Factions

[Wired]

What are the ingredients for a positive, game-influencing, thriving faction?

Discuss.

[Minuvas]

If I can speak on behalf of the Lochwar faction. Which I think has tons and tons and tons and tons of written lore, extreme organization,our fair bit of DM support - but lacks one MAJOR influencing factor in the entire thing.


Active people. Our member base is on and off, its an inefficient use of the above resources .

[hannahcoldkiller]

a rival competing faction

[ErictheRed]

a rival competing faction

I totally agree. I sometimes wish we could make a rival, competing faction to the Lochwarians, but I feel like Minuvas and the Church has too much power. They could just brand the entire group heretics, enemies of the state, etc.

I realize this makes sense from an IC perspective, but I don't really think it's fair or conducive to fun. Meaning no disrespect to Minuvas, who is an excellent roleplayer, I think that many people are too intimidated when he's around. They're simply afraid of being branded heretics or they don't feel like there's really an IC option for them to express themselves without causing a ton of problems for themselves. I've felt this way to some extent, and some other players I've talked to have, as well.

Is this too much power for a player character? Does becoming an active member of the Church of Lochwar give a player too much power? I've wondered about it myself sometimes, and wish there were some checks and balances (like a rival faction) to even things out a bit.

Anyway I don't mean to criticize Minuvas, who has done great things by creating such a wonderfully fleshed-out faction, but rather to criticize the mechanics of how things are set up. I often find myself wondering what type of role a good-aligned character should play in Dasaria. I understand that things make pretty good IC sense how they are right now, but I think that we need a rival faction to the Lochwar church. Perhaps something like the French resistance in WW2?

[Stormknife]

Is this too much power for a player character?

He doesn't have that power, no matter how much he may claim to. Only DMs get to decide who becomes EoS, and I doubt they would ever do that just because one character said so. And they DEFINITELY wouldn't do it without some other mitigating factor (e.g. drow in Das1; already had several previous offenses; decided to crap on a Claw's frosted flakes).

Besides, we've had people accused of heresy for speaking elven, being wild shaped, and being buffed in town. It's been overused to the point where it may as well mean "Minuvas stubbed his toe and needed to take it out on someone". Sure, Minuvas can try to make your life difficult IC; but considering neither he nor the rest of his faction are on very often, how possible is that? In that regard, the Lochwar church is no different from any other faction, no matter how much members may try to posture otherwise.

On to the actual topic...

As far as what helps the game: active members who have OOC respect for other players and the server as a whole are a big one. This especially applies to faction leaders, doubly so to public interactions, and triply so to forum postings (since potential members are going to be able to read that and OOC decide for themselves if they're willing to put up with whatever those posts show).

Most importantly, for any faction to truly thrive, it cannot be a cult of personality based around the leader. Every group that starts that way explodes once the original leader leaves.

[obsoletenihilist]

If I base it off my years and years of online gaming...

The most popular factions that work and get the most attention from players and DM's alike are the ones that have real women members.

Geeks R LONLEH.

[Ron]

One with a stable core group that show up, the DM's give them something to work with and recognize them plus a community to interact with. They also need a reason for being, a goal of some sort. Without things like this it's just a group of players who party together from time to time and will have little or no affect on the server.

[Wumpus Slayer]

I tend to agree with ErictheRed on this. Without naming names, I have become aware at one point or another during the last year of at least six different underground factions, some good, some evil, some of which may still exist. The biggest issue IMHO is that they are afraid to act out.

I think a big contributing factor is that the population of Varana feels like the population of Myanmar. There is such an overwhelming sense of oppression from both the church and the government that those who might be inclined to act out really see it as the last thing they'll ever do, because then they either die or are branded EoS with no survivable option.

This is not to criticize Minuvas and the Lochwar faction, nor is it to criticize the DMs and the world that has been created. Both contribute to a very rich world which our characters are all learning how to navigate. Perhaps, as Stormknife suggests, those who might fight the Good fight simply don't understand their options well enough to develop a non-suicidal plan.

Another factor that I have seen hamper faction activity on a mass scale is OOC life commitments and responsibilities, such as studying for school, work schedules, taking care of family members, etc. This can make it difficult to get a significant portion of a group online at a specific time/day for some sort of event. This is compounded if you wish to coordinate with another faction or people on different continents. The result is that for large, multi-faction events, you have to plan weeks in advance and schedule it for a Saturday when there is sufficient overlap of timezones and days off from work/school that some can afford to be online early and others really late.

Next, there are some "institutional" factions that are very difficult to play, because very few players have the time and desire to do the same thing over and over and over on a regular basis. Here I'm talking about factions like the guards/fleet. Sure, it might be fun for a few weeks, but then it becomes a chore, and people notice when they aren't around.

Lastly, most role-players tend to dream big. That means, for example, taking actions which have big changes on the world. For some it might mean being appointed to a higher position within the church, for others it might mean establishing a secret headquarters for their faction, or burning down a village, or perma-killing an NPC, or whatever. This is easy to do in a PnP campaign when there is only one player faction to consider, but it's much harder to be fair to a broader base of players, and it's especially difficult when the toolset to do this is so painful and time-consuming to use.

[ErictheRed]

I realize that Minuvas alone can't really make someone an Enemy of the State and have all the DMs go along with him, etc. My point is more: what is a good character supposed to do and remain in-character? From a purely in-character perspective, the Church of Lochwar is about the most powerful organization in a very powerful empire. What options are there for a rival faction?? Right now, there aren't really any, and I think we need to make some.

Also, I'm not trying to start a big argument, but I do think this is a problem. I've talked to a few other players privately who have felt like whenever the Church of Lochwar is out in full force (i.e., Minuvas with a few cronies), they sort of hog all the roleplaying. This isn't purposeful, it's just that people are genuinely afraid of being branded a heretic, having the Church mad at them, and generally don't really know what options they have to roleplay except to just go along with whatever Minuvas/the Church says and does.

Minuvas is an awesome roleplayer. The Church of Lochwar is an awesome faction that fits perfectly into the Dasarian campaign. However, I think we need to discuss the problem that I (and at least 4 other players I've talked with) feel exists: what the hell is an Old Dasarian or generally anti-Lochwarian supposed to do??

[kikkelipoika]

Is this too much power for a player character?

His power doesn't come from an ability to make life difficult for other people, but rather from fear. It just proves that he has played his char brilliantly.

[baby1111007]

You can be anti- Minuvas or anti- Lochwar without breaking laws. That is the main issue I see. No, you cannot preach on the streets that Lochwar is not the king of gods. but you can preach about the glory of your own god. You cannot seek to overthrow the lore of the Empire, but there is nothing stopping one of the other churches to step up and start trying to recruit members. Minuvas may try to make you acknowledge his "authoritah", but that does not mean you have to bow down at his feet. Minuvas does not have the power many think that he has.

It does mean that you have to think how you can oppose him without being so obvious. My priestess of Nuarari started her school idea, someone else spoke to her about getting a Tharon based "Order of the Flacons " in game.

Also I know of at least three factions in game with rebel leanings. We all can't play rebels or else it will get boring real fast. There is a way to challenge some of Minuvas' authority without playing anti Empire as well. It will be a bit easier in fact and a bit more interesting in my opinion...more political.

[kikkelipoika]

...more political.

damn i hate politics

Well, that may be because i always tend to play a scientist kinda guy. Glad we have a mage guild here, but it has a lot of activity problems aswell.

I think the main problem is that there just isn't enough things to do in terms of research, save crafting; and getting the ingredients is too hard IMO. There should be some other way to get them beside farming. Maybe there could be a merchant somewhere who would sell stuff at like 1000%-5000% price and he would have an endless suply of all the ingredients with him. That way you could buy all those ingots, but it wouldn't be too cheap. This guy obviously wouldn't buy anything, he would just sell crafting stuff.

*sigh* and even that rant went off topic

Well, another try

Anyway, what can you do right now? play politics, farm stuff, craft things, play a merchant, farm more stuff. These are the possible activities for factions. Obviously if you want a thriving faction, you need lots of characters interested in doing these things, and that's about it. Also you need a couple of really active members to keep the faction alive at all times.

If we just had a script-maniac without any life at all working with new scripts concerning crafting, magical rituals and other similar stuff all the time.... Too bad we all have a life .

[kikkelipoika]

What the hell is an Old Dasarian or generally anti-Lochwarian supposed to do??

whine bitterly behind the corner ofcourse!

I don't think there is supposed to be that many anti-lochwarians and old dasarians around anymore from the story point of view. If you think it this way then it's just a good thing that old dasarians and anti-lochwarians are going to have some serious problems.

Besides, it might be interesting if Meanuvas was to get some competition; maybe another power hungry priest of lochwar with an equal position in the church *hint* *hint*...

Oh, and it's not that easy to play a random $%^%-head either; you'll end up in jail all the time. That, and you might also find it difficult to form a faction that mainly consists of idiots. It might be damn fun though

[Minuvas]

Do we need to create a separate thread purely for discussing how to kill and or imprison me?

For those looking for a "Dissident" faction - i know for a fact they exist. A few of them infact.

It depends how 'nefarious' you'd really like to be.

I think the difficulty in this is that the "Oppossing" forces of the current regime , are mostly "Good". This means they aren't open to the sorts of things that say an "Evil" organization might be open to.

Where Good natured organizations have to be more subvert (By nature of course, they can't gain control by inspiring fear, or by making violent shows of force like the Empire can) an Evil Organization trying to make a mark in a Good Empire is far easier to manage .

I think, the DM's have long since planned a delicious cannoli cream filled center for all those who are looking to be more non-conformal to the Campaign, and I believe they have expressed that these options will open up once further progress has been made on the Campaign.

[ErictheRed]

I think, the DM's have long since planned a delicious cannoli cream filled center for all those who are looking to be more non-conformal to the Campaign, and I believe they have expressed that these options will open up once further progress has been made on the Campaign.

I hope you're right, and I've seen a lot of hints to this effect. I just hope it doesn't take too long to start. I feel like most dissenting players run around like chickens with their heads cut off, not knowing what to do. Perhaps that's the players' fault (at least mostly), but it should be talked about a bit so that we can all come to some conclusions about how we'd like to take the campaign forward.