Factions

Alex Schroeder was one of the judges for this year's One Page Dungeon Contest. In February he posted some ideas about what he likes in small dungeons. I don't see why the qualities he lists need be limited to smaller dungeons. I paid close attention because I'm really interested in the idea of abstracting out guidelines or general qualities for a successful old school adventure.

Now, much of what he lists you've probably seen before. I covered T. Foster's list of what one typical old school adventuring session should probably include here and Tran Eskoor An Doon posted that same list with some great additions here. I also blogged about Guy Fullerton's idea of the qualities of a great old school module, which is a little different but certainly related.

But one thing Alex mentions that I hadn't seen in either of those lists relates to factions in a dungeon and the opportunity for players to negotiate with them. This seems like a classic feature and should probably be added to any list of old school touchstones or qualities of great modules.

Here are some of the things he mentioned liking:

• Intelligent opposition. If the monsters are too stupid, no amount of trickery will help.
• A handful of named NPCs with goals and quirks to interact with.
• Potential allies for the more politically inclined players.
• Maybe even a third party beyond the party and the enemies.
• Relations between these NPCs in a sentence or two. A is hiding from B. C really hates D. E escaped from the prison run by F.
• Factions that these NPCs belong to. Actions will have long term consequences if factions are involved.

And I think these points are somewhat related in that they facilitate interactions with factions, a dungeon design that:

• suggests multiple goals. Rescue prisoner here, kill boss there, find hidden treasure
• offers an opportunity to spy on enemies for the stealthily minded players. A murder hole, a grate, a tiny tunnel, a scrying ball.

I'm really interested in designing my own Keep on the Borderland mini-sandbox, but I've never been very interested in humanoids as factions-- only because they aren't very distinct in my mind, sort of size-sorted orcs. So I'm thinking about factions and what would make them work. Some useful stuff from Alex toward that goal here.