"Not really", but you pretty much wrote the same thing except more kindly worded. The logic actually makes me opposing the "logical consequences" you're proposing.Strawberry Jam,Oct 24 2016 wrote: Not quite, it would just be saying "you're in a better situation if you join a faction" which is true in rp and lore, but easy to ignore. The only time you need to be a faction member is for a main plot or as others have said before to avoid getting jailed or for protection. In which case that later option is more "you suck" and in your face than offering participation rewards for those that are members.
If you don't like mechanics reflecting a setting or rp that's fine, but mechanics reflecting those things isn't a bad idea really. D&D does this too actually, making some feats and classes only selectable after rp as a prerequisite. The original Planescape source books also did this too by rewarding unique faction powers and so on, also noting that joining a faction is the normal way to a paid income. While 3.5 planes books and Dragon magazine all detail faction prestige classes, and I think the semi officially endorsed unofficial fan planescape 3.5 setting did something similar. So those suggestions isn't turning it into anything it wasn't already before in official content.
If you only want to rely on DM and player support and events that's fine too. However then you have to rely on the human and real world elements which makes support and participation unreliable. So then you kinda make a choice for that, and things like what Hydra is talking about are simply the logical consequence.
That's it - if you are in better situation mechanically because you're in the faction, then you take a faction and what exactly it will be depends mostly of what you can expect from either scripted quests or feats.
Or worse - from periodical wages (possibly the worst point of an already bad suggestion).
Then you'll have, let's say - people making a Godsman not because of RP... but because they need crafting bonuses and the're either not bothering to RP, or RPing an unaffiliated planewalker anyway.
What if someone's don't want to be in any faction?
Also not a problem at all - we don't have to RP mechanics for our characters to the letter... So what would prevent a player from taking a faction mechanically just for bonuses and then not giving it any use in RP?
There's no point in pretending this would not happend, becase there's already a bazilion of clerical Domains except everyone's taking Time anyway and I bet that a free plate armor handout from certain faction helped more than one starting character... Or fiendish characters swinging Holy Swords. Or 'good' characters in Mercuria. Enough examples that despite the best intentions RP always bends before mechanical benefits.
This isn't mechanics reflecting RP what you mentioned, but a proposition of a mechanic that could end potentially more important than RP and even influencing which faction will be more popular (the ones with more useful bonuses, obviously... or higher wages).
In PnP you can have DM checking if players don't abuse mechanics and everything's balanced all the time. This is not PnP environment, though.
Wishful thinking can only go so far.