Factions are one of the cornerstones of a good dungeon. I'd go as far as to say they may be one of the most important pieces. Without factions, you have nonstop hack-and-slash. Factions enable meaningful player choice and give party faces something to do without trivializing the dungeon.Why don't modern D&D modules have much faction stuff? Classics like The Caverns of Thracia or B4 the Lost City are packed full of them. Are the people designing current dungeons just talentless morons?
>>97179508They do, but they've done the smart thing and moved them out of the dungeons. Rather than "you wander into a dungeon for epic loot" it's "this faction wants you to go here and do this, but this other faction wants this instead" and so on.
>>97179508Module design has been dragonlance style railroads for decades anon. The recent inflation with osr play is a fad and niche within a niche. They make railroad slop because it's what they want. Most players and gms can't handle too much agency and variables in their beer and pretzel game.
>>97179675>I want to have an actual adventure with heroes and villains and intrigue>NO YOU HAVE TO GO INTO THE ANCIENT CRYPT TO GET LOOT BECAUSE..BECAUSE I SAID SO!OSR/TSR is far more railroady than modern games.
How big does a dungeon have to get before it has factions in it, rather than just whatever villain lords over it and his minions?
>>97180320Not very big, even a dungeon with let’s say 8 rooms and two entrances can easily have two warring goblin tribes
>>97179508Do any modern, non-osr games even have dungeons big enough that would allow for faction play?
>>97180664Waterdeep Dungeon of the Mad Mage?
