I have this idea percolating in my brain about this game which I keep posting on the Purple OSR server. I don’t want to post any of this on my blog because none of it is tested, but I would also like to keep it somewhere more permanent than a discord server’s history, so I decided to post it here.
I intend on running it as a PBP in late February or maybe March, depending on how soon I can get things to an interesting point.
My main thought behind this game was this: what does a TRPG look like where neither fighting nor mystery or exploration are the main thrust; which makes its connection to this forum in particular tenuous since one might argue that this is, by definition, not an Adventure game, but I still strived to make it a thinking game, if that makes sense. I also figured the game should focus more on the social aspect of life and the game, which is often not proceduralised but rather elided through rolls or dealt with entirely in a freestyle.
My mind immediately went to the writer who had the most of these limitations: Jane Austen! Her books don’t feature exploration of anywhere, people don’t fight in it, duels happen off-screen, she simply had people in her toolbox and had to work with it. But I also wanted to give it a fantasy edge and leave the door open for those things, both as a cop-out but also for variety’s sake - even games about dungeon / wilderness crawling sometimes turn into investigations. So this is the pitch I came up with: the players are Theoretical Magicians (like in Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell) trying to write their way to the Exposition Universelle of 1867. The game starts in the 1862 World’s Fair, where the Learned Society of Paris announces that one of their expositions will be a work of theoretical magic, and so the players go in the Grand Tour over Europe to find books and paranormal phenomena to write their masterpieces.
This is just the “excuse” or initial impetus to get the players out the door - magic doesn’t work anymore, it’s not even a serious field of science, it’s literally just academical wankery, so how much one cares about this is up to them.
For the system, I modified Beat to Quarters so that instead of having physical abilities and such, it has Personality Traits like Pendragon’s:
- Measures are both the personality and the capabilities of the character. They go from 1 to 9 balanced around 10. Each one starts at 5/5.
- Noble / Common - Usually involving how touchy one is to one’s own pride, how likely one is to refuse being called out, and how well one impresses high company; extremes includes snobbishness, excessive pride, boorishness, and low class proclivities.
- Temperate / Bohemian - How persuaded one is to the ‘good things in life’, such as drink, food, sex, art, gambling, and lazing around instead of energetically moving through the country - it also has to do with how seriously one takes one’s religious restrictions and respects their own religious practices; extremes include religious fundamentalism or alcoholism.
- Fanciful / Practical - How creative one is versus how scientifically minded, also rules how good one is at modern art versus classicist art; extremes includes being a Romantic or a Positivist.
- Fiery / Calm - How well one takes jokes, but also how possessed one can be by temper to do great feats, as well as one’s vengefulness vs forgiving demeanour, how prone one is to cruelty versus being merciful, and how brusque and direct one is; fiery temper is a very military disposition. Extremes include both wrathfulness / cruelty / recklessness and placidity / inaction.
- Generous / Frugal - How liberal one is with one’s money and time versus how much they value it, as well as how good they are with money; extremes include being bad with money or close-handedness.
- Honest / Deceitful - How liberal one is with the truth including lies by omission, innate sense of justice and right and wrong versus ‘fuck you got mine’-ness, as well as how willing one is to believe in the fraternity of Man; excesses include moral inflexibility and gullibility, as well as being a slimy unreliable bastard.
The Actual Resolution System
- To make a test, everyone:
- State their intent and decide what happens on a win and a lose. Set the stakes.
- Take the value of the Measure being used, adjusted for damage or whatever might reduce it. Add traits, equipment, and reputations that might be relevant.
- If you have NO cards possible, you can still turn 1 single card, but your best success counts only as Ordinary.
- If someone wants to aid you, they can add up to +3 of a relevant Measure to the card.
- The opposition will do the same. If the opposition is static, the GM will follow the guidelines:
- Routine but something is unusual: 3
- Challenging: 5
- Damned hard: 7
- Heroic: 9
- The GM turns a card from the deck. That’ll be the card of fate (COF) for this test.
- Now both sides draw as many cards from the deck as they have a right to and compare it to the COF:
- If a card is the same SUIT as the CoF count one ORDINARY SUCCESS.
- If a card is the same NUMBER as the CoF, count one CRITICAL SUCCESS.
- If a card is the JOKER, count one PERFECT SUCCESS.
- If a card does not match SUIT or NUMBER, it is a FAILURE
- 3 successes accumulate into a better tier. So 3 ordinary successes become 1 CRITICAL success; 3 CRITICALS become 1 PERFECT.
- Whoever has the best and most successes wins, in that order. If both sides have the same number of the same degree of successes, whoever has the highest cards wins; aces high.
- If you have included a Reputation in your card pool and you lost, that Reputation is INJURED. If it is already INJURED, it becomes MAIMED. If it is MAIMED, it is DEAD.
I also have rules for fighting but anyway, I think you get the picture. I’m not very worried with complexity because this is mostly designed so I can run it blackboxed, and I’m still fiddling with the successes bit, but anyway, those are the bones.
Then I figured the main bit would be the procedures, and this is what I came up with for that:
Social Calls
- This is less of a procedure and more guidelines on how a Social Call should go.
- Distributing calling cards when you come into town takes a whole day where you go around in your carriage and with your footman, who climbs down and leaves the card with the butler of the person.
- In this process, the butler puts the card in a tray inside the front hall, and in that moment you can get an idea for some of the most prestigious people that person knows, because their cards will likely be arranged to be shown off
- The lady of the house then is supposed to retribute with a card or, perhaps, a social call
- A social call occurs by going up to someone’s house and asking if they’re home. (they might be and say no, this is perfectly acceptable)
- This is done very fast, 15 minutes at the most, and it’s basically polite chit-chat.
- If someone else shows up, they’ll probably be introduced and then you walk out
- 15 / 16 is the time for social calls with people you’re not well acquainted
- 16 / 17 for somewhat better acquainted
- 17 / 18 for a good friend
- You only do social calls in the morning if you’re REALLY close to the person, i.e. before 13
- Being new in town, you would look for a letter of introduction from a friend to a person of prominence, who would then invite you for dinner.
- Men generally don’t really pay social calls, as they’re expected to be out working, at the club, or hunting (in the country), but they can. They cannot receive them from ladies, except on business or a professional matter.
Dinner Parties
- Dinner is divided into 15-minute turns and has 15 in total:
- Turn 1, 19:15-30 - Arrival, - waiting for late guests, being paired off and informed of seating arrangements
- Not really a turn, more like reading to the players who the guests are and who their pair will be, maybe an opportunity to try and convince the hostess to be paired with someone else of equal stature
- Turns 2 / 9, 19:30-21:30 - Actual dinner, last turn is reserved for dessert
- Turns 10 / 11, 21:30-22:00 - Men and women go to separate rooms and discuss sensitive topics and such
- Turns 12 / 15, 22:00-23:00 - Denouement, the ol’ “I have to go” (proceeds to spend the next hour talking)
- I’m still considering how the turns of the denouement should work, since there’s not likely to be a lot of meaningful conversation here. Could be more about giving a good impression to the group.
- Turn 1, 19:15-30 - Arrival, - waiting for late guests, being paired off and informed of seating arrangements
- Every turn has 1-in-6 chances of dinner events per player, which I have on a google sheet and is beyond the scope of this post, but include stuff like your pair touching a theme or subject, or something happening around the table.
- Your partner has Doors that need to be ground down to get to a new Level of Intimacy. There are a few Doors between each level of intimacy, but it can be: Closed, Ajar, Half-Open, or Open. The rolls below serve to open the door a bit. The levels of intimacy are 5, starting with Strangers and ending in Best Friends.
- Each turn you can do an action:
- Steer the conversation, by picking a topic based on a Measure.
- You get your full value of the Measure chosen. If it’s that person’s preference, then ‘deal damage’ to the door in the proper measure; if it isn’t, build a new door in the inverse measure (this can also be understood as going to “negative levels of intimacy”, someone starts actively DISLIKING you).
- The drawing of the cards is meant to be an elision of body language and stuff beyond the control of the player, but also beyond the control of the character. Sure you might want to be suave and smooth, we all want to, but your character might simply be a bit awkward for that.
- Also, the way these things are set up guarantees that picking a nice topic, by paying attention to the other person and such, will make them like you a bit more. The procedure is more to check how much. And again, I don’t think I’d show the players any of this, especially not the “current status of the door”.
- After 2 sequential turns of the same topic, it’ll start to be penalised with a cumulative -1 card. It will regenerate 1 card per turn that it’s left alone.
- Between Stranger and Acquaintance there is 1 Door. Between Acquaintance and Liked there are 2, etc.
- You get your full value of the Measure chosen. If it’s that person’s preference, then ‘deal damage’ to the door in the proper measure; if it isn’t, build a new door in the inverse measure (this can also be understood as going to “negative levels of intimacy”, someone starts actively DISLIKING you).
- Inquire on a lateral topic, just picking a topic that isn’t really intimate, necessarily, or personal; or perhaps linger on a topic. This would be the equivalent of “examine”, it’s a follow-up.
- Some topics will be gated by intimacy, and picking one from the next one over is risky. If you press an issue that someone doesn’t seem comfortable talking about, there is a X-in-6 chance of them deciding to talk, where X is the current level of intimacy plus 1.
- Listen, by taking a step back to try and gauge what’s the current level of intimacy and be informed by the DM in more detail, or probing for reactions without taking the next step, just testing
- This could also provide the chance for the NPC to steer the conversation towards a topic they might like, or just keep the conversation polite, depending on the NPC’s own agenda
- Steer the conversation, by picking a topic based on a Measure.
Balls and Dances
- The typical ball will last about 5 hours, starting around 20h and finishing about 1h (city balls start later, often at 23h, and go down to 4h); really fancy balls can go for longer, but usually not going after 5h.
- They’re divided into 15-min turns too, thus lasting for around 20 turns, with 2 of these around the middle being time for the supper. Each one also has about 1-in-6 or 2-in-6 chances for events, I’m not sure yet, but it has a lot more events than the dinner party.
- It is treated more or less like a social dungeon, as it has a physical space that can be traversed and rooms to find other guests, except the “treasure” there and the challenges are trying to impress people and controlling yourself. Some activities might include:
- Dancing. Not actually very important because of the dancing steps but because it allows one to talk to another person of the opposite sex one on one, without a chaperone or their family around. It operates like the dinner party Steer the Conversation, though people are much more likely to discuss who they are and try to figure out who one another is, maybe invite them for a visit.
- You can dance up to 4 turns in sequence, but then you have to rest inactively for the other one.
- Talking. Same thing as the Steer the Conversation at the Dinner Party, but usually talking to more than one person at once, and so what pleases one might not please the other.
- Playing cards. For money, obviously. Lots of ways to do this, most efficient one probably is just figuring out an appropriate amount of money and using Thrift’s procedure for gambling.
- Dancing. Not actually very important because of the dancing steps but because it allows one to talk to another person of the opposite sex one on one, without a chaperone or their family around. It operates like the dinner party Steer the Conversation, though people are much more likely to discuss who they are and try to figure out who one another is, maybe invite them for a visit.
- Overall, the ball is basically like the Dinner Party except you choose who you engage with and how. Plus there’s more men (the pairs in the dinner parties are all women), the random events will make a bigger difference, and things just might get violent.
Country House Visit
- Country house happen over weeks. A random event is rolled every week and the day it will happen.
- Every week the characters choose what they’ll be focusing on. Usually this will be either spending time with someone, working, or reading.
- Spending time
- Whenever someone spends time with someone else for a week, they instantly find out some aspect of their personality or demeanour, IF they allow it to be found. Otherwise, the other person will have to work harder.
- Also, the final level of intimacy can only really be achieved here, on their own.
- The same NPC can only really pay attention to 1 person dedicated to court their attention per week.
- For every week where the player spends time with an NPC, they put together a pool of cards made out of the NPCs preferences; each point beyond 5 gives +1, each point belows 5 gives -1, and 5s give +1 or -1 on a cointoss. Then they draw all of the cards and open 1 Door per red card drawn.
- Player also gets +1 for every level of intimacy with a mutual relation that is present and vouching for them, and -1 for every level of infamy for the same.
- If the relation isn’t present but is at least a friend, the player gets +1 or -1.
- If 2 or more people are courting the same NPC, they may use their black cards to negate their opponents’ red cards, if they’re willing to incur their opponent’s distaste. If it’s an NPC, those black cards will damage doors for levels of infamy.
- The specific activity here varies, but it’s usually walking, playing cards, listening to music or playing, just having conversations, reading a book out loud to someone, riding around, or hunting (for men).
- Whenever someone spends time with someone else for a week, they instantly find out some aspect of their personality or demeanour, IF they allow it to be found. Otherwise, the other person will have to work harder.
- Work: if they’re middle class and need it. They earn double their credit rating per day effectively worked, though if they don’t have a letter of recommendation or know of a pressing issue, they’ll need to waste a day going around town and distributing their card with their services. After that, it’s a draw of the cards to see if gainful employment found them (red yes, black no).
- Magnum Opus: Lastly, players may embark in intellectual journeys or work on their Magnum Opus, or do whatever else they feel like, adjudicate as needed.
- They need to read a book for that. Books take either 1 or 2 weeks to read, and at the end of it they’ll discover which card the book has.
- They’ll use the cards (books) to build 3-card Brag hands. The entire book should have 4 of these, thus making a game of Crash. That’s how they’ll be scored.
- Accounts of Real magic and fairy dealings provide a joker, which can count as any card
- The books should be submitted a number of weeks before the exposition, and it’ll take them 1 month to be edited regardless. The books used themselves might need to be submitted for verification too
- Soulsearch: The character tries to change their ways. They do an opposing test of the measure they want to change against the opposing one, and try to get the opposing one to win. If it does, they can readjust the measures by 1 point.
- For every consecutive week focused on this, their opposing measure counts as 1 point higher.
- Having the backing or influence of someone also adds 1 card in the direction they’re supporting.
Letter-writing
- Whenever they’re writing an important letter, the player says what they’re trying to convey and how they’re trying to come across. They then either post the letter, if they know where to reach the person, or give it to someone in the hopes of finding the person they want to reach.
- For game-purposes, it’s free to send a letter. It was like 2 pence or so in 1874 but we’ll ignore that, everyone simply has that kind of money.
- From Britain, it takes 1d2 days for a letter to arrive in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, or Scandinavia; 1d3+1 days to arrive in Central Europe; and 1d5+3 days for Southern Europe, and vice versa. Use that as a benchmark for other countries. The only exception is from the Iberian Peninsula, writing a letter for Central or Eastern Europe, that would take 1d5+9 days to arrive.
- Double all that if the letter is for a rural address. Double it again if it’s wintertime.
- If the letter is dramatic and has the potential to be misinterpreted or to come off as a dick, flip some cards.
- Each side gets as many cards as they have in Calm. Put them together. The goal is to get either a 5 card straight or better (so flush, full house, and 4 of a kind are fine). If they can’t, the letter has been misinterpreted.
- They can burn a level of intimacy to discard a card and draw another, as the person lowers their standards to be more generous.
- This is pretty ruthless. The odds would be 0.76% on a 5 card draw, and would go up by a bit with extra cards (assuming most people have about 5 Calm), but it’s still Texas Hold’em odds, something like 10% chance of success.
- Each side gets as many cards as they have in Calm. Put them together. The goal is to get either a 5 card straight or better (so flush, full house, and 4 of a kind are fine). If they can’t, the letter has been misinterpreted.
- If a messenger is sent instead they’ll use their Honest vs. the person’s Fiery, but it’ll take longer to arrive.
Final Thoughts
I’m still working on the locations of the map. The actual “roaming” procedure would be very simple, I’ve scattered some nodes around Europe with connections between them, and each will describe a rough “scene” rather than a physical location. So for instance, the Munich node isn’t just the city of Munich, it’s more like the entirety of Bavaria, as the Bavarians flock to Munich for entertainment and the Season.
The year is also divided in the Season, which follows the pattern of “Winter and Autumn in one place, Summer and Spring in the other”, but how exactly those line up vary by country (London and Paris spend the summer in the city and the winter in the country; Italy, Germany, and eastern Europe spend the winter in the city and flee to the country during the summer). I’ll be keeping a calendar for that.
In terms of my own criticisms and goals, I’d like to figure out a way of doing first impressions. The procedures as they currently are make things very rosy and without a whole lot of conflict besides that which I set out to make or interacting with mean-spirited characters, but I would like something to mirror Darcy’s cold and detached first impressions.
I also need to figure out a more interesting procedure for soulsearching and changing your character’s measures. As it stands, the only way to change your ways is by a lengthy process of trying to change, basically as downtime; which is a bit thematic but I’d like something more like Pendragon, where failing to meet your traits will lead you to the other side. I believe there must be something to get there from Masks too, with self-image and such, but I don’t know how to grok it just yet.
I’d also like to think of a procedure for spending an afternoon in the Gentlemen’s Club - or just generally “spending an afternoon with someone but NOT over a week”. In many ways it’s the mid point between the Dinner Party (a ceremonialised and rigid endeavour which you don’t really choose how to engage in) and the Ball (an entirely freeform thing), as you’re spending an afternoon in the company of men and probably not speaking of ‘deeper subjects’ but rather of politics and other nonsense that highfalutin Victorians enjoy.
I feel like the procedure is needed in these situations because, otherwise, leisure activities just aren’t very interesting to describe second-hand, and we can’t just have 5 hours of conversation not be elided. Even Jane Austen did, skipping over the pleasantries to give us a vignette of the encounter, before giving a rundown of roughly how things shaped up later.
I’ve still got a lot of work to do, and this has been a massive post, so thanks for reading it this far! I’m open to any feedback or suggestions of games that attempt to do the same thing.