The Court of the Empress: an RPG

Posted by Neel Krishnaswami on January 2, 2006 at 02:06 PM

The Empress is an immensely powerful and utterly unchallenged despot over a vast empire. A single word from her can cause a city to be built, and a second word could take all the lives within an entire nation. She lives within a vast palace filled with the wonders received as tribute from every nation under the sun. Thousands live within, spending their lives maintaining the gardens, cooking the delicacies, playing the songs, and guarding the jewels that make her life the most opulent in the world.

The players of this game take on the roles of the Empress herself, and of minor courtiers who seek her out, chancing death to petition her for a favor.

Creating a courtier

To create a courtier, each player needs to choose a name, and a favor that the courtier wishes to beg from the Emperor.

A good name is historical, drawn from nations despotic emperors once ruled, such as France, Persia, Italy, and Turkey, because such names call to mind the court of the Sun King or the intrigues in the Topkapi palace.

Here are some sample names to choose from: Aleksi, Altan, Anton, Arius, Arkadiy, Bazur, Cyrus, Durukan, Eliphas, Erkan, Etienne, Faris, Faroukh, Festus, Fyodor, Gaston, Gregoire, Hardalio, Heydar, Jarireh, Kenan, Kirill, Konstantin, Laurent, Malek, Mehmet, Micon, Muhan, Narses, Nasir, Oleg, Otho, Pascal, Pavel, Piran, Pyotr, Refik, Roland, Rufinus, Saban, Sebastien, Sejanus, Sergei, Thibaut, Uzay, Vanya, Varro, Vincent, Yasin, Zamyad.

The favor you seek should be the sorts of things that petty aristocrats have sought throughout history: an exemption from a particular tax, a favorable marriage for your child, a local monopoly on some good, additional lands or titles, clemency for a relative sentenced to death, a ruling against a rival noble, a position at court, and so on. It's okay, but not mandatory, to choose a favor that is in conflict with another player's favor.

A Round of Play

Opening the Scene

A round of play opens with the player who plays the Empress saying "Let us look upon the Empress's court."

Then, they should set the scene. In third person, she should quickly describe the part of the palace the Empress is holding court.  Then she should describe some activity the Empress wishes to do, and what request she will make of her courtiers. This, also, should be no more than a few sentences.

For example, the setting could be the aftermath of an evening picnic in the gardens, and the courtiers could be invited to extemporize poetry and criticize one another's efforts.

At this point, the Empress's player should say, "And now let us hear what may be said." At this point in the round, all the players must speak in-character, and should neither describe action in the third person, nor make any out-of-game commentary to each other.

Introducing the Courtiers

Next, the Empress should say, "Let my servants be brought forth," and then each of the courtiers should introduce themselves, using the formula, "This humble one, name, abases himself before the imperial majesty."

A Cycle of Dialogue

The Empress should select each of the courtiers, one by one, and command some service of him. When the courtier responds, his player should respond with dialogue, and should work any action that might be necessary into the courtier's speech.

For example, suppose the Empress has commanded Jean to demonstrate his skill at arms. The courtier Jean may respond, "Of course, your imperial highness. I see your swordmaster approaching, and ah! -- he is here. Now I take the sword from him and we duel. He is superb, of course, but as you see, we Gascons have a wild daring that the more scientific fencing of the inner Empire cannot predict."

Courtiers may wish to blacken the names of their rivals, to persuade the Empress to order their deaths, and may set the stage for their own request.

If a courtier's words displease her, the Empress may order his execution to settle the matter (see "Death"). If all of the courtiers live long enough to respond once, then the Empress should order the death of the courtier who pleased her least, to winnow their numbers.

Once all of the courtiers have responded once to her commands, and their number has been culled, then each of the survivors's players should get 1 point.

The Empress should then repeat the cycle of giving her courtiers commands and ordering the death of those who displease her, continuing until she has either executed all the courtiers, or a single courtier remains.

The End of a Round

If all of the courtiers have been executed, end the round.

If a single courtier remains, the Empress should then say, "You have not displeased us too greatly.  Ask of us what you will, and we may grant it, or we may not." The surviving courtier should then make his case to the Empress.

If the Empress is favorably inclined, then she should say, "To the worthy, we give gifts." And then the survivor should say, "Your generosity outshines the angels, your majesty." The player gets 5 points.

If the Empress is not inclined to grant the request, she should say, "We have graced you with our presence, but no more." The courtier is then exiled to the provinces, but leaves with his life. The player gets 3 points.

If the Empress is displeased, she should order the servitor's execution. (See "Death".)

Additional Rounds

Play at least three rounds with the same Empress, with a new set of courtiers introduce in each round. In between rounds, the restriction on out-of-character discussion is lifted.

Death

The Empress may order the execution of a courtier. To do this, the Empress's player should point an open hand at the offending courtier's player, turn her head away from him, and say, "This one troubles our peace!"

All of the players should fall silent, and the doomed courtier should beg the Empress for mercy. When she has heard enough, she should clench her hand into a fist, and the courtier should fall silent once more.

If his pleadings move her to pity, then she should say, "We are merciful," and lower her hand. The courtier is then gagged, bound hand and foot, and fed to the giant pythons of the Empress's menagerie. The player gets 2 points.

If the courtier's bleating irritated her, then she should say, "Such a fool could only be born of a race of fools!" and lower her hand. Then, not only is the courtier executed, but his entire family is killed and their property ataindered. The player gets 1 point.

Some reasons that the Empress may order the death of a courtier:

• The courtier is insufficiently respectful of her exalted status, and says or describes something that reduces the gap in status between him and her.
• The courtier flatters her too obviously or is otherwise excessively obsequious, in a fashion as makes light of her importance or insults her intelligence.
• The courtier is so busy demonstrating that he is the Empress's servant that he fails to attend to her real needs or desires.
• The courtier's player's voice tone or body language is displeasing to the Empress's player.
• The Empress wishes to make an example of the courtier to impress the other courtiers.

These are merely suggestions: the Empress's player should not over-analyze her reasons for ordering an execution, and should let instinct guide her decisions. It is the duty of the Empress's courtiers to please her, and the duty of the courtiers' players to deduce what the Empress's player may enjoy.

Once a courtier is dead, his or her player should draw up a new courtier, and sit quietly without speaking until the end of the round. This is a particular instance of the general rule against table talk during a round.

Body Language

Here are some tricks of body language and dialogue that can make playing the Empress and the courtiers easier.

The Empress's player should sit up straight, and raise her head and turn it so as to expose her neck. She may also wear sunglasses. When speaking, she should hold her head as still as possible, and should speak slowly and in complete sentences. If she needs to use a filler sound like "er" or "um", then she should stretch out the sound, letting it last a full second or more.

The courtiers' players should lower their heads and slouch in their seats, and place their hands on their stomach. When they need to look at the Empress, they should quickly look up and down, rather than meeting and holding her gaze.

Commentary

This game is intended as a roleplaying exercise, in the same sense that actors use acting exercises to improve their craft. The main skill that this game is intended to develop is the ability to read your fellow players. The courtiers' players should try to nonverbally pick up on what the Empress's player feels to be status-enhancing and pleasing, and play up to that.

I have deliberately equivocated between pleasing the Empress and pleasing the Empress's player in the rules. In this game, roleplaying is used as a distancing device, so that a player can pass judgment on the others in a harsh and peremptory fashion without insulting the other players. (This something that actors should be quite familiar with!)

It's important that the Empress's player pass judgment based on what he or she feels, rather than what he or she thinks is "objectively" in-character. The skill that we want to train is reading the Empress's player's emotional state and body language.

The main influences on this game Keith Johnstone's Impro, which has a master/servant game with a kill awkward servants rule as an improv exercise, and John Tynes's Puppetland, where I got the idea of making all the dialogue in character.

The game is too long. Sections 1-4 should be half their current length. Also, the play cycle needs testing -- there may be a need for some more interplay between the Empress and her courtier, and I need to encourage courtiers to riff off of each others' actions and try to make their favors justifiable based on what happened.