We got together last Saturday to try a second run of my game, Gallant. I have yet to make any rule postings here, but Zak wrote an actual play entry for the last game. Since that time, I totally redesigned the game with more emphasis on how play would flow, and how and when players could take director stance.

The Bare Minimum System Description

Gallant is a game of intrigue and action in the tumultuous era between Shakespeare and Napolean. I was using “swashbuckling” to describe it, but I have found that there is too much baggage attached to that word for it to be meaningful. Anyway, Gallant is meant to be cinematic, and takes inspiration from the likes of The Three Musketeers, Dangerous Liaisons, and The Scarlet Pimpernel.

I’ll introduce some of the mechanics in the description of play that follows
(in future posts at this point).

Character Creation

After a brief intro to what the game was about, we started making characters. We had two new folks, and three returning from the last adventure. We agreed that we would “rewind” the action to the start of the story.

I put a piece of paper in the middle of the table and let everyone know that we should start mapping out relationships. This is not a Ron-style relationship map, and my first problem was that I did not have a strong definition of how I wanted the diagram to look (i.e. what characters belong on in, how to note different types of relationships)

Zak started by penciling in his character from before and put in the relationships he had established. His character is Benigno, born to a lesser noble on a far-off isle. He came to Paris after learning that his true love, Marie, had run off with his brother (Marie and the brother both go on the map). Also on the map is Marie’s sister who is bearing the news that Marie is looking for Benigno, and that she, Marie, was not the same Marie that married Benigno’s brother.

Then Justin wrote in the relationships for his character, Rudolfo. These are a local criminal organization, from whose leader he unwittingly stole, and the evil baron that tormented the peasant village where Rudolfo grew up. Rudolfo is a thief, more out of necessity than from a pernicious nature. He grew up poor and found having money (even ill gotten) to be a better arrangement.

Then Greg took the chart and entered his character, Maurice. He is a charming fellow of the idle rich—but he scorns his frivolous peers, and seeks to discredit them through subtlety and charm. Maurice occasionally does “favors” for his friend, the Duchess (who gets put on the map). Their friendship started when he recklessly seduced the daughter of an evil baron (well, the evil baron actually—he draws a line to the evil baron Justin entered). The baron’s humiliation brought the petty nobleman general ridicule at court, and secured Maurice’s reputation as a seducer, and a wit. It had also been established last time that Maurice and Rudolfo had a past—a gentleman of the court occasionally needs things done that are beneath his dignity. So a line is drawn to connect the two.

Now we get to the new folks. Trent went first, entering Rene DuBois as his character. He also wanted an evil cardinal, so he put him on the map. I don’t recall the connection that was established (better notation will help this). After the typical childhood of a non-inheriting nobleman, Rene was sent to become a priest. He did not take his final vows, however, and joined the royal guard. There, he became friends with Benigno, who was his superior (connection drawn after getting the go-ahead from Zak). Some time later, Rene was called to the service of a good bishop, who needed guards to look after the holy relics and works of art that were in his care. (Bishop goes onto the chart, with a connection to Rene).

Finally, Ariel takes the chart and starts to fill in her character, Ariane. Her idea is a noblewoman who also steals things. We quickly link her up with Maurice in the undercover noble department. I suggest that she might also do work for the Duchess. Those two connection are noted, and Ariel decides she wants to be involved in the Benigno mess. She decides that she wants to be in league with Marie’s sister, who is actually trying to keep Marie from finding Benigno (though we don’t know why yet). Zak is fine with this, so it is noted. Finally, Ariel decides that Rudolfo has something that she wants, something with family history. Justin agrees and we draw a line. We also draw in a line between the “mob” and Ariane.

With all of this done, we go to numbers on the page.

So a few things were a bit off at this stage:
• Not all of the characters were directly connected. The connections are stronger than they were last time, but more importantly, not all of the characters had strong ties to the “main” villain—the evil baron. We should have resolved some of this at this point.
• The three characters from the original run were not laid out on paper like this originally, so they remained separated from each other more than the new characters. It may have been better to start from scratch and have everyone brainstorming. For example, Trent obviously wanted some church intrigue to be part of the game—but nobody else had any connections there.

This helped me to get a better idea of what I want the brainstorming stage of character creation to look like, and how I want to set up the rules to have the plot grow from the diagram that is created.

This part is already pretty long, so I’ll break up the rest into another post. Please comment on the brainstorming at will.

I want to point out that we collectively spaced on putting the Evil Baron's DAUGHTER on the graph. Sheesh! She would've been a good way to tie us all together. Things like, Benigno has decided to love the daughter, and is conflicted when he finds out about Marie. Or Ariane is actually the Evil Baron's daughter. Or the Evil Baron's daughter enjoys secret trysts with the lower class, say, Rudolfo? Or even Renee left the priesthood because he had relations with the daughter!

Not to mention that Maurice has already slept with her, on at least one occasion.

I really can't believe we missed her as a way to tie us all together. Perhaps as a way to remedy this, make the map generation very formal and governed by rules. The GM places 1-3 NPCs in the center of the graph, then the players all roll. Whoever rolls highest gets to put their PC on the graph, and either tie it in to an existing NPC, or create 1-2 new NPCs, and tie them all together somehow.

In that case, our game could have been, "Evil Baron" -- "Daughter" at the start. Then, say, Greg writes "Duchess" -- "Maurice" -- "Daughter". Ariel offers "Ariane" -- "Duchess". And so on.

And after that, possibly a round of changing the ties/adding new ties?

Zak, I'd suggested that Ariel's character could be the Baron's daughter, but she didn't really like the idea.

In an email I wrote to Jay, I suggested that the map really suffered from lack of plot. We knew Jay had a plot already roughed out in advance, but we didn't know what it was, so we wound up with a map that had lots of possibilities and very little that was definite. The results would have been much better if we had:
1) been told more about Jay's intended plot so that we could better connect ourselves to it (since it only involved Benigno directly), or
2) been left with the responsibility to come up with a plot of our own, leaving Jay the job of fleshing it out and executing it.

In retrospect, I agree with you that lots of relationships could/should have been added. The baron's daughter for one. Rudolfo's family for another - in fact, in a genre like this, all of the families should really have been put on the map except in unusual cases (like death or foreign-born characters).

Thanks, Justin! I had missed your suggestion (or forgotten it). Just like our first Gallant session, this game really highlights player priorities. I'm inclined to think this is a bad thing, since it doesn't nudge the players forcefully enough. This led to one character (Ariene) shadowing the others unseen for the greater portion of play. We also have Rudolfo, who has little reason to act gallant at all.

Jay, I suggest incorporating the game's theme firmly in the mechanics, unless I'm wrong about your design goals.

I also agree with Justin's suggestion: Everyone notes their family ties.

Okay, I'm done. I'll not reply again until Jay continues his story.