Organizations of Blackmoor

[Havard]

Great input FXR!

Organizations can be used:

- as opponents or outright enemies: the activities or the goals of the organization conflit with those of the PCs. I'll add that most rpg module writers tend to be extremely lazy and forget that the disappereance of the leader doesn't always mean the end of the cult. Somebody else, either within or without the cult might take things in his hand.

I like having organizations as rivals or enemies. Especially in a game like D&D where individual villains tend to get killed in the first encounter, an organization helps add a sense of a recurring opponent over many adventures. The Iron Ring Slavers were always a favorite in my Karameikos games. In Blackmoor, the Wizards Cabal is an interesting group that you cna use, maybe not so much as enemies, but they can definitely be out there to annoy the PCs with their arrogant sense of superiority.

- as employers for one or several PCs: a religious organization might hire the PCs to recover a relic. The organization might make itself known to the PCs or not.

Also, definitely a good one. The Regency Council of Blackmoor is one of my favorite groups to use as employers. Churches of various Gods certainly work as well.

- as a special group to which one or several PCs belong: a knight might belong to an order, a mage might be a member in good standing of the Wizard's Cabal, a cleric is usually affilitated to a church or a specific religious hierarchy, a thief might belong to a guild. Usually membership provides advantages (access to training, to special facilities, to specific personnel (i.e. a fence, for a thief), but comes with drawbacks or obligations. It becomes funny when the goals of the organization don't see eye to eye with those of the PCs - a conflict of loyalty is often fun.

Indeed! I could see alot of roleplaying possibilities here. An interesting scenario could be one where one PC is a Cabal Wizard, another is a Sorcerer member of the Eldrich Underground. Lets for instance say that they both know eachothers secrets, but for some reason still decide to stick together and help eachother out, perhaps because they were lifelong friends, lovers or are bound together by a common enemy?

- as a tool for the PCs. Perhaps, the PCs are the leaders of the organization and call the shots. The RPG Reign follows this approach.

Another very interesting idea. I actually have a copy of Reign lying around somewhere. This gives me an excuse to actually read through it I also like how organizations were handled, in a similar fashion, in Unisystem RPGs like Conspiracy X.

One idea I toyed with for a while was to use the BECMI D&D Dominion Rules and War Machine (Mass Combat) rules to simulate the operation of Thieves Guilds. It would definitely be useful to have something like this for D&D. Then again, I suppose a lot of could just be handled through roleplaying as well.

-Havard