Silver Tongues

A story telling game of charm, greed and friendly rivalry for 3 or more players.

The aim of the game is amass more Tokens than other players by using descriptive story elements to narrate how your character overcomes conflicts and obstacles on their road to financial glory, while attempting to cause as many issues for the other players by laying problems in their path.

Thematically interaction between characters should be modelled on the portrayals of Captain Jack Sparrow, Captain Barbossa et al from the Prates of the Caribbean film franchise, though any setting is possible and indeed appropriate. 

To Start Play

You will need some Tokens - anything will do; dice, matchsticks, coins or counters. Collectively decide how many Tokens to play for – 10 Tokens per player plus at least an extra 10 is a nice number to start with. Feel free to add as many as your group would like to play for. 

Place the Tokens in the Vault.

Characters

In turn each player answers the following Character Questions:

 1.	What do they look like?
 2.	What do they most desire? Cash? Diamonds? Lost treasure?
 3.	Why are they seeking fortune? For wealth? Fame? The thrill of the chase?

Characters have four Stats:

Motivation
Renown
Charm
Greed

Each player takes 10 Tokens from the Vault and divides them between the Stats as they see fit.

Play Rock, Paper, Scissors, highest die roll or coin-toss knock out to decide the First Judge. 

World Building

The First Judge describes the setting of the world the characters inhabit, based on the players answers to the Character Questions. The First Judge will also describe how the characters know or are aware of each other.

They could be siblings. Lovers. School enemies. Competing wizards. CEO's of rival companies. At any time any other player can spend a Token from their Stats to interject and add an element to the setting.

All spent Tokens at this stage are paid back into the Vault.

Play
Once the First Judge has described the setting and how the Characters know one another play passes to the First Judge's left.

This player has become the Complicator.

The Complicator describes a moment of dramatic conflict, something that impedes the collected characters from gaining what they have described as being the one thing they most desire in their Character Questions.

Players take it in turns from the player to the immediate left of the Complicator to say which Stat they are going to use in response to the dramatic conflict or complication – ie., they will use their Motivation, Renown, Charm or Greed – and gamble up to as many tokens as they currently have in that Stat by placing the tokens at the centre of the players in the Stack.

Players then take turns to describe how they will overcome the complication or obstacle using as much descriptive and flowery language as possible to charm, cajole, intimidate or weasel their way out of the situation.

The Judge (to the right of the Complicator) awards the gambled Tokens in the Stack to the Character who provided the best description or resolution to the complication or conflict for winning the round of play.

The winning player then divides the Tokens among their Stats – gaining more Motivation, Charm, Renown or Greed.

The Complicator becomes the Judge for the next round and the player to their immediate left becomes the new Complicator by describing a new conflict.

* * * 

For example

The First Judge describes a world where the players are all space faring guild merchants and that the characters are known to each other as representatives of rival guilds. They have gathered on neutral space station to hold trade negotiations and cut deals.

The player to left of the First Judge becomes the Complicator and states that a random inspection by the Intergalactic Tax and Revenue Agency has been called, with the characters being summoned and told to explain the discrepancies in their filed accounts.

The players state which Stat they are going to use and gamble Tokens up to their Stat maximum, placing them in the Stack.

In turn they narrate a short segment (one player will use their Charm to get out of attending the inspection, another might be so motivated to not attend, owing to their vast knowledge of their guild's underhand accounting practices that they elect to gamble with their Motivation Stat to describe how they will overcome the encounter, a third player could be so greedy that their Greed will define how they will ignore the summoning by the inspectors and so on) with the Judge deciding which player's response they liked the best and awarding them the Tokens from the Stack.

* * * 

Moves

CUT!

At any time when a player is describing their character's response to a complication another player may call CUT! and interject.

The player calling Cut must add extra Tokens to the Stack – equal to the number of Tokens gambled by the narrating player in the current round. 

The current narrating player MUST cease with their description of thier response to the current Complication and the player calling Cut gets to narrate how the previosly narrating player fails.

The player calling Cut may not have enough Tokens to match the narrating player – in this situation they may ask the other players for help – in adding more Tokens from their own pool to match the narrators gambling bid.

If the other players refuse to add to the challengers Cut pool then the narrator may continue AND takes any Tokens placed in the Cut pool by the challenging player.

Overruled!

The current Judge may Overrule any one Cut at any time during a story telling round – no one loses any Tokens and the narrator continues with their description of how their character will attempt to overcome the situation presented by the current Complicator.

Duels

At any time in a story round a player can challenge another by invoking a story telling Duel.

In a Duel, each duelling player in turn makes a pun. In between those two players making puns, any other player may chime in with description of what the two are doing and the environment around them.

When a duelling player fails to make a pun (even a weak one is fine), any player may immediately call out ‘Not the Point!’. 

If anyone else can point out a pun play continues, otherwise the player has lost the duel.

Otherwise, the play continues until anyone says ‘Cut’. If the duel ends this way, all players not involved in the duel vote who they think won. In the case of a tie, flip a coin.

The loser of the Duel describes how they are bested or left vulnerable for a moment.

Then, the winner of the Duel may describe leaving them in an awkward or precarious position. If they do, they may also take any number of Tokens from one Stat from the loser of the Duel, provided they describe it.

Alternately, the winner of the Duel may help the loser out of their precarious situation instead. If they do so, nobody loses a Token and both Duelling players recieve a Token from the Vault.

Seduction

Seductions are identical to duels, except instead of puns, the seducing players make double entendres, and are judged on this basis.

Saying Cut

During Duels, and Seductions, each player has the power to say Cut to end the current scene.

Don’t use this ability tactically to stop players from getting to play the game - use it when the current scene makes you uncomfortable, or when the scene seems to have reached it's natural conclusion.

Rewards

Aside from rewarding the best narrator for the most creative response to a complication the current Judge may arbitrarily award a Token from Vault to any player for anything they see fit – as long as it pertains to the story being told. 

If the Judge finds something funny, likes a word used by the current narrator, is moved emotionally or is in any way entertained by any snippet, action, play, move, duel, seduction – basically any moment that the Judge genuinly feels is deserving of a reward – they can tale a Token from the Vault and award it to the current narrator.

The narrator must add it to one of their Stats.

Endgame

The point of Silver Tongues is to have fun with your friends as a collective while trying to undermine their opposing character's goals.

You don't have to be nasty, overly subversive, boarish or brutish – but rather you should want to tell an engaging and entertaining story as a group, with the ultimate goal of crowning one of the characters the victor – to whom go the spoils!

If you are the current narrator try and use your best, most descriptive language. Embody your character through use of verbal tics and hooks. Tell a good story – you want those Tokens right? Well you need to impress the Judge!

Alternatively don't forget to use Cut, Duels, and Seductiosn tactically.

Listen to the narrator – if you feel like their waffling on for too long – call a Cut! If they seem to be racking up the Tokens then challenge them to a Duel – you might even need to call on the help of other players for some more Tokens so be careful – they might jsut leave you in the lurch.

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