How the heck are PC’s suppose to be able to IG/IC know some factions exist if the existing members make no effort to be known or try to keep their faction hidden or some big secret. Sorry, most PC’s have no IC reason to run around risking life and limb trying to find people they don’t know exist in an attempt to join a faction they qualify for but don’t know about. There are at least two of these now that I can think of and it sticks in my craw a bit.
(Lets talk about meta-gaming ffs...)
Sorry, just my not so humble opinion, but if the faction isn’t going to make a recruiting effort for whatever reasons (invite only, hidden faction or whatever), then don’t start threads about them in an OOC manner.
Just because a faction exists doesn't mean you -need- to join it. Sure, joining a faction is great. Eventually you're bound to run into a member, if you seem like you fit the bill I'm sure eventual conversation will lead that way. Patience, my friend.
Barring that, you can always start your own faction, which can be even more awesome than joining one. Instead of following along someone else plan and doing awesome things, you can be the one planning the awesome. Go for it, dude.
Knowing about these factions ooc'ly helps people tailor characters that might suit said invite only factions if thats the atmosphere they feel like playing in.
Agreed, I tend to always come down on the side of more OOC knowledge. The more we know the better ideas we can come up with at creation. I also feel like our player base does a pretty responsible job of separating OOC facts from IC ones, though not being a DM, I'll admit, maybe its more of a problem then I know.
The OP was stating he knows about the OOCly, and he thinks he would fit in. The problem he is having is that ICly he doesn't know that, and if the faction does not advertise or is a secret, he cannot join unless he metagames, because he doesn't know about it IC
At least, that's what I picked up when I skimmed his post.
Yes, exactly, Cruze is right about my OP.
Basically if you want a secret or hidden faction, then I personally (OOC) don’t want to know about it.
Though I'm maintaining a faction at the moment that is fairly secretive (fairly being a very loose term, as they have matching uniforms), they are told to be on the constant lookout for prospective members by their NPC superiors.
All I can say is, not every guild is going to put the flag out there - especially if we ever start sponsoring a guild for those that are morally bankrupt thieves, etc.
That’s exactly my point. If it’s a secret or something then keep it IG/IC, no OOC posts. If it’s not some kind of secret then let the PC’s know in some way so they can IC do something.
Are you talking about DM or PC factions?
I’m talking about any faction DM, PC or otherwise. I was intentionally trying to be vague to not point fingers at anybody. But in general I feel OOC posts about factions are annoying if the players or DM’s of those factions cant or don’t make any IC effort to let other PC’s know they exist. The only way to join these factions is to meta-game OOC information or hope that they find your PC and with differing time zones (
playing times) or if they don’t hang in the same places, this could take days, weeks or even months of real time.
Sorry, I’m not having my PC die by wondering around solo to find a group of people that he technically doesn’t know exists. And I don’t want to meta-game getting a group together to trek out with him so I can then dump that group to hang with new found friends if or when he actually does ‘stumble’ upon them. Which again would have to be meta-gamed to know when a PC of that faction is even on line to go out and find, or even available to deal with in the IC role-play situation of joining a faction in the first place.
Pretty simple solution:
1) Make a dang IC post letting other PC’s know your faction exists. “We (
faction name) will be here at this time to talk to people interested in joining.†Etc…
2) If you don’t want other PC’s to know you exist then don’t make OOC posts about your faction. And by this I don’t mean journals and letters or whatnot (
which are IC), I mean OOC thread posts announcing a faction that nobody would really know was there.
Quote from: wcsherry;89954Though I'm maintaining a faction at the moment that is fairly secretive (fairly being a very loose term, as they have matching uniforms), they are told to be on the constant lookout for prospective members by their NPC superiors.
Not that I’m one of them or my OP was directed against your faction but how fair is this to players with differing time zones to the established players of your faction that are on the “constant lookout’? How would a PC know your faction existed without using OOC info?
Okay, sorry, I’m ranting now, I’ll stfu and deal with it. :oops:
OOC faction knowledge on EfU is just like what you would find in the sourcebooks. Yes, the Harpers exist, and yes, you can read all about the stats for the Harper Scout prestige class, but odds are good that any PC you roll up will have never heard of them before. The factions here are no different.
Umm, In PnP it’s the DM’s job to introduce these PrC’s or factions to the player that shows interest in them so that his PC then has IC knowledge.
I’ve been a PnP DM probably longer than a lot of you have been alive. I started playing D&D in 1981.
They do that here, too!
EDIT: Please don't play the "more gamer than thou" card. You don't know enough about the people who play here to make that kind of statement. I've been playing D&D exactly one year longer than you have.
May I just be the first to heartily state:
LOL.
What's the point of being a super awesome secret organization of assassins, thieves, and spies pretending to be bums if you have to tell everyone who and what you are?
The most fun part of being in something like that is when you finally get to reveal your super evil plans to the guys hanging over the pit full of rabid canibal halflings.
It's just not as much fun if everyone knows OOC what is going on already.
Don't find us, we'll find you kind of thing :D
...I really do not see the problem here. Even if this were an issue, which I do not think it is, you could always just make a poster, saying you're looking for a group of like minded XYZs, and then get recruited that way, or ask people in the street if they know of any XYZs. Also, the "public" DM factions that I've seen announced so far, have put up recruitment posters, and they have been mentioned in the rumours thread.
what is going on in this thread
What’s going on is a lot of people missing my point. I am not saying to announce secret organizations, on the contrary, I’m saying NOT to! Half of you are agreeing with me and don’t even realize it. Please read the dang OP before commenting.
What is the point of telling people there is a faction available OOC, when IG/IC your PC would not know they exist? And no matter how hard all the established faction PC’s try (they can all get gold stars for their foreheads for recruitment effort), it doesn’t mean they will find every PC that may or may not be interested, qualified or “tailored†to join that faction.
In a nutshell what I am asking is that if you are NOT going to make the faction known IG/IC, then do not make an OOC faction announcement post about it. Just play it off IG/IC and do your recruiting secretly! When players ask for PC concepts lean them towards your secret faction or something. Don’t make an OOC post announcing factions that to any PC concerned doesn’t technically exist. All it does is cause angst to the player behind the PC when s/he doesn’t find said secret faction without meta-gaming OOC info.
And you definitely cant say make a post asking for people of your ilk. There are so many types of personality that just plain wouldn’t do this it isn’t even funny (shy types, strong silent types, walk softly types, majorly evil would be arrested or killed types, etc.). Not to mention the illiterate barbarians that wouldn’t know how or want to do that sissy stuff anyway.
Maybe it's not that these secret organizations aren't making a recruitment effort RIPnogarD maybe your character just isn't as fit for said faction as you think it is.
If you send an application for one of said secretive DM factions and the application/character good enough, DM's are more likely to create opportunities for you to run into n/pcs from the faction in question.
Taking the forgotten flower faction for example, if you play a sun elf as a sun elf ~should~ be played it seems to be me that your ~very~ likely to fit into that faction based on the ooc information provided, without any metagaming at all.
Also as has been mentioned before nearly all of the factions have been mentioned in the rumors thread at one point or another.
Quote from: RIPnogarD;90076What’s going on is a lot of people missing my point. I am not saying to announce secret organizations, on the contrary, I’m saying NOT to! Half of you are agreeing with me and don’t even realize it. Please read the dang OP before commenting.
What is the point of telling people there is a faction available OOC, when IG/IC your PC would not know they exist? And no matter how hard all the established faction PC’s try (they can all get gold stars for their foreheads for recruitment effort), it doesn’t mean they will find every PC that may or may not be interested, qualified or “tailored†to join that faction.
In a nutshell what I am asking is that if you are NOT going to make the faction known IG/IC, then do not make an OOC faction announcement post about it. Just play it off IG/IC and do your recruiting secretly! When players ask for PC concepts lean them towards your secret faction or something. Don’t make an OOC post announcing factions that to any PC concerned doesn’t technically exist. All it does is cause angst to the player behind the PC when s/he doesn’t find said secret faction without meta-gaming OOC info.
And you definitely cant say make a post asking for people of your ilk. There are so many types of personality that just plain wouldn’t do this it isn’t even funny (shy types, strong silent types, walk softly types, majorly evil would be arrested or killed types, etc.). Not to mention the illiterate barbarians that wouldn’t know how or want to do that sissy stuff anyway.
It's rather insulting to say that half the people replying did not read your OP. Did you stop to consider they read it, and missunderstood the intent of what you wrote? It happens all the time, pull your foot off the gas for a moment, step back, and take a breathe.
You could do something as simple as let some of the players in the faction know OOCly that you're interested in the faction, so they can keep an eye out for you.
Sometimes it DOES take a little bit of OOC maneuvering between players to get each other together in the same place to have 'random RP' to get the gears moving.
On several of my PC's I've owed my success to someone else doing a little bit of OOC maneuvering to get me and them together in the right spot at the right time so we could meet.
I guess some DM's might frown on this, but speaking as someone who usually plays in a time zone when if you do NOT do this, you are very likely to spend 4 hours walking around the module, never seeing another soul.
*shrug*
Quote from: 9lives;90038May I just be the first to heartily state:
LOL.
Don't mess with the voice of experience, you worthless progeny of convicts.
Quote from: DangerousDan;90112Don't mess with the voice of experience, you worthless progeny of convicts.
lol
Quote from: Thomas_Not_very_wise;90114lol
Translation: Shameless post count +1
OK, I am sorry if this is objectionable, but we as a DM team are insufficiently staffed to keep an eye on every character and steer the ones we like to the ideal secret faction. We're not playing a PnP game, we're playing a persistent worlds, with demands on our time that are beyond reason. There's an expectation that players sort of have to be proactive about things like prestige classes, factions, etc.
I don't think we have any DM factions right now that don't maintain an in-game, recruiting presence, so I don't even know what brought on this thread - but as an example, yes three years ago we did have a secret Vhaeraunite Thieves Guild faction. And yes we had some OOC info up about them. It was OOC, and helpful for players in forming concepts that might suit it well. It was such a specific faction (subrace + deity + concept), that there really was no good alternative... only telling people who ask us about the faction would hardly have been fair to the majority of the playerbase who might want a shot at a faction.
We do have a reasonable expectation that players can keep such knowledge separate, and yes there is a fine line between offering too much OOC knowledge vs. too little, but I really don't see a major problem here.
Anyway, I appreciate the suggestion though, and should we ever come up with a super-secretive faction we can consider either not posting about it OOC and/or labeling it so players can avoid it if they wish.
The greatest factions I've ever been in were ones I joined just after rolling up a generic character with a good background. I thought "Know what? I'm bored. I'm going to play what I know: dwarven fighter." And so was born the great drunken moron who took on a fire giant whilst wearing a robe, the vodka on his breath doing 5d4 damage per round! Ulgar Ulgarsson met up with the Mithrilsouls by chance, and I had a great time with him! Parto Colds, my last pre-Appetite character: rolled him up and ran smack dab into Rook, joined up with the Archibalds!
My point is, ignore the OOC blather and roll up what you want to play. Chances are you'll find a faction and have fun with it. If you have to force your way in, you probably don't want to be there. Unless it's a DM faction, in which case you pretty much need a crowbar and some tnt...
Why don't you just apply for the faction at character creation?