Searching on office politics on the internet, the main ideas are always referred to 1. To improve someone or some group status and 2. To pursue a personal or group agenda with or without a chance of sacrificing others. Power is the most frequent thing that drives and feeds office politics. Some use communications, networks and information. It can be positive office politics (that are usually being pulled off in order to increase employee performances for example) or negative ones (gatekeeping significant information for themselves or blackmailing a particular employee they want to control). Office politics is inevitable. It is always present, can’t be absent.
Translating it into a game feature, office politics may be translated and treated just like clans and factions in larger table top RPG settings. In EMPLOYEE, the “world” that players explore is the office itself - Nüearth Re. GM/Referee/Dungeon Master could expand the size of the building as far and big as they want - will it be a 10-floor buildings or pentagon-sized width buildings, will it have a basements or even become an office complex with several smaller building scattered on its ground for each divisions existed. Will it be a simple mundane office building or not, office politics will always be there.
For creating some office feud and heating up some political movement and “relationship” between the factions, first you need to create a faction or clan or in EMPLOYEE we call it "Fouroom". You need decide which things that they want to get grasp on their hand as their main mission or we can say what is the main driver they existed:
- Sole Owner of Power and Authority (Power)
- Center of Knowledge (Information)
- The Hive of Connections (Network)
- Anything except those three above - it can be about wealth, status, public perception, public affirmation, or recognition from other employees.
After deciding on what their main mission is, you can flip a coin to determine if they are against the current "Management"or supporting them. For example, a fouroom of network is against the management. They will significantly bad-mouthing the current management to the fellow clients and stakeholders. Or another example is a fouroom of information that helps the current management. They will do a market surveillance, human resources monitoring program and any other actions that might supports the current management to survive.
Like many other clans and factions, Fouroom also had their mutual alignment. This alignment is attached to the fouroom itself, not to the members - their alignment is expected and can be perceived as the same as the fouroom they belong to. But some employees can exist inside two or more different and opposite fouroom. The alignment of an employee is not always mirroring the alignment of the fouroom they joined or involved. GM/Referee/Dungeon Master could refer to basic 9 moral alignments to be implied on the fourooms.
After deciding the foundation of a fouroom, GM/Referee/Dungeon Master could decide on what approaching method this fouroom will be used in order to achieve their target. Will it be a silent / guerilla operation that is kept in secret; optimizing and piggybacking the current flow of corporate actions; or executing plans and pulling strings under the shadows. It might take time to achieve the main goal, but it is steady and subtle. Or will it be a full frontal operation that can be witnessed and might involve the employees like strikes; or confronting the opposition’s or the current management’s action plans with their own actions. Bold indeed, but might lose some employee’s interest or sympathy if the operations are too risky and could severely hurt the company. Covert operation and diplomatic operation could also be options to consider. Covert operation is literally a spying action involving kidnapping, blackmailing, hacking, sabotaging oppositions or current management. This also involves information leaks that might hurt and damage the opposition's status and existence. Diplomatic operations on the other hand involve a peaceful approach to the opposition. Communication (and ass-licking) is the main skills needed to engaging a professional, well-mannered negotiations to oppositions - they can asked them politely to step up the way with some incentives as a reward; negotiating with one of significant member of opposition to join their fouroom; or maybe seeking for help to the opposition for some unsolved problems they currently had. Diplomatic operations is one of several slow-paced but high success rating operations because it might involving the highest rank member of the fouroom to negotiate - we’re talking about a conversation between head honchos.
In EMPLOYEE, there’s no exact numbers on how many fourooms could exist. The more fouroom you have in your game, the more complex the relationships will be. It is impossible for a company to only have one fouroom, but also a chaos if there are 20 fourooms inside a 200-employee company (for example). If you thought “man, I don’t have time to set up a lore to build for a single fouroom..”. Fear not fellow adventurers, I prepared a simple table generator below if you just want to roll-and-create a fouroom. It WILL be random, and I believe some aspects might cancel or contradict each other. But hey, at least they are quick and easy.
Like many other clans and factions, Fouroom also had their mutual alignment. This alignment is attached to the fouroom itself, not to the members - their alignment is expected and can be perceived as the same as the fouroom they belong to. But some employees can exist inside two or more different and opposite fouroom. The alignment of an employee is not always mirroring the alignment of the fouroom they joined or involved. GM/Referee/Dungeon Master could refer to basic 9 moral alignments to be implied on the fourooms.
After deciding the foundation of a fouroom, GM/Referee/Dungeon Master could decide on what approaching method this fouroom will be used in order to achieve their target. Will it be a silent / guerilla operation that is kept in secret; optimizing and piggybacking the current flow of corporate actions; or executing plans and pulling strings under the shadows. It might take time to achieve the main goal, but it is steady and subtle. Or will it be a full frontal operation that can be witnessed and might involve the employees like strikes; or confronting the opposition’s or the current management’s action plans with their own actions. Bold indeed, but might lose some employee’s interest or sympathy if the operations are too risky and could severely hurt the company. Covert operation and diplomatic operation could also be options to consider. Covert operation is literally a spying action involving kidnapping, blackmailing, hacking, sabotaging oppositions or current management. This also involves information leaks that might hurt and damage the opposition's status and existence. Diplomatic operations on the other hand involve a peaceful approach to the opposition. Communication (and ass-licking) is the main skills needed to engaging a professional, well-mannered negotiations to oppositions - they can asked them politely to step up the way with some incentives as a reward; negotiating with one of significant member of opposition to join their fouroom; or maybe seeking for help to the opposition for some unsolved problems they currently had. Diplomatic operations is one of several slow-paced but high success rating operations because it might involving the highest rank member of the fouroom to negotiate - we’re talking about a conversation between head honchos.
In EMPLOYEE, there’s no exact numbers on how many fourooms could exist. The more fouroom you have in your game, the more complex the relationships will be. It is impossible for a company to only have one fouroom, but also a chaos if there are 20 fourooms inside a 200-employee company (for example). If you thought “man, I don’t have time to set up a lore to build for a single fouroom..”. Fear not fellow adventurers, I prepared a simple table generator below if you just want to roll-and-create a fouroom. It WILL be random, and I believe some aspects might cancel or contradict each other. But hey, at least they are quick and easy.
| dn | Target / Mission | Sentiment | Alignment | Approaching Method |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Power | Againts | Awful Good | Silent / Guerilla |
| 2 | Information | Supports | Neutral Good | Full Frontal |
| 3 | Network | Chaotic Good | Covert | |
| 4 | Other | Lawful Neutral | Diplomatic | |
| 5 | Neutral | Other | ||
| 6 | Chaotic Neutral | |||
| 7 | Lawful Evil | |||
| 8 | Neutral Evil | |||
| 9 | Chaotic Evil |
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