Quote from: LeSquide;221506Sure, it's not appropriate for every game, but it can add depth and interest for the players as well as giving them other options to act upon during play.

There's a term for this, and I can't think what it is, but it makes a campaign world seem more "lived-in" if one includes those sorts of details, even if only in broad hints. I also really enjoy - particularly in play-by-post games, where the early game can be reviewed - dropping hints that won't be recognized as such by the players until later in the game. "Oh, shit, does that mean the amulet that skeleton was wearing in the first game was the symbol of this guy we're meeting a year later? Wait, that means he's been looking for us the whole time!" That sort of thing.

The "lived-in" feeling is all the more meaningful when the details don't actually mean anything, when they're not directed at some plot point. There are organizations in my online D&D game that the players will hear of, but likely never encounter a member of, much less meaningfully interact with. But, like NERPS, they're cool because they're not meaningful: they make things seem more real, which, if your game requires suspension of disbelief, is useful as all get out.

Quote from: Engine;221510There's a term for this, and I can't think what it is, but it makes a campaign world seem more "lived-in" if one includes those sorts of details, even if only in broad hints. I also really enjoy - particularly in play-by-post games, where the early game can be reviewed - dropping hints that won't be recognized as such by the players until later in the game. "Oh, shit, does that mean the amulet that skeleton was wearing in the first game was the symbol of this guy we're meeting a year later? Wait, that means he's been looking for us the whole time!" That sort of thing.

The "lived-in" feeling is all the more meaningful when the details don't actually mean anything, when they're not directed at some plot point. There are organizations in my online D&D game that the players will hear of, but likely never encounter a member of, much less meaningfully interact with. But, like NERPS, they're cool because they're not meaningful: they make things seem more real, which, if your game requires suspension of disbelief, is useful as all get out.

I've heard it referred to as verisimilitude, which seems to be a pretty apt word for it. My players have flat out told me they really like bumping into details that suggest the world moves without them.

There are flat out more useful things to work out for an adventure or campaign, but a little time on the extra details never hurts.

I'm readily willing to believe that it can be taken too far, though, like with the above Pathfinder example.

Quote from: LeSquide;221515I've heard it referred to as verisimilitude...

Oh, thank you. It's been driving me crazy. That's the one.

Yeah, it's the feeling that there's a world beyond the characters that moves with or without them.

I prefer that to the world consisting of only the PCs and what they're doing, but many folks don't like it.

Quote from: One Horse Town;221518Yeah, it's the feeling that there's a world beyond the characters that moves with or without them.

I prefer that to the world consisting of only the PCs and what they're doing, but many folks don't like it.

I really like Verisimilitude in my games - it's a big part of what I find engaging about RPGs.

But the example of the Pathfinder adventure is a good one.  Unless the players are going to learn that information somehow, or it has a direct influence on how you play the villain during the game, then it's of virtually no use and it's just filler fiction to pad the page-count.  That can be fun for you as the GM to read, but it's not as useful for running a game as some other things...

QuoteYou're so fucking intent on proving to the world that you're Mr. Serious Gamer Elite that you piss on other people's games without even trying to grasp what's going on in them.

Dude, it took you until now to figure this shit out?  You're talking about a guy who's been wandering from thread to thread babbling on about how D&D sucks, oh but not HIS D&D because HIS group is so much more intelligent and different so they're not really the same game anymore, blah blah blah.

The mindless elitism has been pretty apparent to the rest of us for some time.  You seriously need to pay more attention.

Yes, absolutely.

Jackalope - is it only your internet persona that has these major anger management problems or do you find yourself violently abusing people in real life over apparently trivial issues?

I sometimes have similar problems myself maintaining a proper sense of proportion in these sort of discussions and am genuinely interested.

Quote from: Hubert Farnsworth;221768Jackalope - is it only your internet persona that has these major anger management problems or do you find yourself violently abusing people in real life over apparently trivial issues?

It's all just internet fun.

So, for a game I'm running, the players received hints that a mysterious society of shapeshifters lives on the edges between the Empire they're in and the other  (often otherworldly) societies that border it.

It's called the Mirror Concordance, and is started as a mutual defense and assistance network when pogroms against shapeshifters (suspected and actual) tore apart their generally less numerous, militarily weaker enclaves in civilization.  Like many mutual defense networks...it later morphed into something more akin to a criminal gang, often running smuggling and spying rings.

They're not inherently antagonistic to the players or society (the worst among them are predators or 'cuckoos,' but the average shapeshifting individual is usually just trying to get by); so far, the players have run into them in the midst of a criminal enterprise, and successfully exploited tensions between members of the Concordance and their erstwhile partners to turn their enemies against one another.

While I've figured out the 'local' hierarchy of the organization (generally a town or city's Concordance will be run by prominent members of each shapeshifting subcommunity in a sort of council of peers), I'm trying to figure out how the wider hierarchy would work, especially across traditional national boundries. So far, all I have is that there's an Invisible King at the top of it, but I'm still figuring out how the middle levels of it work (or if each local council answers only to the King himself.)

Is it really that necessary to have evil organization... what about organization which is not evil, but pursues some goal that is not inherently evil, even their methods aren't evil by deffinition, but that goal is antagonistic with what characters are trying to acomplish

I don't think such organization fall into cathegory of misunderstood villians... they just want diferent thinks to happen than characters wants and can be decent people...

Well, that's an excellent point. Not only that but Pundit's original post doesn't suggest this thread should focus on 'evil' organizations.

I don't think organizations need to even have the good or neutral or evil predetermination... Like I said, goals should be the focus of defining an organization that is viable for an rpg.

A couple of notes:

First, my OP was about organizations, not specifically evil organizations.  So yes, this thread is to discuss organizations in general.

Second, I think its got to be emphasized that any organization has to have two very different sorts of raisons d'etre:
A: 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.
B: 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.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;222134B: 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.

Uber-cool NPC organizations that can be neither fought nor joined verge on becoming another version of the dreaded DMPC.  Just as its not cool to show up your players with some uber NPC who is always rubbing it in the PC's faces how much the he has the DM's favor, it's no good to have an organization that only exists to show the PCs how awesome the DM's campaign would be if they weren't involved.

Quote from: RPGPundit;222134Second, I think its got to be emphasized that any organization has to have two very different sorts of raisons d'etre:
A: 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.
B: 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.

I strongly agree with both of these points.

With reference to the debate Jackalope kick-started, I think there's a place in campaign settings for both black-and-white "good" and "bad" outfits and for more nuanced, ambiguous organisations. In my view, if the players are definitely meant to Join, or Fight, or otherwise interact with the organisation in a very specific way, it should be reasonably unambiguous - organisations which exist specifically for PCs to fight should be out-and-out horrible and directly working against all the PCs hold dear, outfits which exist specifically for PCs to join should fundamentally have their hearts in the right place (although there's scope for them to have different idea to the PCs as to what's the best way to achieve their goals). Ambiguous organisations should be the outfits where you're not sure how the players are going to interact with them - so you should set them up so that players could potentially join them, or fight them, or do anything in between if things pan out that way.