All of these would be generic enemies but as I mentioned before some of these would be of more concern to some factions than others. Meaning certain factions would pay bounties for there capture or death. These also make for great targets for players to practice their combat skills in the game. They also could make a good way for clans to gain a reputation in the area and be looked open favorably by the locals.
Despite your thoughts on factions and players in each faction those things will vary through out the life of the game people will come and go from the game and they will drop and add clans. You may have a huge number of Imperials at one time and virtually no Boda, then it may slowly change and become just the opposite. Players may become bored with certain factions and completely move to another. These are things no one in the game can control. Your best bet is to make sure there are plenty of factions with lots of variety for people to play and stay around in the game.
Also for game balance at times you may need to place NPC factional clans around to help defend things or just for targets for enemy factions. This may be greatly necessary if a faction ends up with a small number of clans for you to keep game balance, but again this will depend on numbers. The key is that things must be done from time to time to add variables and new challenges in the game to keep players interested and give them new goals to be met.
Actually I believe this should be expanded upon...
I believe the following NPC Factions should be in the system as other factions that the players or factions can work against.
Barbarians - they are both land and sea (marines like)
Bandits - land based
Pirates - they are mostly naval, but pirates can raid inland as well too as well as attacking cities that are poorly defended
Heretics - Old Gods followers, gives the Religious factions some targets
Blood & Fire - they are a Moorlock follower and huge target for the Religious factions
I would place declared cities in all sections of Midgard for these NPC factions giving larger targets to pursue against.
I understand that the player's interests will morph, but my initial concern is spreading things too thinly. IOW, it won't be an interesting faction to play if you're the only clan in it. We need variety within the factions as well as in choice of factions. If some move out to other factions, then some will likely move in, too.
I expect to use NPCs of multiple factions to help fill out the population, but it will be the PCs that actually do interesting things in the game. As your clans play, I'd want you to run into other PCs as well as NPCs of various sorts.
As for the "bad guys", I think they should mostly be there (at least in the beginning) to provide NPC clans for players to work against, either passively or actively.
Speaking as a Long time D&D DM, I would use these factions as the games Bad Guys. I would have declared cities for each faction in different areas of the Midgard continent, and also set up declared clans for each of them as targets and etc within the game. Maybe set up some notes and plots about each declared city and those clans.
Sure, at least for now. Knowing players, though, somebody's going to want to play as those "bad guys" themselves, so I'm leaving that concept open for the future if/when we get enough people playing.
For instance, I can see cities that survive primarily on the spoils of bandits fencing goods and coastal cities that are "safe havens" for pirates, that PCs may not like to have around.
Davin I feel you could have a lot of fun by also having both the Barbarians and the Blood & Fire as NPC factions. Use them as they have been 'Evil Raiders' that go after everyone. The Barbarians will attack everyone, and the B&F will go after the Religious factions (Banner, Gift, Ring). It would be a lot of fun to hunt them down and deal with them. It could help to drive some factions to deal with such threats.
It might also be worth while to create a Merc type faction that was a NPC as well , and run them as a pure NPC too.It gives you time to work out all the bugs and later opens up other factions for players to eventually expand into if they have the drive and desire.
Davin personally I think you fail to realize the mentality of the younger gamer. If there is not lots of variety of things for them to do and accomplish they will get bored and move on. Older players will likely stick with the game much longer but even they will give up if they feel things are a hopeless cause for the faction they are playing in. If you don't have a lot of variety of clans with different styles and beliefs the game will get old and stagnant and people will have no other place to go. You need to consider that over the course of game time things can change and new enemies become more of an issue.
Say the Boda dwindle in numbers and the much larger group of Imperials have virtually wiped them out. Sure they may have a few cities and a few clans, but they are no real threat to the Imperials no more. Now you need someone else to be that major player enemy of the Imperials, you can not expect a group of people will just come in and join the game and play Boda when they are no match to their enemy.
In Midgard USA many factions dwindled in numbers after they faced their enemy and lost. Most of the time those players started up clans in totally seperate factions and if it were not for the variety of clans and different style of play of those factions most of them would have simply left the game. In fact a couple of my clans I played later on in the game were actually inactive clans of the faction that another player used to run and the Senior of the Faction gave it to me to play. That way I had a more experienced clan to play one with some training and better supplies. At that time I was one of the only Boda players left alive as the others had gotten killed in various ways. Needless to say I did not stay Boda.
[quote='DreamWeaver' pid='137343' dateline='1578715721']
Davin I feel you could have a lot of fun by also having both the Barbarians and the Blood & Fire as NPC factions.
[/quote]
I don't have a problem with having other NPC types out there. That's more work for me but it's really just a matter of building the scenarios. Getting humans to play in PC factions is much more difficult. Thus I'm trying to focus on convincing people to play, and that means providing them a good time with a number of interesting varieties of PC factions. But it's been as difficult to get participation on the factional redesign as I expect it to be getting players to play in them. We need some more help here.
[quote='Steve Kort' pid='137345' dateline='1578725453']
Davin personally I think you fail to realize the mentality of the younger gamer. If there is not lots of variety of things for them to do and accomplish they will get bored and move on.
[/quote]
I certainly hear what you're saying, but I'm having trouble just getting to that stage. If we get enough players we can start adding more factions for more interesting choices. But I don't want them to start out bored.
Take your example with the Boda ... it wasn't very fun playing mostly by yourself, was it? So what if we start up the Boda as one of many choices and only one or two players signs up with them? Aren't they going to be at least as bored, and immediately upon starting?
My idea is if they have fewer choices to start with, then there will be more clans starting in each one. As more players join in we can then add new factions for them to choose from, when the existing ones can afford to be thinner. Hopefully we can maintain a balance as we grow, without bloating or starving any of the factions, and the variety can grow with the size of the player base.
Davin I would look at the NPC factions as the next ones on deck to develop and players might want to join later on. Here is the list that I think would work:
- Barbarians
- Bandits
- Pirates
- Blood & Fire Religion
- Cult of the Dark One
- Heretics
- Swashbucklers
- Merc Verk / SOA
- Cymru /Seekers
These are just a few and would add other elements to the game. Having a few NPC clans and maybe a city declared for each of them across the lands would add a lot of plot lines that you would control and add more in game play for all.
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.
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'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.
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.
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? :P 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)?
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.
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.
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.
My advise to Davin would be to set up the basics for the NPC factions like the Skelt. They basically are modeled after the Celts, but are within the massive Forests that covers most of the southern continent of Southern Midgard. Design them as having Ambush, Tracking, Scouting, Torture, and Tactics. In the forest they would be frightful and scary and maybe even give them a bonus in combat in the Forest. They worship Moorlock or the old Gods, but would have no love for any of the One True God faiths. Make them Head - Hunters and Cannibals.. Call them the evil Ghosts of the woods. Make them cousins of the Barbarians, and maybe they have a slight relationship with each other.
The Barbarians should be similar and flushed out better to be NPCs that raid and harras Midgard as well. Maybe the Skelts stay to their forests mostly and hardly ever raid but that can still happen. You need to work these two factions out even to use them as NPCS,
Now you need to have Bandits and Pirates both worked out as well. At least get some details to make them better NPCs for use in the game. I would also consider doing the same with the Religious factions as well too. Now once you have these all, we will have very good enemies to fight against too
[quote='Imperium' pid='137396' dateline='1579523469']
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.
[/quote]
Is it necessary that the families have that much hatred between one another, so they want to see the others completely wiped out? Or is it sufficient to want to see them simply "beat down" to impotence?
[quote='Imperium' pid='137396' dateline='1579523469']
The Getham uses their economic clout in an attempt to reign in the Boda.
[/quote]
This would be more like what I was thinking about. Each family would want to be mostly "in charge" with the others more "under control" rather than "wiped out".
[quote='Imperium' pid='137396' dateline='1579523469']
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.
[/quote]
I agree that the religions need direct opponents as well as competition between themselves. I'd like to see a disorganized NPC "faction" for them to fight in general, rather like bandits. You can think of bandits as small unrelated groups making a local nuisance of themselves pretty much anywhere you go, but without an overarching "faction" with a "plan" to which they report. Some sort of heretical "faction" might fill the bill here, if we can keep organization minimal or nonexistent.
OTOH, organized factional religions (probably based on other gods) are of a different flavor and may provide for new opponents after we get started. We may want them as just NPCs or we may open them up for the players to have fun with. I was originally thinking of the B&F as the general religious opponents, but I think perhaps they'll require too much organization to fit the previous category and they might be better off coming in (eventually) as a full faction (PC or NPC, as we feel is appropriate at the time).
[quote='DreamWeaver' pid='137398' dateline='1579525555']
See I agree with Brian completely, we need to have the other factions at least as NPC factions like.
[/quote]
Of course we do. But I don't think that it's necessary to have a lot of them while there are only a relatively few players to oppose them. I'd like to start off with some general-purpose NPC enemies that will always exist scattered around and then build up some organized NPCs as our player base increases.