However, the system there discusses a faction system whereby each player’s character might belong to one or more factions that are different than the factions other characters might belong to. And that’s probably something that most dungeon masters should be striving for.įactions and organization are discussed in the Dungeon Master Guide starting on page 21. It feels more like a living breathing world, then just something you are all imagining in your heads. That is, your game seems more realistic to your players. And then there are in-game consequences such as the faction sending assassins after the heroes when their relations really hit the bottom.Īll of these mechanics reinforce verisimilitude in your game. Since bad guys are often representatives from certain factions, as the heroes thwart the villains’ plans, they lose favor with those factions. Namely, through their actions they can increase their favor with certain factions and get in-game benefits. In my Hand of Light game, the players uses some flippant words and pissed off the Guild of Apothecaries and Physicians, one of the factions in that game, and then they had to engage in some basic politics and negotiations-and an adventure, of course-to appease them.įactions-and especially when you combine it with the faction favor system I’ll discuss a little later-also give your players an objective to work toward. And, a quest for your players to go on.įactions can also be used to add some light-weight politics to the game. Lord Paxton has his army of orcs besiege the town of Rassalantar and then the Lords of Waterdeep ask the heroes to help. And the things they do can introduce drama and tension into your game, which should be one of your main goals as a dungeon master.
Factions also give Dungeon Masters a powerful tool that they can use in their games. Using factions in your game makes the world seem larger, more complex, and more realistic to your players. Okay, if the basic idea of factions doesn’t already sound cool and like something you might want to use in your game, allow me to further convince you. Of course, this was the central tension of the campaign as well. Once they found out that Lord Paxton was slowly conquering or annexing the territory along the Sword Coast, they took it upon themselves to stop him. This is exactly what my players did with Lord Paxton. Or your players might align themselves against the goals and objectives of a specific faction and choose to oppose them over the course of the entire campaign. And then when the heroes defeat the orcs, they gain favor with the Lords of Waterdeep faction-more on that later! That could be as simple as the Lords of Waterdeep reaching out to the heroes for help with a tribe of orcs amassing to the north. That means that the Lords of Waterdeep and Lord Paxton are both up to stuff at the same time the PCs are delving into dungeons or screwing around on some side quest.Īnd ideally, from time to time – or maybe all of the time – your players will interact with these factions at some level. That’s because ideally you want to custom tailor the factions you use for your specific campaign.Īnd then basically, the way factions work is that they are active in the game world at the same time your players are. You might notice that none of the “standard factions” such as the Harpers or Zhentarim even come into play in my Sword Coast Guard game. For instance, in my Sword Coast Guard game, the main factions are the Lords of Waterdeep, the Town of Rassalantar, the Drazovonites – a cult – the Hags of the Feywild, and, of course, Lord Paxton. They can be temples, guilds, secret societies, governments, and even bad guys.
HOMM VII FACTIONS FREE
Oh, and if you’re getting value out of my articles and free D&D resources and would like to help support my content and get access to lots of really cool perks-such as a private VIP Discord channel, exclusive monthly voice chat hangouts with me, and even voting on which videos I should make-you can do so by becoming a Patron here: The DM Lair Patreon.įactions are basically large organizations that are at work in the game world. The first couple hours are focused on answering questions from the chat.
HOMM VII FACTIONS HOW TO
Today in the Lair, we’ll be discussing how to use factions in your D&D games and the homebrew faction favor system I’ve developed and use in my games.Īnd if you have any questions about this topic or anything else dungeon master or D&D related, I have live streams on my YouTube channel, The DM Lair, pretty much every Friday at 6 pm Eastern US time. If you prefer to watch (or listen) to the video version of this article, you can do so here: How to Use Factions and Faction Favor in D&D.
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