NPC Factions and NPC's

[DreamWeaver]

I think you could have a lot of fun with the Blood & Fire as a spur off the Barbarians.

[Davin]

Of course I think that some interesting NPC factions will be important, but I'm not sure that the time is right to develop those yet.  For the time being, I'm really more concerned with what the PCs will be playing in, as that will affect who will be signing up and for what.  I don't think we're anywhere close to ready on that front, yet.

[DreamWeaver]

Davin ,

I strongly disagree with you. What the game is going to need from the beginning is opponents! You see you have decide to only include the following factions:


- Imperials
- Boda Family
- Getham Family
- Roder Family
- Banner Religion
- Gift Religion
- Ring Religion

That means it will be the Imperials against (6) factions. Thus Dog Pile on the Imperials. So either your going to give the Imperials gross amount of resources to survive and piss everyone off, or the other (6) factions will gang up and exterminate them from the game.


The Barbarians were huge with lots of resources but limited. They attacked everyone and could fight both land and naval engagements.

The Bandits were not huge but with their special ability they could hit and run. They also attacked everyone.

The Blood & Fire / The Cult of the Dark One were kind of Anti-One True God religions (Banner/Gift/Ring) and the way I have redesigned them in another thread being a Skelt or historic Celtics/Pics if flavor and based them in the lands/woods of southern Midgard. They could be a cousins of the Barbarians but land/mounted troops native to Midgard.

The Heretics could be based off of the Old Gods beliefs and be another enemies of the One True God religions as well.

The Pirates could be a enemy of all like the Bandits.

So you could set them up and include them within the game but not fully define them, but just play them giving the players possibilities and may flavors of opponents.

I really think you should consider it.

[Davin]

I'm not saying that there shouldn't be plenty of opponents to fight against, and I'll have them.  But if one clan wants to get his faction together to fight an uprising of barbarians (for instance), it's going to be difficult if he's the only clan in his faction.  Therefore, I'm trying to get the factions redesigned so that people will join them, then there will be enough to "engage the enemy", whomever they may be.

IOW, I'm not trying to get rid of NPCs, only that I'm not worried about their design right now when I'm trying to flesh out the way the players are going to want to play.

So, for the PC faction designs, assume that they'll all have common enemies (like Barbarians, B&F, etc.) to work against.  Nobody's going to be left out of that general fray.  I'd just also like some inter-factional tensions (or at least competition) so that the NPCs aren't the only ones they have to contend with in the long term.

[DreamWeaver]

Practical player inter-factional strife

Ok The Imperials are invaders to the Midgard continent and (6) of the factions are going to want to drive them from Midgard. On the flipside the Imperials are going to want to fight the three families to usurp their remaining control at all. They want to see them wiped out as well. The (3) Religions are pure fools that worship some pagan god, and need to be whipped out as well too.

Now the (3) families are all trying to seek dominance over the others, but they understand that they need each other to survive and working together to defeat the Imperials. Next each religion seeks to become a house religion of one of the families. The Banner want to court the Boda, The Gift want to court the Getham, and the Ring wants to court the Roder. Now once again the three religious have different points of view and different religious methods. They do realize that they need to work together to help the people and the three families survive. Also there is a stronger bound between the Gift and Ring, as they are a lot alike in many ways.

[Davin]

True... up to now.  But we were also talking about redeveloping the history of Midgard.  What if the Imperials weren't so much like military conquistadors, but just another group of general expansionists spreading more like crabgrass? Then everyone isn't banding together to keep out invaders, but they're just each trying to stop local encroachments and keep them from their doorstep?  Then there's not so much of a reason to band together to "kill them or die", is there?  Then they're more like another "foreign family" that need to be out-competed rather than wiped out at all costs, right?

Do you suppose that you could come up with a historical version (perhaps like this, perhaps not) that doesn't make them such overwhelming bad guys and yet they still maintain some military advantages (or whatever you want to come up with as advantages in their redesign)?

[DreamWeaver]

History:
The skies grew dark and a great ball of glowing red light steaked across the skies heading south over Midgard. It seem to hit the sea south of Midgard and north of Kalmar. At the point of impact, everyone was thrown off their feet. After the strike great waves came crashing inland and swept over the lands of Midgard. Many cities in the south were simply swept away. Meanwhile great earth quakes were felt across the lands everywhere and many cities were reduced to rubble and/or burned to the ground. Then those that managed to survive that had to endure a great long winter that lasted two years, leave many to die from the elements or famine. Much was lost and most people just tried to survive. That was from the times of our parents, and now people have started to reform and rebuild from the ruins of the past. Some of the former political organizations have reformed again and have started to via for political control of the lands once again. The Imperial, and three great Midgard Families of; the Boda, the Getham and the Roder.  Also some religions sects have reformed as well; The Banner, The Gift, and The Ring.  Other organizations are rumored to also have started up or come into existence but at this point they just seem to be rumors.

NOTE: Just forget the past games play and start over as stated above. Simply have as you starting factions the (7) of: Imperial, Boda, Getham, Roder, Banner, Gift, and Ring.  Now you could then do the redesign of all of them to make them refreshed and fun to play, then after they are all fully in play, then consider adding other factions again.

[Davin]

Ok, that sounds reasonable to me.  So let's return to the factional design threads and see what "the group" can come up with in terms of factional purposes/causes and flesh them out with abilities and interfactional relationships from there.  You've already done some work along those lines, but before we started combining some of the old features together.

[Imperium]

Don't forget Penn, that within that core group of 7 factions, there is a lot of hatred between some of them.

To say that the Roder would like to see the Banner wiped out is a given.

The Getham uses their economic clout in an attempt to reign in the Boda.

I do think though, that the three OTG religions needs a religious opponent from the start. Whether that be a strong NPC heretic opponent or a player led faction (ie... the B&F) is the question. Banner and OOH players from the Ring join those factions for a reason. To fight.

[DreamWeaver]

See I agree with Brian completely, we need to have the other factions at least as NPC factions like.

- Blood & Fire
- Serkeanar
- Cult of the Dark One
- Heretics

Plus we need these other Bad Guys too

- Skelts
- Barbarians
- Bandits
- Pirates