by Eric Weiss
A good D&D faction is more than the sum of its NPCs.
That can make it much tougher to integrate factions into a D&D campaign. Individuals are, well, individual. They each have their own very personal idiosyncrasies and motivations, so it doesn’t break the logic of the world if they do something unexpected.
Your BBEG is an evil megalomaniac. What do they care if their objectives don’t make sense to anyone else?
D&D factions, on the other hand, represent more collective thinking. The members are there because they have something in common, and have banded together to pursue that shared objective. How do you capture that sense of collectivism in a plausible way?
Factions are an integral part of any RPG campaign because they represent the social, political, and economic forces that dictate how people interact in the setting you’ve created. At the same time, they have more pieces, occupy more space, and move more slowly than individuals. They can also generate much more momentum when they do get moving. What does that mean for the other factions they’re competing against?
Which fantasy groups hold the real power in your campaign?
You can answer that question with Lore Master’s Deck, which includes Factions as one of the eight primary card types designed for creating lore. We’re releasing a free 35-card sample of Lore Master’s Deck for Free RPG Day, which you can pick up on June 27 from a participating Free RPG Day store (use the store locator to find one near you).
Until then, here are some more general tips you can use to generate D&D factions for your campaign!
What is a D&D faction?
For our purposes, a D&D faction is any fictional group of individuals with a common interest or a shared objective. Many fantasy factions are large political or military forces, such as the Kingdom of Gondor or Sauron’s orcish army in Lord of the Rings.
However, factions can exist on a much smaller scale. Sometimes, they’re sub-factions of those larger groups (like a single squad within an army). Sometimes, they’re based on something else entirely. The residents of an apartment building are a faction that wants to maintain its living space (the Shire lands in this category, too). A faction can be competitive (a sports team). Sometimes it’s professional (a shop or a blacksmith’s guild). Sometimes it’s social, or based on some other special interest (a fan club, a school, or a religious group).
Even your party is a D&D faction of a sort, insofar as the members are working together to advance a common cause.
In other words, D&D factions can be anything, as long as a group of people is involved. Here are some questions you can ask to figure out what kind of faction you’re dealing with:
- What is it that holds this group together?
- What status do they have in society at large?
- How does this faction navigate its relationships with other factions?
- Are they public facing, or is it a secret society?
- What do they need to accomplish their goals?
- Do those goals place them in opposition to the party, or will they help your party to strike a blow against a common enemy?
As a DM, you want to pick D&D factions that fit your world and the campaign you’re trying to create!
A note about cultish D&D factions
Note that a good fantasy faction should go beyond cult thinking. A faction is a collective, but individual people join because the faction offers something they want, whether it’s access, resources, or a sense of community. If the members of your faction don’t think for themselves – if they’re just minions to be slaughtered and don’t seem to have any concerns about that – it’s just not as interesting as a fantasy faction that has a persuasive sales pitch.
That doesn’t mean you can’t use cults or other coercive groups. However, you should give some thought to how they actually operate with regards to individual people.
The War Boys in Mad Max: Fury Road are a good example. They’re willing to sacrifice themselves, but their actions make sense in context. They’re indoctrinated as children, and get preferential treatment, a sense of purpose, and a promise of reward in the afterlife in a world where life is already hard (and often short). The movie also shows how cruel the system is in practice, allowing for more character growth and dramatic tension when one of the War Boys becomes aware of the lies he’s been told.
The War Boys don’t do things “just because,” and that’s what you want to avoid when you’re designing D&D factions. People will do irrational things. The audience simply needs to understand why they care more about the cause than their own well-being.
What generates that kind of loyalty? What convinces people to buy in? Answer that, and you’ll have a D&D faction with members who will go to great lengths to achieve its ends.
Now that that’s out of the way, let’s take a look at some sample DnD factions and see some of the different ways to work them into your D&D campaign!
How to generate conflict with D&D factions
We made this faction with Lore Master’s Deck, and it follows a classic trope.
The Rat Conspiracy is opposed to a certain kind of knowledge, and will try to stop anyone who looks into it before they learn too much. Members of the group live by a strict code, and take their name from the secretive nature of their operations.
A D&D faction like this is relatively easy to work into a D&D campaign because it gives the players something to investigate. The party meets the Researcher, who asks them to look into a threatening letter with a rat drawn on the corner of the page.
It also creates a clear antagonist – though the identity of the antagonist can change depending on the Faction’s agenda and its position within the story.
Let’s say everything is as the Researcher says. The Conspiracy is malicious, and wants to stop the Researcher (perhaps a historian) from exposing a truth that will shift the balance of power. They stick to the shadows because they know their agenda is unpopular.
On the other hand, what if the conspiracy enjoys strong grassroots support? Maybe the Researcher is looking into something dangerous, whether it’s a weapon or some raw force they could never hope to control, and the Conspiracy is trying to prevent a disaster.
The point is that you need to be very clear about your faction’s agenda. When you know that, you’ll have a better sense of how they operate and how they’ll engage the party.
These are some of the questions you can ask to position your faction in your world:
- How does the party come into contact with the faction? Are they trying to stay hidden, or will they reach out if they think the party will help them?
- How do other NPCs feel about the faction? Will they assist the party, or will they lie to protect the faction?
- Where do they come into contact? Is it a tavern, a back alley, or maybe someone’s house?
How are members identified? Do they have some kind of symbol or marker that marks them to one another? - Is the faction a villainous or heroic force within your story? Does that have the potential to change as more information comes to light?
How to make deals with D&D factions
Of course, not every faction is invested in the fate of the world. In fact, most real-world factions operate on a relatively small scale, far from the levers of power.
Take, for example, the case of the House of Words. This faction is more of a club – a group of individuals who collect old books in different languages. It started as a bit of a joke that no one took seriously, but the members found they enjoyed each other’s company. They still meet regularly, though most of their meetings are excuses to eat food and drink wine.
D&D factions like this are handy for fulfilling minor roles in a campaign. The House’s extensive libraries may be useful if the party needs more information about a specific topic, while the members of the faction add to the flavor of the world itself, offering opportunities for fun and quirky interactions with the player characters.
The members of the House still want something. That should guide those interactions, no matter how small the stakes may be. The House doesn’t want to overthrow the king, but they are looking for amusement. Maybe they’ll help the party if the party provides some entertainment.
The circumstances will change, but you can use the same logic whenever the party encounters a minor faction. When you know what the faction wants – whether it’s money, a favor, or ordinary kindness – you know what the party needs to deliver to facilitate the exchange.
Here are some questions you can ask to set the stage for negotiations:
- What does the party want from the faction?
- What does the faction want from the party?
- How big are the stakes for each side? How desperate are they for an agreement?
- What will happen if one group walks away from the table?
- Do any other factions have a stake in the outcome of this deal? Will they try to influence it from afar?
How to worldbuild with D&D factions
Many real-world factions are functions of proximity. The people living in a neighborhood have a common interest, even if there are disagreements between individual members.
The same will be true in your D&D campaign. Every time the party moves to a new area, they’ll encounter a new group of people with their own social customs. For instance, the people in the Acid District are known for food made with a lot of vinegar, which they make from venom harvested from the reptiles they keep as pets. The neighboring boroughs find the custom strange, leaving the Acid District isolated from the rest of the city.
This kind of faction may or may not play a major role in your campaign, but it’s important because these are the factions that bring your setting to life. The people who live in a place will dictate what kinds of sights, sounds, and smells the party will find there, from clothes to food to music to art and everything in between.
They’re also the people who will be most affected by political and environmental changes in the area. They’ll have opinions, and are well-positioned to share exposition about any general goings-on. That’s a crucial role when you’re onboarding players into the campaign.
Here are some questions you can ask to create a backdrop for your setting:
- What does the faction eat?
- How do they dress?
- What do their homes look like? What items do they keep there?
- Do they have any unique social customs? Are there any penalties for violating them?
- How does the group feel about outsiders? Will they trust strangers in the party?
- What distinguishes this faction from others in the area?
How to build drama with D&D factions
When you’re building your campaign, try to remember that any one individual can be a member of multiple different factions. That’s especially clear when it comes to community based factions, where an NPC could live in the Acid District (and therefore be a part of that group), and have an entirely separate personal, social, or political agenda (if they’re also a member of the Rat Conspiracy or the House of Words).
Those factions may even have competing objectives. Forcing someone to choose between two factions they belong to can be a powerful source of conflict in any RPG!
How to make your own D&D factions
If you need help, you can always check out Lore Master’s Deck to get ideas for your own D&D factions. We used the deck to create all of the factions mentioned in this article, and there are countless other possibilities where these ones came from. A select number of Faction cards are included in the 35-card sample pack we’re releasing for Free RPG Day, so make sure you pick one up if you want to start experimenting with our system.
There are many other kinds of D&D factions, from dojos and religious orders to universities and professional guilds. Playing them against one another will provide a strong narrative engine for your campaign.
The party will almost certainly make alliances and enemies with some of the factions in your world. The more interesting the factions are, the tougher the decisions will be – and that’s what the players will remember when they look back at your campaign!
