Faction Membership/Loyalty

[Zerminar12]

I have recently become more involved with factions and as a result have begun asking more questions regarding them. My most recent pondering is whether or not you should have complete loyalty to a faction. This might be an obvious question with an obvious question. Despite that I am genuinely puzzled, what is the general consensus regarding betraying of one's faction (via either going rogue or betraying them to another faction), loyalty or partial loyalty to multiple factions and double agency as a means of not only serving but advancing in a faction. Are these things encouraged for characters for whom it'd make sense, restricted, discouraged, or need some applications/ DM involvement. I suspect the latter but I wanted to ask for future reference. For those who know what faction I'm currently in don't worry, this is for a future character ;).

[Dagonlives]

I imagine if it makes sense, it's encouraged. Factions are boring to me if everyone is in it for the same reasons I know that corruption/scumminess should probably be reported to the DMs in the form of personal notes. This was a factor in playing a Watcher character for example.

That said, nobody likes that players who likes to betray other players without sufficient I.C reason. I've dealt with players on other servers who frequently make concepts/characters to betray other players for no real reason beyond it' a thing they enjoy doing. I think that should be discouraged, but generally once word spreads about that sort of player the problem solves itself.

I'd say if it's done:

1. With OOC courtesy

2. Stylishly.

You'll be fine. Style is always the most important part in my opinion when playing the role of antagonist to other players.

[Luke Danger]

Personally I like to avoid doing too much multifaction, but there's nothing wrong with it either as long as it makes sense, though you should probably weigh which faction would be your 'main' one too if it is inevitably going to come down to conflict.

​The other factor is the state of the two factions. Some lend themselves to being multi-member without involving being a potential traitor, others not so much. So something like being a Watcher but also being a member of a Sanctuary political guild makes sense and feeds into the politics Sanctuary loves and you could probably do that without an app. But being part of an industrialist faction seeking to strip mine the Hidden Shore and the Stewards probably doesn't without expecting tons of friction both ways, and likely needing to talk to the DMs especially if you're in one faction to betray the other.

​There's also character to consider. Would it make sense for your character to join another faction without having sorted out their prior loyalties first?

​But as Dagonlives says, OOC courtesy and style is important, especially if you'll be an antagonist. But all else fails, I'd say talk to a DM. They're not going to go "WTF are you thinking joining a faction just to betray them", but they might either suggest ways to go on that idea or help you out in ironing out which way to go for the idea

​Though if you intend to be an infiltrator... dump points into bluff or even take Skill Focus: Bluff. You're not prohibited from lying without points in bluff, but if you intend to maintain a masquerade for a while it's probably a good idea...

[Howlando]

This is definitely a topic worth discussing. As Dagon and Luke Danger say, style is very important and there's room for different kinds of approaches here.

In terms of our rules, we do say that players must consult with DMs prior to major DM-faction betrayal. For example, you can not join a DM faction and after a couple of days start copying stuff from the forums without making sure DMs are fully aware of what's going on. This is largely due to the fact that, due to the limitations of a server of this kind, NPCs can't be consistently possessed and it's easier to join factions than it would plausibly be just for the sake of enjoyment.

A really excellent betrayal concept can potentially be quite cool though, and attempts to infiltrate a faction for the benefits of another group are possible - just would require some DM discussion before hand.

A character that is somewhat conflicted about a particular group is of course to be expected and would probably be the norm for most characters.

[Zerminar12]

Thanks for the responses. I appreciate the respectful and prompt replies from the community.