Part II - Procedures

It bears mentioning that the players would be blackboxed through these procedures as much as possible, so as to obfuscate optimal playing. In practice, I found players were already quite aware that I was tracking this stuff behind the screen.

It also bears mentioning that some of the information on it is purely my research notes on 19th century society, meant to inform the game rather than actually pertain to the procedures.

You'll find a bunch of "maybes" and "coulds" amidst these notes. These are distant echoes from the past, suggestions from the writing phase. I expected to iron it out a lot in actual play, but we never actually got to a few of these, and the ones we did didn't help iron anything out.

Levels of Intimacy

To start off, a lot the following procedures assume the mechanic of levels of intimacy. This is a tracker for the Host's benefit, but I was very adamant in thinking the players should never see this, and should, if possible, be made unaware of it and receive mixed messages as often as possible, to maximise drama.

The levels are:

5 Bitter Enemy 4 Enemy 3 Very Disliked 2 Disliked 1 Mistrustful

• Stranger / Distant acquaintance 1 Acquaintance 2 Liked 3 Friend 4 Loyal friend 5 Love / Best friend

And now the procedures.

First impressions

Roll a 2d6 reaction roll:

2 - Hate 3 - 5 Dislike 6 - 8 Neutral 9 - 11 Like 12 Possibly even love

The two extremes get 5 cards, the two mild ones get 3, and they use those to build or open new doors as seen in the dinner party procedure.

Social Calls

Distributing calling cards when you come into town takes a whole morning activity, where you go around in your carriage and with your footman, who climbs down and leaves the card with the butler of the person.

In this process, the butler puts the card in a tray inside the front hall, and in that moment you can get an idea for some of the most prestigious people that person knows, because their cards will likely be arranged to be shown off - The lady of the house then is supposed to retribute with a card or, perhaps, a social call

A social call occurs by going up to someone's house and asking if they're home. (they might be and say no, this is perfectly acceptable) - This is done very fast, 15 minutes at the most, and it's basically polite chit-chat. - If someone else shows up, they'll probably be introduced and then you walk out - 15 / 16 is the time for social calls with people you're not well acquainted - 16 / 17 for somewhat better acquainted - 17 / 18 for a good friend - You only do social calls in the morning if you're REALLY close to the person, i.e. before 13

Being new in town, you would look for a letter of introduction from a friend to a person of prominence, who would then invite you for dinner.

Men generally don't really pay social calls, as they're expected to be out working, at the club, or hunting (in the country), but they can. They cannot receive them from ladies, except on business or a professional matter.

Dinner Parties

Description

This one is structured a bit closer to my actual notes rather than readable for strangers, so I hope you'll forgive the abundance of bullet points.

• Around 10 guests total
• Invitations sent 2 days to 2 weeks beforehand depending on the grandeur
• Start around 19h, guests expected to be precisely 15 minutes late
• Everyone stood around waiting for late guests, chitchatting, no drinks are served
  • The host and hostess are circulating to make sure the people of appropriate status are paired off and then arranged in order of precedence
• Servants announce that dinner is served and the couples go in order of precedence down (townhouse) or in (country house)
• The man of the house should have the highest ranking lady by the arm, and the woman of the house the highest ranking man
• Men and women sit alternating
• Then they start eating, usually quite a few courses, served either by putting the dish on the table and having the guest serve themself (à la française), or having a footman show up with the meal and have you serve yourself (à la russe)
• In the first course, the gentleman is supposed to engage in polite conversation with the lady on their right, then soup, then wine
  • A MAN must serve the table, sometimes pressganging the gardener or groom, which might result in inelegant or disastrous results
  • No one ever talks to or about the servants during dinner
• No one needs to eat everything from every course, it's fine to just chill out
• After the main courses, the tablecloth is removed, dessert and champagne is served
• After, ladies withdraw to the drawing room for coffee or tea, while the gentlemen separate to go smoke or tell racy stories; this lasts for about 30 min
• When things are nice and rowdy, they join the ladies for another hour or so
• By about 23, carriages are called and people might go to the ball
• All told, the introduction takes about 15 min, denouement takes 1h30, and dinner should take about 2 hours
  • If this is separated into 15 minute turns, that's 1 for the introduction, 8 for the dinner, 2 for the separated time, then 4 for the after-dinner

Procedure

Dinner is divided into 15-minute turns and has 15 in total:

• Turn 1, 19:15-30 - Arrival, - waiting for late guests, being paired off and informed of seating arrangements
  • Not really a turn, more like reading to the players who the guests are and who their pair will be, maybe an opportunity to try and convince the hostess to be paired with someone else of equal stature
  • Maybe there's "lesser" people who mostly exist to add different cards to dinner parties and such, like a Kind of Guy who might add "a gentleman starts choking on his food" event and such, for ease of building parties in different cities
• Turns 2 / 9, 19:30-21:30 - Actual dinner, last one reserved for dessert
• Turns 10 / 11, 21:30-22:00 - Gender separation and sensitive topics and such
• Turns 12 / 15, 22:00-23:00: Denouement
  • Could have these turns reduced, likely not to have a lot of meaningful conversation, probably more about giving a good impression to a group of people instead

Every turn has 1-in-6 chances of dinner events per player

Your partner has Doors that need to be ground down to get to a new Level of Intimacy. There is 1 Door between each level of intimacy, but it's in different states.

Each turn you can do an action:

• Steer the conversation, by picking a topic based on a Measure. You'll then do a test and treat it like combat, but the states are: Closed, Ajar, Half-Open, and Open.
  • You get your full value of the Measure chosen. If it's that person's preference, then 'deal damage' to the door in the proper measure; if it isn't, build a new door in the inverse measure.
  • After 2 sequential turns of the same topic, it'll start to be penalised with a cumulative -1 card. It will regenerate 1 card per turn that it's left alone.
  • Between Stranger and Acquaintance there is 1 Door. Between Acquaintance and Liked there are 2, etc.
• Inquire on a lateral topic, just picking a topic that isn't really intimate, necessarily, or personal; or perhaps linger on a topic. This would be the equivalent of "examine", it's a follow-up.
  • Some topics will be gated by intimacy, and picking one from the next one over is risky. If you press an issue that someone doesn't seem comfortable talking about, there is a X-in-6 chance of them deciding to talk, where X is the current level of intimacy plus 1.
• Listen, by taking a step back to try and gauge what's the current level of intimacy and be informed by the DM in more detail, or probing for reactions without taking the next step, just testing
  • This could also provide the chance for the NPC to steer the conversation towards a topic they might like, or just keep the conversation polite, depending on the NPC's own agenda

Balls and Dances

Description

• Invited out 3 to 6 weeks in advance, must be replied in 24 fucking hours

  • In a big house, the rooms of the first floor are opened one into another to form a "ground floor"
  • Refreshment room for tea or lemonade, this might be at the back in a small house
  • The ballroom itself, of course, which should be squarish
  • Cloakroom for cloaks and for mending damage to dresses
  • Supper room for the main meal
  • Cardroom for the old people (probably the library)
  • Maybe a sitting room / conservatory for chilling out

• Starts about 20h, the hostess and her daughter(s) receive the guests at the front door with courtesies

• After being received, guests go to the ballroom, dressed appropriately

  • Each young lady is followed by her governess or a married friend of the family as chaperone
  • Everyone wears gloves constantly

• When the dance begins, the first ones are the hostess or her daughter and the gentleman of the highest rank

• Usually it begins with a quadrille then 14-ish waltzes, galops, and polkas

• Then the supper, which is a sit-down affair but much more relaxed, and the gentleman - if he were dancing with someone when the break came - is supposed to wait for the lady while drinking a glass of wine

• Then 10-ish more dances, and then it ends around 1h

Procedure

The typical ball will last about 5 hours, starting around 20h and finishing about 1h (city balls start later, often at 23h, and go down to 4h); really fancy balls can go for longer, but usually not going after 5h.

They're divided into 15-min turns too, thus lasting for around 20 turns, with 2 of these around the middle being time for the supper.

It is more conventional, it has a physical space that can be traversed and rooms to find other guests. Some activities might include:

• Dancing. Not actually very important because of the dancing steps but because it allows one to talk to a lady one on one, without the chaperone or her family around. It operates like the dinner party Steer the Conversation, though people are much more likely to discuss who they are and try to figure out who one another is, maybe invite them for a visit.

  • You can dance up to 4 turns in sequence, but then you have to rest inactively for the other one.

• Talking. Same thing as the Steer the Conversation at the Dinner Party, but usually talking to more than one person at once, and so what pleases one might not please the other.

• Playing cards. For money, obviously. Lots of ways to do this, most efficient one probably is just figuring out an appropriate amount of money and using Thrift's little procedure for gambling.

Overall, the ball is basically like the Dinner Party except you choose who you engage with and how. Plus there's more men, the random events will make a bigger difference, and things just might get violent.

Country House Visit

Description

• Breakfast depends, ladies usually come down at 10:30 or so, but gentlemen might already be out and about, possibly hunting
  • Breakfast is super informal, people just come in and eat
• After breakfast, men go out to shoot, hunt, or fish. Women walk or write letters, maybe explore the neighbourhood.
• At lunch, men usually picnicked on the field (or ate with the peasants, as in Anna Karenina), women eat by themselves.
• In the afternoon, people might have a walk after, maybe have some tea, and then the dinner, which is the SERIOUS event
• This happens basically like a normal dinner party, though after dinner and the separation they might also play billiards, play cards, talk, doing charades like freaks, etc
• After a while, a servant shows up with water, wine, and biscuits, and the hostess suggests its time to turn in; ladies first, gentlemen shortly after, maybe after a brief spell in the smoking room

Procedure

Country house happen over weeks. A Random Event is rolled every week and the day it will happen.

Every week the characters choose what they'll be focusing on. Usually this will be either spending time with someone, working, or reading.

• Spending time - Whenever someone spends time with someone else for a week, they instantly find out some aspect of their personality or demeanour, IF they allow it to be found. Otherwise, the other person will have to work harder.

  • Also, the final level of intimacy can only really be achieved here, on their own.

• The same NPC can only really pay attention to 1 person dedicated to court their attention per week.

• For every week where the player spends time with an NPC, they put together a pool of cards made out of the NPCs preferences; each point beyond 5 gives +1, each point belows 5 gives -1, and 5s give +1 or -1 on a cointoss. Then they draw all of the cards and open 1 Door per red card drawn.

  • Player also gets +1 for every level of intimacy with a mutual relation that is present and vouching for them, and -1 for every level of infamy for the same.
  • If the relation isn't present but is at least a friend, the player gets +1 or -1.

• If 2 or more people are courting the same NPC, they may use their black cards to negate their opponents' red cards, if they're willing to incur their opponent's distaste. If it's an NPC, those black cards will damage doors for levels of infamy.

• The specific activity here varies, but it's usually walking, playing cards, listening to music or playing, just having conversations, reading a book out loud to someone, riding around, or hunting (for men).

• Work: if they're middle class and need it. They earn double their credit rating per day effectively worked, though if they don't have a letter of recommendation or know of a pressing issue, they'll need to waste a day going around town and distributing their card with their services. After that, it's a draw of the cards to see if gainful employment found them (red yes, black no).

• Magnum Opus: Lastly, players may embark in intellectual journeys or work on their Magnum Opus, or do whatever else they feel like, adjudicate as needed.

  • They need to read a book for that. Books take either 1 or 2 weeks to read, and at the end of it they'll discover which card the book has.
  • They'll use the cards (books) to build 3-card Brag hands. The entire book should have 4 of these, thus making a game of Crash. That's how they'll be scored.
  • Accounts of Real magic and fairy dealings provide a joker, which can count as any card
  • The books should be submitted a number of weeks before the exposition, and it'll take them 1 month to be edited regardless. The books used themselves might need to be submitted for verification too

• Soulsearch: The character tries to change their ways. They do an opposing test of the measure they want to change against the opposing one, and try to get the opposing one to win. If it does, they can readjust the measures by 1 point.

  • For every consecutive week focused on this, their opposing measure counts as 1 point higher.
  • Having the backing or influence of someone also adds 1 card in the direction they're supporting.

Time at the Coffeehouse / Gentleman's Club

These happen over weeks at cities, but not including weekends.

Every week, the character is tested in one of the two measures privileged by the club or coffeehouse - a military officer one might prize Fiery and Noble, while an artist one would prize Fanciful and Bohemian, etc.

Once they succeed twice, they gain the reputation of "Liked at (Club) +1"

After the first week they also get an idea of who frequents there and may start to dig for an invitation to dinner or ball. Treat it like a Country House visit with the bonus from the club, count the virtues of the club for double, and if they get a success, they impress the gentleman enough to be invited for something.

Letter-writing

Whenever they're writing an important letter, the player says what they're trying to convey and how they're trying to come across. They then either post the letter, if they know where to reach the person, or give it to someone in the hopes of finding the person they want to reach.

• For game-purposes, it's free to send a letter. It was like 2 pence or so in 1874 but we'll ignore that.

From Britain, it takes 1d2 days for a letter to arrive in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, or Scandinavia; 1d3+1 days to arrive in Central Europe; and 1d5+3 days for Southern Europe, and vice versa. Use that as a benchmark for other countries. The only exception is from the Iberian Peninsula, writing a letter for Central or Eastern Europe, that would take 1d5+9 days to arrive.

• Double all that if the letter is for a rural address. Double it again if it's wintertime.

If the letter is dramatic and has the potential to be misinterpreted or to come off as a dick, flip some cards.

• Each side gets as many cards as they have in Calm. Put them together. The goal is to get either a 5 card straight or better (so flush, full house, and 4 of a kind are fine). If they can't, the letter has been misinterpreted.
  • Maybe they can burn a level of intimacy to discard a card and draw another, as the person lowers their standards to be more generous.

If a messenger is sent instead they'll use their Honest vs. the person's Fiery, but it'll take longer to arrive.