Gygax 75# Building a political powerder keg using the Dune method.

 

In the OSR Zine Knock 2# Jack Shear's article "Making a powder key the Dune way" is a brilliant example of creating several political factions that are a second away from exploding. The premise is having the following groups within your game:

• Two rival houses
• An all powerful ruler looking over all from afar
• A mercantile group looking for power
• A religious group hiding behind said religion to expand power
• The indigenous group to said land. 

Plonking these down within your game will allow the PC's to interact with the environment in new and interesting ways.

Australia also had several of these groups during the first fleet arriving. 

• The military faction sailing to a new land,
•  the convicts that were being transported,
•  the British nobility awaiting word from a new colony,
•  merchants awaiting news on a new land to sell and acquire good,
•  the christian groups looking to aquire new members in the indigenous Australian population
•  and said indigenous Australians looking at these groups invading the continent.

Representing all of these groups within the game allows your PC's to choose from multiple options with a multitude of different consequences depending on who they decide to work with, betray or destroy. Even if the PC's decide not to work with these groups (judges remember not to railroad your PC's) having them within your world will show your players that you are invested, which in turn will have them invested. Create a world, put in a multitude of factions and have them casts hooks with bait, you will get a bite.