Game/setting concept: players attempt to learn of and exploit social scandals in high-society Victorian Era. This is opposed by the scandals being covered up, and therefore the need to engage in scandalous behaviors of their own to uncover the juiciest secrets.
Additionally add in some kind of mental strain to accommodate horror elements of you want.
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Any fantasy elements?
If you fuckin want nigga. I was originally thinking you'd go cosmic horror, but as an intentional afterthought.
>"These blasted Hounds of Tindalos are making it real hard to make out who is bedding Duchess Spoke to!"
*Spoleto
Fucking autocorrect
Cause pride and prejudice with a fantastic hook is something I could get behind.
I mean the concern is that you edge quite close to dragon age 3 unless you've got quite a hook. Cosmic horror lets you use the sanity track but on the other hand it's such a standard for "with a twist" hooks these days that I'm worried it comes off as clichéd.
What did you consider to be wrong with Dragon Age 3?
It's been done
It was by the numbers sure. Though for this setting, I like the idea of the main thrust being important diplomats navigating courtly intrigue.
Pride & Prejudice is pre-Victorian era, AKA the Regency era.
You could try reskinning BubbleGumshoe into the Regency era, the game is about teen detectives and features risking social damage by trespassing in socially unwelcome situations, you could use that mechanic for genteel lady snoops or inquisitive lady's maids braving scandal and dissolution.
Sound like a game for GIRLS
>victorian era
Pride and Prejudice is Regency era, not Victorian.
and no, it's not all the same thing.
If not Regency, then definitely Georgian. Though I'd take it set in Victorian era too. Depends on the level of technology you wanted in your setting and if you were okay with it sliding into steampunk because the average person who assumes P&P is set in the Victorian era is going to immediately also think "steampunk adventure". (Which I'm also fine with, but may not be what OP is after.)
I like the idea of BubbleGumshoe and am immediately more interested in the system, even if I'm in despair of finding anyone interested in playing such a game.
Soiled Doves (I think that's the name of the book) also has elements of what OP is after, though it's generally about prostitutes on board a luxury cruise ship trying to outrun a serial killer. (iirc)
If historical accuracy is a concern (and I'm not saying it has to be) you really shouldn't set something inspired by Pride and Prejudice in the Victorian era. The way people of different genders were allowed to interact in that period was much more regimented and restrictive.
>muh cosmic horror
Don't do that
Fucking fight me I didn't want to have to get into whether or not France was a real country.
I had been thinking FateShoe for system, which is Fate Core cribbing heavily off of Gumshoe.
That said era/historical accuracy wasn't important to me and pride and prejudice wasn't my inspiration, just an easy shorthand for a particular view of the world. So in either case I'm really not tied down to it. Some space aristocracy bullshit like Dune, or court intrigue in shitty Forgotten Worlds for that matter, would work equally well for example.
Wow did I mention it's 4am, I slept for 2 hours, and I'm a retard? because that's important context for anyone reading.
Cool idea but intrinsically complicated. Would require a lot of note-taking by the players unless they are the sort of person where this stuff is their jam.
See the way I'd run it is just using the Gumshoe stuff for investigations; every scene they've got a clue, which eventually leads to a scandal, but in order to make it stick they have to make either some good rolls or make some hard choices.
Then they just treat it like Pokemon: gotta catch em all. People you've got blackmail on can do you favors and have to acquiesce to minor requests, or you burn the contract for a more significant favor.
So the only issue really would be the railroad lol
Mmm I dig. That's really smart.
Loosely connected but damn inspiring nonetheless
BBC miniseries is the best visual version
One issue I can see. If you don't force players to be ladies then you almost certainly need to have separate skills for men. No -4 STR bullshit but no noblewoman ever wooed a suitor with her strength of arms, and no nobleman ever caught a wife with his incredible needlework.
So depending on how important you make individual standing it would necessitate marriageable traits to be different between sexes, which SOUNDS a hell of a lot like "hurr durr -4 str".
I remeber reading Pride and Prejudice in high school.
Was surprised to realize that it was actually a fucking good book, and an entertaining read to boot. Still recall the look on my instructor's face when I told her so.
...
I never read it. Your experience though sounds really similar to my experience with high school English. Read Catch 22, loved it. Teacher kept trying to convince the fucking potatoes in my class it was good, but she was also a potato and couldn't differentiate funny parts from unfunny parts, so she constantly tried to explain jokes that were never funny.
>It's almost like he got the reference oh my god what a fucking genius
Except who gives a shit about girls with guns.
Oh, not quite. My experience was that the instructor seemed immensely gratified by my liking the book and understanding the nuance of its humor.
Sounds like you want the Wuthering Heights RPG:
unseelie.org
Nah. Though it's neat, I really did just want a mystery game of no consequence at all, with an unusual setting.
>of no consequence at all
Oh, so like seriously social conflict, but it only really affect the social circles?
There is/was GURPS splat called Goblins that was about regency London inhabited by miserable goblins instead of humans and they get up to Oliver Twist / David Copperfield type shenanigans. Come to think the world is pretty similar to the Gremlins vidya boardgame on Steam except less steamounk and dirigibles.
>BubbleGumshoe
Sounds neat, but Da Archive is failing me.
>Victorian Era
It's like you don't even know your Darcy's.
Anyway, if you're going to run a Jane Austen style game you should look at DramaSystem. And read the books.
Oh and if reading isn't your favourite thing to do, the bbc miniseries of Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth is the one to watch. Also, there's a bbc mini series of Emma that's really good.
It might be better to see examples of the costumes, the houses, food, etc. And to hear the actual way of speaking.
The game I was going to run was something like, a family of sisters whose father is dying/recently died and they have to get married quick and/or raise their fortunes before their cousin inherits everything. The father dying soon gives a little bit more of a ticking clock, and the sisters can also decide to trick the cousin (lying about their father's health) or persuade him to let them stay after the father dies etc.
Then you basically just have a bunch of romancing going on. Courtin'.
It's a Gumshoe game. Should be a trove in Da Curated Archive I'm sure.
See I was also looking at Pendragon so romance wasn't off the table but again it's all about scandals rather than all being about wooing. The only major part wooing played was that scandals of your own would damage marriage prospects, do you had to hide your indiscretions.
Update: there's a Gumshoe trove in the regular archive but it's incomplete. I found one once but no idea where or how and not sure it had bubble in it.