English is not my first language. *** Your liege is strong among kings; in his court, foreign princes do him homage, wise countrymen give him counsel, and spirits of air and flame and wood bend their knees to him. His kingdom extends from the salt-blasted coasts through the wavering grasslands and river valleys, and even pierces into the deep of the deserts. The people of the Kingdom do not think of themselves as one blood; only now, under his sagacious rule, they put aside their feuds. Through conquest, diplomacy, and spellcraft, your liege has united ancient foes: the far-riders of the veld, the pikemen of the crags, the merchant-lords of the Three Jeweled Cities. They do not love one another, but they respect the king—or fear him. You have an Office within his court—and with that title comes both Duties and Rights. Your liege will keep your counsel, for those seated around him are his trusted viziers; you may lead him into majesty or madness—but there can never be an easy, perfect peace. You must balance the Favor of the people, the Will of the gods, and the Demands of neighbor-states eager to seize mastery over all that your liege has built. *** Keeping Counsel is a game about political intrigue and difficult decisions. It is played by a group of 3 to 6 people in a single or a few play sessions (five or six player seems to provide for better Voting environments); each player take on the role of viziers in the court of a great conqueror. There is no such thing as a game master in this game. The political intrigue takes place in players struggling to achieve a common GOAL — necessarily reachable by only one of them. In doing so, they may enforce their RIGHTS and attend to their DUTIES. It may be a very rough struggle, and Rights will be prevented to be enforced or and Duties will not be properly attended. This will bring bad political consequences – you will have to take difficult decisions to gather allies, avoid enemies and not disapointing your society. There is a particularity in this game. Everyone can control every character of the game, not only one's own. Yet, it doesn't mean that each player doesn't have a single character. Each player's objective is to make his or her character achieving the common Goal. However, the player with narrative control can state what every character does. Narrative control is a term used here to refer to one player's Right to tell the story. So, players will contest for narrative control in order to make his or her character achieving the Goal. The mechanics for shifting narrative control consider two factors: * the characters' strengh to enforce Rights or their commitment to their Duties; * how the story pleases the other players. As to the second factor, well... it is a political game. You cannot just do what you want. You must managed the interests of all political actors to get what you want. So, the conflict resolving mechanics relies on VOTING - the simplest procedure I know that captures the experience of political intrigue. Notice that by default it's not a legal dispute. Players don't need to Vote based on fairness. It's a political disputes with its consequences: the way you Vote can provide for allies and enemies and the way you tell the story can influence the Voting — provide a story in which other players characters can also achieve the Goal. Sometimes the Voting must be based on fairness, and it is called FAIRNESS VOTING. Although this is presented in more mechanics, the default is more important to the game (and probably more frequent). Players can Vote yes, no or declare abstention. Disputes can result in a tie. This is always resolved towards the situation that preserves better the status quo - it's a changing resistant medieval society. What this means in each particular mechanic is presented along with its description. To play this game you need paper (for sheets) pencils and some markers like wooden pieces, buttons... (for recording the characters' PRESTIGE). There are two sheets : the LIEGE SHEET and the VIZIER SHEET. The Liege Sheet is common to all players and has these headings: Context: Goal: Fact 1: Fact 2: ... Each player has a Vizier Sheet with these headings: Name: Class: Duty 1: Duty 2: ... Right 1: Right 2: ... Prestige is used to influence Voting. Each marker scores one Prestige. Players begin with three Prestige. PREPARATION PHASE 1. The game begins starts with the setting definition by fulfilling the Liege Sheet and the Vizier Sheet. They are filled together in order to provide integration and coherence to the story. The first thing the players have to come up with after a brainstorm is the common Goal they will pursue. It can be anything that can be achieved by only one of the players. It may contain a brief description of the context, but the Goal itself has to be presented clearly as something achievable by only one character. Everyone must agree with this definition. Example 1: Context: The King will die in a few days and he doesn't have an heir. Local customs prescribe that his or her most loyal vizier will take his place. Goal: Become the next king. The players write this in the Liege Sheet. 2. Players decides the first trait of their characters: their CLASS. There are three possibilities: Cleric, Nobles or Warriors. Clerics have deep connection with other people, specially their faith. Nobles have a good place of birth and access to a great amount of economic resources. Warriors have some kind of military or fighting power. 3. The oldest player, the firstborn, and each player after in clockwise order, adds a FACT to the Liege Sheet detailing the story's context. It can be anything coherent and relevant to the Goal and the previous Facts. Any player can state that he or she thinks that the Fact lacks coherence or relevance to the story. If the first player doesn't agree with him or her, the dispute is resolved by a Fairness Voting of all of the players. Tie is resolved in favor to the player introducing the fact. If the decision is for the lack of coherence or relevance, the player do not add this fact and the chance goes to the next player. After the Fact is written in the Liege Sheet, every player can add up to three Rights or Duties to his or her Vizier Sheet, as long as it is under these constraints: * The number of Rights of the character can never be greater than the number of Duties; * Every Right and Duty has to be related to the last Fact introduced; * They also have to be compatible with the characters' Class. The second constraint is subject to a Fairness Voting. The player can add the Right or Duty only if the Voting favors him or is a tie. This introduction starts with the player who added the fact. He or she can add one Duty or one Right. Then, in clockwise order, everyone can do the same until everyone has introduced three Rights or Duties or decline to their introduction. Example 2: The firstborn is a Cleric who adds the following Fact to the Liege Sheet of Example 1. Fact 1: The King became very religious with death's approaching. And in his or her Vizier Sheet: Duty 1: Talk to the King whenever his Majesty wants to. The player at his or her left, a noble, adds to his or her Vizier Sheet: Duty 1: make a donation for Charity in the name of the Crown to please the king. The other players decline adding facts and it gets again to the firstborn, who adds a Right: Right 1: Make the king believes whatever the character tells in theological matters of death and afterlife. Everyone decides not to introduce anything anymore. Step 3 begins again for the player to the left of the firstborn. This goes on until all of the players' sum of Rights and Duties is equal to twenty. This number is necessary because everyone has to know the Rights and Duties of each character. Keep track of too many can be difficult. But since the difficulty about memory varies from people to people, the group can agree with another number. Having many Rights and Duties gives the players more opportunities to have his or her character as protagonist in a shift of narrative control. However, this represents a tendency for having weak Rights and Duties. This means that they are less likely to effectively provide the shift in narrative control in case there's a dispute for it. 4. INTENSITY is attributed to the Rights and Duties. Each player has 15 points to distribute among his or her character's Rights and Duties. The greater the number, more likely the character is to enforce a Right or to be committed to attend to a Duty. The number of points attributed to Rights or Duties can be any integer equal or greater than zero. EXECUTION PHASE The players will now develop the story whose setting was established in the preparation phase. The youngest player can start the story anyway he or she wants to —as long as it is relevant and coherent with what was established as its setting (the other players must act according to this criterion whenever they have the narrative control). The decision on coherence and relevance here is also subject to a Fairness Voting. If the decision is not in favor to the contested player or a tie, the problematic part is considered untold. The player who pointed the vice gathers the narrative control. Otherwise, game resumes as if there was no dispute. If there is no problem of relevance or coherence in the story, the player with the narrative control keeps it until: * a player character (different of the one of the player actually holding the narrative control) can enforce a Right; * any player character is not attending to one of his or her Duties; The player striving for the narrative control doesn't need to use a Right or a Duty of his or her own character. If any player tries to get the narrative control of the story, the player actually holding the narrative control can proceed similarly pointing a Right to be enforced or a Duty to be attended. Again, it doesn't have to be his or her character. There will then be a Voting. The players declare abstention or express to whom of the two the narrative control is to be atributted. Each Vote adds one to the Intensity of the Right or Duty dispute. Any player can add as much Prestige as he or she wants. Each adds one as if it were a Vote. In case of a tie, that narrative control remains with the player who had it before the dispute started. If the player holding the narrative control doesn't point a Right or a Duty in order to keep the narrative control, it automatically passes to the other player. The player who wins the dispute continues the story as before: It must be coherent and relevant and he or she must be aware of how the story affect and can be affected by the characters' Rights and Duties. When one of the characters is told to have accomplished the Goal, the player who created it wins. Prestige This is a society very fond of obligations. Whenever a character attends to a Duty in a meaningful situation, he or she earns one Prestige. If there's a dispute about how meaningful the situation is, the matter is decided by a Fairness Voting. The tiebreaker goes to not earning the point. Anyone can point out that the Duty is being attended in a meaningful situation (it doesn't have even to be during a dispute for the narrative control). However, the player who earns the point is the one that created the character attending to the Duty. Nonetheless, pointing out the matter before the player who will earn the point can be a way towards an alliance. On the other hand, if a character fails to perform one of his or her Duties in a meaningful situation, he or she loses one Prestige. If he or she tried to attend but could not due to having lost a dispute for the narrative control is a matter for measuring if the situation is meaningful (specially if not the attending is excusable). Again, in case of dispute, it has to be resolved by a Fairness Voting (tiebreaker for not losing the point). It's also the player who created the character who loses the point and anyone can point out that he or she is not attending to the Duty in a meaningful situation. If the player doesn't have Prestige to lose when he or she must to, the Intensity of the Duty drops by one permanently. If it gets to less than zero, he or she doesn't have this Duty anymore.