Factions

Specific social networks where membership is defined by what actions are allowed, disallowed, and required.

A Faction is a group that has members, criterion on membership, and accepted and disallowed behaviors. Different kinds of groups, such as a family, a gang, an army, are all examples of Factions.

Examples

Morrowind and Oblivion in the Elder Scroll Series provide many different types of Factions for players to join. Each requires certain tasks and requirements to be fulfill for membership, and having this provides access to various tools and the possibility of advancement through completing additional goals.

Using the pattern

Membership in Factions can be considered from three perspectives: what is required to join, what is required to continue being a member, and what is required to advance within their organizations.

Typically a few of the members in Factions act as the Social Gatekeepers which determine who can join. The requirements that need to be fulfilled to satisfy these Social Gatekeepers can range from having the right set of Attributes, possessing the right set of Tools, completing Quests, or a combination of these. Joining Factions may be Mandatory Goals due to Narration Structures but can also be Optional Goals which in the latter case Player-Planned Character Development. If there are several Factions which can be joined, an additional design choice is if one can only be member of one of these (creating a Selectable Set of Goals) or if multiple memberships are possible.

Of course, Factions can play important roles in games without players being members of them. The most obvious case is as Enemies but

For each Faction used in a game, there need to be a set of Social Norms define which regulate what is actions are acceptable to the members of that Faction. For [[Factions] to have identities of their own, unacceptable behaviors by members need to have Penalties; in some cases the consequence can be that of becoming a Outcast. In addition, the membership in Factions imply Loyalty, either as a Predefined Goal or as an Committed Goal (in the latter case, the memberships needs to have some benefits). Internal Rivalry can be used to provide more Challenging Gameplay, and can be regulated by the Social Norms.

Goal Hierarchies

Since membership is the result of completing a goal, it is typically that the membership is associated with some type of Rewards. The possibility to gain New Abilities or Improved Abilities is common as this type of Reward, either in the form of training or through purchasable Tools.

Team Play

Conflicts

Alliances

Social Organizations

Mutual Goals

Shared Penalties

Shared Rewards

or consequence of breaking the Social Norms can complicate the Internal Rivalry.

Narrative Aspects

Factions can function as important components in Narration Structures since the allow conflicts

Consequences

Many times making the joining of a Faction is a Reward in that it can provide access to information, training, and trading of specific Tools. By doing so, becoming a member of a Faction can the requirement to complete a Gain Information, Gain Competence, or Gain Ownership goal, but more likely it will be a Supporting Goal to one of these goals since it may be part of an Hierarchy of Goals or require Trading. When players have had the chance of choosing whether to join Factions or not, the different goals provided in this fashion support Player-Planned Character Development.

Faction introduces simple social constructs that can be used to introduce social interaction to gameplay. While joining Factions may require befriending with or making favors to Social Gatekeepers, keeping ones status may require the Continuous Goal of Social Maintenance and advancement may support Higher-Level Closures as Gameplay Progresses through use of Hierarchy of Goals.

Given that Factions typically have Penalties for breaking Social Norms, and advancements within Factions may provoke Internal Rivalry, the use of Factions in games typically has the consequence of Actions Have Diegetically Social Consequences. These consequences imply that players have to choose between complying to an Enforced Agent Behavior, that can include both a Limited Set of Actions as well as requiring actions at certain times, or placing themselves in Risk/Reward situations through by doing actions that are not acceptable by Faction rules.

Relations

——Instantiates: Social Norm, Loyalty, Characters (Björk, Holopainen, 2005) ——Instantiated by: Traitor ——Modulates: Social Gatekeeper, Internal Rivalry ——Modulated by: Outcast ——Potentially conflicting with: none

History

An updated version of the pattern Faction, first introduced in Lankoski 2010.