Fortune & Favor

02 Nov 2012

NaGa DeMon 2012

Because, why not?

By weird coincidence, just as I’m getting deep into world-building and game design for Fortune & Favor, National Game Design Month is happening. And I’m doing it!

Yes, it’s November–the same time as NaNoWriMo. I always try (and fail) at NaNoWriMo, and this year looked set to be no exception. I already had really mixed feelings, because, while I could always use the novel-writing as world-building too, it was just really starting to feel like yet another distraction that would keep me from doing what I’ve really been wanting to do for ages, and what I was finally starting to make some progress on: designing my own game, Fortune & Favor.

So, here it goes! Today isn’t the first day of the month, so I’m a little late officially joining in and spreading the word, but I’ve been thinking about NaGa Demon for a few days now…just haven’t had connectivity, access to a laptop, and time to post coincide for the last couple days, since I’m here in Japan doing family stuff.

Tomorrow might not be the best day for it either, since I’ll be flying back to NYC (assuming my flight actually leaves, of course), but I will definitely be typing away offline, filling up my paper notebook (I know, right? Retro!) and reading the FATE SRD and the Dresden Files RPG.

Yes, the version of my game that I am currently working on is a FATE variant. I have been agonizing over whether to use FATE or HeroQuest (my two current favorite systems) for a while now, but the fact that it’s NaGaDemon definitely tipped the balance toward FATE.

Why? Well, this is National Game Design Month, emphasis on design, and FATE’s open license lets you do pretty much whatever you want to system, including creating your own version of the rules and publishing your own complete game (which is my goal).

I love the HeroQuest system (maybe more than FATE, honestly) for its elegance, but Moon Design’s gateway license is way more restrictive. By my reading of it, you can’t change the rules and you can’t reprint more than short snippets of the rules; you can only print your own additional rules. Basically, you’re limited to writing a setting book that will require players to also buy the HeroQuest rules. I really don’t have a problem with that at all, but to me that’s not really the whole of game design. Sure, I would love to adapt the F&F setting to go with HeroQuest, and maybe after I finish the FATE version, I will…

Anyhow, look for posts to start pretty soon. I’ve got one that I might get up tonight, but certainly I should have more to pub by Sunday night.

Anyone else doing NaGa DeMon and writing about it? Let me know in the comments so I can check out your project!

Posted in Fortune & Favor, Game Design and tagged FATE, NaGaDeMon | Leave a Comment

26 Oct 2012

1 Comment

Review: HeroQuest Core Rules Second Edition

As a life-long devotee of RuneQuest (from RQII to MGRQI, and now RQ6), I was predisposed to love HeroQuest. As a lifelong simulationist (Rolemaster, anyone?), I was predisposed to hate HeroQuest, by game design rockstar Robin D. Laws. The only RQ I’d avoided was the previous version of HeroQuest, Hero Wars—because it wasn’t my kind of game. Fast forward a few years, and the kind of thing I looked forward to—RuneQuest content—are a small part of HeroQuest. The things I dreaded—fuzzy, loose narrativist mechanics—turn out to be detailed and precise. When I got over my disappointment at the lack of Glorantha content and considered the rules on their own merits, I was won over to the idea of narrativist gaming. Be warned, I’m writing from that point of view—some of my review will no doubt be painfully obvious to long-time players of this type of game.

The Book Itself
HeroQuest is a slim volume with an attractive cross-genre cover illustration. It’s perfect bound, which I think is fine for a 132-page book; I prefer decent soft covers to the awful warped hard covers on some of my thinner Mongoose books, at any rate. I have two copies; one of them I’ve treated pretty badly, and the cover is starting to delaminate a bit. The other one, which is getting normal wear and tear, seems fine.

The layout and design are competent—even attractive, if simple. Rune treatments on margins and chapter heads add flavor without overwhelming the text, which is peppered with simple tables and a great many shaded text boxes. There might actually be too many text boxes in some sections. One page alone has four of them, with only a single tiny paragraph of body text. It’s also a bit confusing that sometimes boxes are for clarifications and examples, and sometimes they’re for important rules—both get the same treatment. And sometimes box order and placement is a bit off. Still, the layout is better than the average RPG’s. The two-column format and reasonable font and leading mean that the book is packed with information without being tough to read (as opposed to, say, the pretty but inscrutable Mage, the Awakening). So far, so good.

Then there’s the interior art. Some of it is OK, but some of it would probably have been rejected by 80s-era Palladium, and that’s saying something. It detracts from the book, which, even for $30, ought to be a bit more luxurious. This is one of the seminal RPGs, after all. I suppose there is a precedent for crappy RuneQuest art (yes, I’m looking at you, Avalon Hill). That said, the art definitely hurts the style score. Not to worry: Robin Laws’ excellent rules system more than makes up for it.

The System
It’s good that Laws writes in a lucid, simple, and entertaining style, because, for a rules-light system, there’s a whole lot of system here. The first 90 or so pages of the book are pretty much the mechanics and advice on how to make them work.

The basic mechanic is simple. You describe your character, and the terms you use become your abilities and flaws. A tough-as-nails bounty hunter with a cutting wit and a weakness for the ladies would get Tough as Nails, Bounty Hunter, and Cutting Wit as abilities, with Weakness for the Ladies as a flaw. (Real characters get more description—and more abilities and flaws—but you get the idea.) Abilities can be as concrete as those above, or as abstract as “Everything I Touch Turns to Crap” (a real example from the book). One last complication: Bounty Hunter might be a “keyword” ability, one that includes the sub-abilities Tracking, Work the Phones, Shake Down Junkies, and Taser. Your abilities chosen, you pick a primary ability to rate at 17; the rest get 13s. Distribute ten points among your 11 abilities, and you’re done.

Conflict resolution involves pitting one character’s relevant ability against another’s (or against a resistance number, if there’s no opponent—climbing a tree, for instance). Difficulties are modified by the GM, depending on the genre of the game world. In a gritty film-noir world, when someone’s got a gun to your head, you’re probably at his mercy. In a Jackie Chan-inspired world, you might be able to grab the gun from his hand, perhaps disassembling it in the same motion. If our bounty hunter were in a buddy-cop-movie world, he might try that old chestnut of trying to make the gun-wielding thug angry enough to make a mistake. The bounty hunter would roll against his Cutting Wit. The thug might roll against his Cool Customer. A roll on a d20 under an ability rating is a success. If both succeed, the lowest roll wins (unless the rolls are equal, in which case they tie). It’s as simple as that.

Well, not exactly.

Rolls of 1 are critical successes, and 20s are fumbles. Depending on the margin by which you beat (or lose to) the enemy, you get four possible degrees of success (or failure): marginal, minor, major, or complete—plus ties. The effects depend on the situation and the type of conflict being resolved. If you’re hurt in a combat, your injury results in negative modifiers to the appropriate sort of skills. If you suffer a bad result in a social contest, your social interaction will have a negative modifier for a length of time appropriate to the genre you’re playing in—perhaps reflecting a crisis of confidence.

Complete victory leaves the enemy dying in deadly physical combats. In quick social combats, it might destroy the enemy’s reputation, forcing him to withdraw from society. In the above example, the thug might end up unconscious on the ground, with the bounty hunter in control of his weapon. It’s up to players to pick their attacks and describe their desired outcomes; The GM narrates the actual results, based on the dice rolls.

Some readers will have noted that if abilities start at 17 and you get a bunch of points to distribute, you’ll likely have ratings above 20. What then? Basically, when you hit 21, you’ve mastered a skill, and it’s written as 1M (where M is actually a Gloranthan mastery rune, which I can’t duplicate here). Mastery yields a bump up the conflict results table. Using a 12M skill, you have one automatic success, with a 12 out of 20 chance for an additional level of success (assuming no modifiers on the task). Masteries bump you up one level each, from a minor failure to a marginal one, say, or from a major success to a complete one. Once you reach complete success, remaining masteries bump your opponent’s results down one level each. Yes, you can have multiple masteries, written 10M2, for example. This equates to two bumps and a ten out of twenty chance of an additional level of success. Finally, masteries cancel out. 12M2 versus 4M becomes 12M versus 4.

That’s the bare bones of the mechanics. The rest of the 90 or so pages of system description are spent fleshing out that skeleton.

There are Hero points, which help heroes influence conflict resolution and live up to the name. There’s a sensible system for augmenting your efforts, too. Success on a relevant prior contest aids you in the present one. The bounty-hunter’s savage take-down of the thug described above might augment his chances to intimidate anyone who saw it. There’s a good relationship chapter, which explains how to use the basic mechanic to manage sidekicks, followers, contacts, and so on. And there’s an excellent chapter on using the resources of a community to which you belong—whether it’s an Ars Magica-style covenant, a Gloranthan tribe, or even the nobility of 14th-century Venice. The mechanics for deciding if your community will let you consume some of its resources (cows, gold, men, diplomatic influence, whatever) are particularly elegant, but they basically boil down to rolling a character ability against an appropriate community ability. There are detailed rules for preserving and managing resources, which must refresh after depletion.

Finally, there’s an extended conflict resolution system for when the drama of the moment calls for the contest to be drawn out—fighting the Troll-lord, for example, carrying on an extended flirtation with the one, or running an entire election. It doesn’t have to be a traditional face-to-face confrontation. In fact, it really doesn’t matter what the conflict is; as long as you and your players can conceive of attributes to oppose, the conflict-resolution system can handle just about any genre.

How to Play It?
Laws is at his best here. I can’t remember having ever read a better how-to-GM article than HeroQuest’s. At its base, Laws’ advice amounts to: Set resistances based on the player’s recent successes or failures; if they’ve done well, make tasks harder. If they’ve had their heads handed to them, make the next bits easier. Well, duh. Sounds like it would be common sense to all but the worst GMs, no?

Laws takes this elementary idea much further, however. He gives excellent advice on how to break the narrative down into what he calls the pass/fail cycle. It’s a simple enough idea: diagram the progress through the story, showing if they pass or fail (and how well or badly) at overcoming each obstacle they face. It’s essentially a tool that helps you see your game as an ongoing piece of drama. Are my heroes challenged enough, or are they so downtrodden that Thomas Covenant would pity them? There are ten really solid pages of systems and advice for how to make this simple idea work.

Long-time narrativist gamers might not need the chapter, but as a recent convert from highly simulationist games, reading this chapter was a bit of a revelation. It’s been a while since I so thoroughly enjoyed just reading a rulebook. It’s refreshing to read a game where the sort of rules-bending I’ve done for many years is actually baked explicitly into the rules to such an extent. Yet the Rolemaster-loving simulationist in me is quite happy to find actual tables showing how to implement it all. Still, I can see that (as Laws says, more or less), once you get the hang of it, you’ll go back to eyeballing it—it’s just that now you’ll be following the rules, instead of bending them.

What Kind of Worlds Is It Good At?
Different universal systems are better at handling different sorts of games. HeroQuest is, unsurprisingly, best at recreating stories based in classic genre fiction. It’s easy to create games if everyone has the same broad assumptions about the world. We’ve all read The Three Musketeers, and we all know how Jackie Chan movies work, so it’s simple to agree on what the ground rules of games set in those worlds would be in HeroQuest. Anything where narrative trumps all else—most novels, movies, and TV shows—is easy to recreate.

It would take more work to recreate the world of a simulation-based RPG. The vastly disparate spell lists of the average D&D wizard would be nightmarish to recreate in HeroQuest, I believe. The magic examples in HeroQuest pretty much equate to one spell or thematic ability per skill. It would be much simpler to reimagine a D&D-style wizard as being more focused, with just a few larger-scale thematic abilities like Elemental Magic: Fire. His player would describe an effect, and, if it was something simple like lighting a campfire, he’d get a bonus; for something complex like capturing a balrog with a lasso of fire, well, that’d be harder. Ambitious GMs might set minimum Mastery levels for certain effects: fireballs at M1, melting rings of power at M4, for example.

I think this bias toward simplification is actually a great thing. That player who’s always complaining that D&D magic isn’t flexible enough may mourn the loss of her 142 quirky Vancian spells, but she’ll will quickly fall in love with HeroQuest system, which will ultimately let her do much more with far fewer abilities. Note, also, that the more coherent and logical Ars Magica and Mage systems would be much simpler to adapt. Even RoleMaster, with its thematic Spell Law lists would be much simpler to recreate.

What Could Have Been Better
My one complaint with the substance of HeroQuest is that the section on general advice for implementing the system—building your own worlds, designing keywords, creating psionic, magic, high-tech, romantic, or even musical-comedy powers feels a bit short, at just 13 pages of general advice.

It’s all very well to say that you should base your games off the great fiction you love and not the often-dysfunctional RPGs you play, but, let’s face it, most of us (and most of our players) think in terms of games we’ve previously played; that’s our starting point, that’s the way we tend to approach gaming our favorite fiction. I would have especially liked richer examples of how to implement various standard role-playing tropes.

The section for designing magic systems is just a page long, for example, as are the sections on high-tech and psionics. The couple paragraphs that I wrote above about creating a Vancian mage character are my own conclusions, not advice from the book. For the vast number of potential converts from D&D, GURPS, and so on, more advice and more concrete examples would have made for a lower barrier to entry to this otherwise excellent system.

To Glorantha
Fortunately, the one detailed example of world-building is a decent one. This is where the Glorantha stuff finally comes in. There’s fifteen pages worth of Gloranthan basics, mostly descriptions of how Glorantha’s various magic systems work. It’s really more an illustration of how to implement HeroQuest’s rules, however, than enough information to play in Glorantha. There’s also a basic guide to the Gods, as well as a primer on Glorantha’s runes. Sure, if you’re already steeped in the lore of Greg Stafford’s world, you could do the rest, but it’s nowhere near enough for a new player to delve into Glorantha.

Don’t fret, Stafford-ites: there is a lot more Glorantha stuff coming from Moon Design. The enormous Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes book is out, and it’s great. Disclosure: the company sent me a PDF to review, which I shamefully still haven’t done. On the other hand, I liked it so much I actually bought the physical book, so I don’t feel too bad. There’s a Campaign pack for Sartar, and there’s a meaty Sartar Companion, too–I own them both. I’m definitely also looking forward to picking up the massive Pavis, Gateway to Adventure book, too. I really hope Moon Design is able to continue giving RuneQuest the sort of support it deserves. So far, the signs look very good.

In Summary
HeroQuest is an excellent game. The presentation is pretty good, though I wish that this incarnation of the system had gotten a slightly more stylish treatment—art and layout to match Robin Laws’ well thought out and elegantly explained rules. But it’s the rules themselves for which you’ll buy this game, and they’re worth every penny of your gaming dollar. Could there be more to the book? Yes, certainly. But there’s also something extremely appealing to an entire system in a slim, affordable volume. I’m never going to have time again to read another 800-page core rules set (sorry, Hero, nice knowing you), nor am I likely to shell out $100 dollars for a basic set (so long, Warhammer FRP). Especially not when I can get such a fantastic, intuitive system in a 132-page, $30 book. Good stuff.

Note: This review originally appeared on RPGnet.

Posted in Reviews and tagged generic rpg systems, narrativism, Rules

25 Oct 2012

Review: Lorenzo Magalotti at the court of Charles II: His Relazione d’Inghilterra of 1668

Travel writing, primary historical sources, court stories, and frank, chatty writing are four of my favorite things in the world, and it’s all too rare that I get to read a book that combines them all. Lorenzo Magalotti’s Relazione definitely hits all the high points, however, and it was a joy to read.

Lorenzo Magalotti, Tuscan virtuoso

Lorenzo Magalotti was a seventeenth-century Roman/Florentine virtuoso, diplomat, and author whose interests ranged from law to mathematics to astronomy. In the course of his life, he was also “an art connoisseur, a lexicographer, a poet, and a literary critic.” He was the secretary for the scientific Academia Del Cimento, and he served Cosimo III de’ Medici of Grand Prince (and later Grand Duke) of Tuscany. He arrived in London in February of 1667 and stayed for about two months. His Relazione is a report on what he learned of the country more than it is the story of his journey.

Magalotti gives an account of the country and the characters of the king, queen, and chief courtiers. It’s a very gossipy, blunt account that would be of great service to a nobleman traveling to London, and, in fact Cosimo was to arrive only a few months later. The section on “Intrigues at the court of London” is charged with scandalous information that I gladly devoured; its contents ranged from current gossip from the broadsheets of the day (the equivalent of today’s celebrity gossip to some truly awful scandals that blackened the reputations of everyone involved. If Magalotti’s book had been published in his lifetime, the result probably would’ve been along the lines of a wikileaks scandal: not many true surprises there, but still a very unpleasant set of judgments to read in the hand of a supposedly friendly diplomat.

Anne Hyde, the Duchess of York, by Sir Peter Lely

My favorite piece of Magalotti viciousness concerns the Duchess of York (the wife of King Charles II’s brother, the future James II), the former Anne Hyde, daughter of the now-disgraced Chancellor Clarendon, whose beauty is diminished because “the superfluous fat that she keeps putting on day by day has so altered the proportions of a very fine figure and a most lovely face that it is hard to recognize them.” Her personality seems never to have been very attractive:

“The Duchess is the most frank and sincere in the world, because she shows her thoughts clearly on her face. Not to waste much time on her portrait, it will be enough, to see her portrayed to the life, to show what must be on the outside of a woman who internally has neither religion nor faith; a woman onstainte, proud, vindictive, hot-tempered, deceitful, cruel, scornful, and worshipping gluttony and amusements. In these few words are included all the reports that pass for the truth openly professed by the voices of all and confirmed by the universal hatred and abhorrence of all her closest servants (to whom she is insupportable because of her scorn, her ingratitude, and her arrogance), the court, the household, and all the three kingdoms. However, it could well be believed that such a nature could not exist without the help of a great spirit, which sparkles out of her eyes with a flash of lightning that frightens instead of comforting.”

The one telling story about Duchess runs as follows: when the Duke dismissed her lover from his service, the Duchess is said to have poisoned the Duke’s acknowledged mistress. In revenge, the Duke caught the pox, just to give it to his wife. Magalotti’s cheerful character annihilation is all the more remarkable when you consider that the duchess was his coreligionist.

There are dozens and dozens of little character sketches of everyone from the officers of the court (Chancellor, Lord Privy Seal, Secretaries of State, etc.) and the nobility to ambassadors and notable foreigners in the land, all very concise outlines of their personalities with some extremely sharp physical descriptions, too. Another of my favorites is of a knight named Verne, who “is such a horrid pale fellow, effeminate and hairless, that at first sight, he looks like a very fine bedspread for a woman.” It’s an inspirational gem of gossipy insult. Seriously, it’s inspiring me to write.

In addition to the descriptions of people, there are some very useful (for me, anyhow) details about other things, from the membership of the Royal Society together with their specialties, to the constitution of the King’s standing forces and navy, their organization and strength, their officers and their pay. The navy lists are also priceless, to me: the whole navy of 1667/8, just after the second war with the Dutch—everything from the way the squadrons are set up (as in the Aubrey/Maturin books, it’s, in order of seniority Red, Blue, and White–each with an Admiral, Vice Admiral, and Rear Admiral) to the names, crew size, and guns of the boats.

Magalotti’s Relazione is a short book, only about 150 pages long or so, and in many places the information is very sketchy; in others, as the annotations point out, it’s just plain wrong. But Magalotti doesn’t claim to be an expert, just someone reporting on what he learned in the two months he spent in Inghilterra.

Philibert, le Comte de Gramont

The next three books I plan to read in this vein are The Travels of Cosmo the third, Grand Duke of Tuscany, through England during the Reign of King Charles the Second, attributed to Magalotti, Les Mémoires du comte de Gramont as told to Anthony Hamilton and Relation d’un voyage en Angleterre, où sont touchées plusieurs choses, qui regardent l’estat des sciences, et de la religion (A voyage to England, containing many things relating to the state of learning, religion, and other curiosities of that kingdom) by Samuel de Sorbière.

Magalotti probably didn’t write the Travels, but probably did help get it ready for publication; it’s more of a travelogue than Magalotti’s book; as is the way with Grand Princes, it’s the story of Cosimo, who happens incidentally to be in England. The Count of Gramont was a sort of Don Juan character (with a touch of Baron von Munchhausen) who narrates (and often partakes in) all the great court scandals of his time. Like Magalotti, Sorbière wrote a travelogue, but with two differences. One was that he published his, and the other that he wrote it in a style that so conformed to the stereotype of French arrogance that it caused an internation incident (he insulted English food and inns!). He was held under arrest in France for months to quash the scandal.

I’ve got the Travels on my iPad right now, I own a very nice copy of Gramont with annotations by Sir Walter Scott(!) and have read a lot of it already. I’ve never had the pleasure of reading Sorbiere’s book, but I hope to start it this week, if UPS can ever get its act together (don’t get me started).

Posted in Fortune & Favor, Reviews and tagged court tales, history | Leave a Comment

24 Oct 2012

World Building: Constable NPCs

Killed an assassin in self-defense? Burned the lab of a dastardly alchemist and all his unspeakable experiments to the ground? Caught breaking into Guildhall to rescue a wrongfully imprisoned colleague? Even the most upright, law-abiding PCs are bound to find themselves in positions that simply don’t look good. And not all PCs are particularly concerned with the letter of the law, especially where it overlaps with matters of personal honor. Dueling is a good example; while it’s technically illegal, those with any reputation to protect will find it exceedingly hard to do so if they are shy to accept challenges (q.v. Dueling, to come). It’s inevitable that, sooner or later, most PCs will butt heads with the local constable.*

Your Constable May Vary
Each constable will have his own way of dealing with those who fall afoul of him. The GM should first decide the constable’s general outlook on offenders. While they are theoretically chosen from among the most upright, fair-minded men and women of the parish, the office-holders can vary dramatically. Additionally, constables can come under considerable pressure from both the councils that appoint them and also the general body of citizenry. Confronted with an angry mob, only a tough constable will be able to simply release a detainee. Indeed, binding her over might be the only way to save her from a rougher sort of justice.

And not all constables are paragons of justice either. Some are tentative or plain lazy enough to be content to bind over everyone who doesn’t utterly intimidate them, passing the responsibility on the local Justice. Others may expect a bribe as a matter of course for the trouble of their time; no one no matter how obviously innocent, may escape without paying it. Still others may be collusion with some criminal enterprise or conspiracy; such men and women may in rare cases be utterly corrupt, but it’s more likely they do their best for the most part, only misusing their office when their unsavory allies are concerned. Corrupt constables’ motives matter; they may be acting out of greed, hatred, or fear.

PCs may even encounter a constable who, despite being otherwise fair-minded, may simply be friends with someone the PCs have crossed. Of course this assumes the constable recognizes the PCs and knows of their past. Their enmity may be as concrete as “she killed my cousin in a duel” or as vague as “I’ve heard he carouses with that great whore, the King’s Catholic mistress.”

Surface as Substance
The other factor when determining how the PCs are treated is the PCs themselves. Characters obviously guilty of, or at least involved in, something murky will very likely be bound over, especially given how litigiousness of the average Trinovantian. No constable wants to find herself on the wrong end of a lawsuit for negligence or favoritism.

Additionally, the attitude of the PCs and their general appearance and demeanor are critically important. It’s a popular belief in Restoration times that a person’s exterior appearance is the outward show of their interior, perhaps as a result of some of the less pleasant side effects of possession, trafficking with spirits, and the practice of the Arts. More phanatical puritans go so far as to believe in what is known as prosperity theology, which holds that people’s worldly success mirrors their godliness. Those who believe this tend to think that the misfortune of others are punishments for their sins. Their own misfortunes are often—but not always—seen a test sent by a God who loves them, however.

While not every constable subscribes to this sort of thinking, a well-dressed, attractive, healthy person has an inherent leg up in the sort of snap decisions a constable has to make. And, likewise those who are poorly dressed, dirty, crooked of body or limb, or otherwise villainous-looking will definitely find themselves at a disadvantage when dealing with the local constable.

Constable Checklist
Here’s a quick series of questions that can help you develop the most important traits of constables that PCs are likely to run into. You may have to make one up on the spot, of course, but, given PCs’ propensity for mayhem, breaking and entering, arson, and general disturbance of the peace, it’s not a bad idea to make one or two of the constables for each parish in which the PCs tend to operate (remember, there are three to four per parish). A few simple answers can go a long way to fleshing them out.

Name

Parish

Occupation

Usual location (day/night)

Refers prisoners to (name a Justice of the Peace)

Harsh binding over at: (specify a place)

Lenient binding over at: (specify a place)

Personality (officious, condescending, unassuming, friendly, dour)

Modus operandi (lazy, harsh, lenient, conscientious, dogged)

Honesty (scrupulous, flexible, bribable, shameless, corrupt)

Attitudes toward (positive, negative, or neutral)

gentry/nobility

the poor

foreigners

religion

The Arts

*Characters may also go to the constable for help, too, of course–but this is likely to be a far less common occurence.

Posted in Fortune & Favor, World building and tagged advice, constables, law and order | Leave a Comment

23 Oct 2012

1 Comment

World Building: Constables

Trinovantes is a bustling, chaotic metropolis, with no end of brawls, petty thefts, noise complaints, boundary disputes, overflowing cellars, drunken apprentices, escaped livestock, carriage accidents, importunate poor people, shiftless ne’er-do-wells, suspicious characters, and even foreigners. There are, of course, more serious troubles as well: Trinovantes has its share of assaults and housebreaking, rapes and kidnappings, and even arsons and murders. Yet the city as a whole is surprisingly safe. Most people get through their day unmurdered, unburned to the ground, and in possession of all their goods, however meager. This is all the more surprising given that Trinovantes has no standing, organized municipal police force–each parish of the city has to see to its own enforcement of the laws. The main keepers of law and order simply citizens specially appointed for the thankless duty: the constables of Trinovantes.

The constable is the lowest-level but often most critical official representative of law and order in the city (and most villages). Each parish appoints its own constables; there are typically three or four to a parish, appointed to serve for a term of a year or so, at a very low rate of pay. Until recently, there was no remuneration offered for the post at all, but potential office holders went to such great lengths to avoid being chosen, and those who were chosen were so susceptible to bribes, that the office now comes with a small salary.

Women Constables
Any householder is eligible for the office; since women can be householders, they can also be constables, just as they’re theoretically required to serve their turn in the watch (q.v. The Watch, coming soon). It’s more uncommon for women to serve as a constables, however, since constables are chosen from among the eligible, whereas all householders must serve their turn on the watch, or pay a fee to avoid service. Yet woman constables are not unknown. A formidable, established woman might be chosen with little fanfare, though a younger, unproven one might have to campaign hard for the post. There’s no legal barrier, however, and, considering the lengths to which most citizens would go to avoid the job, there might not have be much competition–except perhaps among those threatened by the idea of woman constable.

Duties & Requirements
The office of constable is regarded as a part-time job; the holder continues to perform his or her regular job, executing constabulary duties as required. Those duties consist of apprehending all those who commit felonies and bringing them before a Justice of the Peace, who will decide if those unfortunates should be indicted of a crime or released. The constable is expected to be available at need, within reason.

Constables wear no uniform; they may carry some sort of badge of authority, though not every parish, town, or village distributes them. At the very least, however, constables receive a written credential detailing the date and period of their appointment, as well as general description of the powers, obligations, and so on. Any person brought before a constable may request to see the constable’s credentials.

Constables may not spend the bulk of their time actually tracking down criminals; they’re more often called on to adjudicate minor disputes, and, above all, to judge whether a person arrested by the watch or other concerned citizens should be referred to a higher authority. This is mostly prevention, however—the watch is much more likely to arrest suspicious persons than they are to catch anyone in the act of anything worse than intoxication, vandalism, or lewd behavior. The onus of catching criminals is largely left to the victims. That is not to say, however, that constables don’t spend any time looking for criminals. If, say, there’s a rash of robberies or vandalism in the neighborhood, the constable will be obliged to look into them, often under pressure from the council that appointed her.

Powers & Arms
The extent to which the constabulary can do actually do anything about such crimes varies greatly. Constables aren’t trained in any way, and people are appointed to the office for any number of reasons: because the council thinks they’re fair-minded and responsible, they’re honest enough to be largely immune to bribery, they’re of sufficient status and authority that their very tenure of the office will keep down crime, or they’re deserving of a thankless, low paid, inconvenient job that may expose them to lawsuits. The ability to catch criminals is far lower on the list than the ability to keep the peace. Some constables simply go through the motions of catching offenders; others see criminals as prey whose capture is as satisfying as any fox hunt.

Given their primary role as arbiter and peacekeeper, constables aren’t required or even expected to go about armed. In the active pursuit of a dangerous criminal, however, they are far more likely to bear arms, carrying anything from a truncheon to a sword to watchbill. They’re also likely to being along members of the watch if their quarry may be dangerous.

During the day, concerned citizens can find the constable at his place of employment, at his shop, forge, home, or farm, or, perhaps at his favorite alehouse. Trinovantes is the biggest city in the world, but the individual parishes are more like towns or even villages in that everyone knows everyone else’s business. Locals will generally have a good idea how to quickly hunt down a constable. Ideally, there are enough constables in each London parish that one of them is always at hand, but this isn’t always the case. In any case, the constable is unlikely to patrol her parish to any greater extent than her daily perambulations require, though some constables are more conscientious (or officious) than that. Instead, problems are brought to her attention by people living in the parish.

Night & Day
At night, constables are supported by the watch, which does the actual nocturnal patrolling, when constables are likely to be abed. By day or by night, however, it is the constable’s job to decide whether suspicious persons (or outright offenders) need to be referred to higher authorities. So whether a constable is interrupted by a concerned citizen in the middle of whatever his other job happens to be during the day, or roused from a sound sleep by a member of the watch, it’s the constable’s job to decide whether the person in question ought to be brought before a justice of the peace.

In the daytime, this is often a simple question; either the constable decides or is convinced (or is bribed to pretend to be convinced) that the person before him represents no threat, or he’s hauled straight off to a justice. At night, however, the matter is a little trickier; if the constable decides that the suspect must be examined by a justice, there’s the matter of what to do with him until the next morning, because justices aren’t to be hauled out of bed for every voluble drunk, brawling apprentice, or shifty foreigner who crosses the boundaries of the parish. Suspects who aren’t deemed suitable for release are “bound over” until the next morning.

Genteel Offenders
Well dressed and obviously well-to-do people who can’t account for their presence are unwilling to pay the necessary bribe (if one would even be accepted, which is not by any means always the case) or who are otherwise deemed too fuddled, dangerous, or shifty to allow passage will tend to fare the best, when it comes to being bound over. They may in fact be brought home to the constable’s house or the house of some other willing and suitably upright person to sleep off the rest of their drunk (or, for the more sober, to at least pass a more or less comfortable night, depending on the state of the home).

Constables will need to carefully weigh the peacekeeping requirements of their office against the possible repercussions of real or perceived mistreatment of the rich and powerful, so those who absolutely can’t be passed on in good faith are often placed under the lightest and most nominal of arrest. It’s not unknown for constables to place those who they’re absolutely required to stop under such light guard (i.e., none other than their parole that they’ll still be there in the morning) that the problem (and the prisoner) will hopefully be gone in the morning. Note that while the ward may do their best for an upper class prisoner, depending on the ward the conditions may be quite a bit more squalid, noisy, uncomfortable, and lousy than the conditions to which the prisoner is accustomed.

Undesirables
Less-esteemed prisoners may be treated with less solicitude and put into meaner accommodations. Boisterous young apprentices found skylarking may get no accommodations at all; rather the constable may force them to tramp the boundaries of the ward with the watch that arrested them for the rest of the night.

Mean drunkards, brawlers, and spouse beaters; or housebreakers and arsonists or any other more serious category of criminal; or, indeed, anyone who looks likely to damage or get sick in the rooms the constable would normally use for binding over, are likely to find themselves placed under more severe constraint. The stocks are the mostly likely night’s accommodations for such people. If the stocks are full or for some other reason not a suitable for binding over the prisoner in question for the night, she may find herself locked in the basement of an alehouse or even trussed up in a stable or some other ignominious locale.

Special Cases
It’s worth noting that it’s not only class that will determine where a prisoner is bound over for the night. Beautiful youths, anyone with a heartbreaking tale of romance, the pregnant, the infirm, the kindly, the educated yet humble, those who firmly but politely show that they understand the law better than the constable, the good natured, and those who are in other ways sympathetic to the watch and the constabulary are far more likely to get good treatment, and even special consideration–regardless of their class or background.

Likewise slumming nobles, condescending rich people, those who threaten without convincing, anyone suspected of oppressing a sympathetic weaker person, or in any other way annoys the watch or the constables is far more likely to spend an unpleasant night than they would otherwise be entitled to expect, regardless of their station.

Of course, even these exceptions have exceptions. The very rich and very powerful will probably act how they like and still be treated with deference. And some wards may be outstandingly strict (or lax) regardless of the offender. The constable may be a mean-spirited woman, or she might have a toothache that night and everyone who gets hauled before her might end up in the stocks; she might, on the other hand, be celebrating her daughter’s wedding the next day, and might either release everyone in an excess of benevolence or overwork, or she might invite a respected figure to attend in lieu of punishment.

Local Custom
Constables are very much the local authority, and each locale has its own mood, history and way of doing things. Unless lawyers get involved or something draws the attention of the great and powerful or the low and powerful (i.e., the mob) the constable has wide authority to decide what gets treated as a minor infraction, and what gets referred to higher authorities. Additionally, while the locals may have their own issues and complaints with their constable, the very real sense of community in many parishes can cause them to pull together to back their constable against perceived threats from outsiders. It’s generally an extremely bad idea to antagonize the local constable unless you do so from a position of obvious strength and influence.

Next: Constabulary Adventure Seeds

Posted in Fortune & Favor, World building and tagged constables, law and order, Trinovantes

21 Oct 2012

6 Comments

Review: Kicking It

Kicking It: Successful Crowdfunding
by Monte Cook and Shanna Germain, Stone Box Press

When Kicking It popped up in a post from Monte Cook in my Google Plus feed, I went straight to Amazon and bought a copy (for $5.99). Why? Well, I’ve been a fan of Cook’s work since D&D 3^rd Edition. More importantly, however, I’ve been looking into Kickstarter as I get serious about Fortune and Favor. And Cook is pretty damned good at Kickstarter. He famously funded his his most recent RPG project, Numenera, to the tune of $517,255, versus an original goal of $20,000. That’s simply amazing. Shanna Germain I did not know, but it turns out she’s a prolific erotica writer collected all over the place—even in a Susie Bright anthology—and, coolest of all, she just funded her own major Kickstarter project, Geek Love, an Anthology of Full Frontal Nerdity for $32,707, as compared to an initial goal of $8,000.

So, I thought (in addition to wishing I’d gotten into Kickstarter soon enough to back these projects for the cool extras), these two clearly know what they are doing! And they’re both good writers, too. Maybe they’re the Kickstarter source I’ve been wanting. You see, I’d read a fair number of crappy articles on how to use the service (and I include Kickstarter’s own how-tos in that category), none of which really gave me a sense how to get the most out of this service.

Cook and Germain’s book, on the other hand, gives you everything you need to kill on Kickstarter, except for two things: a solid social network to help you get the word out, and the initial idea, of course. They give you some advice on the former but you’re on your own for the latter. (What do you want for $6?) It’s a little book, you can read it in one gulp. In fact it’s so little that I was initially a little bit peeved at having spent six bucks on it, but let’s just say that it’s potent for its size.

Kickstarter to Finish
The book covers Kickstarter—or Indiegogo, though it’s really 90% focused on Kickstarter—every step of the way. It advises you how to plan your campaign (a very important step), how to set up your Kickstarter account and page for maximum effect, how to actually run your campaign (it’s going to take way more time than you think), how to deal with your backers (needy or otherwise), how to pace your campaign and price your stretch goals, and how to deal with the fallout once it’s over—whether you funded your campaign or not. For each part of the process, there’s useful advice and clearly spelled-out steps that you can take to make your campaign more effective. They even give some advice on getting the stuff shipped, whether you use a service or do it yourself.

Several people have questioned the value of this advice, pointing out to me that it’s not surprising that Monte Cook’s Numenera funded at half a million dollars since he’s basically RPG royalty, and that this book is like a supermodel giving advice on how to pick up guys–not really transferrable to the population at large. Well, yes and no. Of course being famous and having a big social network is a huge leg up. But that’s missing the point of both the book and Kickstarter itself.

The average project doesn’t need half a mil to fund. Most RPGs (the category Cook crushed) are asking only $5 or $10 or maybe $20K. They simply don’t need half a million. And, more to the point, Kickstarter itself is a great platform for getting the word out. Shanna Germain, Cook’s coathor had a very successful campaign, and she’s nowhere near as famous as Cook is. The tips in this book can help no matter how modest (or enormous) your goals and your social network are.

The writing in Kicking is simple and clear and well edited—I think found only two typos in the whole thing, which is quite good, as I’m pretty picky. You never get the sense, except for one or two places where they specifically mention that there are two authors, that it’s a joint work, as the writing is seamless and maybe a little impersonal.

Exempli Gratia
And that leads to my only complaint about the book. Since the two authors ran such successful campaigns, I really hoped they would use tons of first-person examples from their own successes to illustrate their points. Not so. Maybe it’s because their projects were for a pencil-and-paper RPG and an erotica anthology. I’m all for both, but, let’s face it, these are the kind of niches that, if you’re not into them, you probably have a negative opinion about them. I suppose they thought their own examples might alienate too many readers. Or maybe they just wanted to keep the book short? This lack of an insider view into their own campaigns was the only thing that made me feel that the book was a little short for the money.

Still, while it’s a bit disappointing that Cook and Germain didn’t give us the nitty-gritty about their own experiences, it’s by no means a fatal flaw. To be fair there are some examples—both real-world and hypothetical—though more would definitely have helped the book. But you can easily sit down with Kicking It and check out real-live Kickstarters to see what they’re talking about. And that’s actually one of their pieces of advice: get on Kickstarter and back other people and watch their projects. See what’s working and what’s not. Plus, what Kickstarter regular is going to want to back someone who’s never backed anyone else? Kickstarter is its own little culture, after all, complete with log-rolling.

The most interesting section to me was how to manage your campaign; specifically how to handle “stretch goals”—something I didn’t really understand. So I sat down with the book and went through the ongoing Kickstarter for Robin Laws’ Hillfolk (which I had previously backed). I was amazed at how well his excellent campaign synced up with Cook and Germain’s advice, and how much better I understood Laws’ campaign looking at it again with the benefit of having read their book. I feel like I’m much better equipped now to run a Fortune and Favor Kickstarter, and that’s really all I could ask of this book.

A Solid Kick
The bottom line is, if you want help getting your first Kickstarter campaign off the ground, Kicking It is a great place to start. You can buy Kicking It: Successful Crowdfunding at DriveThru or at Amazon.

Posted in Reviews and tagged kickstarter, reviews

19 Oct 2012

World-building: Sedan Chairs

More comfortable fthan the hackney coach, and, when traffic is bad, faster, too.

Picture the scene: a sedan chair sways and bounces between two burly men wrapped in heavy coats and scarves, huffing and puffing as they race through the night along the narrow streets of Trinovantes. Two link boys run frantically ahead, their torches casting crazy, flickering light and shadows to illuminate the chairmen’s footing among the evenly cobbled, noisome streets. The curtains are drawn, hiding the identity of whoever would pay the exorbitant fee for a ride after midnight in this unsavory part of town, but the sharp eye might notice the corner of a petticoat caught in the door. From time to time a slim white hand that parts the curtains; within, worried eyes flash blue in a pale, drawn face. Is that the sounds of hoofbeats in the distance? The chairmen, already breathing raggedly, nevertheless redouble their efforts as the terrified link boys urge them to greater speed in harsh whispers…

The Sedan chair–known more simply as the chair, and sometime the palanquin or even the hacnkey chair–is an innovation that has made its way to Albion from the Far East by way of Italy. It may an exaggeration to call sedan chairs an innovation, since they’re really a throwback to the most primitive kind of pre-wheel, people-powered transportation; yet they’ve really only become popular in Albion in the few decades.

When they were introduced to Albion many years ago by the First Duke of Buckingham (father to the current Duke), there was a tremendous outcry against their use as being degrading, since they force men to do what was seen as the work of animals. Since then, however, the city’s terribly narrow streets have become choked with a glut of carriages built in the past few decades. Most Londoners now regard chairs as a sensible and more affordable alternative to the hackney coach.

A recently restored sedan chair, at the Tenby Museum in the UK. Note the number on the door.

A sedan chair, at its simplest, is a chair slung between two poles. Most chairs you’re likely to see for hire in Trinovantes, however, are enclosed in small upright booths made of stiff black leather studded with hundreds of broadhead brass nails that attach the leather to a light wooden frame. They have three small glass windows (on each side and to the front) with curtains. Inside, the booth is upholstered with an upholstered seat or a mid-sized, straight-backed chair. There’s a door to the front, and the roof of the booth is hinged at the back and can swing upwards, which makes entry easier for tall people, those with tall hats or elaborate coiffures, and so on.

On each side of the booth is a pair of metal brackets, and through these braces goes a pole on each side of the chair. The poles will generally be in place when you enter the chair, though, as mark of respect for the nobility, obviously wealthy patrons who might be good tippers, particularly beautiful ladies, or other people the chairmen consider worthy of respect, they’ll remove the poles to make entering the chair easier. These poles are long and fairly springy, which makes for an odd bouncing that can unpleasant for those with weak stomachs or who are intoxicated; but it’s nothing compared to the jolting ride of a carriage with metal-rimmed wheels and a crude suspension jolting down a roughly cobbled street.

Hiring and Availability

These chairs are numbered (by royal decree, their number is limited to 300 within Trinovantes), and the chairmen are licensed; the licensing and numbering of the chairs is a monopoly in the gift of the king, and a very lucrative one at that. These licensed chairs are also known as “hackney chairs,” and their rates are fixed at sixpence a ride within the limits of the city, or four shillings for a days’ rental. For fares after midnight, you should expect to pay double, and you’ll need to tip the link boy who runs ahead of the chairmen for fares after dark. For one pound one shilling, you can have a chair at your beck and call for a week. You’ll need to negotiate a special rate if you want to have the chairmen take you beyond the city limits. It’s unusual but not unheard of for the wealthy to hire a chair to take them as far away as Bath, 116 miles away. For that you’d need to hire a team of perhaps eight chairmen to spell one another, however.

Whatever your destination, you may flag down a passing chair, and there are also stands, marked by blue posts, where chairmen will wait for patrons. Chairmen regularly wait before Whitehall Palace, for example. Chairmen wear blue jackets (or greatcoats, in the winter) black knee breeches, white stockings, and cocked hats.

A wealthy citizen’s privately-owned chair

Chairs and the Well-to-do

Many of the most ancient of the homes of the nobility have narrow entryways designed before the advent of carriages; if such a family can afford a carriage it may be kept in elsewhere. Indeed, there are many public streets within the city that are far too narrow for carriages, but that chairs can navigate with ease, depending on the street’s congestion and condition and the skill of the chairmen.

Those with servants will often send one out to summon a chair, which the passenger can enter within his or her home, to be deposited within the gates or doors of the destination, if desired. Given the terrible weather that plagues Trinovantes, and the appalling state of the streets in even the best neighborhoods, this can be a privilege worth the price. Additionally, with the curtains drawn, this makes for an excellent way to escape prying eyes.

The rich may even own their own chairs; such people are likely to have their own men to carry the chair, possibly dressed in the livery of their house. Such chairs are often works of art, both beautifully appointed with luxurious upholstery within with chairs purchased from the finest furniture makers, and gorgeously decorated without, with painting, goldwork, coats of arms, wooden crests, and so on.

Not for the Faint-hearted

While the chair is a more agile vehicle than the hackney carriage, not every chair ride ends happily; the life of the patron is literally within the hands of the chairmen. And the chairmen, of course, make more money the more fares they carry; chairmen are among the strongest and fleetest of feet you’re likely to meet among the common folk in London. The average unathletic Trinovanter would have trouble keeping up with even a laden chair for long. The rate of travel can be quite unnerving.

It’s hardly surprising, therefore, that the chair accidents are not unknown, caused by anything from a drunken pedestrian who fails to flatten himself against the wall at the shouted “By your leave!” or “Have care!” that are the habitual cries of the chairman, to a sudden eruption of pigs on the way to the market, to an expected meeting with an another chair travelling in the opposite direction, to the attitude of the driver of a carriage of a nobleman, who feels that he has the right of way. The chairs themselves are quite sturdy if light, but their glass windowpanes are apt to shatter in a crash, and the doors and roofs to fly open, spilling the occupant out onto a noisome, and above all, hard street in a crash.

Chairmen tend to be quite skilled at their jobs, however, and they’re often surprisingly adept at causing other people, animals, and carriages to be overset while scraping by uninjured with their burdens. The most common cause of chair wrecks in recent months has to do more with rich young nobles and gentles than with any failing on the part of the chairmen. A quite popular sport at the moment is sedan-chair racing. Most of these races are, needless to say, impromptu affairs that begin late at night, with alehouses, whorehouses, and gaming houses as their likeliest starting and ending points. And as spectators and “jockeys” are likely to stand winning porters a porter between heats, these races frequently end badly for someone. The king is reportedly not amused, but has not gone so far as to forbidden the sport.

Sedan chairs are safe…usually. Note the liveried chairmen and torchbearer.

Dangers of the Chair

The more troubling (and certainly forbidden) cause of chair wrecks caused by the rich and idle is simply thuggery. The Wild Boys and other disreputable gangs of sons (and even daughters) of the well-to-do who have plagued the capital since the Restoration brought so many young Cavaliers raised penniless and nearly feral home to restored fortunes, have taken to chasing sedan chairs through the streets on foot or worse, from horseback, attempting to overturn their burdens. Sometimes their sport is simply to run the chairmen down like wild deer until they simply collapse. Bearers who have refused to run have received savage beating far beyond the injuries suffered in a crash; so if the Mohicans start chasing your sedan chair, you’re likely in for quite a ride…

Posted in Fortune & Favor, World building and tagged history, RPG, sedan chairs, transportation | Leave a Comment

18 Oct 2012

World Building: Coffee Houses

A coffee-man keeps a coffee market, where people of all qualities and conditions meet, to trade in foreign drinks and and newes, ale, smoak, and controversy. He admits of no distinction of persons, but gentlemen, mechanic, lord, and scoundrel all mix, and are all of a piece… he sells burnt water and burnt beans that is, although not delicious on the palate, warmer in the stomach; that never stirs the blood with wanton heated, nor raises idle fancies in the brain, but sober and discreet imaginations. It is a kind of drink, as curses are a kind of prayers, that neither nourishes, nor quenches thirst. If it were not for news and the cheapness of company, he would be utterly abandoned: for that, with the freedom to vapor, lye, and and loiter upon free cost, draws more company than his coffee… (James Butler, Characters)

In Bartholomew Lane on the back side of the Old Exchange, the drink called Coffee, (which is a very wholsom and Physical drink, having many excellent vertues, closes the Orifice of the Stomack, fortifies the heat within, helpeth Digestion, quickneth the Spirits, maketh the heart lightsom, is good against Eye-sores, Coughs, or Colds, Rhumes, Consumptions, Head-ach, Dropsie, Gout, Scurvy, Kings Evil, and many others is to be sold both in the morning, and at three of the clock in the afternoon). ~Printed ad for Coffee

Coffee houses may be new development, but they’re one that Trinovantians have taken up wholeheartedly. Their democratic outlook made them as popular during the Protectorate as they are suspect to the royalist authorities since the Restoration. Known to Turkey merchants since the turn of the century, coffee was only recently been introduced to the public as a whole.

The air is a bit less smokey than you might expect…

The story of coffee in Albion begins in Smyrna, where Levant Company merchant Daniel Edwards learned the habit of drinking many dishes of the wholesome beverage each day. So taken was he with the habit that the most important duty of his valet Pasqua Rosee–more than his ability to to keep accounts, negotiate in several languages, and drive a coach–was his skill at the making of coffee. No matter how many servants Edwards had to attend to him at table, his coffee was always prepared by Rosee.

When Edwards returned to Albion, his house was open to visitors, both the friendly and the business sort, and, several times per day, guests were treated to the exotic eastern beverage, prepared by Rosee. While few professed to enjoy it as first taste, most quickly acquired a taste for it, and soon enough Edwards found that not only had he converted his friends and colleagues, but that the frequency and number of their visits–always seeming to coincide with his customary coffee drinking times–threatened both his purse and his piece of mind. Rosee, having spent many years in the service of Edwards and having taken the measure of Trinovantes and its citizens, was ready to strike out on his own. He proposed a solution that could only appeal to Edwards, both in his mercantile nature and in his desire to see Rosee well provided for after many years of faithful service. He would open a shop selling coffee, with Edwards as his backer and partner.

Rosee’s first shop opened in 1654 little as more than a market stall. It was situated on St. Michael’s Alley, part of the maze of streets, alleys, and yards that contained the people and shops that overflowed from the nearby Royal Exchange on Cornhill. Little more than a shed on the edge of the St. Michael’s churchyard, with front shutters that folded down into a counter and up to form a sort of awning, the little shop, it was an unprepossessing structure, except for its sign, which depicted Rosee himself (hence its name, The Turk’s Head) and the exotic smells of roasting coffee. Indeed, parish authorities received many complaints about for the “noisome” smells, which his neighbors were sure was poisoning them (though how it could worse than the sea-coal vapors is hard to know). It was Rosee’s success, rather than his smells, however, which eventually forced him out of his stall and into a part of building of his own, which, soon enough, he leased the whole of, creating, thereby, the first of Albion’s many coffee houses.

Today there more than 50 coffee houses in Trinovantes, and while they are usually simple affairs, often offering no more than stools and a few tables in a single room, and generally selling nothing but coffee (or sometimes the other even more exotic delicacies, tea and chocolate), they are a flourishing as a group. The Turk’s Head is a bit of an oddity in that it’s known by the name of it’s sign, after the fashion of taverns and alehouses. Most coffee houses are known by their proprietor’s last name.

The coffee house’s democracy of ideas (and the tremendous amounts of caffeine imbibed, no doubt) can sometimes lead to spirited debates.

Coffee Houses and the Law

Coffee houses were ideally suited to the soberiety (literal and figurative) of the Protectorate, when the ascendant puritanism frowned on (and frequently legislated against) taverns and Alehouses, seeking to suppress what they saw as ungodly drunkenness and the licentiousness, wastage of time, and (perhaps worst of all) drinking to the King’s health that it entailed. Drinking establishments and all that they represented were identified with the hated Cavaliers and their way of life. With the Restoration, however, the worm has turned and it’s the coffee houses that are viewed with distrust by the authorities.

Why? First of all, the custom in coffee houses is unabashedly democratic, after the manner of the Turkish originals, a custom that resonated with the ideals of the commonwealth and Protectorate. There is, at least in theory, no precedence in the coffee house. No man need yield his seat for another, and each new customer is expected to take the next seat available, regardless of who he might have to share a table with. And, furthermore, each patron is expected to make conversation with his neighbors. Take a seat at a coffee house and anyone from natural philosophers and students to merchants and apprentices to virtuosi and fops to poets and playwrights might be sitting at table across from you. Masterless men and the poorer sort of laborers, will not be made to feel welcome, but even they will not be turned away if they are reasonably clean, abide by the rules, and can pay their penny for a dish of coffee. It is exactly this disregard for status that makes those who are invested in preserving it nervous.

Worse, however, is that fact that, in addition to a democracy of persons, there’s also a democracy of topics. Coffee houses are the home of conversation–and disputation, debates, arguments, and rhetoric, too, and topic might be the latest spectacular crime, a new double-hull system to render navy ships unsinkable, the latest prospects of war with Olland Or Ys, the latest bills before Parliament, or even the latest salacious gossip about court debaucheries. Furthermore, the coffee house proprietor is sure to subscribe not only to the two licensed newspapers, but also the newsbooks and newsletters that escape press censorship by virtue of being copied by hand; all these, and the popular pamphlets of the day, too, approved or not. There’s such an education to be had at the coffee houses that they are commonly referred to as the penny universities.

The Folly, a popular floating coffee house moore in the Thames, opposite Somerset House.

Coffee Houses and The Crown

In Albion there is no guaranteed right to free speech, much less freedom of the press. Not only does the Crown control the two tame newspapers (which print mainly its items of foreign affairs, not the local news everyone craves), but speech itself can be a crime. Prosecution for sedition (speech that intends to subvert the the authority of the crown or incite discontent) is rare enough but not unheard of, and the threat of it hangs over all who speak their minds too freely in public places or in front of the wrong people. Even in coffee houses, it’s not not unheard of for spies or informers to mingle with the patrons, especially if there are rumors of insurrection, or if a particular coffee house becomes too famous for its rebellious clientele.

On the whole, the Crown has been content–so far–to allow coffee houses to continue to ply their trade, viewing them as a mostly harmless outlet for hotheads. Still, it’s only one generation ago that the the hotheads rose up and killed their last King (and the father of the current one), so perhaps it’s not so surprising that they view their coffee houses as “the great resort of Idle and Disaffected persons who have produced very evil and dangerous effects, and where diverse False, Malitious and Scandalous Reports are devise and spread abroad, to the Defamation of of his Majesties Government, and to the Disturbance of the Peace and Quiet of the Realm.’ For now, advocates of tolerance prevail, but the king has many advisors who would be happy to see them shuttered. For now, they bide their time, waiting until the next scandal or plot that can be traced back to coffee-house plotters…

Further subjects
Noteworthy Coffee Houses
The Folly, A floating coffee-house moored in the Thames

Select Bibliography
The Coffee House: A Cultural History, Markman Ellis
Old English Coffee Houses, Rodale Press
The Diary of Samuel Pepys (Companion)
Characters, Samuel Butler
The Velvet Coffee Woman
London the Time of the Stuarts
Tarugo’s wiles; or, The coffee-house, Sir Thomas St. Serfe
The penny universities: A history of the coffee-houses, Aytoun Ellis

Posted in Fortune & Favor, World building and tagged entertainments, food and drink, history, RPG | Leave a Comment

17 Oct 2012

2 Comments

Fortune & Favor: Design Goals

Restoration-era poet John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester

Johnny Depp as Rochester in The Libertine: a perfect introduction to the seamier side of F&F

Kicking off the F&F posts, I thought I’d start with some of the design goals–the things about the game that I’d like to make sure get modeled in the rules, and that get fully baked into the world and the setting.

Fortune and Favor rule the world. This is the big one. Most of the Albionish are split into two camps regarding the world and how and why things happen. Depending on one’s outlook, the mysteries in the world can either be explained by happenstance or design. One is either lucky or blessed. The things that happen in the world are either the result of impersonal forces that can be interpreted and manipulated; or the intervention of a personal God and his intermediaries (the “Holy Family” is the dominant Religion in Albion’s part of the world) who, in return for worship and prayer may grant their supplicants divine favor.

Luck and Blessings are available to the common people. They are demonstrably effective, at least among the Fortunate and the Favored. Mechanically, the results are more or less the same, though the perception filters through which the two sides see the world will lead them to hopefully vastly different sorts of experiences and play. Only a subset of the people in the world will actually be Fortunate or Favored (probably if their “attunement” stat is high enough, and they are living according to the personal code they believe makes them Fortunate or Favored). The rest of the world simply believes that Luck and Blessings influence the course of their lives. Of course they also believe in fairies and witches–but who’s to say they’re wrong to do so?

This is (and isn’t) the Restoration. Charles II isn’t king, and the country isn’t called Great Britain, nor is the year exactly 1660, but players looking for ideas about what the world is like could do worse than to read some of Samuel Pepys’ diaries, Rochester poetry or Defoe’s period fiction or to watch Restoration (Robert Downey, Jr.!), Stage Beauty (Claire Danes and Billy Crudup!), or The Libertine (Johnny Depp!).

The City is the most powerful NPC. Londinium, or perhaps Trinovantes (New Troy), is a living being with an endless hunger for men and women. One-sixth of all people now alive will spend some part of their lives in the great city, drawn in by its tremendous human gravity–the next largest city holds barely a tenth as many people. Yet the city’s life is a far greater force than the mere sum of its guildsmen, apprentices, mobs, masterless men, nobles, phanatiques, merchants, lawyers, clerics, or students.

While the city is huge for its day, it’s small enough that one indiscretion, one duel, one well-timed quip and a character can find himself celebrated in the newsbooks and broadsheets, dissected in the coffee shops that are springing up everywhere, and lampooned on stage before a royal audience–all before the week is out. The city delights in devouring no one more than those it raises up from obscurity. The cheering crowds can all too quickly turn into a baying mob, clamoring for your head on a pike at Traitors’ Gate. Reputation and fame matter in F&F, as do associations, obligations, and patronage–all of which will have important roles in the game, reflected in the rules.

Fencing is gritty and deadly, but… with some sort of mechanism for being “taken out,” as in FATE. It might be as simple as asking from the outset if the characters are prepared to fight to the death or not, with the assumption set at either yes or no for all fights in the game, depending on the campaign. Fighting to the death will probably grant some advantages in terms of effort/morale, but it also obviously brings a certain degree of risk, too. There is probably a flipside: those who don’t take prisoners get a reputation for being cold-blooded killers, and will probably not be afforded the courtesy of being taken alive, if there isn’t some clear reason to do so. In a world where guns exist.

Spirits exist. Vancian Magic doesn’t. Some are clearly remnants of those who have lived before, others are primordial beings who exist solely in the spirit realm, and others still are known as demons; whether these are simply “outsiders” or the devils that oppose the holy family (and, indeed, the angels that support them) is another question, one whose answer depends on the querent’s outlook on the Unseen World, as well.

Spirit Bindings and Pacts are the major source of “magic” in the game. Pact and command-based Ritual magic also exists; but none of it quick enough to be cast in combat, and none of it that isn’t deeds performed by, or information revealed by, or Fortune/Favor manipulated by the beings with whom the pact is made.

Possession is a real fear, and there should be detailed rules for the effects of possession, both involuntary and voluntary (a possibility). Exorcisms are performed by both religious and freelance operators, licensed and otherwise. Charlatans and true believers abound, so caveat emptor…

Posted in Fortune & Favor, Game Design and tagged restoration, RPG, world-building

16 Oct 2012

Restoration, Restored

John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester–a key figure in the historical Restoration: mad, bad and dangerous to know long before Byron… (photo by lisby1)

Fortune & Favor represents a new beginning for something I’ve been working on, off and on, for more than ten years: a combination gaming and fiction project. I honestly can’t remember which came first, since my earliest notes (on paper) aren’t dated. The two strands started off as a Victorian steampunk game and a high fantasy novel, and eventually met somewhere in the middle, in deep world-building for a low fantasy RPG in an analog of Restoration-era London. The game was at one point called Restoration: The Game of Royalty & Rogues, and then Plagues & Privateers, and, most recently, Fortune and Favor–which I’m going to stick with because 1) it really describes the heart of the game world and 2) I bought the URL.

Along the way I discovered not only a real love for history (a real surprise for me, a died-in-the-wool escapist) and an absurd mania for collecting history books (far, far less shocking), but also a real fascination with game design and mechanics. I experimented with homebrew systems, which turned out to be a tremendous waste of time. I haven’t given up the idea of someday perfecting my percentile-based, Rolemaster-inspired 12-stat system (it’s a Zodiac thing), but in addition to being extremely complicated to write, all my potential playtesters have told me, in pretty much these exact words, “no fucking way.” Customizing a generic system is so much more clearly the way to go.

But which one? Basic Roleplaying, Tri-Stat DX, FUDGE, FATE (including the excellent Strands of Fate), GURPS, Savage Worlds, Heroquest, ORE, and, most recently, Legend–which amounts, more or less, to coming full circle, as a descendant of BRP. I’ve also been loving Sorcerer, lately, too. For playtesting the world, I’m probably going to stick with ORE because it’s very easy to use out of the box and meets some of my basic design goals (more on these soon) with maybe a little Legend thrown in–because Legend’s licensing is so simple and, well, open. And, frankly, because I’m more comfortable with simulationist games, since that’s mostly what I’ve played. But I can’t deny that there is a real appeal in narrativist games. Plus, it would be nice to be on the right side of the trend, since I’d love to publish and actually sell this thing.

So I’ll probably be working on a FATE or Savage Worlds rules at the same time. I may convert entirely to FATE once FATE Core is out, someday! The other possibility is to work out some kind of mashup; Legend/ORE mechanics with FATE character aspects? Legendary FATE? Actually, there’s another system I’d love to mash in, if it were open license: Gumshoe. Legendary Gummy FATE! Honestly however, the main project is going to be a largely system-independent setting: Londinium, in the kingdom of Albion, under the recently restored reign of Herne IX. (The names might change.)

What to expect here:

Posts of actual rough copy. This is the meat of the blog. The progress I make on the setting book will be the main measure of success for this project.

Notes and reviews on books I’m reading as research. Either games, or, more likely, books. These might be just notes or quotes, they might be excerpts, or they might be short reviews.

Fiction set in the world of Restoration. I’ve been working on this stuff for ages, and I’m really looking forward to starting it p again.

Art for Restoration. Public domain images I’m gathering for inpiration and reference and, eventually, sketches of stuff commissioned for the game, too.

Kickstarter Updates. As I get going on this, I’m going to start researching the budget for producing a fully-designed book and getting together a Kickstarter project. And that’s the start!

Interviews. I hope to interview some people who know a whole lot more about game design and world building than me for pointers, ideas, and tips in the field, both for my own education and to share with my readers (if any).

So, that’s the idea. I hope there will be a few of you out there who might find this interesting at some point, but I’ll probably carry on either way–blogging seems like a great way to keep myself honest when it comes to keeping at my writing.