Long Live the King

[dagibbs]

gabriel_le and I ran a game of Long Live the King starting at 2pm yesterday. Despite White Wolf's estimate of 4 hours for the game, it actually ran until close to 10pm, though we did take a little over an hour off for dinner.

Many people came in costume, and ilanikhan kindly brought costuming materials for the rest of us, so we managed to have all of our players in some kind of costume, even if they weren't neccessary all of anything like the same period. It still definitely added to the atmosphere.

The rules themselves leave a LOT of holes and lack of clarity, so there were a lot of judgement calls to be made on exactly how things worked, and luckily we didn't hit a victory condition discrepancy that we spotted near the end.

I took the King role, which was essentially the game master role, with gabriel_le as my scribe and able assistant. We had players for all of the 7 main roles, and 3 supporting actors to take on the minor roles as required.

The game was busy, hectic, fun, and I think everyone enjoyed themselves. I'm glad we did it, but I'm not ready to do it again for a while.

Comments

[beable]

I think it was cool that with the exception of the ArchBishop, than in the final round we were close to everybody's victory conditions being possible.

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

Yeah, poor green_ogre (as the Arch-Bishop) got badly brutalized while in jail.

Actually, you were too solidly in the king's favour for the people who needed there to be no heir to be that close, too. I think, at least, it was favour not status for the Queen to still be regent for her son, I don't recall completely.

[green-ogre.livejournal.com]

I am 99% sure our glorious Queen just needed favour to ensure her victory.

At the end it was down to the Queen and Treasurer, with a slight possibility of the Royal bastard if he had found some way to restore favour.

In hindsight, the troubadour should have been "dealt" with earlier. It would have been dealt out again, but hopefully not to the treasurer.

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

If the troubador had been killed (assassin or master chef, I think) then would be far harder to "deal out" again, requiring (IIRC) the Royal Doctor to intervene.

[beable]

Favour for the Queen. And the drop in the Bastard's favour while her favour is high. If I had had a good way to raise the Steward's status I'd have won.

[xiphia.livejournal.com]

Heyyyy! Less talk of killing the troubadour please! That, or we need a new player for that role, because I quit! Assasins, chefs with poisons, FEH I say, a pox on both your houses! :p

[ironphoenix.livejournal.com]

You were safe, mostly: I only got the Assassin card at the end. (The Royal Doctor would have sadly arrived too late: I had him from the beginning.)

[ironphoenix.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was kind of stuck at the end, though: nothing I could do in the last turn could affect the game's outcome.

[ironphoenix.livejournal.com]

It was quite a lot of fun; thanks for hosting and Kinging it!

M. proposed a possible rule change to balance the game better, and I'll include you on my reply.

I suggest that it be roughly an annual or semi-annual thing.

Speaking of the Arch Bishop

[beable]

At one point you stood up and declared "I am a man of God". It took a DC 35 will save to keep me from capping the quote with "and you are a rat".

In my D&D group, that is one of our oft-used quotes. Originally said by the pompous and sanctimonious cleric in the party to the thief (who was in fact half rat, or a were-rat, or otherwise had rat-like qualities (the ears, and tail) for some reason. Named Rous of course.

The same cleric turned the conversation exchange "Rous - what are you doing?" "No-o-thing" into the verbal component of the status spell he regularly cast on Rous.

(Rous - Rodents of unusual size)

[beable]

Well, not to mention that me wanting to raise your status had nothing to do with your interests.

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

I look forward to the rules suggestion. I'm sure there are lots of ways the game could be tweaked.

Maybe annual... though next time, I think I'll let someone else be king and taking a conniving role.

[ironphoenix.livejournal.com]

Well, it was a natural alliance, because I was hoping to get useful Status cards; I was particularly irked because I couldn't use any Intrigue cards in the last turn (not that I had anything sufficient to pull your favor down that far).

[ironphoenix.livejournal.com]

I'd be fine with doing that next time, I think!