As factions butt heads in ongoing campaigns, it can be tempting to treat their conflicts as something that never resolves, or that resolves like a sliding scale, where each major event affecting them ticks towards one side winning out and away from another side.
This is fine, especially if the interplay of factions is a remote consideration from what the PCs are doing. But if they do get involved in large-scale conflicts, it can be fun to take a page from the unstable and stupid wyrds of real-life wars, political struggles, and professional quests. You might roll on this table every so often to keep things from going stale or solved.
d20 Power Shifts
1. Leader of winning faction suddenly dies. Power struggle ensues
2. Important figure from previous conflict suddenly rockets to prominence again, perhaps someone exiled, disgraced, or once thought dead
3. Subordinates to head of a unified faction squabble for promotion or to be made an heir
4. Factions in conflict make surprising agreement, temporarily or permanently
5. Suddenly, a minor faction is as strong as everyone else combined
6. Personal animus and disrespect splits a major faction, though neither now sides with their main enemies
7. Unexpected catastrophe makes a stronghold weak, putting safe territory into play
8. Sitting ducks put up a surprising defense, and a goal which was a foregone conclusion is now much in doubt
9. The peasants seize the leadership of a faction by the throat and demand extreme concessions
10. Vassal turns coat and joins a rival faction in exchange for privileges some are uncomfortable giving
11. Attrition diminishes both sides, reducing the practical scope of their conflict
12. An entirely new theatre of the conflict is suddenly in play
13. Faction unleashes risky, yet powerful new weapon, technique, or strategy
14. Plot of faction leader revealed, causing a crisis of confidence in them
15. Faction’s resource suddenly depletes
16. Factions use a temporary ceasefire or negotiation to jockey for advantage before outright conflict resumes
17. An entirely different but intersecting conflict breaks out in the same area as this one, creating opposed loyalties and strange political hedging
18. Some atrocity or crime hardens the resolve of a major player
19. Rumors of (roll again)
20. Roll twice and combine
