The Game of the Royals

September 7, 2009 at 3:11 am | In Game Chef 09 | 2 Comments
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Now we discuss the second half of the game, which to many, including myself, is the most exciting.

The legends of the gladiateurs is most often associated with their escapades away from the court.  Some were involved with romances with their royals, or even each other.  Others were arrested and executed for crimes against the crown in pursuit of their royal’s  desires.  But many more were suspected but never convicted for crimes they committed in service of their royal’s whims.

I paint the royals as caricatures, do I not?  Perhaps this is cruel, but in the legends, they are nothing but excuses for the adventures of the Glorieaux Gladiateurs.  Even today, many royals are little more than old guarde rich with supersilious titles and little to no responsiblities other than maintaining a level of notoreity in court amongst their other counterparts.

Ah, but I am getting political now and we are playing a game.  We shall proceed.

Once a match is over, the winning player decides if his team has an interaction with his Royal or if he wishes to give the scene to the losing player.

You see, each of you have your own team of gladiateurs and during a chronicle, it would make little sense if the same two teams played each other again and again.  It would create this cycle of redundancy that results in a boring game and a story of ennui.

So yes, each of you have your own team and you take turns playing the opposition of the other player’s team.  When it is your turn to play your beloved L’oiseau Marin, I will protray not only the hated rivals of Les Faucons, but also the Countess Jean Maricelle of Nouveau Bonaparte.

We have already discussed how I would portray a match of Boile de Muertre.  I shan’t repeat myself. Now we speak of how Jean Maricelle would interact with your team.

After a match, Jean Maricelle would meet with your team and ask you for a favor.  As I speak with Jean Maricelle’s voice, I would offer you an Action card, most often a Wild card, one that is not in your deck already.  Yes, I take an Action card from your Uno deck and I offer it to you for this favor.

If your team accepts, then you will draw up a hand from your deck.  We then proceed to the story of your team’s mission.  During the mission, you will face obstacles.  I will describe the obstacle and set a difficulty to overcoming the obstacle.  If you are able to play a Number card equal to or higher than the obstacle, you tell the story of what happens.  If you are unable to do this, you discard your hand and draw up another and I tell the story of what has happened.

This continues until you complete the story, either through victory or defeat.  If you are victorious, you gain the card offered by the Royal and place it into your team deck.  If you fail, then you do not gain the card.  Either result, we play a new match of boile de muertre and continue the game.

The game within the game

September 4, 2009 at 11:32 am | In Game Chef 09 | Leave a Comment
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This Bordeaux is passable, you have my thanks.  Now we continue.

There are two halves to playing Boile de Muertre.  You have the matches between different boile teams.  This is played with a deck of cards for each player and is a simplistic representation of the actual match.  Think of this simplification as how chess compares to an actual war.  Secondly, you tell the story of what happens between those matches, when gladiatuers serve their royals.

We shall begin with the matches.

Boile de Muerte is a variant of Ulama, a game played by the Aztecs for thousands of years.  Think of it as a cruel version of badminton.  In Boile de Muertre, a team of three to four players remain on one half of a playing field and use paddles to knock a ball (we refer to it as the etoile, “the star”) back and forth in an attempt to score points.  Boile de Muertre is played during three sections or periods (we have always called them “thirds”, yes, I know, terribly original).  Whichever team has the highest score at the end of the third third is declared the winner.  A team may also win if their opponents forfeit, which happens from time to time when players are injured… or killed during play.

A team scores a point when a player of the opposing team hits the ball out of turn (each side has three passes before they must fire the ball across into the other team’s court); or if one misses the ball and it touches the ground; accidentally touches a team-mate; or crosses the neutral zone.

I have researched many of your world’s card games in an attempt to allow you to easily play this game.  I have no desire to trifle myself with your various game manufacturers and search for the perfect art commissions for individual cards.  I have not found an exact duplicate of our Boile de Muertre deck, but you do have a game that is more similar than dissimilar.  It will do.  Once your world becomes enamored with the game, I am sure you will produce your own decks.  I look forward to your attempts.  But for now, you may use a deck of the card game you call Uno.

Now go and fetch me two decks of Uno and I will show you how to use them to play a match of Boile de Muertre.  Hurry along…

Further Introduction for Boule de Meurtre

September 3, 2009 at 12:16 am | In Game Chef 09 | 2 Comments
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Your masque

As a player of Boule de Meurtre, you will create a gladiateur who will be your masque, or avatar.  You may create a completely new masque if you wish, but it is perfectly acceptable to base a masque on a popular or historical gladiateur.  I myself have played the Violet Stalker, Jean the Lion and Sophie the Poseur.  There is no shame in copying a hero as your masque.

In the game, your masque must be able to live and breathe.  You should be able to sculpt or paint him, at least with the palette in your mind.  Your masque should feel real to you, but he is not real.  There is no need to know what he ate for breakfast three months ago… unless that affects him now in a palpable way.  He is as real to you as the figures in a beloved novel.

This is accomplished by giving him a name, a story about his time before he became a gladiateur, a reason he holds to want to become a star of the league, and a royal he has aligned himself with.  This royal will be the benefactor of your gladiateur.  You see, only the commoners would dare risk their life and limb in the Boule de Meurtre.  The most notable of the gladiateurs (and who would want to play anything other than the most notable) have always ended up threaded into the courtly intrigue of the aristocracy.

I am sure your head is spinning with what royal to choose.  There are so many of the petty bloodlines claiming the wisdom and strength of Bonaparte, you could choose any number of them.  But since it is best not to offend any of them by naming them directly, it is prudent to make one up completely.  As long as you create a royal who schemes against his or her fellow royals (who you also dream to be), has some dark secrets and the need for a strong gladiateur who would do their business in the shadows in exchange for favors and a lifestyle above their station, then you have what you will need from your royal.

All of this information should be recorded onto your masque’s feuille.  I will jot down a popular version of the feuille for you shortly.

Once you have your masque and royal in your mind, you could easily portray him in a play or write a story about his adventures.  But as I said before, this is a game.  A game has rules and ways to determine who it is that wins and what happens when more than one of the players want something different to happen in your shared story.  Otherwise, it is uncivilized squabbling…

We will discuss this in time.  I am tired and need some wine.  Fetch me a bottle of your best Bordeaux.

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