Factions and how to prevent abuse

[Steve Kort]

In the extreme case, no player would be allowed to run more than one clan at all.  But that seems to be going a bit too far.  It's my assumption that a very-low-ranking clan isn't big/important enough to affect the game play significantly, even for opposing factions.  And I think that playing only in factions that are mutually accepting of one another limits the players choices an awful lot, especially if they're all going to end up with some inter-faction conflicts with someone.

So, if you were in one of 7 factions, each of which had 2 friends and 2 opponents and 2 neutrals, not all in neat pairs, how many clans do you think you could reasonably run in different factions without getting any two of them to be opposed in some fashion?

My guess is you would be hard pressed to play in more than 3 different factions if you were to only have 7 total factions.  I see most players playing the majority of there clans in 1 or 2 factions.  In the Midgard USA version I played 10 clans most of the time 8 in one faction and 1 in 2 other factions.  I think the most factions I ever played in at one time was 4 and in that version of the game I beleive there was 15+ playable factions.

[DreamWeaver]

I believe to begin with you should stick to the (3) clan rule and request of each player for them to define what their primary faction is going to be. Most likely most players will then play (2) clans n their primary and (1) in another faction to broaden their player enjoyment. Now some might play all (3) in the same faction, or maybe even choosing (1) clan in three different factions. Still you should always have the player declare what their primary faction is going to be.

[Steve Kort]

Again any player playing in an enemy faction of another clan of theirs just makes for the potential issues of having knowledge they should not have about others. There is all sorts of potential abuses that could be done or happen. From my Imperial clan has knowledge about things in the Imperial city, now my Boda clan knows that info. My Boda clan notices a small Boda clan leaving a city and now my Imperial clan goes over and attacks it. There is all sorts of potential abuses that could take place to exploit the game to make the players clan tougher in the long run. A lot of these things could happen and some of these things might happen and have nothing to do with the player using information they should not have. It just seems to me that you make it where everyone does not have to concern themselves with these issues.

After all if you set up chat rooms for factions and I am in both the Imperial and Boda how is either chat room secure from the enemy.

[DreamWeaver]

Basically you couldn't have a Banner clan and then have a cousin Blood & Fire clan they are total enemies .

You could say have a (1) Gift with a cousin (1) Ring with another (1) Getham clan.

[Davin]

Well, if you want to totally prohibit inimical factions, we can certainly do that.  I'd thought that you'd want to have some extra flexibility there and be able to play, at least at low levels, pretty much anywhere you wanted to.  In that way you can try out another faction to see how it works for you.

If you wanted to switch from one "side" to another "side", you'd have to completely drop all your positions just to try out the new spot to see if you like it.  That doesn't sound very player-friendly to me.

[Davin]

By way of abusing of knowledge, there are usually ways to abuse that knowledge even with hard limitations. For instance, what if some friend's clan (or even a stranger) spotted that Boda clan and told you about it? The results are the same with or without those limitations. I can probably come up with counter-examples for most situations whereby it can be abused without a whole lot more effort.

I think the important thing here is to limit the most flagrant and obvious possibilities as best we can. We then make it fun for everyone to play without relying on "cheating" and chances are they won't bother most of the time.

[DreamWeaver]

Well I am looking at the abuse side of things where players, start up a enemy clan and use it as a mole. We have seen this a lot in other versions of the game. The real question is for you the GM, what checks will you put in place to catch this type of abuse? When you have hundreds of positions, your not going to be able to review this kind of stuff, like player X has three clans and their in A,B,C factions and etc. I am just pointing this out now to consider how this abuse can be stopped, making your job easier to catch this stuff if it happens.

[Davin]

FYI -- as far as chat rooms go, treat them as semi-public and don't put anything significantly secret out there.  You'll have a direct clan-to-clan messaging system available, and you can always use the chat room concept to open discrete discussions if needed.  Of course, you may still have the problem of who to trust. 

[Davin]

Well I am looking at the abuse side of things where players, start up a enemy clan and use it as a mole.

Ok, what do you expect the mole to find out (at low levels) that there aren't at least hints of relatively publicly?  Nobody is likely to entrust secret information to a low-level clan, with the possible exception of simple tasks to perform (which most people won't care about).  I mean, everyone will know what a faction's general goals are and will expect low-level clans of that faction to be doing that sort of work all the time.  What's news about that?

[DreamWeaver]

Remember Davin not everyone will know what clans belong to whom. You the GM will know, and the player that owns the clan knows what factions all his clans are in. However the senior to that faction that has a low level clan will not know for sure what other clans that player is actually playing and etc.

As to finding out information, lets say Faction A wants to siege Faction B's city. Faction A needs clans to scout out what is in the area of that target city. Next Faction A needs some clans to host some regiments to be used in the siege of the target city. Now it takes time to gather clans and resources to set up a siege. So lets say this player has a a clan In faction A and a cousin clan in Faction B. If that player is asked to join that siege effort, they could "out of game' tip off Faction B's Seniorship of the planned Siege.