions because they would have access to both of the major forums and all the plot info they contain. Again, if you feel this resembles you, this is not aimed at you but rather the way the system is set up now and that it allows it to happen.
Thanks for reading.
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Aasimar/Tieflings aren't demons/celestials–there is no reason they can't interact in a faction at all.