The Three Camp System | How Gothic and Fallout New Vegas Create a Believable Society 

You know someone has great taste when they discuss Gothic AND New Vegas in the same video.

In a game like Gothic or New Vegas, where the emphasis is on the player's ability to change the world, three is usually a good number of factions. At the end of these games, the world as it was known before the player arrived is effectively over. The barrier is destroyed and the prisoners are free. New Vegas is no longer a battleground but a conquered province of a single faction. But in games like Morrowind, The Witcher, or Disco Elysium, the emphasis is not on the player's special individual journey. The player is a small part of a much larger story that began long before they arrived and will continue long after they're dead and gone. There are strengths to keeping the number of major factions down to three, but there are drawbacks too.

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its not the number of factions, its the quality of factions.

Gothic is one of my favourite games :)

Man I can't believe i only just now found your channel!! You cover my favorite games! Great content. Gonna share this to my steam friends ; P

I just found your channel and like your content. Keep it up - you have some perspectives or topics I'm not really seeing elsewhere.

Piranha Bytes planned more factions at the beginning but they didn´t because they didn´t have the manpower and budget to do so. It worked well though so they have this 3 factions system in all of their games if I remember right.

I just found your channel a few hours ago, and I've watched a few of your video. I just wanted to tell you that I really like your content and that I really appreciate the work you've put into this. :-)

Dude this channel deserves more subs, good content dude keep up :)

When I'm playing New Vegas, I enjoy more the exploration. so I've been wandering around and relaxing to the wonderful good music :D But yah I've had a fever, we need more gothic content :P

If you're wondering how many faction relationships there are specifically for a different number of factions, for n of them there are n(n-1)/2

oh that's super helpful please more videos about worldbuilding things like this one pls, that's so good info about world building dude

You deserve more Subscribers I Wish you them 💫

The static noise in the background is quite distracting. You can use audacity to remove it. The first half second is only background noise, so it suits as the noise profile. To do that: 1. Mark a section of the track with only background noise. 2. Effect → Noise Reduction 3. [Get Noise Profile] 4. Mark entire track (you can simply click on the track's options box on the left) 5. Effect → Noise Reduction 6. [OK]

its not the 3 camps that made gothic great, its more the way they implemented them , the way you discover them , the harsh & deadly world and the safety you actually feel by making part of a camp, and the way you are treated once you go up in ranks.the system felt alive and was very very immersive .. I can make a list with all the great things that made Gothic top 3 rpg of all time but i'm too lazy , there are many things on that list that modern rpg fail to implement tho. One of the biggest trap for nearly all modern big budget rpgs is trying to make a world too big and fail to hand design it and give it life and meaning, rellying too much on automatic algoritms.

Wow, awesome content about fantastic universes (esp. Fallout NV). I hope you will find your audience, just go on dude. Thanks a lot!

Although not a video game: You just explained why I like The Expanse universe so much! I love the politics between Earth, Mars, and Outer Planets Alliance. After all, James S A Corey created this world for sci-fi MMORPG that never got produced.

Really like your videos! One slight quality based thing that pops in my mind, is that there's a significant hum or background noise in your voice-over where the cuts are clearly visible. It's not a big thing, but noticeable. Could be masked with some ambient maybe. Otherwise great stuff, and you've gotten also another subscriber here!

"Dragon Age only has the darkspawn" - Wait, what? Right from the start depending on your origin you get a glimpse of massive societal issues: The succession in Orzammar, between the corrupt and evil guy that would still be the better leader for 98% of the people vs the "good" traditionalist who has no issue with a caste system that hurts most dwarves. The city elves that are basically an enslaved race as an allegory on both jewish folk in the early 20th century as well as black folk in the USA today. You get the treatment of mages in what is esseitnally an indictment on the "war on terror". The entire game is based on the fact that eventhough the darkspawn are an extinction level threat, the current issues of all the societies around Ferelden are are so massive that you have to at least alleviate them before people can focus on the big picture threat that lies a bit further away.

Geneforge is also a great example of this kind of model.

Great video breaking down the 3 faction system idea. While not an RPG per se, I highly recommend looking at the Way of the Samurai series which pretty much did this type of system for four games to a tee with a bit of a twist and had some pretty interesting narrative design in it since the games were built for multiple playthroughs. Usually in those games, you have two opposing factions at odds with each other trying to control the area you're inhabiting and the third faction which was often the "villager" or "common folk" faction whom while not as important to the plot as the first two, very often is the first faction you interact with and are written to be the most sympathetic which builds a bit of a personal investment for you as a player upon meeting them. Also, the two opposing factions in most WOTS games are usually not on a pure black/white good/evil binary since even the faction casted as the "bad guy faction" usually has some pretty interesting motivations for what they're doing and why. One final twist in these games is that they very often throw in a mysterious fourth faction that pops up near the end that has a huge impact on the status of the world and the actions of all the other factions which makes the stories in these games really dynamic and engaging to play through.

Decent insight here, got me thinking about all those books with great politics I've been reading, but never being able to fully grasp all of it.

My trick for my Dungeons and Dragons games is nesting factions 3 camps each with 3 internal camps all within minor factions

You know, I didn't get into Morrowind until I made an NPC class character and roleplayed heavily. Thus far the apothecary has only done a handful of quests for the temple and moved into an apartment in Vivec. She has neighbours, goes on pilgrimages, collect books and brew potions in her home. It is wonderful.

I love Gothic but I think that the number of factions is not as relevant. Take Mass Effect for example. There are many more species and no real factions you can choose from to join. But the world is believable and well created and there are no problems understanding how everything is connected. True, the role play aspect is not as strong, but the universe created is just great.

Reminds me of the Rebel/King/Observer setup prevalent in the Elder Scrolls series (although the community looking for this everywhere is kind of a meme at this point)

To this day the game developer still uses the 3 camp system if you look at the newest game called elex (which is pretty decent and gives strong gothic vibes)

5 fractions? CD-project red: Phhhhh TW-series has Temeria, Redania, Nilfgard, Kedwin, Skellige, and a few other countries fighting over power and in each of them, there are different noble fractions, backstabbing each other, the council of mages, various guilds, and ethnic groups... IMHO, TW2 was very complex, but they still did a decent job at keeping it interesting and understandable. Their approach was that you were forced to make a choice in a moral dilemma and thus the rest of the game changes for you even though you have only a little power over the various factions themselves. Still, you can massively impact the power balance and thereby change the games ending in a meaningful way. TW3 was overall a much better game, but there you remained mostly neutral to all the fractions, though you could choose to aid 4 different fractions.

The big difference between the two games is that in Gothic (and all Piranha Bytes games) you NEED to join a faction not just to get further in the story but just to survive the game. The best armor is only given to members of a faction and you desperately need that armor to survive the much tougher fights in the later story and the deeper, darker corners of the world. In New Vega you can explore the entire game world without ever committing to a single faction so that's why despite loving both games, I've never thought to ever think they were related in any way other than quality writing.

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I think another big thing to make a world feel believable is no clear cut good guy and bad guys, the world is rarely the black and white and gothic especially all the main factions have good and evil in them.

Gothic 1 and 2 are the best RGPs ever made in my opinion. So many great design choices were made.

Skyrim had three camps. And did nothing with them.

If you count antagonist groups (like Ganon, or Darkspawn) as main factions (or "camps") then you have to count the Sleeper and his Orcs and that would make Gothic a 4-camp system.

Excellent analysis! It helped me better understand why I love both of those games so much.

At a guess I'd say this faction design was inspired by Four Corner Opposition (Player, plus the 3 camps)

Having too much Factions can bad but also good for Roleplay Reasons aslong its done well like Morrowind...even though iam still a bit pissed about i cant couldnt the Boss every Faction combined because Fighters Guild and Thieves Guild have a questline breaking Quest and only 1 of the Houses is joinable and only Tribunal Temple or Imperial Cult...

I think Tales of Symphonia did a good job aswell with the renegades as a 3rd group

subbed

Morrowind, I don’t think, is that complicated. The Temple permeate everything in their society, you have the three Great Houses, and then the Imperial cult and Legion additional groups who colour the world rather than change it. You pick one of the Houses and just go from there. The internal politics within the houses can get a little messy, but between each other? They just don’t get along all too well.

I disagree with the premise of your argument. I think that RPG players don’t connect with the worlds of their game because it ultimately doesn’t affect the core gameplay of the game. However this problem can and has been solved by what I believe to be the ultimate final form of the RPG, Immersive Sims. Because the design focus of Immersive Sims are so focused on the world, they create deep connections between the player and the world that won’t soon be forgotten. Players never forget the worlds of Prey, Outer Wilds, Dishonored, Deus Ex and others after they play the game.

i want more

I remember playing Witcher 2, by the end of it, I was so done with too many choices you have to make with no information and all the politics I didn't even bother to kill the big guy on steroids and allowed him to leave. I have no idea why that franchise is so popular when they don't even have a crime and punishment system like in Gothic or TES games.

"In real life it's never as simple as two sides against each other" US and UK beg to differ)

I'm sorry, I agree that both Gothic and FNV have great factions, but I feel Morrowind actually does it better than both. Maybe it's a little too convoluted for the starting players, but once you get the hang of it - it all makes sense, and connects in interesting and peculiar ways. Like how Hlaalu not only are the most Imperial friendly noble house, but also use their connections for drug dealing, slave smuggling and more, practices which are heavily frowned upon for the Empire. How the isolationist Redoran might be old fashioned and almost overrun in some ways, but still keep to their old ways which allows them to rise from the ashes during Oblivion crises, when no outside force was present to help. How the Telvanni are so powerful and almost separate from the whole world, that they can just ignore most of the events happening in the world, and focus on their own pursuits of power and games. How the Empire is both bringing civilization and also exploiting the land, its resources and its people, how the ashlanders are mistreated by both the noble houses and the Empire, how the food is grown by giant ant like creatures in mines, how House Dagoth is gaining his power while the Tribunal loses it, how it all plays out, etc. The rich and believable world of Morrowind, once you get a hang of it, is definitely the main draw of the game. Yes, it can be a bit obscure at first and definitely very alien, but it's unlike many other RPGs in its thoughtful design and logical connections.

Install the 60fps patch, hires textures and DX11 support for the next video :-)

I know this is older vid but did you play the entire Dragon Age series or just 1 hour of origins? please research more about other games before making your mind about it:) Dont want to hate but what you said was so untrue, there actually is a Three Camp System in Dragon age going by your theory being the Mages/Chantry/qunari. Just because it looks black and white/good vs evil on the outside doesnt mean there isnt something more beneath the surface.

The problem with these two games is that none of camps is of normal people. :D

Quality analysis. What's your take on player contributions to world building? Are there games that elevate player guilds to the level of factions that you're familiar with? If so, what effects do you feel they have on the world, and how much creative content load this might shift off of writers (or does it just become additional moderation load)?

know more games like new vegas or ghotic?

my most liked rpgs

Dragon Age Origins is my favourite game of all time, but I still kinda agree with your arguments.

i disagree on what you said about dragon age origins it's not just about the dark spawn each area has its own struggle the dwarfs and their fight for the throne the elfs and their fight with the werewolves the magic tower and the knight conflict and the companions and their own struggles and it's fine for a big enemy that threat all factions in gothic the orcs are the dark spawn of this game

Aren't the orcs the fourth camp in gothic?

You criticise Morrowind, but at a closer inspection, even they adhere to the formula. Sure there are a lot of factions, but they all come in a pair of three. Three guilds, three houses (actually six, but cut in half, because only three of them are prominently represented in Vvardenfell, how this game should actually be called), three (joinable) Imperial factions (they added a fourth in the expansion), three (joinable) native Morrowind faction and three Vampire clan factions.

Coicidence that gothic and NV are my favourite RPG ? I think not

Morrowind worldbuilding and factions are even better than Gothic and NV

Completely agree, a 2 party system is suuuuper unrealistic and could never happen in the real world. Nuh-uh. Right??

If you can't pick both sides it's a one camp game really.

man I was considering to give Gothic a try... but u comparing it to new vegas is a red flag to me NV was a pretty darn frustrating experience to me. I tried to at least get through the beginning on 2 occasions cause people told me how good it was so often. But the game just treats you like utter garbage I can't stand it. The furthest I ever got was when the legion was burning down the camp to the south which is quite a few hours into the game. The game is super linear forcing you south, towards a bunch of jerks that snipe you from ages away, then you get to a casinoish place that is just laid with almost invisible mines (that I kept mistaking for artillery fire until I figured out what was actually killing me) and finally you get to some actual useful NPCs in the bottom left of the map that aren't trying to insta kill you. Just traveling between locations was so punishing without any decent weapons, always being forced to get the snipers into closer range so you can melee them to death, having to abuse going in and out of doors to dodge NPCs chasing you. And ye the combat just feels so bad, and there was no good story to supplement the experience yet at that point, I hear that comes later. Just a really harsh game to get into and I really tried to get into it. The amount of quick save/quick loading I had to do was ridiculous.

you should try gothic 2 returning 2.0 :V sinitar has a guide on how to install it...it will take you literal months to finish it

Why do you call it a two faction system if you can't choose a second faction at all? There is no faction "system". There are only two factions.

Fix your mic!!!

Definitely don't get into politics if you think The Legion is "Fascist". The term isn't just a monolith for authoritarianism, it's a fairly specific ideology. No wonder political discussion is so fruitless these days.

You obviously don't have a clue about Dragon Age: Origins! Gothic is a great RPG. However, you are starting to get too biased and annoying. I stopped watching after the 1st minute.

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