Forgotten Kingdoms Forums

In previous posts, I've spoken about a variety of different ideas and thoughts we've had on how we would encourage large-scale imm-run RP.

Recent posts and discussions here have made me wonder if this is the wrong approach, and if we can't put in place some structures that would encourage bottom-up RP instead.

Building on, and parallel to the adventurer's guilds ideas we've been discussing, I think it would be helpful to have some kind of regional-based power structures, maybe secret ones called 'factions'

Just thinking allowed here, what if we said that in a given city, it's faction might consist of:

1) 1 or 2 of the highest ranking members of the adventurer's guild.
2) A representative from each temple which has a base in that region or city.
3) 1 or 2 representatives from the merchant's guild - the merchant's guild would be re-jigged somewhat to be based on player-run shops. If a city or region had more than say, three player-run shops, it would get a seat on the faction.

What would a faction be able to do? What about:

1) Set/remove/add crimes to the area-based justice system.
2) By majority vote, remove representatives from the faction, so, for example, they could kick off a particular merchant and get a different one, or perhaps, kick out a temple representative (who would be an FM) and replace them with another - essentially changing the FM of that faith.
3) Provide some ways for factions to interact with each other, such as fighting for 'jurisdiction' over smaller areas in between, setting up trade routes (player shops) and then protecting them etc...?

Just some thoughts on an idle sunday!

Mask wrote:2) By majority vote, remove representatives from the faction, so, for example, they could kick off a particular merchant and get a different one, or perhaps, kick out a temple representative (who would be an FM) and replace them with another - essentially changing the FM of that faith.

Yes. Thumbs way up here. Especially about voting out faith managers. Factions need agents too though. People that do things behind the scenes to ensure this bill gets passed or the votes just so happen to sway in the favor of a particularly wealthy merchant.

As for setting/adding/removing crimes, perhaps also allow factions to hire 'independent contractors' to take care of individuals which pose a threat to them. These threats could come in the form of habitual criminals, important figureheads who refuse to be coerced to their way of thinking, or heads of another faction that just keep getting in the way of the other factions goals.

Would we then have multiple FM's? One for each faction throughout the realms? Im a fan of the hitman idea Rhangalas.. So far im liking this. Removing/adding crimes would be neat too, really allow for some color in the various cities. How many factions would we have?

Don't know how hard it would be to code, but it would be great if factions had the ability to "take over" portions of regions that other factions control. The more "turf" a faction controls, the more resources (shops, farmland, trade routes) -thus income - they produce. Some of this income is then doled out among the various members of the faction maybe once every IG month. The pay rates are according to rank and duties.

I think this is a great idea, anytime where players can affect the world allows for a lot of possibilities. For Player Run Shops, a question. Do players have to collect the coin that they make at the shop, because if that is the case could the shopkeeper keep all the coin they make on their person until the owner/merchant of the shop collects these coins. This allows for the coins to be intercepted before collection which allows crimes to affect a town or city's economy.

Also I was thinking, could we perhaps get the Harper/Zhentarim Factions in on this somehow? I think this would make for a great Forgotten Realm environment as well. Faiths interact within these factions and they all do try to hold the most sway for their Deities.