Player Faction Accomplishments
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What makes a good player faction and what is it that they've accomplished? Try and be as detailed as you can when you give examples. Instead of saying "Marco's Mercs had good RPers and they were involved in a lot of plots" explain what you mean by "good RPers" in the context of the faction. Explain how they were involved in plots that was different than just chasing it around. What made the faction good, instead of just the individual players?
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By some definition, a successful faction is one that involves alot of people. One way to do this is through Conflict. An example of this would be the Ironshields. They got alot of people talking about them, reacting about them, because they were an in-your-face we're-here-get-used-to-it we'll-kill-you-later.
Were they involved in their own plots? I don't know about that. But they were involved in alot of other people's who sought to make use of their popularity and martial prowess. If being talked about when you are not there is a definition of success, then the Ironshields were a success.
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Well there's the traditional intrigue, involvement and conflict.
If I'd have to add to that list I'd say.Potential, and the ability to explore it.
The potential to do something that matters and will generate changes in arabel.
Rather than just make one big event and say "DO IT" I much prefer large quantities of small things, the more you complete the closer you get to your goal, it's less intimidating to the non veteran players who just don't know how to go about getting something done.
(Go kill the giant unkillable dragon hidden away where you can't find it, defended by an army of creatures, each of which could kick your ass.) Tends to intimidate players into inaction.
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Successful can best be described as being in a timezone and syncing with about 3-5 PCs of various classes into a regular daily adventuring group and become noticed by DMs and start getting into plot action just by being a regular daily adventuring group that lasts a long time.
Monty, Truant, Sidney and Co are an example of this.
Are they successful as a player faction? they haven't actually -done- anything. But you look at them in envy.
You.
Want.
In.With just a wee little bit of work, they could become a powerhouse for adventure and intrigue, everyone would go to them to ask for help or to do stuff.
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The Redmoon was what i think could be described as a successful player faction.
The thing it had was a good leader, both in terms of the character and the player. But most importantly Hessu provided creativity in addition to the solid leadership.
With such a defined vision along with the relatively simple dogma of Malar the faction had a clear agenda, and an ethos that was clearly seen server wide.
That in and of itself made enemies of those that had never even met the faction players providing genuine reasons for pvp between people that met for the first time because the undercurrent of faction rivalry was so great.
The ooc respect shown by the players involved was also great in my opinion. The Red Harts could so easily have come and closed down the Redmoon as they had the advantage of both numbers and levels but they played the game acting only politically until forced by being attacked themselves.
Overall the Redmoon faction was cohesive and well focused on their goals which were defined in both long and short term, but all of which could ultimately involve many players - new recruits, opposition and those that could justify coming along on any 'hunt'.
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Unfortunately I can't claim many examples of the factions that were here before I showed up a few month back. I do know that the good ones encourage roleplay. Not just verbally or by questing a lot but the growth of stories. They include a lot of other individiuals when they bump into them either as a member of their current party or as an opponent and help characters flesh out their beliefs systems beyond "Well this group looks like a good one to get a few quests done."
I believe while Lord Kalindor is an extremely polar character at times being around him and now his retainer have helped me think about what my characters would stand up for despite the obvious tactical weakness of taking sides. I believe this mantaility in a faction and the inclusion of others combined with the OOC kindness they have shown me in RP and tells is what fosters success. It's not enough to be look up to or feared. Any NPC can accomplish that. Factions need their PC's to create dynamics among characters and entrench them in the different sides that are going on either with them or against them so that a true story beyond lets go work for gold or renown can be accomplished.
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The early Gleaming Blade was great.
They were always FUN, rolling with punches, enjoying quests and challenges without complaint.
They included EVERYONE. It wasn't a clique, or a faction made up of the same OOC group that is always together in every group.
They ADVENTURED all the time, not just making up their own adventures by going out exploring, or making up good reasons to do lesser done quests rather than the same old five or six just so they could level up safely.
They came up with INTERESTING ideas for DM events they wanted to see, without a lot of rigmarole involved in making it happen or by waiting on DMs to provide everything.
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They ADVENTURED all the time, not just making up their own adventures by going out exploring, or making up good reasons to do lesser done quests rather than the same old five or six just so they could level up safely.
This makes me curious. If not exploring and using the already existing areas in the module, quest area or otherwise, in non-mundane ways, what did they do that you'd call "ADVENTURE", besides those "ideas for DM events"? After all, you can't expect to spend the majority of your time in DM events, however interesting your ideas are, so what "ADVENTURE" did they fill the bulk of their time with?
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I think he means that they adventured by going out and exploring, they adventured by going out and looking for specific things, they adventured by going on the quests that people don't normally go on, and they made up fun IC reasons for doing all of those things.
Anyone can go on quests, but not everyone is successful at making a scripted quest an adventure.
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I think the best player factions tend to be ones that have characters from all sorts of backgrounds on the servers, even as far as its members being in DM factions. These factions tend to have a purpose thats clear, and when that purpose is over so is the faction. They also tend not to fall apart once player A decides he wants to go play efu because DM B pissed him off, leaving the faction a shell of what it was without the one player that drove everything to push all the people that jumped on board because they saw that player was garnering an excessive amount of plot and dm event love.
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There is currently a VERY GOOD opportunity going for PC factions in Easthaven right now… a certain competition? Would be a very good start for any faction:
/forum/viewtopic.php?t=133204&highlight=
I'd also like some feedback to why people seem hesitant to go for this?
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Might have something to do with the seriously powerful mercenary band that signed up first :)
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Might have something to do with the seriously powerful mercenary band that signed up first :)
Who? Because I didn't think we had any mercenary bands who were that seriously powerful right now. I'm confident any group can try this.
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I'm sure the victor won't just be the most powerful mechanically. We have a few other things planned.
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Succesful player factions…
Trystans Trade springs to mind. They had good roleplayers, that actively sought to involve others, and not merely "trying to claim everything on their own". They were selective, yet not to the point of it seeming OOC. Merely, it had to be a priveledge to be on board, and not merely something you signed up for and earned in a day.
Secondly, they had mystery and influence. People migh suspect them, but what they were actively doing was alot different from what the common man on the street saw.
They seemed like fun, to the point of me actually wanting to make a char with the sole purpose of being their minion.
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Simple training sessions for the group, where each person needs to go out and find something for it, a scroll, even just choking powder or caltrops to display their uses in situations, is a tiny single example of making it so a level 1 character can feel a part of something. Staged training events which require no DM are great too, sparring mode PVP using tactics and such.
Those are a couple of team building exercises.
Making sure every single player has an achievable (without a DM) goal, that they understand the reason for, at all times is a must.
Having a definite enemy, preferably another PC group helps too, so long as you make sure it doesn't just end up as a few arguments in the guildhall, with the occasional boring spar upstairs. Change those staged training exercises so that the enemy is the other team now, instead of half of your group, for example. Fun PVP, where all that's at stake is pride.
Ranking systems and uniforms can help people feel like they belong, and are earning something. Perhaps even give out one of your best pieces of loot to someone that does something extremely good, or recruits a ton of players, even if it makes you more mechanically weak.
Allying with DM factions. And I mean allying, not saying you are allies, actually doing things for them, going along with them every now and then is nice, but properly following up things they tell you about, without the DM factions characters present, is vastly better.
Communicating to the DM's what your faction is about, how things are going, what you've done, who your fighting etc etc
challenges, trials, games, hunts, competitions.
One or two overarching goals at the outset, but these should be flexible to let other members have a say. The sub goals to these should be even more flexible, otherwise its just one or two guys telling everyone what to do, which can work for some concepts, but is going to make people feel like robots or something.
Holding meetings in places other than places full of blue NPC's, perhaps even in the middle of a dungeon, if it's relevant. For one thing, people might stumble into you, or an enemy may have found out your meeting there, it lets spys have a chance, etc etc. All of these things are to make things more interesting, not secure your SUCCESS.
There's a few things. I reckon.
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I played Danu in the Gleaming Blades.
Some of what made the faction fun for me was the camradrie between the characters. I'm not sure how that can be defined or recreated. We did a lot of questing and wandering around the server just looking for something interesting. Danu was my first character on the server and all of the things the the Gleaming Blades became involved in seemed to happen in a sort of spontanous and effortless manner. At that time I knew little about the tremendous effort the dms put in behind the scenes. The simplest tasks or quests always seemed to have a comedic undertone when the GB's showed up. The characters felt like real people to me. We didn't spend all our time questing and being productive though. There was plenty of plain old rp in bars and whatnot. Duncan lighting Acer on fire was always a favorite of mine. I think the chemistry between the characters is what kept that one going and made it fun for so long. I've yet to duplicate the fun I had with the Gleaming Blades since Danu died. Part of that may just be because it was my first charater and everything was new. I'm sure part of it was the top notch rprs. We had the only half orc mage in town for pete's sake! I can say that from my perspective none of us was trying to create server changing events. We were just "being" our characters and when the dms threw stuff our way it just sort of happened organically. Good times.
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I forgot to say…
Going along with Moloch said, we did have characters from all manner of backgrounds and skills. It made for all kinds of delicious chaos at times and only added to the fun. It was a company filled with misfits for the most part. Kind of a cross between comedy improv and a mercenary company.
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Ah, I knew the Gleaming Blades were gonna pop up in this thread. By far its been the single most exciting time i had on this server. Like Sensei mentioned above, most of the crap our group did was just be bored and go out and do something, meet, new people, etc. During that time market sitting was at a paramount and I believe our group tried to help change that up. We never kept anyone out of the fun, and alot of people liked that and either joined or kept in touch as an ally. It was the perfect example of a morally good-aligned group out to fight for the "little" people. Not to mention Euph is such a great leader even tho his character Danu at the time didn't think she was.
Oh god I typed a paragraph…
/end memory laneJust to say I doubt any mercenary group will ever come close to being as good and as fun at it was.
(And whoever kept bringing the gleaming blades back over and over again like Micheal Jordan... <_<)
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I've been in quite a few player factions.
Most failed horribly. Due to poor agendas, poor leadership.
lack of interest. Etc.The one thing that I have realized is that you need to avoid cults based on one religion. Sure it gives a clear defined agenda. but it is really hard to recruit others unless they make new characters specifically for joining your group.
having a religious Patron is good. but avoid attempting to focus solely on the Zealousness.
Try broadening the scope to allow characters of other faiths to join and you will find recruitment much easier.The second thing I found that made a successful group was conflict. Pick an enemy. Preferably a DM faction and actively work against them.
From my own experience, The recent talonites group(yes i know, religious cult..) were formed from the ashes of the Cabal.. Thier main agenda was not simply to release a plague
(though undoubtedly that was one of the most fun things i have accomplished on this server) But to Drive people back to worshipping the gods.. any gods.. they didnt care which,
so long as they turned away from the seduction of Lyss. They just happened to use completely immoral methods to do so..
Picking an enemy like Lyss ended up putting us in conflict with nearly every major faction in the city and led to heaps of fun.The main point Im trying to articulate is that you need to have a somewhat broad agenda to allow for ease of recruitment.
And secondly encourage conflict. especially against other PC's