The Meta Characters Method: Factions With Brains, Brawn & Betraya – Roleplaying Tips

ExileInParadise made a great comment to a series I’m writing about villains.

The method he calls out creates immediate campaign drama with built-in adventure hooks and tactical inspiration for play. Each role can act independently or together, keeping your faction scenes spicy.

Take it away Exile….

I really like Mike Pondsmith’s “Meta Characters” from Cyberpunk v3.

Essentially, it’s a faction with specific form of parts:

• The Brain: The head of the faction – there’s your villain type.
• The Left Hand: One of the top faction lieutenants – a villain too, with his own agenda.
• The Right Hand: The “dragon” bad guy who does the Brain’s major dirty work – but also a villain of his own with his own agenda.
• The Body: The other lieutenants and their crews that make up the bulk of the ground troops in the faction.

Other faction assets that make up the power base: facilities (cough maps), vehicles (cough loot), etc.

The example Meta Characters in Cyberpunk v3 include a multi-national megacorp…and a street bar – using the same outline.

Thanks Exile! Great tip.

Roleplaying Tips GM, here’s the Cyberpunk v3 edition Exile referred to.

And here’s an example faction using the Meta Characters method:

Example: The Moneychanger’s Alliance

• The Brain: Marquis Silverhammer Coinbraid, a dwarven ex-banker turned crime lord, now chairs the Alliance. He seeks to replace the realm’s currencies with promissory tokens only he can validate. His aim is economic domination through debt and inflation.
• The Left Hand: Seraphina Vale, a silver-tongued elven financier who manages “the books” and controls the Alliance’s loans. She manipulates interest rates to strong-arm factions and crush rivals. She secretly plots to steal the Brain’s position.
• The Right Hand: Grul Redmark, an ogre debt collector with enchanted knuckledusters and a brutal street reputation. He ensures “debts get paid” through intimidation, arson, and worse. He is loyal to the Brain — but only as long as the gold keeps flowing.
• The Body: A network of moneychangers and moneylenders, scribes, lawyers, and street collectors. They run debt scams, exploit tax loopholes, and take care of bribes to guards and officials. Each merchant in the Alliance is kept loyal with bonuses in the form of property seizures.

I look forward to when the player characters bring their loot in from nearby dungeons. News will reach The Marquis fast….

RPT GM, try using this method for your necromancer cult, assassin’s guild, or travelling circus. Bonus points if the Left and Right Hands hate each other.

Cheers,
Johnn
roleplayingtips.com
https://discord.gg/6MxTRAqQ76
Have more fun at every game!

P.S. When you are ready, here are +4 vorpal ways I can help you with your campaign:

+1 Get My Campaign Logger App Free to Make Prep & GMing Easier
For GMs of any system looking to run deep, detailed, and immersive games, Campaign Logger lets you take session notes at the speed of thought in your unique GMing style while improving your preparation experience so you can focus on the parts of the game you enjoy the most.
Get your free Campaign Logger account here.

+2 Level-Up Your GMing With My Books

• Tiny Prep: Learn the perfect way to deliver epic sessions without the epic prep time.
• The Simple AI Guide to Adventure Building: Turn ChatGPT into your GM’s familiar, a smart assistant with an infinite well of ideas.
• NPC Mastery Bundle: A huge collection of tips, techniques, and aids that will inject life and detail into your NPCs

+3 Get the Demonplague (with 62 5-Star Ratings so far)
A complete level 1-20 campaign D&D 5E adventure path that offers intense roleplay, sandbox and hexcrawl play, cunning combats, and fiendish monsters.
Click here to see more details and to order.

+4 Get More GM Loot
Visit the Roleplaying Tips DriveThruRPG store, or browse books and courses to level up your GMing at the RoleplayingTips.com store.