Factions in the OSR - Dungeons/Urban/Wilderness

Original Video: https://youtu.be/npZHmv9OeNU

THE THREE QUESTIONS THAT BUILD A FACTION FAST

Whenever you make a faction—dungeon or wilderness or city—ask three questions:

What do they want?

Not “what do they believe.” Not “their backstory.”

What do they want this week?

What do they have?

Soldiers, gold, information, magic, a monster, a legal charter, the only clean well in town—something real.

What are they afraid of?

Because fear creates urgency. Urgency creates action. Action creates play.

Write those three answers on an index card and you are 80% done.

Now you add the one thing.

Who do they hate… and who do they need?

Faction Card Template (steal this):

Name (short, usable at the table)

Want (one sentence)

Have (one sentence)                                                                  

Fear (one sentence)

Tell (how the players recognize them fast)

Then add:

One ally

One enemy

One job they’d pay for

Turn Your Hex Crawl Into a Real Game (Steal Dungeon Procedures)

 Highlights from the named video:

Watch Length

Pick a watch length that matches the kind of game you want:

• If you want it tight and gritty, use 2-hour watches.

• If you want classic “cover ground but still feel pressure,” use 4-hour watches.

• If you want it looser and faster, use half-day watches.

The three travel modes 

Normal travel

• standard movement

• standard navigation

• standard encounter risk

Cautious travel

• slower movement

• better chance to spot trouble first

• better chance to stay on course

Fast travel

• more distance

• more likely to get lost

• higher fatigue risk

• more likely to blunder into trouble

Wilderness actions

• foraging or hunting

• scouting ahead

• searching for a feature

• mapping carefully

• moving stealthily

• hiding your trail

• setting an ambush

• building shelter early because the weather is turning nasty

For wilderness travel to matter, you need:

• a time unit (watches)

• a risk roll (encounters)

• navigation consequences (lost, drift, time)

• resource pressure (supplies, fatigue, exposure)

• and a feature per chunk (so there are actual decisions)