Lords and Ladies Game Design

Raistlin

I didn’t want to derail the other thread, but I thought there was a lot of good discussion going on regarding the Lords and Ladies games so I thought I’d create a thread just for that.

The points I found most interesting included:

Running a more personal game
Having a system in place for political plots and intrigue
Ensuring there are interesting consequences for “losing” in intrigues.
Creating some sort of a roster or temporary character pool for things like intrigue and other plots.

Roz

Honestly everything interesting I have to say about design of consequences comes straight from @Pyrephox’s mouth. They have a great brain for this sort of design.

Ominous

I am curious how people define Lord’s & Ladies games.

For me, a critical aspect of a L&L game is the pageantry and the scale, which ties into the pageantry. You could have intrigue and politics in a game about a few tribes living on an island or something, but the conflicts will be small scale (we don’t have enough food for our dozens of tribe members for the coming winter season, so we must go raid the tribe next door). The same can be said of a game that focuses on gangs in a city. Sure you have the conflict, politicking, and intrigue, but you don’t have the balls, the dresses, and the, dare I say, romance, both in the passion meaning and the nostalgic romanticism meaning.

I just want there to be actual politicking and intrigue. The set dressing, while enjoyable, becomes just meaningless decoration otherwise and the game stops holding my interest. Then again, I would also be down to play a bunch of tribes on an island fighting each other over the best hunting grounds. I just don’t think many others would be.

Raistlin

For me, I think a L&L game should have some/most of the following:

Setting: To me it should be in a historical or fantasy versions of aristocratic societies inspired by European nobility structures from medieval to Victorian eras.
Focus on social dynamics: I think the game should emphasize social interaction, political maneuvering, romantic entanglements, and status competition.
Hierarchical character structure: Players typically take on roles within a clearly defined social hierarchy, from monarchs and high nobility down to lesser gentry.
Intrigue mechanics: Mechanics for reputation, scandal, alliances, marriages, and social influence rather than traditional combat stats.
Events and gatherings: Social events like balls, garden parties, hunts, and court sessions serve as central settings for roleplaying interactions.
Character development: Character growth typically revolves around gaining titles, wealth, alliances, and social standing rather than combat abilities.

Roadspike

To me, the core of a Lords & Ladies game is that characters are grouped by families or groups that are competing for influence and prestige within a larger feudal or semi-feudal structure – and that the characters are influential people within the setting.

Now, this could be:

wayfinders who lead family canoes between Polynesian islands, competing for pride of place
competing cyberpunk megacorps all under a Corporate Court – so long as the PCs were high-level executives at the corps, rather than disposable espionage operatives
knights and barons and viscountesses living in fantasy castles
mafia families under a capo di tutti capi
technoknights and starship captains in a semi-feudal, multi-system space empire
daimyo and geisha in the Shogunate (or a fantasy version thereof)
minor landed gentry in Victorian England (or a fantasy version thereof)

I don’t think that pseudo-European matters, but I agree that combat is usually going to be a means to gather influence or prestige rather than the point in and of itself.

I would actually love to see a Lords & Ladies game using FS3 autocombat for attacks on reputation – leave any physical combat to just straight rolls, because it’s just not as important as the social maneuvering.

Gashlycrumb

Yeah, I don’t think it needs to be psuedo-European or period. You could probably do Summering In The Hamptons as an L&L game.

I think Downton Abbey and Upstairs, Downstairs both count as L&L and those include the servants as major characters, though their influence is on a different level. But that’s more an extra.

I don’t think the characters in Pride and Prejudice are nobility, but I think L&L does imply serious social inequality and a lack of social mobility outside one’s class.

Ridiculously, I think it needs pretty costumes and the right flavour of pagentry. Does Master-Blaster run Bartertown, or does Tina Turner? Not L&L.

I think handling intrigue with dice-mechanics is kind of a problem. Maybe not a big one, depending on your player base. But you know how you always get that one person who keeps going, “My character has a 20 charisma, love me!” while behaving in very uncharismatic ways. There’s also somebody out there who will go, “Make my dumbass scheme work as if I’m the genius my sheet says I am!” It can be a heck of a lot of work to translate dice-throws of this nature into narrative.

Pavel

@Gashlycrumb said in Lords and Ladies Game Design:

I don’t think the characters in Pride and Prejudice are nobility

a man in a green shirt and red suspenders is making a funny face .

Raistlin

@Gashlycrumb said in Lords and Ladies Game Design:

I think handling intrigue with dice-mechanics is kind of a problem. Maybe not a big one, depending on your player base. But you know how you always get that one person who keeps going, “My character has a 20 charisma, love me!” while behaving in very uncharismatic ways. There’s also somebody out there who will go, “Make my dumbass scheme work as if I’m the genius my sheet says I am!” It can be a heck of a lot of work to translate dice-throws of this nature into narrative.

This is exactly why I prefer dice mechanics for intrigue when possible. Without them, you risk telling players “Sorry, you can’t play a charismatic character because you’re not charismatic in real life” or “Your character can’t pull off that brilliant scheme because you’re not smart enough to devise it.” Even worse is hitting that wall of “That would never work on my character” with nothing backing it up except “Because I say so.”

I’m all about cooperative storytelling, and ultimately “because I say so” is valid in many contexts. But dice add that perfect element of uncertainty that keeps things interesting and levels the playing field. And when a certain amount of hand waving needs to enter the equation to make things happen—if it creates an overall better story—then I’m absolutely all for it. The mechanics should serve the narrative, not strangle it. When these systems are in place, you definitely need zero tolerance for BS and shenanigans. That said, anyone trying to game these systems at the expense of other players’ fun probably isn’t someone you want on your game anyway. The goal is always a compelling story where everyone feels their character can meaningfully participate, regardless of the player’s real-world skills.

Also, with games like this, it’s easy to forget that the shows we’re basing them on have a writers’ room full of people who spend weeks or months crafting these stories, plots, and dialogue. When we RP them, we’re coming up with stuff off the cuff. I think a certain amount of leeway should be expected and happily given. It’s a lot to expect the average gamer to come up with a professional writers’ room worth of quality material on the fly in the few minutes they have to craft a pose. Dice mechanics can bridge that gap between our improvised efforts and the polished narratives we’re trying to emulate.

Faraday

@Raistlin said in Lords and Ladies Game Design:

Without them, you risk telling players “Sorry, you can’t play a charismatic character because you’re not charismatic in real life” or “Your character can’t pull off that brilliant scheme because you’re not smart enough to devise it.”

Unpopular take maybe, but personally? I don’t have a problem with that, to a point. Yes, we’re all playing characters that are not ourselves, but MU*s to me are more of a writing game than a puzzle-solving game. Writers have to do at least some modest amount of research into the characters/settings/themes they’re writing. You don’t need to be an expert, of course, but you at least need to be able to fake it to a level that isn’t jarring.

So if you can’t come up with a scheme for your character to break into the vault to steal the MacGuffin, or a way to convince the King to give you troops, it’s not my job to come up with one for you just because you made a few good rolls.

Dice can be used as an adjunct to the story, but they should never BE the story.