[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by (E)

There is that, but the main reason is for generating NPCs especially on the fly. Take the common background elements and add it to the role you need the NPC to play. Aristocratic background plus soldier could mean a former officer who went to all the right educational institutions.

Hmmmm.

Originally Posted by johndallman

I'll try. The organisations I was talking about are present-day companies in the computer industry (I'd prefer not to name names). They have pretty distinct and recognisable cultures, which means their staff to tend to have common patterns of behaviour.

Thinking about it some more, I don't believe this means the staff all have the corresponding disadvantages and quirks as personal disadvantages. However, they probably don't have opposing traits, since that would lead to significant cognitive dissonance. It's more that the staff assume a kind of persona (Social Engineering, p61) that acts as a filter for their individual personalities. So I think what I'm looking for in an organisation description is an outline of the kind of persona that the organisation presents to outsiders.

Now, the organisation's own idea of what that persona is like may be significantly different from how it's perceived from the outside. For a archetypical example, local police forces in the USA seem to dislike having the FBI get involved in their cases, because they perceive it as arrogant, condescending, secretive and uninterested in local details that can be crucial to an investigation. I'm sure the FBI doesn't perceive itself that way! I'd expect their view of their persona to have qualities like highly-skilled, reassuring, controlling information carefully to prevent leaks, and rapidly getting to the core of the problem. Both views of an organisation are valuable to a GM.

Thank you, John! I'm going to give this some thought. Something here for sure.

Originally Posted by jason taylor

Symbology: what are it's motifs and myths. Those are part of what keeps an organization going.

Oooo. Good idea!