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After playing many of the PFS mods out there it seems that the faction missions still seem a bit off. In particular the fact that someone in your faction seems to know what little tidbits you should need to do. They seem to unerringly know what you might be confronted with.
I'm proposing to have a third, red herring, faction mission blended in with the other two that are standard. In some cases this red herring assignment could be the actual faction mission on a later mod.
Pros
As I see it mods would be more interesting if you didn't know for sure that you would actually even have a chance to do all your faction missions.
It would more easily allow for multiple fork mod paths that would feel less like mod on rails. There might be one award down each path but still only a total of two out of three possible.
Imagine the joy of finally finding the bronze plated wombat after looking for it as a red herring 5 separate times.
Cons
Mods might play out slower. A problem at fixed length events.
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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I like the idea of "standing orders" for factions. "if you ever confront an opponent who uses slaves to attack you, always offer freedom to the slaves and give them a chance to accept before drawing their blood."
But I'll agree: a lot of the faction missions suggest that somebody has an overabundance of information about the mission. "We understand that you will be entering into the Unspeakable Ruins of Nahud-zareth. If you should run across a red book with the arms of House Refield embossed on the cover, we would appreciate it if you would remove pages 81-84, which contain embarrassing information about our Queen's hairdresser."
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A combination of the above ideas would be cool, too. Use red herrings occasionally (but not in every scenario) and also have a set of standing orders. That way, a situation could result where only one of the two faction missions is real, and to complete the second faction mission the PC would have to fall back on his standing orders.
I like both ideas on their own as well!
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But I'll agree: a lot of the faction missions suggest that somebody has an overabundance of information about the mission. "We understand that you will be entering into the Unspeakable Ruins of Nahud-zareth. If you should run across a red book with the arms of House Refield embossed on the cover, we would appreciate it if you would remove pages 81-84, which contain embarrassing information about our Queen's hairdresser."
Especially funny when your faction leaders are in Absalom and you are getting a mission from some venture captain in another country. Sometimes it seems like the faction leaders have satellite tracking, international telecommunications, and unerring intelligence gathering assets.
The factions are well-sponsored, enormously large, far-reaching spy networks of which the PCs are part. Think of them, in some ways, like the CIA.
"Oh, you're going to Lastwall--let's get you some information from the guy at the Lastwall Desk."
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Especially funny when your faction leaders are in Absalom and you are getting a mission from some venture captain in another country. Sometimes it seems like the faction leaders have satellite tracking, international telecommunications, and unerring intelligence gathering assets.
Uh... Hello, it's frickin' magic. If a PC can cast fireball, I'm sure the organizers of your faction have a pretty good idea where you're going next.