Quote from: RPGPunditA: They have to have a raison d'etre within the game. Having UberCool Secret Order X, where this order makes no sense within the social context of the setting, or where they don't seem to fit in any where, or are anachronistic, or just plain wacky, is unsatisfying.

That's a given really. NPCs need a reason to do what they do, if nothing else so I as the GM know how to play them when inevitable unpredicted situations come up.

QuoteB: they have to have a raison d'etre within the context of the players.  Any organization that the PCs cannot either interact with in a meaningful way, or belong to, is not worth talking about. They should be something that at least some of the PCs can either Join, or Fight, or get stuff from, or get hassled by. If they're just there, just to be cool or whatever, it seems a waste of space.

Sometimes things are cool on their own, either as set-dressing or interesting diversions or what have you. Brothels, for example, make interesting "organizations", even though they're hardly enemies or allies in the traditional sense.

Set-dressing is fine if its just that, dressing.  If you dedicate, say, two lines of text in a book to the "Noble Brotherhood of Tapestry-Makers", a group that will neither be villains or associates, but will just be there, for flavour, that's fine.

But doing a 4-page spread in a setting book about such a group would just be stupid.  It would be more than stupid, bordering on criminal, if you do that but only write two throwaway lines about some other group that might really be important.

RPGPundit

Flavor category VS. Usability in a campaign sets the amount of material that should be written about an organization.

That's a good first rule to follow, I'd say.

Quote from: One Horse Town;221473I'm glad i spent 20 minutes writing that post - it really brought the thread back on topic.

I found your post to be useful and illuminating. There was a discussion on this board about do you develop and possibly roleplay The Evils ( http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=10588 ).  What you said dovetails nicely with what the general trend of the thread showed.  My post from there...

Everyone who is in Evil for Evil sake, has a backstory to explain why they are that way. Sure you can be Evil and still be a functional "normal" member of society. It is when they decide to "risk themselves" and be all they want to be, that they become villians.

Most Evil Villians don't consider themselves Evil, they just think that the rules don't apply to them, or that they deserve this. The Selfishness applies.

Now my Deamons are Evil of Evil's sake. He is their boss. They eat/ gain energy due to discord/ negative emotions/ evil energies generated by the actions of "souls". How they do it and their motivation for liking their "evil" this way or that, requires some degree of backstory. (I was there and caused the first murder in a jazz club. I liked the flavor. Now I haunt the clubs, looking for that smokey flavor of dispair with a tinge of magical music.) It does not have to a lot, but it changes a mechanical challange to something interesting (and gives you a wedge to trick the demon).

if you think about Orcs, they are following X-leader (who has personal goals that are important in game context). In addition, they are just trying to make a name for themselves (thus will do things normal maurading orcs might not do), looking for food and anything they can easily get (so they get something and run), or ... well you see how this works. Each motivation changes the "tactics" of your fodder monster.

Sometimes, you might even see the dynamics of the fodder monster group. One guy tries to run, the guy in back whacks him on the head and he keeps on fighting. (Thus the PCs target the guy in back and sure enough that one orc runs immediately and others soon follow).

Nobody said the story had to be long and involved, but it should be there. (Nor does it need to be delved into in depth.)  Nobody said you had to stat out everyone and come up with their mother's maiden name, but sprinkling of details changes thing from a simple video game mowdown to something that could be interesting.

This small motivation for a handful of characters in an Evil organization creates a complex web of interactions. Savy players can pick up on that and use it. Or they can just mow down everyone in site. (If they can't mow down everything, then they will need these as options.) Besides, if the members of the organziation were not selfish/evil and looking for a route to more power for less effort or around the normal paths, they would be on the good side.

And if your players screw up (gee, like that has never happened) the web of motivations in the Evil Org begins to come into play... as somebody will go after their own goals, and throw the wobble into the big plan.

So, in response to what Pundit said before:
The Mona Lisa Rule: Spend only as much time on a world, map, scenario, or NPC as the amount of play time and enjoyment it will allow. Two years of planning for six hours of game play is not a good investment in time and effort. So invest a few hours into the game setting you are going to be in for a few hundred hours of gaming fun.

This can easily be adapted for a suppliment, in which case you would substitute column inches for time.  

Only give as much space over to something as the enjoyment/ useful play it will provide. Four pages dedicated to a throw away minion is not a good use of space. So you only have so much space to write out a scenario, suppliment. So only invest space in something equal to its usefulness and "fun factor".
aside: "Hmmmmm need a name for this rule"

This aside, and aiming towards topic:

An Evil Organization (and I try never to use the term Evil in writing any mortal group) will need a strong leader, charismatic or charismatic in a very scary way (thus the tougher than you boss).  

He will need people who are willing to follow his lead and believe in his goals (or that their own goals match the leaders). If the group is big enough, he will need sub-leaders to control the minion.  While minions can be faceless, they don't have to be. I usually throw a trait at every mook, that makes him a little different. This prevents cookie cutter syndrome.  Interesting villians tend to make for an interesting game in my experience.  

They need to have tools and resources to reach their goal, even if they are insufficient to the task.  This is "The Evil Goal".  This provides something to make the Villians more interesting. Especially if the goal is something you can vaguely sympathize with. (We want to throw down the ruler of the country.... The PC's don't like him because he shorted them their reward... but he is the local lawful ruler.)

If they don't, they will often have a plan or plot to get some of those tools and resources.  This is normally The Evil Plot that the players are somehow entangled in.  

Usually they will have an opposition group or two.  Who said things had to be easy?

Of course, this is a general statement. With a tiny bit of tweaking, it works for good organizations. Or Neutral. However this should not suprise us. Most Evil Villians don't consider themselves Evil. They just think that the rules don't apply to them or that they deserve this and are just taking steps to get what should be theirs.

To be tongue in cheek: There are no Good Guys. There are no Bad Guys. There are just ... Guys.  

Because the "good guys" could be the "bad guys" depending on how you spin it.

Dark Heresy while it has many good points provides an object lesson how not to handle organisations (with the qualification that it is not so much the organisations and the way they are described that is at issue but the assumptions about how PCs must interact with them).

Making the Inquisition totally central to the game but providing PCs with no way to become Inquisitors or even Interrogators who work directly for an Inquisitor?

In its absence you are left running the equivalent of a Charlie's Angels or A-Team scenario every session but the rather important difference that your off-stage mission-givers are actually Evil Space Nazis - but Nazis who this time around genuinely are defending a beleaguered human race from demonic alien conspiracies.

This puts most of the interesting moral conflict at the Charlie the Inquisitor rather than at the operatives/acolytes level - but as you can't even stat an Inquisitor in DH there is not much you can do to represent it.  

What it really needed was multiple levels of play like Ars Magica where you get to alternate playing both the Inquisitors politicking in their cabal and the grunts out in the field - but for that to work you need to expend as much effort on writing rules for social conflict as you do on lovingly detailing items of weaponry.

Quote from: beejazzBrothels, for example, make interesting "organizations...

Thaˇ's not organization, at least not from the view of story, that's place... (well, characters might work in one, then it's organization, but in most games,it would serve as place...)

Quote from: Fritzs;222721Thaˇ's not organization, at least not from the view of story, that's place... (well, characters might work in one, then it's organization, but in most games,it would serve as place...)

I'd consider it an organization. Hell, it should have peripheral relations with organized crime, local law (bribery at least), and many other groups (there's blackmail potential if the brothel gets unscrupulous). A brothel is a place where money and secret shames change hands frequently. A PC falling for a girl who gets sent later to a brothel to repay her family's debts is one way of kick starting a "damsel in distress" sort of adventure. It isn't directly relevant to the PCs, but can gain significance depending on how you play.

Generally, I prefer it as a catalyst rather than the center-stage "villain" or "ally" but... not an organization?

beejazz: It could become organization if it's incorporated into story as organization (it's villain of game, it's where characters work and so on), otherwise, it's place where character go to do whatever said characters do in brothers...

Quote from: Hubert Farnsworth;222643Dark Heresy while it has many good points provides an object lesson how not to handle organisations (with the qualification that it is not so much the organisations and the way they are described that is at issue but the assumptions about how PCs must interact with them).

Making the Inquisition totally central to the game but providing PCs with no way to become Inquisitors or even Interrogators who work directly for an Inquisitor?

In its absence you are left running the equivalent of a Charlie's Angels or A-Team scenario every session but the rather important difference that your off-stage mission-givers are actually Evil Space Nazis - but Nazis who this time around genuinely are defending a beleaguered human race from demonic alien conspiracies.

This puts most of the interesting moral conflict at the Charlie the Inquisitor rather than at the operatives/acolytes level - but as you can't even stat an Inquisitor in DH there is not much you can do to represent it.  

What it really needed was multiple levels of play like Ars Magica where you get to alternate playing both the Inquisitors politicking in their cabal and the grunts out in the field - but for that to work you need to expend as much effort on writing rules for social conflict as you do on lovingly detailing items of weaponry.

The more Dark Heresy I play, the more I'm convinced that the Inquisition angle was just their way of giving a bunch of random space bums access to space travel in a manner that fits in with the 40K canon. The big difference between WFRP and the 40K universe is that in the Warhammer setting if you want to up sticks and go travelling all you need is a functioning pair of legs, but if you want to go travelling the universe in the 40K setting you really need a spaceship, and spaceships just ain't that common. It'd have been really hard to do a 40K RPG with PCs of WFRP-like levels of power unless you had them stuck on the same planet (or stowing away on the same ship) all the time. Really, the scope for Inquisitorial Acolytes to go off and do a little extracurricular activity is vast in DH; if you're playing with a group of PCs who aren't averse to a little corruption, profiteering, and maybe even dabbling in black magic you can even become a bigger danger to the galaxy than anything your Inquisitor sends you after.