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.
( < Proposed Rules behind the cut > )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...]
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beingfrank
