Creole Souls
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The Single Faction Issue:

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The Single Faction Issue: Empty The Single Faction Issue:

Post by MagicRob Wed Nov 30, 2016 7:18 am

Creole Souls is a game dedicated to the exploration of the Luciferian Faction of the Demon: the Fallen game setting.

I've recently come under fire for this decision, and there has been a few critics of how it isn't within setting to limit the game to a single faction, and that this somehow obstructs the flow of game, the creation of characters, or the exploration of themes. Respectfully, I'd like to disagree, and here's why.

Within every other WoD setting, the supernaturals have broken themselves into political organizations that rival or oppose one another. In Vampire, you have the Sabbat, Camarilla, Inconnu, etc. In Werewolf you have the Garou Nation, the Black Spiral Dancers, the Beast Courts, etc. In changeling you have the Seelie and Unseelie (and to a lesser extend the Noble Houses therein). In Mage you have the Technocracy and the Traditions. And so on and so forth. In each of these settings, you have groups of critters that have clumped up for mutual protection and betterment. In most of these examples above, relations between the sects are very poor, and conflict is commonplace or expected.

For instance, you wouldn't run a Vampire game and allow Sabbat and Camarilla characters (aside from the one-off deep cover concepts). In Werewolf, you wouldn't allow a BSD in a Garou Nation game. In Mage, you wouldn't allow an Iteration Xer along a Hermetic Mage. They are designed to conflict, and that conflict is designed to escalate. It's not a matter of polite differences, it's a matter of life and death (sometimes literally).

When examining the Factions within D:tF, you need to look at the underlying purpose of that Faction. It is possible to organize a game that allows more than one Faction, but very rarely would you ever allow *all* of the Factions. The purpose of the Faustians is to organize Humanity in such a way as they can resume their war on God. The purpose of the Reconcilers is to find God and beg for forgiveness and find absolution. The purpose of the Ravaners is to tear down the very fabric of Creation and end everything (themselves included). These factions might not be in direct conflict now, but the closer one of them comes to achieving it's goals, the more rigorously the other Factions will fight them. In a grand-scale that would mean open warfare, in a local theater (like Nola) it would mean conflict once the prime resource nodes were claimed. The meta-plot is specifically designed to explore this.

The other reason that I limited the Faction to one is to force player interactions. See, at the time of this posting, there are about 8 Fallen characters active on the boards (maybe as many as 12 by the end of the week <YAY!!>). There are five factions (Faustians, Luciferians, Cryptics, Reconcilers and Ravaners). Let's assume that all factions are represented in the player base. That means that of the 8 Fallen, at least 5 of them will have conflicting ultimate goals (which will lead to conflict), and none of them will have enough players within to really actively show the internal workings of the Faction. I would be sacrificing the potential for some deep role-play revolving around how a specific Faction views and interacts with the world in order to appeals a player base that wants to explore shallow, conflict ridden differences between the Factions. We couldn't hold a 'court' with only 2-3 players of the Faction. And they'd be instructed to directly compete for things like Faith or Influence because they wouldn't have enough in common to not conflict. Sure, some of them might not outright murder each other yet (Faustians and Luciferians get along fine- at least until Lucifer is found or the Faustians have enough juice to start taking over the world), but in their hearts, they are serving different victory conditions. Just like in a Vampire game, a Camarilla member and a Sabbat member might be friends and have tea from time to time, they both know that conflict between them is inevitable in a long enough timeline.

So that's why I limited it. Why Luciferians, then? Honestly, this is one of the least represented factions that I've seen with my own limited exposure to D:tF. By the book, they are the second most populous Faction, but I've pretty much never seen one. But that isn't why I picked them.

The Luciferians offer three unique things to me as a storyteller.

1- They are organized. Because they exist in a military structure, they have a hierarchy and are able to organize themselves and issue orders down the chain.

2- They further break themselves into three modern Legion's with very different goals / purposes, and that allows me to retain some differences of play style, purpose and overarching goals (which really widen the concepts that can exist within it).

3- Their ultimate goal is sooooo loose, that it can easily support virtually *any* other D:tF sort of concept within it. The Faction exists to re-establish a military presence in case the Angels show up, secure the resources to effectively pose a defense against said angels, and find Lucifer to get more marching orders. That's it.

Do some of them want to War with the Throne (like the Faustians?), you betcha. Do some of them want to tear down Creation (like the Ravaners?), shit yes- some are mad! Do some of them want to be done fighting forever, and just find God and apologize (like the Reconcilers?); of course they do. Do some want to wait for better intelligence before making an informed decision on things (like the Cryptics?), naturally- acting without proper intelligence is strategically foolish.

My point is that each of the Factions was designed to represent a sort of archetype for what goals your particular character might have. I chose the Luciferians because they are written loose enough to easily encompass *any* of these archetypes and actually promote positive discussion within them (like a destructive Luciferian and a penitent one arguing over the slaughter of a city to accomplish its immediate goal) rather than immediate devolving to ideological differences and violence. If you think that this greatly hobbles your character, please shoot me a message and see what can be worked out. I assure you, they aren't as strict as they look; this isn't your father's army.

-Rob.
MagicRob
MagicRob
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