Factions

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jojo
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Factions

Post by jojo » Thu Nov 24, 2011 18:27

Introduction
I had a read through the story section on the wiki. I got to thinking about what the factions were about and why they would be fighting each other, or why any two factions might team up (I assume multi-faction decks are going to be viable). Here my thoughts on what the factions might be about, and what subfactions there might be. I reckon you guys will have much more fleshed out ideas about these things, and I'd love to hear what your thoughts are.

Gaia
So the Gaia are an allegiance of Elves and Merfolk (and some humans?) that revere life and nature, and have become anti-suffering utilitarians. This is a great hook because there could be a subfaction of militants that hold that violent intervention can be justified if it prevents suffering in the long run. How do they relate to the Empire? Are they inhabitants of the unconquered wilds, or are they unwilling citizens?

Red Banner
I was very surprised and impressed by the class war nature of Red Banner. I first expected them to be a generic warlike goblin faction. I'm really fired up by this idea. Subfaction wise, you'd have those that believe that all others are corrupted by the status quo and everything must be cleansed in revolutionary fire. These sort of cards would have more destructive powers. Then there'd be those that are more intent on converting the enemy (perhaps card stealing abilities?)

The House of Nobles
Here's my imagining of The House of Nobles. So either way you look at it, it's a class of the powerful that seek to subject others and maintain power. I imagine there's subfactions that hold different justifications for this.

There's a sort of Hobbesian governmental subfaction that believes that *any* authority is better than no authority, and since they're the best suited for the job, they should remain in power. (Or maybe this is more Empire territory?). Then there'd be a Randian mercantile subfaction that believes that having a productive mercantile class at the head of society is the only way society can progress. Without the industrialists at the helm, society would stagnate. (I gather this is the closest to the current canon). And finally, a sort of Nietzschean artisan subfaction that don't care about the wellbeing of society in general, but believe that the masses should be a scaffolding upon which a noble artist class arise to greatness.

The House of Nobles need not be so villainous: you could even have classical Millian liberal members that believe in liberty and the freedom to be eccentric. They'd be worried as much by classical tyranny (the Empire) and the tyranny of the majority (the Red Banner).

The Empire
The Empire is the faction of law, order and control. They are the government, the state, the empire. They know they live in a chaotic world, and in order to find peace and stability, everyone must be unified into one people. Rigid hierarchical system under one emperor. They're aiming for peace and stability. To this end, the empire wants complete unity of peoples. Whether this is interpreted as all peoples unified under one banner, or interpreted as all non-humans extinguished may vary between one under-lord and another. Game-wise, they'd be expansive, aggressive but with strong emphasis on defence (generally no slash & burn tactics). They see themselves as the light in the darkness. Others see them as a tyrannical autocracy. Many patriotic common folk probably appreciate the protection the imperial guards bring.

The Shadowguild
(I think I prefer this name to 'the dark legion'. Is either canon at the moment?)
So some thought has been given to the hierarchy of the Shadowguild. It's basically an outlaw secret society of mages. It's like the Illuminati version of what people think of the Freemasons. The key idea is that although there is a (strict) hierarchy, each member is accorded equal respect. So, equality of respect without equality of standing. They have no lands and they plunder from other factions. Subfactions might include those that believe the guild should replace the Empire as the main world power; while others are more preoccupied furthering advanced magic seeking the ultimate prize: immortality!

Attitudes

I've had a think about what the factions think about each other: who their natural allies and enemies might be, but also allowing room for strange temporary alliances. Roughly, the allegiances as I imagine them to be (with adjacent factions allies):
-Red Banner-Gaia-Empire-The House of Nobles-Shadowguild-Red Banner-
and enemies (with adjacent factions enemies:
-Red Banner-The Empire-Shadowguild-Gaia-The House of Nobles-Red Banner-

Gaia-Red Banner
Possible allies against the destructive commercial power of the House of Nobles. Similiar egalitarian philosophy; they have the same ends; but they don't agree with their violent methods. Some of the Gaia feel that in going to the cities, the orcs and goblins have lost their sense of themselves as a part of the natural world. For their part, the Red Banner feel that Gaia are too far removed from the class-conflict, but share similiar ideas of equality; too pacifist in their endeavours, but are united against the status quo.

Gaia-The House of Nobles
Gaia are abhorred by their elitist anti-egalitarian philosophy and their commercial endeavours that pollute the natural world. They understand that they too want peace on the planet, but Gaia believe that the Nobles are going about it completely the wrong way. The Nobles respect their Gaia's history of intelligent discourse but they believe them to be too weak. The House of Nobles are not afraid of opposing Gaia when they get in the way of their commercial interests.

Gaia-Empire
Gaia fears the dominating nature of the Empire, but respects their goal of peace. The Empire in turn appreciates that the Gaia are peace-loving and they can co-exist with the Elves and Merfolk; so long as they submit to the emperor.

Gaia-Shadowguild
Gaia see the Shadowguild as a force entrenching suffering and misery in the world. The Guild believes their obsession with life and happiness dogmatically blinds them to the possibilities of the darker magics. Some Shadowguild members may see in Gaia a similiar, respectable, notion of fraternity but in general the two factions are at odds.

Red Banner-The House of Nobles
Red Banner believe them to be the enemy, the industrialists and corporate powermongers that must be destroyed. The Nobles see the Red Banner as a bunch of rabble-rousing upstarts. In their current state they're too dangerous, but if they could be coerced into becoming useful workers again...

Red Banner-Empire
The Red Banner is dedicated to the overthrow of the Empire. The Empire themselves see the Banner as a dangerous and chaotic element that undermines the stability. They believe that the Red Banner must be dropped, and the goblin and orcs assimilated. Or destroyed.

Red Banner-Shadowguild
While some of the Guild may denigrate the Red Banner as ignorant peasants, the two factions are fellow outlaws and often have common strategic goals. If the Guild ever got in a position of power, the Red Banner would of course have to be subjugated.

The House of Nobles-Empire
The Nobles recognise that the empire can be too stultifying, and its edicts don't always work well for profits. But, having structures of law and order are generally in the House's best interests. For now. The Empire believe some nobles are too disgruntled and have destabilising dreams of power, and they must be stopped. Elsewise, the House is considered an ally generally working in the best commercial interests of the Empire.

House of Nobles-Shadowguild
On the face of it, the two factions have opposed interests: the nobles want a steady profit, and the guild need to to steal to live. However, the Nobles need mercenaries, spies and strike breakers and intelligence and so often the Guild is called upon to offer their unique services.

Empire-Shadowguild
The Empire has outlawed the Guild and many of its practices, so they are funadamentally at odds. Occasionally, a petty lord will broke an agreement with the Guild to band against some common foe, but in general they are ideologically at odds.

Getting Rid of a Faction
I think there's been talk of perhaps getting rid of one of the factions. If this were done, my recommendation would be to split up the House of Nobles into the other factions. The Hobbesian subfaction that believe in authority at all costs could be a subfaction in the empire. The artisan subfaction that believe in their own superiority could be members of the Shadowguild: they could believe that the Guild represents the true noble class of equals, below which all should be subjugated. The liberal individualists could be Gaian who believe that in order to keep everyone free and equal in regard, the democracy of the Red Banner must be avoided (because it tends towards populist tyranny). This leaves the mercantile faction to be split between elements of the Empire, and those of the Red Banner who are piggy-backing their revolution in order to set up a new order. That make sense?

I think having five factions is great. In general I'm in favour of more factions. To put it in contrast, the online ccg Elements has 12 thematically distinct factions, plus some unaligned cards. If there were four factions, then the core conflicts would be between the Empire and the Red Banner on the one hand, and the Shadowguild and Gaia on the other, with each faction calling on one another to aid in their separate conflicts.

Core conflicts
While the world and setting is pseudo-medieval/renaissance, the core conflicts here are essentially 19th Century conflicts (or at least, that's how I've interpreted or portrayed the factions). Is this what we want?
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snowdrop
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Re: Factions

Post by snowdrop » Fri Nov 25, 2011 00:25

jojo wrote:I got to thinking about what the factions were about and why they would be fighting each other, or why any two factions might team up (I assume multi-faction decks are going to be viable). Here my thoughts on what the factions might be about /../. I reckon you guys will have much more fleshed out ideas.
Yes, Multi-factioned decks will be viable and play a huge part of the meta-game, as in any sane CCG. Mono and duo-factioned will be the most common. There will probably eventually exist tri-faction decks, but they'd be rare. There probably won't exist more factions than that in one and the same deck though since it is likely to be capped by the rules to a max of 3.

In the wiki the most inaccurate section is the one about the Shadowguild, and the only two complete ones are Banner & Gaia. House of Nobles will be, as name almost suggests, a gathering of noble forces that want to overthrow what little loyalty and thought there is to one again be rules by the Emperor (the Empire).

I wrote most of what's in the wiki, and we're totally clueless about the specifics here :P. What I had in mind is a state where the factions aren't really involved in just one classy good vs evil battle. I want more gray areas and more ambivalent behavior. I'd prefer anti-heroes mixed in, and also elfs that are "bad & naughty" without the excuse of them necessarily "going rogue".

I don't think it should be story's main function to explain to the player how it comes that card or faction x/y works together as a combo or why they can exist in the same deck. Story, our theme and setting, shouldn't justify anything. What I hope we/you achieve in the end is to create a part of a world setting where we see glimpses, via our characters personal experiences and thoughts, of the different general conflicts that ravage that world at large. They shouldn't have to explain every possible combo or alliance between various factions in detail. What is true today could also prove to be false in a week or two years later, which is usually the case with treaties for example.

We're creating a broad setting where we only put the framework with our background story in the wiki. We leave what is on the canvas, all the shades, the geometry, the different brushes and techniques, and leave that to every author to fill in. Your IF would be such an example where we hopefully meet individuals, characters, "real people", set in some situation that in part relates to the world, as described in our crude (on purpose) background story.

So... imagine an another game where there are three factions and all hate their guts. How can they ever exist in the same deck? Well, one explanation would be that they who do have a truce right now. Another that they aren't really friends - they just happen to have the same enemy and co-work for that reason alone, and temporarily. Yet another that whatever is in the deck doesn't necessarily represent the whole faction: If you find Angels in a Hell-deck then it doesn't mean that the feud between god and the devil is over - it could just be that those Angels changed sides or are in the process of doing so, or maybe they act like they have until they have their intel and return home to god with it. As shown, anything can explained (away) in any way we want, should we want to justify or explain how it comes that a player can mix factions. From what I have seen though, many (most?) games don't even bother with explaining it in the first place.
Gaia
So the Gaia are an allegiance of Elves and Merfolk (and some humans?) that revere life and nature, and have become anti-suffering utilitarians.
Yes. Consider the elves both spiritual in a pantheistic way and inclined to follow logic, kind of utilitarian Vulcans (Spock & Co. in ST, dunno if you're a trekkie...) Merfolk are slightly more militaristic than the elves, but exist in smaller numbers. Elves also care a little less about hierarchies than the Merfolk, but are still very bound by their ancient traditions and the social roles their culture has already created. These both people - Gaia as a whole - most often want to conserve nature and the world form the effects of those wishing to harm it.

The factions in WT won't be divided into "clean" species groups: Most factions will have a strong tendency towards one or two species, but will usually also have a small number of members from other species from time to time. So yes, there will be a couple of humans in Gaia, and there might pop up a rare Orc on occasion or whatever. Strong majority is Elvish & Merfolk though.

This is a great hook because there could be a subfaction of militants that hold that violent intervention can be justified if it prevents suffering in the long run.


Subfactions will be around as a subtype of the creature type, and will not get a logo of their own on the cards. Working around subfactions wouldn't be a problem though if done that way for us. It was a good idea that you could use & explore, having some smaller group of elves that don't shy away from violence for the cause. This subfaction would probably be frowned upon by the elvish society in general, that accuses it for resorting to lower ethical principles, pure venegence, regressiing back to how the elves were eons ago, reminiscent of humans and other more primitive species.
How do they relate to the Empire? Are they inhabitants of the unconquered wilds, or are they unwilling citizens?
They've been out "in the wild" and are slowly starting to return to the cities that are rapidly growing. Actually they were not in the wild at all since they have secret villges in the ancient woods with megatrees etc, something that reminds of the classical tree-people setting, similar to what is shown in the movie "Avatar", if you managed to stay awake while watching it. It's not uncommon to see them in the normal cities, but most of them don't really like being there. It's noisy, smelly and has too much of the urban lifestyle associated with it, they miss their nature and some often find themself in a depressing mood, daydreaming about the green leafs of the forests.

I don't know if or even why they would be in conflict with the Empire.. maybe it wants their woods to build machinery with or to use as bonfire to create energy for them, a la Sauron? Maybe they just oppose them because they're brutal and believe more in their leader, a man, more than they do in nature?
Red Banner
I was very surprised and impressed by the class war nature of Red Banner. I first expected them to be a generic warlike goblin faction.
Gobos are super-stereotypical, as are most species, in fantasy works. I think they're a perfect match for being the always looked down upon inferior species by man. It's still true that they have a warring background. They had left it behind but are now slowly returning to it in an attempt to break free from being stepped on. They say "frakk nature, we're dying over here!" and are filled with rage, realizing that they've been mistreated for long, and that the humans haven't kept their word.
I'm really fired up by this idea. Subfaction wise, you'd have those that believe that all others are corrupted by the status quo and everything must be cleansed in revolutionary fire. These sort of cards would have more destructive powers.
Could work.... every cards action i the game doesn't have to/won't be explained by story though ;) Most goblins and orcs are pissed, they try to rally the people and overthrow all authorities since they don't trust any except their own. Some would, like you write, call for a "cleansing"

Then there'd be those that are more intent on converting the enemy (perhaps card stealing abilities?)
If using that specific ability it would be very small scale. I was thinking more about associating it to House of Nobles, kind of them buying loyalty, turning brothers against each other, using mercs etc. I don't think it's all too relevant though, how cards operate and how story is written - it's easy for us to theme the cards after the stories, probably makes sense to do it more in that order... hrm.. I don't know.
The House of Nobles
Here's my imagining of The House of Nobles. So either way you look at it, it's a class of the powerful that seek to subject others and maintain power. I imagine there's subfactions that hold different justifications for this.
Subfactions can exist in story without it ever being printed on cards, or printed on cards at later date as in an expansion. Most cards will not have a subfaction in the core set, at least not a printed one on them. It does however not take away anything from their value in the story.
There's a sort of Hobbesian governmental subfaction that believes that *any* authority is better than no authority, and since they're the best suited for the job, they should remain in power. (Or maybe this is more Empire territory?).
they can't think that any authority is better than none, since that would imply they don't have to be the authority ;)

Empire believes in authority because it has a grand plan: To get total power of course, which it wants because it almost had it historically and wants to get back to those days (picture roman empire and what lead to its demise and some crazy ass relative to "Ceasar" in the future) and because it has some grand vision of a unified world where all the states meld and become one, which is the only thing that will make the Empire prosper for all eternity to come.
Then there'd be a Randian mercantile subfaction that believes that having a productive mercantile class at the head of society is the only way society can progress. Without the industrialists at the helm, society would stagnate. (I gather this is the closest to the current canon).
Yes, those are def. around. They see the leaps that science is making as the answer to much, also making them question the authority an Emperor can have since his kin always claimed they were appointed by the gods to rule on earth. Many of them are however corrupted by their earning and lose sight of what they once wanted and were:
And finally, a sort of Nietzschean artisan subfaction that don't care about the wellbeing of society in general, but believe that the masses should be a scaffolding upon which a noble artist class arise to greatness.
They still hide behind the justifications that the other groups are giving, and point to how much they help develop society, but in reality they don't care at all as long as they get to eat, sleep, have sex and a life filled of art, culture and recreation... They're the ones with the titles and good pedigree.I'm thinking Victorian England and something that reminds of life at court. (Could have misunderstood here with artisan though)
The House of Nobles need not be so villainous: you could even have classical Millian liberal members that believe in liberty and the freedom to be eccentric. They'd be worried as much by classical tyranny (the Empire) and the tyranny of the majority (the Red Banner).
True... but they, or somebody in that faction, must have to believe in laissez faire and that gold is the answer to most things.. I guess that would be the Ayn bunch. :P

The Empire
The Empire is the faction of law, order and control. They are the government, the state, the empire. They know they live in a chaotic world, and in order to find peace and stability, everyone must be unified into one people. Rigid hierarchical system under one emperor. They're aiming for peace and stability. To this end, the empire wants complete unity of peoples. Whether this is interpreted as all peoples unified under one banner, or interpreted as all non-humans extinguished may vary between one under-lord and another. Game-wise, they'd be expansive, aggressive but with strong emphasis on defence (generally no slash & burn tactics). They see themselves as the light in the darkness. Others see them as a tyrannical autocracy. Many patriotic common folk probably appreciate the protection the imperial guards bring.
Pretty spot on. :) Not 100% about the defense stuff, but they are a heavy and slow moving machinery with much muscle. Think "green" in MtG, minus healing and the theme.

The Shadowguild
(I think I prefer this name to 'the dark legion'. Is either canon at the moment?)
Dark Legion exists in Mutant Chronicles, so we won't use it. We'll stick to SG until something amazingly better pops out.. likely it won't. I wanted "Emata" for a while, but its maybe to close to "Empire." If you have suggestions feel free to post.

It's like the Illuminati version of what people think of the Freemasons. The key idea is that although there is a (strict) hierarchy, each member is accorded equal respect. So, equality of respect without equality of standing. They have no lands and they plunder from other factions. Subfactions might include those that believe the guild should replace the Empire as the main world power; while others are more preoccupied furthering advanced magic seeking the ultimate prize: immortality!

This faction is the least finalised. Graphically it will contain all kinds of random monsters, undead, skelettons etc and dark mages. I don't want them to be just the classical evil-mindless-undead-with-no-really-interesting-purpose. You can pretty much disregard everything in Wiki about these guys and give them a brand new shot... There were two ideas: One was to make them more religious, like demon worshipers or whatever, other to let them be a secret syndicate of criminal masterminds / mafia. We opted for criminals, but it hasn't really shined through... It's correct they lack land, they are everywhere though, and the monsters are often summoned by their mages...
Core conflicts
While the world and setting is pseudo-medieval/renaissance, the core conflicts here are essentially 19th Century conflicts (or at least, that's how I've interpreted or portrayed the factions). Is this what we want?
Yes, I think so. Mainly beause it's not usually around in other games, giving us some other ways of doing things and hopefully offering something slightly different of the zillion generic fantasy worlds already around, but also because I want us to have the room to use the game as a way to raise issues and do contemporary social commentary.

Will get back to you on the attitudes....
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Re: Factions

Post by snowdrop » Fri Nov 25, 2011 22:19

Attitudes

I've had a think about what the factions think about each other: who their natural allies and enemies might be, but also allowing room for strange temporary alliances. Roughly, the allegiances as I imagine them to be (with adjacent factions allies):
-Red Banner-Gaia-Empire-The House of Nobles-Shadowguild-Red Banner-
and enemies (with adjacent factions enemies:
-Red Banner-The Empire-Shadowguild-Gaia-The House of Nobles-Red Banner-
Are the attitudes needed to account for faction x's general perspective of faction y? A thing to keep in mind is that many of the members of a faction don't roam around in a military or other kind of uniform. Sure, social markers are there, seeing a poor creature in the streets and you'd suspect it's not a noble, but except for that it is often hard for the people to spot faction belonging of others while wandering around in the city center. Some of the factions aren't even real factions, like for instance Gaia (more united by culture & ethics), while others fit the faction thought very much (Empire being best example perhaps.)

We will use factions and describe them as such on the cards. In an IF story though focus should be on individuals that are somehow connected or members of the factions, the individuals are in the center, and not their factions, even if their actions would be easily explained, to some degree, by their factions belonging. (Btw: What would be nice is to also let some of them be torn between the loyalty to the faction, the suffrage and collective altruist menatlity vs the personal interests.)

Gaia-Red Banner
Possible allies against the destructive commercial power of the House of Nobles. Similiar egalitarian philosophy; they have the same ends; but they don't agree with their violent methods. Some of the Gaia feel that in going to the cities, the orcs and goblins have lost their sense of themselves as a part of the natural world. For their part, the Red Banner feel that Gaia are too far removed from the class-conflict, but share similiar ideas of equality; too pacifist in their endeavours, but are united against the status quo.
Sounds good.
Gaia-The House of Nobles
Gaia are abhorred by their elitist anti-egalitarian philosophy and their commercial endeavours that pollute the natural world. They understand that they too want peace on the planet, but Gaia believe that the Nobles are going about it completely the wrong way. The Nobles respect their Gaia's history of intelligent discourse but they believe them to be too weak. The House of Nobles are not afraid of opposing Gaia when they get in the way of their commercial interests.
Works. Maybe some of the Nobles also consider the Gaians as the intellectual elite of the paste. They
admire them for what they were, but look down on them because of their environmental ideas, almost feeling sorry for them because they didn't use all their potential and just waste it at talking with the forest ;) The age of Elves came and passed by, the new dawn is the age of man.
Gaia-Empire
Gaia fears the dominating nature of the Empire, but respects their goal of peace. The Empire in turn appreciates that the Gaia are peace-loving and they can co-exist with the Elves and Merfolk; so long as they submit to the emperor.
Hrm.. maybe not have to submit to the emporer, maybe just enough if they go back to the woods and leave the world be? Become invisible once more? If so... then why don't the Elve do it aready? I mean, they don't really like the cities of man anyways... what makes them linger around? Are they there in prepration for some kind of prophecy to occur? Hrm... dunno-..
Gaia-Shadowguild
Gaia see the Shadowguild as a force entrenching suffering and misery in the world. The Guild believes their obsession with life and happiness dogmatically blinds them to the possibilities of the darker magics. Some Shadowguild members may see in Gaia a similiar, respectable, notion of fraternity but in general the two factions are at odds.
Maybe because Shadowguild members are amoral in some sense? That everything lacks meaning, making them not perceive death as something negative or bad, just as another state of either existing or non-existence. They're a crime syndicate that has lost it's faith in society, knowing that it's all about eat or be eaten. Maybe they even believe they have a role in balancing the world... *lost*
Red Banner-The House of Nobles
Red Banner believe them to be the enemy, the industrialists and corporate powermongers that must be destroyed. The Nobles see the Red Banner as a bunch of rabble-rousing upstarts. In their current state they're too dangerous, but if they could be coerced into becoming useful workers again...
Yups.
Red Banner-Empire
The Red Banner is dedicated to the overthrow of the Empire. The Empire themselves see the Banner as a dangerous and chaotic element that undermines the stability. They believe that the Red Banner must be dropped, and the goblin and orcs assimilated. Or destroyed.
Yes, and they blame much of the issues with the Banner on the Nobles that didn't handle them smoothly enough. In a sense Empire is also happy when Banner & Noble forces take each other out - it will make it so much easier for the imperial troops soon, when they're amassed.
Red Banner-Shadowguild
While some of the Guild may denigrate the Red Banner as ignorant peasants, the two factions are fellow outlaws and often have common strategic goals. If the Guild ever got in a position of power, the Red Banner would of course have to be subjugated.
Banners aren't outlaws... or, they are, but only from the perspective of the Nobles maybe empire, Shadowguild doesn't see them as outlaws. Shadowguild is also more secretive and organized crime, while Banner is a peoples movement a la 70's but with arms and skrimishes that are getting worse by the day...

The House of Nobles-Empire
The Nobles recognise that the empire can be too stultifying, and its edicts don't always work well for profits. But, having structures of law and order are generally in the House's best interests. For now. The Empire believe some nobles are too disgruntled and have destabilising dreams of power, and they must be stopped. Elsewise, the House is considered an ally generally working in the best commercial interests of the Empire.
+ Conflict of power has some of its origin in Empire taxation of Noble profits.

House of Nobles-Shadowguild
On the face of it, the two factions have opposed interests: the nobles want a steady profit, and the guild need to to steal to live. However, the Nobles need mercenaries, spies and strike breakers and intelligence and so often the Guild is called upon to offer their unique services.
Yes, can work. In general though the mercs hired, among others a bunch of dwarfs whose mines have been emptied long ago, and they are not associated with Shadowguild.
Empire-Shadowguild
The Empire has outlawed the Guild and many of its practices, so they are funadamentally at odds. Occasionally, a petty lord will broke an agreement with the Guild to band against some common foe, but in general they are ideologically at odds.
+ Guild doesn't want the Empire around since it has the potential to be very well organized once it has come to power. Guild also already have so many operations going on that it doesn't want any change - the more chaos there is in the world, the easier they can continue doing what they do incognito.
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Re: Factions

Post by jojo » Sat Nov 26, 2011 01:00

snowdrop wrote:Are the attitudes needed to account for faction x's general perspective of faction y? A thing to keep in mind is that many of the members of a faction don't roam around in a military or other kind of uniform. Sure, social markers are there, seeing a poor creature in the streets and you'd suspect it's not a noble, but except for that it is often hard for the people to spot faction belonging of others while wandering around in the city center. Some of the factions aren't even real factions, like for instance Gaia (more united by culture & ethics), while others fit the faction thought very much (Empire being best example perhaps.)
I was think definitely about the general attitude that the average faction member is likely to have of the other factions. It makes clearer the core conflicts each faction has with one another. Answering the question: why are they on opposing sides?
snowdrop wrote: We will use factions and describe them as such on the cards. In an IF story though focus should be on individuals that are somehow connected or members of the factions, the individuals are in the center, and not their factions, even if their actions would be easily explained, to some degree, by their factions belonging. (Btw: What would be nice is to also let some of them be torn between the loyalty to the faction, the suffrage and collective altruist menatlity vs the personal interests.)
Of course, even if there are general faction-level attitudes and goals, this doesn't prevent any given member of a faction from taking a different view. In story terms, it creates a nice level of conflict, and the possibility as you suggest of torn loyalties.
snowdrop wrote:
Gaia-Empire
Gaia fears the dominating nature of the Empire, but respects their goal of peace. The Empire in turn appreciates that the Gaia are peace-loving and they can co-exist with the Elves and Merfolk; so long as they submit to the emperor.
Hrm.. maybe not have to submit to the emporer, maybe just enough if they go back to the woods and leave the world be? Become invisible once more? If so... then why don't the Elve do it aready? I mean, they don't really like the cities of man anyways... what makes them linger around? Are they there in prepration for some kind of prophecy to occur? Hrm... dunno-..
The way I see it is, given the utilitarian commitment the Gaia have made, they can't just fade into the background any more. They're want to stop suffering in the world, and so they can't just let it be: they have to intervene. They have to go to the cities, preach their cause and make a nuisance of themselves.
snowdrop wrote:Maybe because Shadowguild members are amoral in some sense? That everything lacks meaning, making them not perceive death as something negative or bad, just as another state of either existing or non-existence. They're a crime syndicate that has lost it's faith in society, knowing that it's all about eat or be eaten. Maybe they even believe they have a role in balancing the world... *lost*
I guess a decision has to be made whether the Shadowguild are an amoral crime syndicate, a fantasy mafia if you like, OR a secret society of mages that aren't above underhand tactics, OR both in some wonderful combination. A secret society of outcast mages that have swelled their numbers with both hardened criminals and the down and outs.
--
Also some world questions: has the Empire generally succeeded in unifying all the disparate nations that presumably used to exist into one almighty empire, or are there still a bunch of unaligned countries that they're at war with? My assumption had been that the Empire had succeeded: the known world consists of one glorious empire, bordered by dangerous wilderness; an empire with a shady criminal element, a powerful mercantile class and a nascent workers revolt. The Empire might not always have full political control in any given town (especially in more remote regions), and the land is still filled with outlaws, independent tribes and pockets of resistance. But this...
Empire believes in authority because it has a grand plan: To get total power of course, which it wants because it almost had it historically and wants to get back to those days (picture roman empire and what lead to its demise and some crazy ass relative to "Ceasar" in the future) and because it has some grand vision of a unified world where all the states meld and become one, which is the only thing that will make the Empire prosper for all eternity to come.
...suggests that they haven't succeeded. So who are the other states, and why aren't they factions? Or is the House of Nobles meant to represent a rough union of the heads of many small kingdoms, with lots of independent unaligned tribes from which the Red Banner's members came from, with gaia holding forests and oceans and the Shadowguild not holding any territory?
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Re: Factions

Post by Ravenchild » Sat Nov 26, 2011 08:31

In the wiki the most inaccurate section is the one about the Shadowguild,
and
This faction is the least finalised. Graphically it will contain all kinds of random monsters, undead, skelettons etc and dark mages. I don't want them to be just the classical evil-mindless-undead-with-no-really-interesting-purpose. You can pretty much disregard everything in Wiki about these guys and give them a brand new shot... There were two ideas: One was to make them more religious, like demon worshipers or whatever, other to let them be a secret syndicate of criminal masterminds / mafia. We opted for criminals, but it hasn't really shined through... It's correct they lack land, they are everywhere though, and the monsters are often summoned by their mages...
Im puzzled by this statement. The shadowguild as described in the wiki was designed to fit the description of a faction of criminals like you just gave. But it was also designed to be a faction with ideals and honour so that players will not think of them as the "evil" faction but as a faction with their own way of living, even though it is at the expense of the other factions.

So I don't see how the info in the wiki is inaccurate. Sure, we still need to tweak details, but overall the description should fit.
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Re: Factions

Post by snowdrop » Sat Nov 26, 2011 10:04

Ravenchild wrote:Im puzzled by this statement. The shadowguild as described in the wiki was designed to fit the description of a faction of criminals like you just gave. But it was also designed to be a faction with ideals and honour so that players will not think of them as the "evil" faction but as a faction with their own way of living, even though it is at the expense of the other factions.

So I don't see how the info in the wiki is inaccurate. Sure, we still need to tweak details, but overall the description should fit.
In the wiki it says in bold, and has been saying for several months, that nothing beyond Banner & Gaia is finalized. While I'd happily see them get a linguistical overhaul (noticed there was some frakked up stuff there the other day) they are finished in a storytelling sense. At least when it comes to that page where the goal is to give a short and general presentation of them.

I think the problem with the shadowguild is seen in the question(s) Jojo asks about them: What they are, and how they are it, and what our goal is with them - all that is, while spelled out in wiki, still unclear to him. Why is that? It could be that I posted and caused confusion, contradicting what was already crystal clear in the wiki. Or maybe it wasn't all that clear after all.

Reading it again I think that some stuff needs sorting out:

1. Detailed info about hierarchy should be on a page dedicated to them alone, not in the bg-story. It's simply too detailed and makes the text go from general description into something that looks like a table of facts. Now, I'm all for having that level of detailst. Just not in there. Maybe each faction could be linked from that page to their own detailed page in the cases where we actually have such info to present?

2. Role of mages: I'm not sure shadowguild should focus that much on the role of the mages. There is something, at least for me on a subjective level, very out of place with the whole concept we present. And I don't mean that in relation to just the wiki text about them, but the whole thought from the very beginning: Are they some kind of fantasy crime syndicate that are lead by mages? It sounds strange, to say the least, that mages, especially high level ones and immortals as they are described, would have that kind of interests. There is something there I can't put my finger on that doesn't make any sense at all. I think they get to much attention and too prominent role i Shadowguild. It's maybe more plausible to see them as some kind of stand-alone cult or old mystical order that works close with the Shadowguild and usually joins forces with them. Shadowguild uses them as casters and whenever there is something they can't handle or when they need miions in abundance (then the skellies are called in etc). All this links to 3...

3. Nature of the Guild: Too me they don't sound like an organized crime syndicate, not after reading the info in wiki It could be just me, I don't know, and I certainly can't measure this in some objective way. Maybe the whole crime syndicate idea is faulty, is it even doable in a fantasy setting? I don't know, but why shouldn't it? They sound more like outlawed mages that have thieves as followers and that deal much with necromancy. Now, the amount of cards that we will have or produce on those themes - mages and necro - are limited. I don't want the faction to become "the undead" but with just a new name. They shouldn't focus as much on the undead elements, since that moves it away from being a crime syndicate. If anything I hope we can push it into a direction where it goes away from the undead theme, in the future, by creating card art for it that depicts stuff of living things, no matter if it's monsters like minotaurs or humans. Skelettons etc are just one of many minions they can call in using the knowledge of the mages, yet not central.

Summed up: As it is right now, Shadowguild needs most love in that section of the wiki. I think it's messed up and that it's not heading into a clear direction that sounds convincing or is easy to grasp. Much thank to myself of course and the rest of us for not having had any revelations and defining moment when it comes to SG. That is why I don't mind seeing brand new takes on it from scratch, since what we have isn't really outlined well enough in my opinion. (If this is just me however, please chime in here - maybe SG is nicely setup and it's just me not seeing it?

Question remains how to create a "believable" syndicate. For instance, in the wiki it sounded much like they were doing petty crimes.. while that would indeed be around I picture organised crime as something that should focus much more on their control and power over "politicians", black markets, racketeering, selling of forbidden stuff. I'd also rather replace the circles - which also have a strange ring to them if it is supposed to be a syndicate - with stuff like Mages cult + Thieves Guild = just two self-sutained instances, allies, to the Shadowguild. Maybe there are more or less "subfactions" at large here that somehow work together under the Shadowguild banner? I dunno, all I'm saying is that it needs serious rethinking. (And so does empire text thats there, parts of it are just placeholders and Jojos questions are spot on...)
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Re: Factions

Post by snowdrop » Sat Nov 26, 2011 10:36

jojo wrote:..suggests that they haven't succeeded. So who are the other states, and why aren't they factions? Or is the House of Nobles meant to represent a rough union of the heads of many small kingdoms, with lots of independent unaligned tribes from which the Red Banner's members came from, with gaia holding forests and oceans and the Shadowguild not holding any territory?
I imagine the world is mainly made up of huge city states. There are some instances where a couple of them make up a kingdom, but the normal order is the city state. That also explains the number of conflicts and space we have to chisel out very different cities... so the factions aren't always or necessarily associated with clear lines on a map where one side of the geography vs the other. All members of faction x can't be found in just one convenient corner on the map. I guess the ones that fit the best in that normal way of associating factions with one-piece-of-territory would be Empire, and that Banner and Shadowguild would fit the least in it. Banner leads an uprising that is spreading like a fever, much like protestantism did in Europe ;) Shadowguild leech on and get a foothold in different cities, trying to control their underworld. Gaians are to be found in forrests and nature way away from cities, but start trinkling into them.

The factions in WT are more about people doing something together or having an idea instead of happening to live in a region. So faction is not equal to state in our case. The notion of understanding factions from a state perspective is also rather "new" historically. The states are around in WT, but not central per se as there are many of them.

House of Nobles == commerce and non-royalist republicans, tired of kings, kingdoms, emperors. They'd be present most places where there's money around and market, and they own plenty of stuff in different city states. Consider them as a meta-organization, kind of reminding of a "political party", just more inclined to act and manipulate and minus the democracy ;)

Edit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_city-states ...with focus on "Difference from northern Europe"
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Re: Factions

Post by Ravenchild » Sat Dec 03, 2011 19:14

Reading it again I think that some stuff needs sorting out:

1. Detailed info about hierarchy should be on a page dedicated to them alone, not in the bg-story. It's simply too detailed and makes the text go from general description into something that looks like a table of facts. Now, I'm all for having that level of detailst. Just not in there. Maybe each faction could be linked from that page to their own detailed page in the cases where we actually have such info to present?
Sure. But while we are still developing the factions, we should keep all the information at one place so that things in sync.
2. Role of mages: I'm not sure shadowguild should focus that much on the role of the mages. There is something, at least for me on a subjective level, very out of place with the whole concept we present. And I don't mean that in relation to just the wiki text about them, but the whole thought from the very beginning: Are they some kind of fantasy crime syndicate that are lead by mages? It sounds strange, to say the least, that mages, especially high level ones and immortals as they are described, would have that kind of interests.
From a political perspective there are two instances: The Shadow Council (consisting of the Lord of the Shadows and the Keepers of the Silence) and the tribe leader. The tribe leader is responsible for his own tribe and he is not a mage. When it comes to decisions that are relevant to the entire Shadowguild, the shadow Council makes its decision based on their ancient knowledge. The members of the shadow council have no deep interest in political power. They are more concerned in revealing and understanding the fundamental workings of the world.

You envision the Shadowguild as a (powerful) criminal syndicate while I describe them as tribes who need to commit crimes to survive. That is indeed a contradiction. But it would not require much adjustment to resolve this. I'm okay with a Shadowguild where the tribes are establishing crime syndicates in the cities to provide wealth to the members of the Shadowguild. However experimentation with magical stuff is probably too dangerous in the city as it may get noticed. Therefore I suggest that most normal members of the Shadowguild live in cities and there are still tribes outside of the cities with mages who get their food from their friends in the cities in times of need.

In my opinion having just a "crime syndicate" is just not deep enough. Therefore I think that (black) mages should play a role in this faction but it doesn't need to be a prominent one.
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Re: Factions

Post by snowdrop » Sat Dec 10, 2011 11:09

Sure. But while we are still developing the factions, we should keep all the information at one place so that things in sync
I think we shouldn't: The story there is supposed to be the official one. Not too lenghty, a medium introduction to the basics of each faction. As such we should exclude all kinds of lists. I'm all for lists and a zillion details, but just not there. I made the mistake already with the so-called "quick-rules" on the wiki ;)

What we'd maybe need is a "developers story" where the lore can be as detailed as ever. In any case, it should be on other pages for the sake of simplicity for the visitor, and also official vs still un-official + in dev.

I'll leave the exact structure of this to those that actually write something serious enough. Although I'd love top myself, my English skills are very limited and it would turn out to be shit.
You envision the Shadowguild as a (powerful) criminal syndicate while I describe them as tribes who need to commit crimes to survive. That is indeed a contradiction. But it would not require much adjustment to resolve this. I'm okay with a Shadowguild where the tribes are establishing crime syndicates in the cities to provide wealth to the members of the Shadowguild. However experimentation with magical stuff is probably too dangerous in the city as it may get noticed. Therefore I suggest that most normal members of the Shadowguild live in cities and there are still tribes outside of the cities with mages who get their food from their friends in the cities in times of need.
There is a huge difference here in what Shadowguild is, as you point out. I'm not sure what everyone else is thinking though, as we're probably the ones that have been discussing this the most, which still isn't plenty enough :P given the, in my mind and without offense, poor result we've both come up with.

"Tribes that commit crimes to survive" is hard to turn into a syndicate of some kind, or a secret society. You have a link in place but it sounds superficial to me. I have a couple of objections which I've voiced earlier in convo that I think are dealbreakers. To anyone that happens to read these, please keep in mind they're probably very subjective and I don't have a hard time imagining that there are other ways to understand the whole thing. What I'm interested in and think we should put in an effort to accomplish is to figure out how the general public would interpret something.

a) "tribes" is always associated by the players with something primitive. It does not correlate to the sophistication of mages, magic or anything remotley associated with a secret society like the illuminati or even a crime syndicate like cosa nostra. This reason alone makes it, I believe, necessary to depart from the tribe-idea.

b) Tribes are in part already used in the more naturalistic sense in the story of the Banner: The orc & gobos have the tribal background. (That is not to say nobody else can have it in the whole world ofc, but there is still a reason to have different stories as background materials if we're going for easy identity building, which we should in non-deep intro texts)

c) The focus on magic & mages: This is an art design decision that has to be made before it is too late. Luckily there is no rush, and the decision will be made as soon as the story is nailed. I personally never intended the Shadowguild to be caster/mage-centric. For me the mages were sparse and used to summon skeleton armies as cheap cannon fodder in conflicts. The original idea was to just put all that looked sinister and evil in the faction and also throw in the random monsters in there. All that is however hard to unify somehow and turn into a faction of anything else except chaos... lol. Now I am not as sure any more: I'd rather have sinister looking characters spread all around in all factions. For instance I imagine we can have elfs in Gaia that do indeed look evil, they just don't have to be a majority ;) Back on topic though: What I have said all along from the start is that we should avoid creating just yet another "evil" faction that is braindead and all out evil with no real reason. We'd want to give them more character and personality than that, more likeability even though they have a _few_ skeletons and a few dark mages in their ranks. How what and where does all this fit in though?

Shadowguild seems to me to still be undefined and there is no super-bright ideas here. Hence I invited jojo to the table.
In my opinion having just a "crime syndicate" is just not deep enough. Therefore I think that (black) mages should play a role in this faction but it doesn't need to be a prominent one.
I don't agree on x or y making a story deeper or not. Calling x mages or kings or thieves doesn't necessarily make the story richer or deeper. Something else does that. I'm not much of an fictional author, but my guess is it's more about creating drama, story depth and character than the setting per se. Setting is just like the wallpaper in your room - it's easy to change. What holds the room and building together is the material, the geometry, the distances between support pillars, the cement etc. What I'm getting at here is that the success of the story doesn't depend on if we go with crime syndicate or mage-army.
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Re: Shadow Guild

Post by jojo » Mon Dec 12, 2011 18:05

I agree that the Shadow Guild shouldn't just be a cliché black-clad evil faction. Perhaps the best way of thinking about what the guild should be about, is to compare it to what the other factions are about and how it's different. As far as I see it:

Gaia is about happiness, nature and life .
The Empire is about order, stability and unity.
The House of Nobles is about power, profit and individuality.
Red Banner is about equality, revolution and tribal bonds.

Each of the factions have things that they're striving for. These are aspects that make them appealing or interesting, and aspects that contrast strongly with the other factions. Thus:

The Shadow Guild could be about knowledge, secrets and fraternity. That is: the members are seeking knowledge- including arcane knowledge; they deal in secrets and are formed as a hierarchical secret society, and they hold great loyalty to their fellow members. They are sometimes perceived as the evil faction because they fund their research by plundering others, and their search for knowledge is stronger than their moral considerations (ends justify the means sort of thing). Sound good?
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