The Court of the Empress: a LJ based game-- Call for Players

[mcroft]

Update: The game has started. Rules are, unless changed, here.

I read Neel Krishnaswami's The Court of the Empress (a complete RPG in a single 20x20 room blog post!) and my immediate thought was that it would be easy to play it in LiveJournal. It's a simple, interesting RPG that starts en media res and unfolds in a series of formal statements and responses.

The Empress is an immensely powerful and utterly unchallenged despot over a vast empire. A single word from her can cause a city to be built, and a second word could take all the lives within an entire nation. She lives within a vast palace filled with the wonders received as tribute from every nation under the sun. Thousands live within, spending their lives maintaining the gardens, cooking the delicacies, playing the songs, and guarding the jewels that make her life the most opulent in the world.

The players of this game take on the roles of the Empress herself, and of minor courtiers who seek her out, chancing death to petition her for a favor.

As I said on that blog, if we were to run this game in LJ,

it would be a writing exercise in portraying emotion, feeling, body language, tone, and picking up on them, as well as an opportunity for persuasive writing to shine.

Neel didn't know if it would work in LJ, so I figured, I'd try it.

So, as I see it, the way this would work on LJ would be that the person who started the game would be the Empress, Opening the Scene in the initial post and bringing forth her servants in the first comment. All courtier introductions shall be in reply to this comment.

Once the courtiers are introduced, then the Empress will begin commanding service of them. All living courtiers are allowed (and encouraged!) to comment upon their rival's efforts, until the Empress moves on to a new courtier and a new service.

Once every courtier has been asked to provide a service to the Empress, if there are more than one living courtier, the process repeats, per the game rules, the Empress is obliged to choose all living courtiers in a round robin, but is not obliged to follow any particular order.

The round ends when the last courtier standing is allowed to request a boon of the Empress. Her whim is, as expected, law, so make the request and the reason are convincing...

--
Implementation notes.

• Read the rules before starting to play.


• All comments must be in character speech only, without describing actions, feelings, background, tone except through words stated by the character.


• Please put your courtier's name in the subject of your reply every time.


• The Empress's decisions regarding life-and-death are arbitrary, unfair, and can only be appealed in game (until you're killed).


• If play stalls due to slow/non-responsive players, the Empress will move on.


• Dead players cannot talk until they have a new courtier in the next round.


• I intend to play this exactly as written to see how it works.


• Players may join at any time before the first cycle of couriers is complete. After that they must wait for the next round.


• I will start a second post at the same time for OOC discussion and commentary on the game. Lurkers and dead players may discuss the game there.


• Player roster and scores will be kept, probably in the OOC post.Edit: Scores are kept so that players can track their own strategies in each round. They don't compare validly between players.


• Only the Empress may respond to the main post, all other comments must be in response to her Edit: or to another Courtier.


• No pictures, unless they're in the Empress' initial description of the Court.


• Chains of Comments will be Frozen when they are complete, which will be when the Empress says.


• The Empress declares that she will willfully delete inappropriate off-topic threads and willfully execute inappropriate on-topic courtiers.


• The Empress decrees that foul language is not permitted at court, and directs her courtiers to eschew it.


• The Empress is fond of the Euphamism "cuddle" for most things that are beyond the bounds of accepted taste. Courtiers are instructed to use it cleverly.


• Cute use of LJ Icons does not count as disallowed use of Images, unless the Empress feels it is interfering with the exercise, in which case the rule will be changed.


• Courtiers have 24 hours to respond to the Empress (unless they can cite significant RL interference (internet outage, hospitalization, stuff like that)), with IC kibitzing and criticizing others' responses at whatever pace is deemed mete by the player.

The game will start Thursday night, Jan 5th. This will give us a few days to discuss the rules and let everyone who might consider participating some time to think.
Edit : As rules changes and clarifications are made in the comments, they'll be incorporated here. Anything changed after play starts will be marked as such.
Rule Clarifications:

• The Empress will wait for an adequate number of Courtiers to present themselves before calling upon them for her amusement.


• (Proposed, still under discussion) The Empress is expecting the Courtiers to entertain her with their discourse. She will not speak in a Service thread except to end it.
• 
  

[updated: game closed, some time ago...]

Comments

Additional Notes

[mcroft.livejournal.com]

Only the Empress may respond to the main post, all other comments must be in response to her.

No pictures, unless they're in the initial description.

[princejvstin.livejournal.com]

The timing sucks, otherwise I would have loved to participate in this. Maybe next time?

[mcroft.livejournal.com]

It's going to be open, so "of course" (assuming there's interest in doing more)! Please feel free to comment on the OOC post and here about the rules.

[mrsitouh.livejournal.com]

I would be extremely interested in playing this.

[mcroft.livejournal.com]

great! I plan on opening the play post Thursday night after work (5-6ish, EST). We'll see how it goes.

[libskrat]

In the live-action version, the Empress has the option of shutting a courtier up sharp. Does that not happen in the LJ version?

Or shall we simply assume that the Empress is not impressed by prolixity?

[mcroft.livejournal.com]

Hmm. While I can delete comments as empress, I can't edit them.

I have no idea what the "freeze" button does in the LJ comment space, but it may let me lock a comment thread (useful for cutting off further comments).

Interesting to see how the technology chosen affects the game concept, which is one of my goals.

[ptevis.livejournal.com]

I'm in.

[mcroft.livejournal.com]

Excellent. The intro post will be Thursday evening. Any rules kibbitzing should be here in advance.

[libskrat]

An interesting concept. I have a possibly-unexpected (though certainly non-destructive to the game) idea for how to play it.

If you don't mind maybe being surprised -- I'd like to play.

[mcroft.livejournal.com]

Please do! It's an impulse game to start for me, in part because the barrier to entry is so low. I want to see how people react to it, and it seems as if the "each in turn" model, plus the "all commenting upon each other's efforts" bit will give us a lot of leeway to do interesting things.

Re: follow up...

[mcroft.livejournal.com]

Also, we probably should establish some ground rules on how long you should go on. Hmm.

Is "please don't be ridiculous in your verbosity" a good rule? I can't really say "try to allow the other players to get good shots in on your work", because you're competing, but "don't overrun the Empress, on Pain of Death" may be the way to put it.

Thoughts?

Re: follow up...

[libskrat]

Well, I think that the game creates something of a "nail sticking out" dynamic -- if you differ TOO much from your fellow courtiers, you need to have a very good reason for it, or the Empress is likely to smack you down hard just for being different. (Or your fellow courtiers will gang up on you, same deal.)

Even in an LJ context, I suspect this potential problem will take care of itself once the first courtier gets whacked for being tiresome. ;)

[greeneyes-rpi.livejournal.com]

I would certainly like to watch -- and possibly play later on if I feel that my skills are up to par.

[mcroft.livejournal.com]

Please do! There'll be a second post for comments, etc., since the comments are all IC, and of course you're welcome.

It's an RP exercise, so even though there are points, the goal is to stretch and have fun, so don't worry about not having done it before. Given that Neel wrote the game very recently, I think we may be the first playtest and we're certainly the first test on LJ of the game.

And as to your skills? I have faith in you. You'd be great.

[libskrat]

Okay, so who's making the game icons?

mcroft totally needs an Empress icon. The rest of us... well, on the slightly-NSFW side, how about a tongue caressing a boot? :)

[mcroft.livejournal.com]

Sounds like you've been reading Allen Varney

LJ upped my quota from 3 to 6, so I have slots. immlass (my RFL) offered to make me an icon, but I don't know if she's got time before gamestart.

[colomon.livejournal.com]

Are you envisioning doing this in real time?

[mcroft.livejournal.com]

Good Question.

How fast is 'reasonable'? How fast is 'too fast'?

As The Empress (and she has a name, oh, yes, yes she does...), I'm pretty free to post as fast as I please, and since it's my LJ post, I'll get every comment mailed. I'll probably put a screened reply to the intro post up when I call upon a courtier to entertain, so that they get a message.

People have jobs that preclude camping on the internet. People have F2F games. People have International Date Lines to cross. I can only expect a reasonable chunk of their time, even for an exercise. I don't expect a 100 comment bunnypost while I'm at lunch, but hey, the Empress might be amused by it.

OTOH, if we go to slowly, the game may die of lack of input. What do people think is a fair range?

[Again, this is an interesting case of how we adapt these rules to a medium Neel didn't intend...]

[bushi7.livejournal.com]

May I just lurk and watch?

[mcroft.livejournal.com]

Of course! I'm running this in a post I'll make, so you don't even have to tell me that you want to lurk.

If you (or anyone) wants to play, all you'll need to do is respond to the Courtier introduction comment (IC) and then respond to the Empress when she calls upon you.

[colomon.livejournal.com]

I'm not clear -- do we have to declare we're in the game ahead of time, or can we simply post once the Empress's initial post has been made?

[mcroft.livejournal.com]

OK, so until the first cycle of courtiers is over, anyone can join freely. The mechanism for joining is to introduce your courtier with the ritual phrase in the courtier introduction thread.

Failure to introduce yourself will be considered Speaking In The Empress's Presence Without Leave, punishable by death.

You can't join after the first cycle, because you won't have adequately risked death with your fellow players.

OT - because I'm too lazy to email

[greeneyes-rpi.livejournal.com]

For you -- http://www.livejournal.com/users/kcarp/50766.html

Re: OT - because I'm too lazy to email

[mcroft.livejournal.com]

back at you. :)

[mcroft.livejournal.com]

I don't think you get to ask the favour until you're the sole survivor. First you have to impress the Empress.

[mcroft.livejournal.com]

LJ is not delivering all reply messages promptly.

That may affect the game. I may prod you more than I would if I thought you were getting replies.

Me! Pick me!

[sunday-courtier.livejournal.com]

Okay, I'm not really that desperate (or annoying), but this really has caught my interest, after being refered here by cavlec. If the roster is still open, can I join?

Re: Me! Pick me!

[mcroft.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. Oddly, you'll be the second player from Melbourne.

Follow the rules (introduce yourself, only speak in character, don't reply to anything but Empress comments) and you, too can be making sarky comments about Fyodor (or wherever the game has gone to now...)

[colomon.livejournal.com]

I've got another stupid rule question. Actually two. Or even many.

My initial assumption had been that we were to have long conversations in response to what the Empress says. However, in practice, I don't see any rule specifying this is the case. To be precise, the rules call for the Empress to request a service of one courtier. Then it talks about what courtiers may say in the context of this service. Then it talks about killing one of them once all have responded once (if she hasn't killed one already). The only place it actually indicates your character can respond is when the Empress has spoken to him.

And in fact, in your rules, it says, "all other comments must be in response to her."

So are we supposed to chat amongst ourselves, or only speak when spoken too?

If we are supposed to chat, do we respond to previous reponses to make a chain? (If that makes any sense; we've got "Firdausi Re: Fyodor"; is the appropriate next post "Another player Re: Firausi Re: Fyodor"?)

Is there any restriction on how many times we speak when we haven't been spoken to? Do we give people a chance to respond to people who respond to them, or...?

[mcroft.livejournal.com]

That's a good point, I think I'll amend the "all other comments" to state "all other comments must be in response to the Empress or another Courtier". That should fix that. Maybe a tweak to clear up the perception that the only place you can talk is in response to the Empress to make it clear that the only place you must respond is if the Empress has addressed you.

I think that if we limit responses to the Empress, or even wait for the Empress, we won't get a good dialog going between the Courtiers, and we won't get a rich response and her majesty won't have the words of the Courtiers to compare and judge between. You are, after all, discoursing for the amusement and enlightenment of the Court, which is to say the Empress. From a game perspective, I think Keeping the Empress Quiet as they compete for her favor makes the most sense.

So, in brief, a chain of responses seems to be exactly what I expect and want to encourage.

What do people think?

And for the sake of keeping going, let's assume that the Empress is not to be waited upon in discussions amongst her Courtiers of Fyodor's service.