Duelling Fops of Vindamere (OOC Thread)

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A Fiery Flying Roll

Hating Dungeons and Dragons before it was cool
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This is an odd game and will probably appeal to the more narratively focused people. A GMless RPG (that as Stan Stan has pointed out plays as much like a boardgame) with randomly generated events providing the "meat" of the campaign.

Blurb:
Greg Stolze's newest tabletop roleplaying game puts you in the corrupt, dissolute city-state of Vindamere, but don't worry. You play the best people there, spoiled children of privilege with nothing better to do than pursue swordplay, flirt outrageously, and snack on delicious vol-au-vents. A single game session covers the social year from Ye Midwinter Balle through the prestigious Alle-Valley Fencinge Championeshippe. Your louche elite blade-swanks fall in love, brawl, sneer and engage in truly petty social rivalries.


Imagine a game that's "Bridgerton, only extremely violent" or "extra-horny Cobra Kai, with swords."

All the game's complexity is emergent. You can play it over and over without having to prep it or continue a meandering story. The hard stuff has already been built into the mechanics and the step-by-step procedures for generating drama, intrigue, and coarse humor. All players have to do is make the key decisions and roll on combinations of four stats (Foppish, Serious, Duelist and Aristocrat) to subtly humiliate rivals, engage in duels of wits (or more commonplace duels of swords), make earnest plights of troth, and carry on with the restraint and dignity you'd expect if Romeo was madly in love with Lady MacBeth.


In full detail, the game works like this:


  • Each player portrays the instructor of an illustrious dueling school. Instructors have four stats in opposed sets (Foppish and Serious, Duelist and Aristocrat)
  • Each instructor also comes with two Beloveds. When players decide to play a scene as a Beloved instead of their instructor, they get special modifiers to their stats. But beware! Other players can woo your Beloveds away, and that just won't do!
  • At the beginning of a new scene, players set up the situation by rolling on prompts, collectively deciding on key details, and determining whether to play as their instructor, a Beloved, or in some scenes, both at once!
  • Each player decides on an action for their instructor or Beloved to take, rolls a ten-sided die, and adds the sum of two of the four stats. If the player has advantage, they roll twice and take the highest result. If they have disadvantage, they roll twice and take the lowest result.
  • If the total result is 15 or higher, or the player rolls a 10 on the die, they succeed. If the result's lower, or the player rolls a 1 on the die, they fail. Either way, it'll lead to some serious shenanigans.

Let me know if it appeals. I think it should play fine from 3-6 (including me!)
 
I'd try it too, depending of scehdule of course. It does look wonderful.
 
Excellent, I'll look at sorting this out properly tomorrow!
 
Ok, let's get this fop on the road!

Few quick questions. Does everyone own a copy of the rulebook? (It's not on Drivethru soon but should be soon). And how are we handling dice? Just rolling and reporting the results back?
 
I have the book. I have no strong opinions on dice. I believe that the pub discord has a roller if you want to use it.
 
I don't have the rulebook but will grab it once it is available.
 
I do not have the rule book, and won't be able to pick it up right away.
 
I'd like to try it, but I haven't got the book, either.
 
Not having the book is fine! I just wanted to check how much info to give people in terms of things like character creation.

Give me a day to do my game elsehwere and I'll run people though character creation tomorrow.

Player list (and I think this is us full)

Me
Stan Stan
Fenris-77 Fenris-77
Voros Voros
AsenRG AsenRG
 
Ok, I'll keep this thread for things like chat and character gen and start a new one when the game starts properly.

As a note, it's now up on Drivethru for 13 dollars. But I think there should be more than enough to play without it. We'll use Discord for dice rolls.

What I'm going to do is run through character gen myself, while explaining what I'm doing so other people can follow with their own characters.
 
As a quick note, I'm going to try not to c&p too much flavour text out of respect to the designer.

We are all fops from Vindamere, as the name suggests. The cream of the crop, the cities gentry. Let the lower classes worry about such trivial things as food. We want to swish our fringes, fall in and out of love and generally behave like obnoxious overgrown children. We all run our own duelling schools which naturally are the best duelling schools in Vindamere, nay the world. Apart from yours. Yours sucks.

There are four stats in the game. Foppish. Duellist. Serious. Aristocrat.

Task resolution is very simple. Roll a d10. 1 is an auto failure, 10 is an auto success. Otherwise add two stats. If you get a 15 or better you succeed. If you get less you fail. If you have advantage roll 2d10 and pick the best, disadvantage roll 2d10 and pick the worst.

Foppish + Serious together always equals 10. So the more serious you are the less foppish.

Duellist and Aristocrat also equal 10.

Doing stuff!

Foppish & Aristocrat is for hijinks. Roll it to seduce someone or outshine your rival.

Foppish & Duellist is for fancy pants fighting. Use it to humilate someone or to brag about how great you are.

Serious + Aristocrat is for dealing with the "real world" of peasants and turnips. Use it to buy stuff or to talk sense into one of your "friends".

Serious + Duellist is for serious fighting. No fancy footwork here. Use it to try and kill someone or to train hard.

You have two beloveds. Friends, lovers, family members etc. These can be killed or have their affections stolen away by the machinations of your rivals. If you're ever out of beloveds you're out of the game while you go brood on a moor somewhere, probably while wearing black and a frown.

If a single stat ever reaches 10 you're also out of the game in an interesting and dramatic manner, specifics depending on which stat it is.

You can also get killed in a duel, but honestly, that's pretty unlikely.

The game ends either if two characters reach their final fate or somebody wins the Alle-Valley Fencinge Championeshippe.

All rules can be transcended through Ye Rule of Democratic Liberty. If all players agree unanimously something happens, it does.
 
Ok, to do my character!

First of all I roll my Foppish on d6 + 2 so I head over to Discord. First of all I roll a d10 and then remember I'm supposed to be using a d6. Oops.

I roll 4. So my Foppish is 4, which gives me a Serious of 6. As Fops go, I lean towards the scowling side. I roll Duellist 8 giving me an Aristocrat of 2. At this point, I seem to be more of a psychopath than an actual fop. (Also worth noting my Duellist is already dangerously close to removing me out of the game, probably in some way that involves killing things).

Next I choose the name of my fencing school/style of fencing. (Something like the Subtle Stab Path). I have a random generator if you're feeling lazy, but I'm feeling creative. I also decide to make up my own name rather than roll randomly. I choose the forename myself but choose to be one of the great noble families (Bargland, Claft, Crowp, Dannarshud, D'Ocrets, Ee, Meanswell, Pordilho, Punstrustrilzo, Stunz, Trattulio, Vingarmeld)) - this has no mechanical impact, it just sounds cool.

Finally I roll 2d20 to find out who my starting beloveds are. (The table for this is in the book and I can obviously type them in when people roll). If I roll a duplicate I can either double up or go one up and down.

You can see my beloveds in the Character sheet. I named them myself. Note that the modifiers only come in when they're the focus of a scene!

And that's it. Pretty straightfoward so everyone can do theirs now, but obviously ask if you need any help with anything or want to use random name generation.

Name: Maximilian Crowp School: The Pummeling Hammer Technique

Foppish: 4
Serious: 6
Duellist: 8
Aristocrat: 2

Beloveds:

Priscilla the Adoring Spouse: Supportive, and as in love with you as the day you married. Someone you can absolutely take for granted. +2 ARISTOCRAT

Tobias Crump the Betrayed or Betraying Friend: What did you do to earn such passionate wrath? You get disadvantage on all ARISTOCRAT rolls. (I betrayed him. He left me to look after his pet hamster and I used it for sword practice, because I'm a wanker).

Boasts:

I will win the swordplay tournament this year!


Infatuations: Infatuated by Patrina Trindlebottom
 
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Alright, lemme get my fop on here. I'm using Orokos to roll because I'm familiar with it.

Rolling for Fop: 1#1d6+2 7
Rolling for Duellist: 1d6+2 4

Name:
Benito Trattulio, Marquis of Lesser Vidalia, Ordained Knight of the Velvet Ribbon
School: Guild of the Laughing Poniard

Foppish 7
Serious 3
Duellist 4
Aristocrat 6

Now I need me some summer lovin' so for beloveds Beloved 1: 1d20 10 and Beloved 2: 1d20 2

Brunhilde Dannarshud - Scorned Lover: Equipped with an acid tongue and not shy about using it. Do you feel affection still… or just guilt? -2 ARISTOCRAT - Benito still carries a torch for the Ice Princess of Goeliche, but suffers under her scorn and derision, perhaps that dalliance with her sister was poorly considered...

Gergio Battaglia - Brilliant Beginner: Not even at full growth but beating students years older. It’s all too easy for this one. But when it’s easy, it’s hard to take it seriously… -1 SERIOUS, +2 DUELIST A younger cousin, aspiring poet, and very much a wastrel and a cad, he often drags Benito into slippery situations beneath his station...

Infatuated with Aumont Applethorpe
 
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I rolled up a very average fellow except he doesn't take his family duties as seriously as his father would like.

Name Nigel Trickelbank, next in line to be Lord Greensplatt
School: The Strategy for Cromulent Enlightenment

Foppish: 4
Serious: 6
Duellist: 8
Aristocrat: 2

Beloveds:

Patrina Trindlebottom Scorned Lover: Equipped with an acid tongue and not shy about using it. Do you feel
affection still… or just guilt? Infatuated with Basil Applethorpe. -2 ARISTOCRAT

Lord Greensplatt, Distant Father: Stern patrician, has always withheld affection and approval, which
you crave. The standard deal. -1 FOPPISH, -1 DUELIST


Infatuated with Georgio Battaglia.
 
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Now I need me some summer lovin' so for beloveds Beloved 1: 1d20 10 and Beloved 2: 1d20 2

That gives you:
2 Scorned Lover: Equipped with an acid tongue and not shy about using it. Do you feel affection still… or just guilt? -2 ARISTOCRAT

10 Brilliant Beginner: Not even at full growth but beating students years older. It’s all too easy for this one. But when it’s easy, it’s hard to take it seriously… -1 SERIOUS, +2 DUELIST
 
Incidentally:

The character with the highest starting DUELIST is renowned as leading the greatest school of swordplay in the land, and has possession of ye Baron’s Clayemorre, the trophy for winning the yearly swordplay tournament. If it’s tied, determine randomly who won last year. Everyone has an opinion and the rivalry would be even fiercer, except that the rivalries between all the players are already at maximum ferocity.

If someone gets 8 that will be them.

At the moment it's a roll off between Maximilian and Nigel and anyone else. And if it's not Maximilian, prepare for a brood that can shake the rafters.
 
I sneer at anyone so base as to brood about the possession of antique sword. I may go so far as to snicker behind my hand.

In other news, do we need to come up with background beyond what's above?
 
In other news, do we need to come up with background beyond what's above?

That's entirely optional. You can jot down some stuff before we start but you can happily just add to it in play if you prefer.
 
While Voros Voros and AsenRG AsenRG get their characters together, a little bit more about how the game works.

As I mentioned, the structure here is quite narrativist to the point it feels a bit like a boardgame to me.

The game is divided into "scenes". Some of these are preset events (Ye Midwinter Balle) and others are determined randomly (Grog-House Brawl).

In each scene either your Fop or one of their beloveds (or maybe both) will be the focus of events.

There's a list of possible actions but you can choose to go "off script"; in that case we all just work out what stat it is etc.

We take it in turns to do those. You say what you're doing, resolve it mechanically and then narrate the outcome.

And that's pretty much it!
 
A few questions/points.

The raw actually has a specific order for turns. I'm thinking with it being online that's more trouble than it's worth. People should just jump in with their turn when there's a space. What do people think?

As written, who narrates outcomes changes from doing it yourself to the person on your left. We can keep that. But if people want to make it more trad we can have it as everyone narrates their own characters. If you want it even more chaotic, anyone can narrate as long as they have a good/funny idea.

When looking at actions do people want the mechanical effects described up front?

Because we're all Fops, obviously sexy time may come up. My assumption is it's farce/fade to black. So "Maximilian leads Lord Greensplatt by the hand to a nearby bush. 20 minutes later, they both come back looking rather flustered" rather than blow by blow (pun intended) descriptions.
 
Ok, I'll keep this thread for things like chat and character gen and start a new one when the game starts properly.

As a note, it's now up on Drivethru for 13 dollars. But I think there should be more than enough to play without it. We'll use Discord for dice rolls.

What I'm going to do is run through character gen myself, while explaining what I'm doing so other people can follow with their own characters.

Thanks, I'm lazy and have poor impulse control so I just bought the ruleset and will roll up a PC in the next day or so.
 
And better to not wait on me. I just PMed A Fiery Flying Roll Black Leaf with a more detailed explanation, but the tl;dr version is "I don't believe I'd add a positive contribution to this kind of game, and I don't want to be That Guy".

(In my defense, I didn't know anything about the game when I expressed interest - based on the premise, of course:shade:).
 
Basil Applethorpe

mw250621~2.jpg

Foppish: 8
Serious: 2
Duelist: 4
Aristocrat: 6

School: Subtle Mongoose Style

My Beloveds:

- Aumont, my Bitter Daughter.
- Lucien, my Wastrel Bastard Son

The ruleset looks fun!
 
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I think all that is needed now is for Nigel and Maximilian to roll off to see who has the reputation of the greatest school in the land. (D10, highest wins).

I rolled a 6
 
I think all that is needed now is for Nigel and Maximilian to roll off to see who has the reputation of the greatest school in the land. (D10, highest wins).

I rolled a 6
Scratch that, it's Maximillian. (I thought Nigel had 8 as well for some reason!)
 
Hah. The poor uneducated oaf can't even perform simple arithmetic. How oh so very embarrassing.
 
My deepest condolences to the Trattulio family for not being able to afford a man to do the counting for them.
 
I smooth my moustache at your feeble repartee. It will make an amusing anecdote over bridge this weekend. Laughter all around.
 
You may want to add infatuations to your character sheet as a memory aid. Especially as it is more than possible to get multiple ones...
 
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