Pretty Princess Simulator
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I received some interest in private messages in possibly making that random Pretty Princess Simulator idea that my brain conjured up in its usual meandering way into something of a reality. The problem is that it wasn’t that fleshed out of an idea, as I started to flesh it out in private messages, my always indecisive self, started coming up with junctures in the design where the idea could go in different directions. Thus, I am coming here and putting my word vomit of ideas out into the public for all of you to enjoy and comment on to hopefully narrow this into something workable.
Also, I have like zero time to commit to a project, so something is probably not going to come out of this, but who knows? Maybe someone else will get inspired and take the baton. Also also, if this happens, it will probably be on Ares, because that’s where one of the interested parties said they were comfortable running, so that decision has been made.
So read away; then comment away. Or not. You do you. Without further ado…
The 3-6ish Month Seasonal L&L Romantic Contest Server
First up, the various possible general premises of the setting.
Don’t Hate the Crown Prince(ss); Hate the Game
This section is going to be the wordiest because it was my original thinking and also bits need more explanation. As I said, the Bachelor(ette), the Mole, Million Dollar Secret, Bridgerton Fire Emblem, and Unicorn Overlord were all bubbling away in the crockpot of my brain when this got cooked up. There was also probably some manga and anime stewing away in there too. My original thought then was a ridiculous harem scenario. “The Crown Prince has come of age to start courting and find some wives and lovers! Come compete for a chance to win a place in the Imperial Household!” We’ve got an Emperor who is doing his damnedest to sit on the sidelines and watch this unfold to his amusement. We’ve got a scheming Empress trying to make sure her bestest baby boy gets the bestest lady friends. We’ve got a Crown Prince who honestly would rather be out hunting game with his best buds, because he’s already got enough side pieces that he is fine in the romance department. We’ve got some noblewomen who don’t find the Crown Prince particularly interesting but want the fancy titles. We got other noblewomen who think the Crown Prince is their kind of jam, but all these other title-hunting noblewomen are getting in the way. We got some brothers and friends of the Crown Prince getting annoyed that he is getting all the attention. Antics ensue.
The positions open (giggity) are First Wife, a number of Second Wives equal to the number of nations part of the Empire (current thoughts are five or six elaborated below in setting fluff), Consorts, and Mistresses (originally called Concubines but there’s a bit of baggage with that word, so Mistresses might be what it gets called). The First Wife will become the Empress when the Crown Prince becomes Emperor. This is the gold medal. A winner is you. Her firstborn will become the next Crown Prince(ss? To be discussed later). The Second Wives just stay Second Wives. Their firstborn become the Viceroys of the nations.
Consorts are basically noble mistresses. It’s a recognized position, but they don’t join the Imperial family. Their children will belong to the consort’s family, not the Imperial family. As this is a formal informal relationship, it comes with prestige but no authority in the imperial government. If the consort is a woman, her kids will probably get some primo positions in the imperial government, because Uncle Emperor likes their mom, but nothing is guaranteed. It’s also a noncommited, nonmonogamous relationship. No divorce or messy scandals occur if either one decides they are no longer that into the other. They just part and go their ways. Also also, these relationships don’t have to be heterosexual. The wife positions are about making kids. The consort positions are not, so these positions are likely to be the sex that the Crown Prince(ss) is actually into.
Mistresses are the commonfolk mistresses. Again, it’s a recognized formal informal relationship. The mistress gets some prestige, the kids will probably got a sweet position that other commoners would kill for, but the two parties can, in theory, part ways and there is no issue. In practice, unlike for a noblewomen, a common woman might have a harder time breaking up with an Emperor who really doesn’t want to be broken up with. It really helps to have a family that has its own army. It is generally considered a bad idea for the Emperor to have a mistress with a commoner who works for or is sworn to someone that isn’t in the Imperial Family, because there’s a question of loyalty. So mistresses tend to come from either staff in the Imperial household or the servants of the wives. Thus, a lot of noblewomen gunning for a wife position will try to arrange for the Crown Prince to fall for one of their servants, so they get one of the wife positions.
I have also thought that the Crown Prince could be a Crown Princess for some seasons. It kind of defeats the Pretty Princess focus, because the noble ladies are the ones gunning to be the pretty princesses, and with a Crown Princess it’s going to be a lot of noblemen gunning to be the pretty princes. The Pretty Princess in this case is going to be the Crown Princess, and the Crown Prince(ss) in any season is just a macguffin played by staff, so the players don’t get to be the Pretty Princesses. Ideally the character will be played by a different staff member every day, that way they stay mysterious, aloof, and a bit weird. He/she may have been making eyes at your character all day yesterday but today they don’t even know who your character is. That’s just the way things roll with those flighty imperials. Anyways, I am still leaning towards this idea, because I would rather the setting be as minimally patriarchal as possible, which is hard for something with Regency-ish vibes.
The Crown Prince(ss) Finds One True Love
Switching gears, another direction to go in is in the more Western European tradition with a monogamous pairing. All the single ladies are gunning for the one and only one Princess Consort position. It’s much more cutthroat, more romantic (will your character be the one that enchants the Crown Prince with her personality, beauty, charm, and wit, making him have eyes for no other?), and closer to the Bridgerton mold. It also feels like it supports a non-patriarchal setting much better. (With the harem approach, a Crown Princess is going to have one First Husband and five to six Second Husbands, all of whom are expecting a firstborn out of her to fill specific governmental positions, so that’s a Crown Princess that gets to look forward to having at least 6 to 7 children. That sounds like something fun to RP about! ) However, I feel that there will be less politicking, as it’s an everyone against everyone else bloodbath for that one position. With the harem, Lady A could have a deep mutual attraction with the Crown Prince, but her family isn’t influential enough or rich enough for the Imperial Family to select her as a Wife. However, her best friend Lady B does have the necessary influence and riches, so Lady A is willing to settle for being Consort and use her relationship with the Crown Prince to get Lady B picked as a wife.
Everyone Finds One True Love
A slight deviation to the above idea is that it’s not just the Crown Prince(ss) looking for love. Instead once the Crown Prince(ss) and all or most of their siblings and first cousins are of age, they all debut at once and get courted. Now there are several positions open for people to gun for like with the harem approach, but there is still the romance of “you’re the only one for me” and no squicky “you must have 6 or 7 kids” if it’s a non-patriarchal harem. It does introduce a problem of Lady B might be a perfect match with CP Cousin #1, but Lady B now has to decide if they will settle for CP Cousin #1 or instead go for the gold with the CP, who they may not actually have much mutual attraction with. Then again, this may be a game element that is wanted rather than a flaw in the design. Let me know. This also seems like it will be the less cutthroat design involving a CP, but also have the less politicking too, which is a detriment. Rather than Lady A who hits it off with the CP working to become Consort and convince the cP to make her friend Lady B a wife, now Lady A just goes after the CP and Lady B goes after CP Cousin #1, who she is hitting it off with. Everyone wins, yay! But there is no drama to RP over, boo!
Fuck King of Orgy Mountain a.k.a. Bridgerton MUSH
I thought I would borrow a funny title from a silly idea that was once discussed on MSB. We jettison the Crown Prince(ss) idea into space. Now, instead, every year noble lads and ladies debut together, socialize, and get married (or not, see below). Basically we are making Bridgerton MUSH at this point (or maybe a new Kushiel server). This has even less cutthroated action and politicking than the above idea. It would be a kinder, gentler server about nobles dating. I don’t want to short change this one, though. While I find it the least interesting of the options (this just feels like more Kushiel to me just without the institutional, themed brothels), it was what one of the people who reached out to me originally suggested. So If this is what people are vibing with, works for me.
A slight alternative to this is to go even more anti-patriarchy, make heredity matrilineal, make marriage not be a thing in the setting, and the whole premise becomes debut together, socialize, and hook up a bunch so nine months later, the next generation is born to carry on their mother’s family. I find it an interesting concept, but I’m not sure if it has anything going for it other than “fuck the patriarchy and also each other, a lot” which might be enough. You tell me if Shang but with a much tighter (giggity) setting is what I should be aiming for.
Some non-romantic concepts came up as ideas for a seasonal L&L server as well:
Ars Magica-esque Tribunal
The mages of the setting meet up every X number of years (I think it’s 7 for the Tribunals of the Tribunals and 33 for the Grand Tribunal of all the Tribunals in Ars Magica) to hash out shit. The server fires up, people take characters off the roster or chargen a lesser character, and we politick out whatever it is mages politick over. Maybe hold a few promotion test: “Oh you want to become a Grand Magus. Well you’ll have to show off some new spell you created or an enchanted item that impresses the testing body who awards that rank.”
The Senate
You know what kinds of bodies used to meet for short few-months long sessions to politick and hash shit out? Parliamentary bodies! The server basically runs the few months of a parliamentary body. Probably something with a Roman or Venictan feel. But it could be Rome/Venice IN FANTASYLAND! Or Rome/Venice IN SPAAACE! A.k.a Dune.
The Conclave
There’s a whole netflix movie about this, and JD Vance offing the real Pope is bringing it into focus in the real world. The Fantasy Pope of Fantasyland has died. Time to figure out who the new Pope is. This is basically the Senate but with 1,000% more religion!
If the L&L Romance thing seems to go well, maybe we’ll incorporate these others into the setting on a combined server. Some seasons are the debuts, some seasons are parliament meetings, some seasons are the mages, and some seasons are the Church. Who knows?
The Setting
This is the final section, I promise. So what I was thinking and has been my thinking for a setting for an L&L game for a long time is a fantasy island world. The landmasses get no bigger than Madagascar. Why? It’s basically Sci Fi on a more understandable to use real world humans level. Planets are now islands. Spaceships are now sailing ships. An island that is just desert is more realistic than a planet that is somehow inhabitable by humans yet is just desert. So there are five or six nations that control archipelagos near each other. In order to allow for some differing ethnicities, so the nobility isn’t just all white people, each nation could be a different race to get a little diversity going. Each nation would also have a different culture, so there can be some tensions between noble families there.
About half of the territory in the Empire would be controlled by the noble families. There aren’t bannermen. One family isn’t the liege of another family who is the liege of another family. All the noble families are the same rank in the hierarchy and are under the Imperial family. Each family has their estate lands and that’s theirs to control. The other 50% is held by the Imperial family and administered by the appointed bureaucracy. Each nation’s archipelago has a Viceroy at the top to whom the noble families in that archipelago report to. The Imperial lands in that archipelago are divided up into provinces administered by appointed governors, who are also likely to be nobles but can be commoners. Below them are magistrates, which are equally likely to be noble or commoner. The noble families also tend to use magistrates for the subdivisions of their estate lands.
I am currently thinking that the Imperial Family started as an outside people who immigrated to the area with superior technology and conquered and integrated the peoples that were already there. Part of me wants to make them originally elves who have since become half elves by marrying into the noble families, who have now also become somewhat half elven. These wouldn’t be long lived half elves, more like the Hylian variety in Legend of zelda games where some of the NPCs are humans and some are Hylians (generally they are all Hylians but there’s a few where there are humans, not including the Gerudo, without the elvish ears). Having elvish features, e.g. pointed ears, nonhuman hair or eye colors, could be a marker of prestige. However, this gets a bit into a colonialist vibe, which could be very off-putting. Then again, it’s a L&L game, a genre which focuses heavily on class stratification, with a Regency vibe, so colonialism is a bit fitting.
Anyways, that’s all I’m writing for now, and is mainly the general premise. Let me know if any of that sounded interesting, sounded terrible, sounded like fun, sounded offensive, sounded squicky, if you have ideas or tangents you want to build off of that, or whatever. Also, nothing will probably come of any of this, but who knows?
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I actually love the first idea for a political romance game, especially if the Crown Prince(ss) remains played by staff and is flighty as fuck.
As for a game I myself would love? The parliamentarian or conclave game would be my jam. I acknowledge that they would be more difficult - I designed a political game that had parliamentary shenanigans as a big part of its theme, and it’s tough to hash out the methods of influence and getting bills passed that would materially improve your lands/family status (or hurt others). It allows you to bring in more than hereditary nobility, though - guilds, mercenary groups, etc. could all have formal positions (or informal pressures they could bring to bear).
Would the typical MU* player GO for a serious political parliament game? Maybe not. But I can dream.
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@Pyrephox Hooray! Someone read my rambling word vomit! And they were interested enough to reply!
Yeah, the CP will always be a NPC played by staff, less a character and more a thing the real characters interact with. Though, the preferences of the CO will be taken into consideration during interactions and who gets chosen for what position.
I also think there should be a rule that all IC interactions that the CP bit has on the grid must be logged and all of those logs will be released at the end of the season. This will give transparency so players can see why the CP was leaning towards certain characters and not others, and it will also hopefully tone down some of the spicier scenes that may occur, so it’s not just a game of who can TS the CP staff bit the best. Unless those involved are fine with the thought of me reading their erotic writing out loud in my best Gilbert Gottfried impression.
As for a parliamentary game, I think some board games have decided some solutions. Since the server would be limited to just a few months, it’s alright if someone “wins” the server with their political shenanigans, so it does start to resemble more a board game or one shot LARPs. John Company and the Republic of Rome shows some things that be done for board games focusing on the political arena. Have the server be focused on the politicking and the battles, construction projects, administrative tasks, etc. can be done off screen with some die rolls.
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Nothing will reduce the spice level of scenes except one player or the other saying “no” – and, honestly, it should probably be outright policy for staff playing the CO not to TS any PCs.
I like the idea of transparency, but I’d suggest doing updates on a more regular basis than just the end of the season. It doesn’t have to be logs, it could be “court gossip” posts that summarize some IC events that are pushing the needle in one way or the other:
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At Lady Corkscrew’s musicale, the accomplished Lady Tandoori’s ode dedicated to Crown Prince’s triumphant hunt of the Blue Six-Legged Dire Cat clearly pleased the Prince and he was later seen inviting Lady Tandoori to join him in his private box at the Opera.
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Society is awash with delicious scandal as Lady Hippityhoppity is noted to have caused great offense when she wore the same dress as the Empress…and some whisper that she wore it better. The Crown Prince shunned her entirely in the dancing, proving his filial piety but dealing a blow to Hippityhoppity’s chances to capture his heart.
Maybe once a month or something. So people have a good idea what’s happening and why, and can also intuit some of the Prince(ss)'s preferences and pain points based on what s/he’s seen as shunning or embracing.
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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.
