Ouch.

So comes the sequel question:

How do you make galactic (or indeed any) factions interesting?

Take Warring States China, or the Qin rpg for example, 7 warring states, each with their own character. In that game you are wandering the land with the warring states as a backdrop for your awesome heroics.

But I can't conceive how to make intergalactic factions interesting unless they are each really weird aliens, like a game of cosmic encounters.

Quote from: Biscuitician;994891So comes the sequel question:

How do you make galactic (or indeed any) factions interesting?

Take Warring States China, or the Qin rpg for example, 7 warring states, each with their own character. In that game you are wandering the land with the warring states as a backdrop for your awesome heroics.

But I can't conceive how to make intergalactic factions interesting unless they are each really weird aliens, like a game of cosmic encounters.

At the risk of making your aliens "rubber headed aliens," why can't you take the same 7 factions you had playing Warring States China Land Wanderer, and use them in your galactic campaign? Give them spaceships instead of horses, but keep the dynamics the same.

This thread has become more germane to me now for a project I'm working on...

Specifically the "Warring States -as Intergalactic Space simulation"

There has to be some unifying element that demands these disparate Star Empires exist as separate entities. Without those unifying elements - it's likely going to be WAR, PEACOCK!

Social - The disparate Empires co-exist through a complex system of traditions they all mutually acknowledge - even if they don't always abide by. think Federation, Klingon Empire, Romulans, Cardassians, etc. All largely disparate entities co-existing in various forms by adhering to established treaties and agreements, but are autonomous.

Or - there could be a meta-cultural reason. Where all the Empires have created rules and hierarchies that establish a pecking order regardless of ones disposition to the others. Including patron-status - like the brilliant David Brin 'Uplift Saga' where patron's raise client races to sentience and hold patronage rights over them for 100k years.

Trade - there might be some special resource that is required to be a space-faring nation. So civility might be required and war becomes a formal affair. Think Dune. One might consider Star Wars in this mode with the caveat that hyperspace technology allegedly can only be be made by a select few races. Only the RPG's have every acknowledged this idea.

Mutual Assured Destruction - Well, there's no point in fighting too much since we're all gonna die. Cultures evolving in an ever-expanding arms/defense race would likewise evolve cultural strategies around that fact. This could include very elaborate elements from the other ideas - where Patron/Client relationships develop *because* of the arms race. But then that also gives you room to develop antagonists accordingly - perhaps outside those norms. The PC game Star Control 2 was like this. There was two big confederations of space empires, then one, then they all faced the genocidal enemy that wanted to kill them all.

All of the above - all of these things surely would be involved to some degree. Those points are where you start considering the details of those Empires.

im not saying i'm playing Qin, that was just the only example I could think of.

The question is: how do you make factions interesting.

Quote from: Biscuitician;994983im not saying i'm playing Qin, that was just the only example I could think of.

The question is: how do you make factions interesting.

You treat them as NPCs consisting of multiple other NPCs. How do you make any NPC interesting?
It's the same, you have to give them character.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;994907At the risk of making your aliens "rubber headed aliens," why can't you take the same 7 factions you had playing Warring States China Land Wanderer, and use them in your galactic campaign? Give them spaceships instead of horses, but keep the dynamics the same.

Yeah, I was thinking along those lines. Or just take today's real world geopolitics and transpose nations to planets... the relationships between China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, then add North Korea, South Korea, and Japan's respective interests to the pot, throw in Russia and the U.S. as somewhat more remote "empires" or "federations" with local interests, jam in Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines and their current terrorist issues, throw in all those little Polynesian island countries as independent  bit players, and you've got yourself a nice little stewpot or sector of space bubbling and gurgling over with intrigues, rivalries, hostilities, trade ties, and so on.

Quote from: Dumarest;995027Yeah, I was thinking along those lines. Or just take today's real world geopolitics and transpose nations to planets... the relationships between China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, then add North Korea, South Korea, and Japan's respective interests to the pot, throw in Russia and the U.S. as somewhat more remote "empires" or "federations" with local interests, jam in Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines and their current terrorist issues, throw in all those little Polynesian island countries as independent  bit players, and you've got yourself a nice little stewpot or sector of space bubbling and gurgling over with intrigues, rivalries, hostilities, trade ties, and so on.

Stop giving up the secrets of my setting:D!

Quote from: AsenRG;995082Stop giving up the secrets of my setting:D!

Ha ha, my Chinese industrial espionage agents snuck into your Japanese setting factory and swiped the plans for my next Traveller campaign. The PCs will begin out in the equivalent of the South Pacific with many undiscovered or uninhabited islands and nearby powers vying for dominance and so on. And a bit of the current South China Sea situation where China is basically trying to expand its territory and steal areas that are either international waters or legally belonging to the Philippines or Vietnam or whoever.  It's a great backdrop for almost any game with minor changes: sci fi, Western, fantasy...

Quote from: Dumarest;995166Ha ha, my Chinese industrial espionage agents snuck into your Japanese setting factory and swiped the plans for my next Traveller campaign. The PCs will begin out in the equivalent of the South Pacific with many undiscovered or uninhabited islands and nearby powers vying for dominance and so on. And a bit of the current South China Sea situation where China is basically trying to expand its territory and steal areas that are either international waters or legally belonging to the Philippines or Vietnam or whoever.  It's a great backdrop for almost any game with minor changes: sci fi, Western, fantasy...

Damn your ultra-competent intelligence services, Dumarest:eek:! I would have made it big with this game, too, if it weren't for you meddling spies:mad:!

(And if it needs to be said, though probably not for Dumarest, this is all in the spirit of :D:D!)

Quote from: AsenRG;995208Damn your ultra-competent intelligence services, Dumarest:eek:! I would have made it big with this game, too, if it weren't for you meddling spies:mad:!

(And if it needs to be said, though probably not for Dumarest, this is all in the spirit of :D:D!)

[ATTACH=CONFIG]1678[/ATTACH]

Quote from: tenbones;994943This thread has become more germane to me now for a project I'm working on...

Specifically the "Warring States -as Intergalactic Space simulation"

There has to be some unifying element that demands these disparate Star Empires exist as separate entities. Without those unifying elements - it's likely going to be WAR, PEACOCK!

Social - The disparate Empires co-exist through a complex system of traditions they all mutually acknowledge - even if they don't always abide by. think Federation, Klingon Empire, Romulans, Cardassians, etc. All largely disparate entities co-existing in various forms by adhering to established treaties and agreements, but are autonomous.

Or - there could be a meta-cultural reason. Where all the Empires have created rules and hierarchies that establish a pecking order regardless of ones disposition to the others. Including patron-status - like the brilliant David Brin 'Uplift Saga' where patron's raise client races to sentience and hold patronage rights over them for 100k years.

Trade - there might be some special resource that is required to be a space-faring nation. So civility might be required and war becomes a formal affair. Think Dune. One might consider Star Wars in this mode with the caveat that hyperspace technology allegedly can only be be made by a select few races. Only the RPG's have every acknowledged this idea.

Mutual Assured Destruction - Well, there's no point in fighting too much since we're all gonna die. Cultures evolving in an ever-expanding arms/defense race would likewise evolve cultural strategies around that fact. This could include very elaborate elements from the other ideas - where Patron/Client relationships develop *because* of the arms race. But then that also gives you room to develop antagonists accordingly - perhaps outside those norms. The PC game Star Control 2 was like this. There was two big confederations of space empires, then one, then they all faced the genocidal enemy that wanted to kill them all.

All of the above - all of these things surely would be involved to some degree. Those points are where you start considering the details of those Empires.

Or not. It seems to me that the same answers some of us gave to the first question also apply to this second question, and don't require any of the above. That is, the number of worlds, and the effective distance (time/risk/effort/expense/lack-of-communication) involved to get to them (and tactical and other logistical factors, if contemplating using force) compared to resources and other things to do with those resources, can greatly limit the interaction and/or whether anyone chooses to exert any military/political effort against anyone else. If worlds or empires have enough to survive and enough to deal with where they are, or in more important places to them, they aren't going to be warring or trying to dominate others outside their sphere of interest and ability to efficiently do so.

Quote from: Biscuitician;994983im not saying i'm playing Qin, that was just the only example I could think of.


The question is: how do you make factions interesting.

My point about leaving existing dynamics I think applies anyways. Find 7 (or use a different #) nations at some time and place on earth (or another piece of fiction) and keep the same relative dynamics, plus or minus whatever is needed to make things work in space.

Or, alternate idea, grab random books off your shelf. Find one thing from each and extrapolate upon it. You very much do not have to make your aliens very weird. Just give them one thing that an outsider would instantly recognize as their 'thing.'
I will try. I asked my wife to grab 7 random books off our shelves, excluding sci fi novels (because I figure you already know how to borrow those). They are:

Little Women: Apparently one of use read this in high school, but I don't remember a thing about it except that one of the sisters dies of Scarlet fever. So we'll use that. Society 1 has recently (last couple of generations) recovered from a plague which could have easily wiped them out. They are paranoid about disease outbreaks and a special 'scarlet brigade' acts as a second police force, with broad discretionary powers and a 'shoot first, then burn, then maybe ask questions later' mentality. The general laws are relatively loose, and smugglers from other cultures often shop there for weapons, drugs, etc. However, there is always the danger of a rival framing you as 'diseased,' as a much more convenient method of elimination than direct confrontation.

A cookbook: Society 2 is at or near post-scarcity and technologically advanced. But not so advanced that they can grow the most finicky of plants in the lab, much less at an agricultural level (some things won't grow outside of their natural environment except with so much effort you are effectively bringing the whole environment back with you). A culture of vastly wealthy epicurians who desire routine delivery of the wild Grizzlefax mushroom, which only grows on decomposing endangered plutonian parakeet tongues (and the sabotuers who seek to destroy the last distributor) are ample avenues for both profit and conflict.

William Blake's The drawings for Dante's Divine Comedy : Okay, I could go with art or afterlife on this one, I'll go afterlife. Society 3 has a very strong concept of the afterlife, with massively multiple heavens, hells, limbos, purgatories, and so forth depending upon an innate birth state (Calvinistic predestination combined with a caste system) and how one conducts oneself. There are significant subgroups within the society that think one of 1)outsiders do not have souls and thus rights, 2) outsiders must be converted, 3)outsiders cannot convert, as they do not have souls, and those who do convert are committing heresy , 4)  why haven't we started the war of extermination, but the most common is still 5) hey, outsiders, let's trade with them, not fight wars with them, etc. Generally working with them/in their society is fine (and fruitful), but you always run the risk of running into an extremist, or just accidentally offending your client by wearing blue shoes on a Tuesday without performing the right sacraments or whatever.

T.R Reid's The Healing of America (a policy book on healthcare reform): Society 4 has undergone a massive technological change with regards to medicine. It could be a doubling of their lifespan, or the equivalent to the invention of antibiotics, or even cloning and/or brain uploading. Suffice to say, it is hugely expensive, creating a society of haves and have-nots with regards to ones' very existence. Suffice to say that is some social unrest. Allows for the opportunity to see a society on the cusp of trans-'human'-ism, but without being humans.

D&D 1e PHB: Hmmm. a different games' rulebook. I will focus on the dragons part. Society 5 are, well, sort of dragons. They are scaled, have vestigial wings (maybe not vestigial if they are small enough), and just look like dragons. They are fascinated that human culture 'came up with them' as a form of universal myth, and all sorts of bizarre theories exist on why that is--one is that an early space program of their homeworld somehow stumbled to Earth and instilled an instinctual fear/awe/mental image of them in human's mind. But they've only been interstellar spacefaring for a few hundred years more than humanity, so that doesn't work.--unless... time travel! (they have their own tinfoil-hat types).

AAA guide to Texas and Louisiana: Society 6 is interstellar N'awlins! Make up a new multicultural city, meeting-of-cultures. Create a Mardis Gras equivalent, and your own types of low-lifes, losers, winners, opportunists, and tourists to populate. Throw in a potential for natural disaster (perhaps the city is in an asteroid belt, so it is collision, and not hurricanes they have to worry about).  

Hop on Pop: Society completely of children doesn't make much sense. But how about one that focuses very heavily on children? Society 7 considers the act of childrearing not just to be the propagation of the species, but the primary goal of every member (regardless of those who don't really feel it). Adults without children are viewed with suspicion. Getting a job where you are away from your children is considered nearly unthinkable. Even warships have nurseries, schools, and such in them (perhaps a send-up of the ridiculousness of ST: TNG sending their families along on exploratory military vessels). For that reason, you don't have a minor military altercation with this society, since any action you take just put innocent children in harm's way.

Now I'm sure some of those won't fit your criteria for interesting, but some equivalent will. Just go to your bookshelf (or any other vaguely random-generator-like source of inspiration, and grab one trait for each society. Yes, it might make them a little like "exactly like humans, except ____," but it is both easy and effective.

Quote from: Skarg;995414Or not. It seems to me that the same answers some of us gave to the first question also apply to this second question, and don't require any of the above. That is, the number of worlds, and the effective distance (time/risk/effort/expense/lack-of-communication) involved to get to them (and tactical and other logistical factors, if contemplating using force) compared to resources and other things to do with those resources, can greatly limit the interaction and/or whether anyone chooses to exert any military/political effort against anyone else.

These are the details that define the emergent large-scale qualities I'm approaching from the top down. What you're talking about here is not necessarily what I'm talking about unless you're approaching it from the bottom up. I'm talking about how established empire may interact. I'm not proscribing those details. That's up to you.

Quote from: Skarg;995414If worlds or empires have enough to survive and enough to deal with where they are, or in more important places to them, they aren't going to be warring or trying to dominate others outside their sphere of interest and ability to efficiently do so.

This would go against what we commonly understand about different communities historically. There is always some established order. And these are largely detailed based on resources and the general disposition of the empire. How long those empires have had contact. What historical events exist between those empires? What mutual beneficial traditions have developed? blah blah. I'm talking about the forest not the trees - the point of contact at which the PC's enter the picture. All that stuff could (and in my opinion should) be established by the GM beforehand.

The premise of the question is "Warring States in Space" - well I'm making *precisely* ZERO assertions to the nature of those states. I'm just positing points of consideration in creating this milieu. The details are, as always, left up to the GM.

Quote from: tenbones;995746These are the details that define the emergent large-scale qualities I'm approaching from the top down. What you're talking about here is not necessarily what I'm talking about unless you're approaching it from the bottom up. I'm talking about how established empire may interact. I'm not proscribing those details. That's up to you.

Yep. I just felt you didn't qualify what you were talking about enough, making it sound like it would always be as you described, but that assumes that everyplace you're talking about can efficiently be reached and that there aren't other places more interesting to those who might travel to other systems to intervene for the reasons you're talking about.

QuoteThis would go against what we commonly understand about different communities historically. There is always some established order. And these are largely detailed based on resources and the general disposition of the empire. How long those empires have had contact. What historical events exist between those empires? What mutual beneficial traditions have developed? blah blah. I'm talking about the forest not the trees - the point of contact at which the PC's enter the picture. All that stuff could (and in my opinion should) be established by the GM beforehand.

Again, I'm not disagreeing for states that are empire-like and that are in close enough contact and that don't have greater concerns. I just think you're leaving out the other situations, where nations aren't empire-like and/or have more pressing issues closer to home and/or the effort to exert power is too great. It seems to me that those factors have the potential to be extreme when we're talking about different planets and especially different star systems, unless it's the far end of the ease/resource scale like Star Wars. Even Star Trek is full of huge numbers of random planets and local powers that aren't being dominated by the local empires. Meanwhile for what I'm talking about, it seems to me there are more Earth examples than not, especially before the European empires during the Age o' Colonization.