Pretty Princess Simulator
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My only problem is every time I think about this, I try and ‘yes, AND…’ more onto it. Like Exalted Dreams of the First Age can do L&L stuff… but also Exalted so go forth and slay armies. Or Battletech, so L&L with stompy Mechs
and probably die when a missile RNG into the head and blows up the cockpit(and/or other robot things, re: Lancer or Eldritch Automata). Or Girl by Moonlight and everyone is also Magical Girl. Or (insert more mad ravings here.) -
The idea of one “main” love interest just sounds exhausting for whoever is playing them. Every single person is going to want to be in private scenes with you, and if you are keeping them as an NPC for public events only, I think a lot of people are going to lose interest rapidly. I have a lot of other thoughts but this is the main one, it just sounds like a LOT on a single person and would quickly become Not Fun.
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@bear_necessities Well, it’s not all about wooing the CP. These are more decisions made by the Imperial Family. The CP just gets a say. So there are other individuals to be making your case to. Also the fighting over who gets to sit next to the CP at dinner, who gets to dance with them at the ball, etc. is part of the competition. Perhaps there might be leaderboards for the differing events to show who currently has what spot at what event. Want to move up the ranks at the banquet? Better start schmoozing up the staff member in charge of the seating arrangements for that event or maybe try the Empress or the Chamberlain. Have you ever played the card game Love Letter? That, only more detailed and with more roleplaying.
EDIT: I forgot that that review of the card game does a poor job of explaining the fluff of the game. The idea is that whatever character you have in your hand is the member of the court you have convinced to take your letter to the Princess. When you draw a card you can either choose for the character who currently has your letter to pass it off to the new character, enacted by playing the character you had in your hand and holding onto the new character, or use your influence with the new character to have them do something to help you, enacted by playing that character. It an abstract game about using your influence at court to win the heart of the Princess.
EDIT 2: Also one person won’t play the CP. It’s going to rotate amongst staff, so hopefully no one gets too exhausted being the focus at any event they attend.
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam
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I would absolutely jump on this. Make it so!
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@Pavel Apologies, I did not know that was a common abbreviation. RH for royal heir?
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I thought of another one… L5R Winter Court. RIP.
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I actually love a combination between Royal Heir Finds One True Match (not necessarily love, but a good match), and Bridgerton MUSH; something like this:
There’s an NPC Royal Heir (or maybe two, depending on Staff interest and availability) that everyone is at court to meet and hope to marry, but if PCs want to settle for other PCs, they can. Sure, they don’t get the brilliant and powerful connection, but they might get someone they actually match well with. This would also allow there to be PCs of the same gender as the Royal Heir who might not be interested in a Consort match with the Royal Heir. They could even be of higher rank than the prospective matches, and with chargenned connections to the Royal Heir (probably closer personal connections the lower ranked they were for a balance). This leads to a situation where the Crown Princess’s hunting gal pals or the Crown Prince’s lords-in-waiting can get in on the politicking and can provide connections – but are the prospective matches buttering them up to get closer to the Royal Heir or because they really like them?
You could also theoretically have a Consort selected alongside a Royal Spouse in a given season, if two players play the game particularly well, one romantically and one politically.
I do like the idea of the Royal Heir being played by any and all Staffers to avoid scheduling burnout – and wonder if doing so would allow any Staffer to see unshared logs by the Royal Heir (I think it might?). I like the idea of releasing the private logs at the end of the season, and agree that the Royal Heir should not be TSing during the Season.
I also love the idea of an every-week-or-two Court Reporter sort of gossip sheet.
I also also love the idea of Love Letter as an inspiration.
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Just don’t ever have the Royal Heir played by anyone. No one has ever seen them. They’re off fighting a war/building treaties with other people/etc. And while they’re gone, their family has just decided to get them married.
Then they appear at the final event to select the person by…points, cards, gossip, whatever.
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@DrQuinn said in Pretty Princess Simulator:
Just don’t ever have the Royal Heir played by anyone. No one has ever seen them. They’re off fighting a war/building treaties with other people/etc. And while they’re gone, their family has just decided to get them married.
Then they appear at the final event to select the person by…points, cards, gossip, whatever.
lmao
I’m just picturing this from the perspective of a BIG REVEAL scene at the end of the “season” so to speak.
Staff-played prince(ss) shows up all “YOUR MAJESTY I’M HOME!” “GREAT, YOU’RE NOW MARRIED TO <name>!” All of the court gasps at realizing this is who they’ve been scheming over. What that sentence means is the whole point I’m trying to make here.
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@DrQuinn Fluff-wise, the RH wouldn’t be picking in a vacuum. It’s more the Imperial Family picking with the RH having some say. Mechanically, the plan is to make it 90% algorithm and 10% staff weighing in
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam
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I’m suddenly imagining one Season (Session?) having the gimmick that every single player character is an Isekai of some sort.
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@Ominous It still seems like you’re setting it up so that people are going to mob staff NPCs and that’s going to put what sounds like burnout pressure on them. And then there’s favoritism and times people can’t get on to meet up with a staff NPC and and and…
But as @KarmaBum always says: what are people going to RP? Because it sounds like everyone is just going to be fighting for I Talk To The NPC tonight. And that’s going to get really old really fast if you have more than like 5 people playing. Will there be bonuses for people who just chat/fight during the down times ala the Bachelor/ette? Or does this sort of thing favor the person who only logs on for events, gets the NPCs ear, then logs off so nothing can stick to them?
Like this seems great for a small group of friend running a sandbox, but looks like it will fall apart the minute you get more than 10 people.
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I do think @DrQuinn’s suggestion of not even having the Royal Heir being vied over as a played NPC (except maybe a season finale appearance or whatever) is definitely the wiser course.
And it makes genre sense in terms of marriages being political, etc., etc.
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@DrQuinn said in Pretty Princess Simulator:
@Ominous It still seems like you’re setting it up so that people are going to mob staff NPCs and that’s going to put what sounds like burnout pressure on them. And then there’s favoritism and times people can’t get on to meet up with a staff NPC and and and…
But as @KarmaBum always says: what are people going to RP? Because it sounds like everyone is just going to be fighting for I Talk To The NPC tonight. And that’s going to get really old really fast if you have more than like 5 people playing. Will there be bonuses for people who just chat/fight during the down times ala the Bachelor/ette? Or does this sort of thing favor the person who only logs on for events, gets the NPCs ear, then logs off so nothing can stick to them?
Like this seems great for a small group of friend running a sandbox, but looks like it will fall apart the minute you get more than 10 people.
Talking to the NPC isn’t going to get you much unless you have something notable to offer. It’s like Regular Joe knocking on the President’s door (somehow he keeps getting past the Secret Service) and asking him for help on a traffic ticket every day. The goal is to stand out and one-up the others in the day to day and at the events. Wear the best dress to the ball, challenge people to friendly duels and win, demonstrate largesse to the common folk by opening an orphanage, do something notable. Just chatting to the NPCs over and over again is just going to annoy them and get the character written off as…well…annoying.
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@Ominous said in Pretty Princess Simulator:
@DrQuinn said in Pretty Princess Simulator:
@Ominous It still seems like you’re setting it up so that people are going to mob staff NPCs and that’s going to put what sounds like burnout pressure on them. And then there’s favoritism and times people can’t get on to meet up with a staff NPC and and and…
But as @KarmaBum always says: what are people going to RP? Because it sounds like everyone is just going to be fighting for I Talk To The NPC tonight. And that’s going to get really old really fast if you have more than like 5 people playing. Will there be bonuses for people who just chat/fight during the down times ala the Bachelor/ette? Or does this sort of thing favor the person who only logs on for events, gets the NPCs ear, then logs off so nothing can stick to them?
Like this seems great for a small group of friend running a sandbox, but looks like it will fall apart the minute you get more than 10 people.
Talking to the NPC isn’t going to get you much unless you have something notable to offer. It’s like Regular Joe knocking on the President’s door (somehow he keeps getting past the Secret Service) and asking him for help on a traffic ticket every day. The goal is to stand out and one-up the others in the day to day and at the events. Wear the best dress to the ball, challenge people to friendly duels and win, demonstrate largesse to the common folk by opening an orphanage, do something notable. Just chatting to the NPCs over and over again is just going to annoy them and get the character written off as…well…annoying.
You are thinking of this issue in terms of Objective Gain and not in terms of human behavior. The human behavior element here is that people want to talk to the NPC because the NPC is special and so you feel special getting to talk to the NPC.
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For those of you that think the RH only route is a bad idea, which of the other options that I presented sounded better and why? Or if none of them sounded good, what is your proposal for the premise of the server?
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@Ominous Be careful about crowdsourcing too much - people have a way of killing enthusiasm for new games and new ideas because they tend to focus on all the ways it WON’T work. It can be hugely discouraging, but it’s just the nature of the kind of critique you’re going to get in this format.
Solicit ideas by all means, but one of the strongest markers of a successful game, I’ve found, is the passion of the creator and their willingness to put in the work to build enthusiasm of actual players. Decide the game YOU want to run, the game that’s worth it to you to do the work on, bring on a small group of people whose vision strongly aligns with yours, and go for it.
