A good villain can make or break a story. It provides a source of conflict for the heroes. But it can be much more than just black and white, good vs evil. A compelling world has more than just two sides of a coin.

Frank Herbert's Dune is a good example on how different factions interact with each other and the conflict that results thereof. Something that can help us creating more interesting scenarios for players to engage with. Instead of thrusting the players into clear roles of good and evil, let them decide to which side they want to belong and reap the benefits and consequences of their actions.

This is a style more often seen in old-school type of games. Situations instead of solutions. There's no right or wrong. Something I tend to go for, more and more. Morally ambiguous choices - the lesser of two evils kind of thing. It turns out, that most of my games somehow end in pyrrhic victories. Maybe I'm cruel...

Types of factions

I distinguish between three types of factions: Social, Organizational and Political.

Social factions are defined by their focus on relationships, cultural practices, shared values etc. Members mostly all share the same beliefs, and they pursue the common goal because of this. They often revolve promoting specific social causes and problems - equality, justice, cultural preservation. Examples might include activist groups or religious communities. The Fremen or Bene Gesserit would fit into this category.

Organizational factions are more defined by their strict structures and pursuit of efficiency, power or control through systems, laws and processes. They often have a hierarchical structure. These are your typical guilds, military units or groups whose primary concern is the management of people and resources. There are a stringent of rules that need to be followed, that help the faction's smooth operation. Prominent example in Dune would be the Spacing Guild.

Political factions try to harness power and keeping it, mainly through influence, control over political systems and decisions. They shape laws to advocate particular ideologies or interests. Most often this is the playground of the rich and powerful, but also for small, radical movements that want to topple the very same. Members most often don't even have the same beliefs or values but just share a common goal. Here we find Kingdoms and Empires as the most prominent representation of this kind of faction - The Emperor or the Great Houses (Atreides vs Harkonnen).

Characteristics of a faction

Apart from a name - obviously - a faction should have a goal. Something that they are working towards. All of their actions pertain to further that goal. This also means, that its effect can be felt in the world. The great houses are exploiting Arrakis for spice, which the Fremen do not like. Goals can change, either because circumstances have changed or it was just a step for a bigger goal. Atreides' goal was to establish their hold on Arrakis when they arrived, but it soon became survival.

That goal is often accompanied by an approach. How is this goal being achieved? The Harkonnens are brutal and greedy. Whereas the Atreides try to be more diplomatic. This is how a faction is broadly perceived by others.

Further characteristics include

• Age - Factions behave differently on how old they are. Have they been around for a long time or are they fairly new? You can see this nowadays: Old corporations are way different than start-ups. Their values have changed over time. Where innovation was key in the early years, tradition became more important later. But this could also lead to rigid structures.
• Stability - Factions need to be lead and structured. Depending on how well this is done, a faction can get more or less stable. Having a high stability doesn't mean that the faction has a lot of influence and vice versa. Bureaucratic overhead or infighting can topple the most powerful factions.
• Members - Is the faction only comprised of a single type of people - like only females in the case of the Bene Geserit? Or is anybody allowed in the faction?

Certain things are implied by these characteristics. Such as influence or size. Secretive factions probably have less members than one that is constantly waging war.

Influence is tricky. Not every faction has the same influence on every region of the world. The Fremen have more influence on Arrakis than in the palace of the emperor - well at least at first. Influence is something very subjective. Of course, some factions can be globally influential. But these are very few. Every other faction is more of a local institution, that may branch out in adjacent regions.

Faction play

The hard part comes when we try to use factions in our games. Of course these factions are doing stuff. Plotting, scheming, waging wars. But we can't just simulate this world constantly. It is a game in its own. But it doesn't need to be.

We can use the concept of quantum ogres. The factions act in the background. Mostly unseen. Only when it needs to be seen, we shine a light on it. We can also retroactively "blame" things on a faction - It was Agatha All Along. The players tend to naturally do that anyway. So go with it were it makes sense. But the cool thing is, it could be any faction. Only once you look it is determined.

I like to start by creating three global factions. A name and a goal suffices for the start. If the goal is public knowledge to the players or not, you can decide yourself. These three factions stand at odds against each other. The best if you pick a faction from each type. Like Fremen (Social), Spacing Guild (Organizational) and the Emperor (Political).

I would then proceed and check the region that the players are currently in. I elect one major faction for that region. These are the main actors in that area, that have the most influence. Everybody knows about them and came in contact with them in some form or the other. Then I might choose up to two minor factions. Any of these factions could be from the global factions or it could be some local faction. On Arrakis this would be Fremen (Major), House Atreides and House Harkonnen (Minor).

Each of these factions are somehow related to each other and everyone that is unaligned with them. They can be Friendly, Hostile or Neutral to another. It's kind of like rock-paper-scissor. I assign a mixture of these relations to the chosen factions.

You will end up with something like this.

You don't need much to get started. A horde of orcs rampaging through the area? Major faction. Everybody hates them. Goal should be pretty clear - or maybe not. Done. The king has send some soldiers to help. Boom, minor faction. It is as simple as that.

And then you do nothing. Let the players explore the world. When you need some form of conflict, let the players encounter a NPC of a given faction, or let a faction do something in the region that is in line with their goal. Further down the road you might think about a local wizard that is controlling the orcs. Third faction introduced.

To determine to which faction the NPC belongs to (or in general which faction is currently doing stuff), roll on this simple table.

d12	Faction
1-4	Unaffiliated
5-8	Major Faction
9-10	Minor Faction A
11-12	Minor Faction B

Once the players become more familiar with a faction, they can choose to gather more information about the faction. Who is leading the faction? What is their goal (if they don't know it yet)? The players will naturally lean to one way or another if they like them or not. They will then probably start to thwart the plans or help. Maybe they find out that the orcs are not really to blame and start to side with them. You see, situations just ooze out of everywhere.

Use these characteristics of a faction like aspects. They do not have a direct mechanical influence in the game, but should be consulted whenever you need to know how an NPC is going to behave or what should happen.

Rule of three

You might be inclined to start creating factions and intricate webs of relations to each of them. Don't. Keep it small. Keep it simple. A good rule of thumb is the rule of three. Be it as a method for creating and handing out clues or in general when constructing a story.

The list of factions will grow naturally as you progress. And trust me, three factions is more than enough to create conflict for several sessions of play. If you look at Dune, the Fremen and Houses Harkonnen and Atreides created enough conflict for at least two movies. You can even just start with two factions and be good for a while - like we did with the example above. Introduce a third faction as a kind of plot twist.

The other thing is, if you present too many options to the players would be overwhelmed as well. Three is a good middle ground to offer enough variety and not be to overly complicated.

Player reputation

Sooner or later players will interact with these factions. The thing you need to keep track of is their reputation with that faction. It starts at 0 (neutral). Whenever they go against the faction, this value reduces and otherwise it increases.

This status ranges from -3 to +3 (shamelessly borrowed from Blades in the Dark)

• +3 - Allies
• +2 - Friendly
• +1 - Helpful
• 0 - Neutral
• -1 - Interfering
• -2 - Hostile
• -3 - War

The exact mechanical implications you can decide for yourself. Maybe the faction even stops whatever they are doing when they are at war with the players and their sole goal becomes their eradication. Suddenly it becomes a game of survival (see conflict is writing itself).

You can even let the players keep track of this, so they can see who they might trust or not. And it keeps that part of bookkeeping out of your hands.

Downtime

Another key thing is of course the goal. As this defines the faction's actions and how it is perceived overall in the world. With the goal comes a clock. At one point it will be fulfilled and either very bad things happen or another project/goal is started.

Whenever there's considerable downtime you would advance these clocks by one step. You can do this between sessions, as part of your preparation. It shouldn't take you too long. Go through the list of factions and update accordingly. Mostly focus on the factions local to the area the players are in.

When doing session prep the clocks also give you a hint what could happen next. Projects that are close on being finished, tend to attract the most attention. A faction preparing for war, suddenly has a big presence in a region and that shouldn't go unnoticed. Use this as an inspiration. Foreshadow heavily.

Conclusion

Factions don't need to be complicated. As a matter of fact it is even better if they are not. The presented framework should help you to get more inspiration for your games, rather than being a pain in keeping track.

Stick to keeping it simple and small. If at one point you feel that you have to many factions, just kill some off. The world is changing after all. Only focus on the factions that are necessary for the current region and the global factions. That should keep the number of factions to a very small number.

Factions are not the sole resource on what happens in the game. There's always nature that can create conflict. Beasts roaming around. Volcanos that erupt. They are just one tool in your arsenal. Use it wisely.

It's easier to be terrified by an enemy you admire.

- Frank Herbert, Dune