The Masked Ball - Not a "historical" RP

[Seperallis]

I had an idea for an RP, and I’ll keep the explanation brief until I get home and can flesh out some specific details. I was inspired by some old old old rp in another region from back when I was active in NS politics.

The premise: someone important - it might be a king somewhere, or maybe just someone really rich (but I’ll just say king to be easy) - is holding a masked ball and has invited a whole host of (supposedly) high-society types for a bit of fun; as everyone is in costume and no one is supposed to know who anyone else is, this king -who loves his games, it must be said- has proposed to make a contest of this ball, where party-goers must correctly guess who the guests are; the most correct guesses, and/or whoever correctly identifies the king by the end of the night, wins a fabulous prize!

players rp as someone (supposedly) very important attending a masquerade ball: you won’t know each person’s character, only being given a description of their costume and perhaps an alias. Through the course of the festivities and interactions, players are to learn about the attendees, and guess who is who based on the names in the guest book. There is a time limit: the party will move from room to room in the manor at regular intervals (usually) after all participants have interacted at least once, and when it’s time to say goodbye, the party ends!

But players must be careful, as there may be one or more imposters in the crowd who are at the party for one thing only: to kill the King!

So, show of hands as to who is interested in the premise. For tldr sake:
- I am not playing, I am DM and create all npcs, as well as moving the plot and setting from room to room.
- the king will be randomly decided from among those who want to be the king (interest in being the king should be sent to me secretly, or you might not live long)
- everyone will pick elements of their costume from a set list. (This will become very important, as rumors begin to spread amongst the partygoers)
- the potential killer (or killers) will be chosen at random from those who want to be the killer...again, send interest to me secretly. or maybe everyone can have a reason to be the killer?
- you will make a character sheet and send it to me secretly with relevant info I will provide later.
- guesses are sent to me. You only get one. The party ends at the first murder attempt. If you kill/guess the king first, you win, but if you’re caught killing the king you also lose. Funny that...but even worse is if you kill someone not the king, because the party ends and you’re declared the biggest, stinkiest loser of all losers.
- you’ll want to be sparing with details about yourself, but not so sparing that people think you’re hiding something and are thus either the king or killers?


The Setting:

The tycoon business mogul and philanthropist, the Lanlanian Baron of Bärøn, is throwing a masked ball and you're invited! Few if any have seen this "famous" eccentric Baron in person, and the mystique and thrill of seeing the mysterious man - or is the Baron maybe a woman? - is drawing quite a crowd of interest from the party-goers! Ever quirky, the Baron has decided to make a game of the proceedings: those who can correctly identify him/her from among the party guests, or correctly guess the identities of the most guests, will win a "Fabulous Prize!" Truly, the party will be a night of games, socialization, merriment, and lots and lots and lots of drinks!

However, rumor has it that one of the guests has a feud with the "good" Baron. It would be a shame were the party to be interrupted...


Create Yo Characters:



Some inspiration!


Send the following form code, filled out with your character information, to me in a PM. Do NOT post it here, or people will know who you are.
At the end of the form is a link to follow. This link will take you to a thing to create your masquerade costume. https://goo.gl/forms/FOv1oYnT2y7g1Xyw1

Code:

[b]Real Name:[/b] [Your character's actual name. Include titles if you must. Be as insufferably elitist as you want]

[b]Party Alias:[/b] [Can be whatever. Think 50's superhero names...or Furrsonas. Whatever.]

[b]Biometrics:[/b] [Hair and eye color, height, weight. Male or female? Descriptive or numbers, doesn't matter]

[b]Biography:[/b] A short bio of your character, where they're from and what they do. Family, kids, what-have-you. At least a couple sentences, but I doesn't need to be huge.

[b]Likes:[/b] [Things you really like. List or paragraph is fine, but please more than a couple]

[b]Dislikes:[/b] [Things you really don't like. List or paragraph is fine, but please more than a couple]

[b]Willing to be Baron:[/b] [Yes or no, would you like to be the Baron. Don't dead.]
[bWilling to be Killer:[/b] [Yes or no, would you like to be a killer. There may or may not be more than one.]

Now that you're done, go create your costume: https://goo.gl/forms/FOv1oYnT2y7g1Xyw1

[Seperallis]

It’s still have uncertain ideas about certain specifics, such as where the ball takes place, or even whether it’s actual royalty or just a very well-moneyed gentleman/woman. Do please send suggestions.

If we set it in Lomarre, I could literally just call it Un Ballo in Maschera.

I’m also back and forth about whether everyone could potentially be a killer, or if there will only be a random few killers. The first makes for more intrigue as non-killers hear rumors of an imposter(s) and try to out them while on their mission to guess who is who...Maybe even defend the king to throw the killers off the trail? But if everyone is the killer, there will be less whining about “why is I not an killer”

There might be more things to sort out, but I can’t think of them at the moment.

[Ayzek]

I AM THE RIGHTFUL KING.

[Seperallis]

*kills Lines*

[Nentsia]

This reminds me a bit of the game called ''Secret Hitler'' that I have. It works a bit differently, but the idea is also based on the concept on covert double roles. One person is secretly Hitler, and there are a few (secret) Fascist accomplices. The rest of the players are liberal politicians (everyone pretends to be one at least), having to prevent Hitler from getting elected to power. They have to prevent Fascist cards being played, find out who the Fascists are that are deliberately doing this, and ultimately find out who among them is Hitler - and assassinate him in time.

Maybe we could borrow elements to fill in potential blanks in this set up. I have two storylines in mind as well. One is basically not-Count of Monte Cristo meets not-Romeo and Juliet meets Florentine drama. Rich guy gives a masked ball, but his family is involved in a Vendetta against another rich family. Obviously its about a woman. The rival family takes this as an opportunity to take sweet revenge for past grievances.

Listen some dramatic Italian opera Aria from Pagliacci by Leoncavallo for effect.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hxonfpfuTY

Alternative:

We make things a bit more political. The Italian city states developed the modern system of ambassadors and embassies. These were early modern spy dens in Europe, as ambassadors (aside from being nobles and merchants at the same time) were also working as spies. Or rather, they recruited them. Perhaps such and such city state wants to assassinate the prince of another, uses this ball to develop a plot to do it. The ambassador is at the ball as well, but someone among the guests has been recruited by the ambassador to kill the prince. But the prince is not a fool of course. He knows there is a plot. His black cabinet, that is the secret men in the post offices, deciphered the secret letters between the enemy prince and his embassy.

The question is, who is the ultimate killer? The prince wants to unmask the killer at the ball and use it as a casus belli. So he brought his own guards with him, posing as guests, with the mission to find the killer. BEFORE ITS TOO LATE.

[Sal]

Can my costume be a tandem deal? Like, two people dressed up like a centaur where one is the human front part and one dude is just hunched over being the horse butt all night?

But seriously, I am expressing my interest here. Please proceed.

[Seperallis]

*snip*

Oh yeah, I’ve seen Secret Hitler played (never did myself), and actually had an idea where take that entire game and plop it into a politics rp mini-game, because I’m very creative and original. One project at a time though, maybe.

Or maybe we can have that too. \o/

Anyway, I like the ideas and scenarios, and I wouldn’t mind doing this several times with different settings and people. In this case, I want to keep things pretty simple though, and even if not everyone is a killer, I like the simple idea of everyone participating in this “game” to figure out who the other ball-goers are. Of course, we could always do this Doctor Lucky style, where everyone simply has a secret silly reason to want to kill our poor unfortunate king, and the first person to do so “wins.”

Essentially it’s a game of deduction.

Here’s how I envisioned running the rp:

• Players will create a secret bio for their character, including secret real name and party-going alias, basic likes and dislikes, basic personality, and their chosen disguise. Any killers invent a motivation to kill the king.
  
• except for any killers, players can’t outright lie bout themselves; that would be very unsporting of you honest high-society types, after all.
  
• Each room the party moves through will be a “phase” (or chapter). Players interact in these phases.
  
• I will play npcs, who will, being high-society types, spread gossip and rumors about the player guests. These rumors will be your hints, and all rumors will be at least based in truth even though some will be more reliable than others. As the night progresses, rumors will become more prolific and less reliable, presumably because of the wine. FYI, these rumors only include info gleaned from my box gossip, not amything gleaned from your conversations.
  
• The first post will have the list of aliases, and a guestbook of the characters’ real names. All rumors throughout the night will be posted beneath their relevant persona; additionally, at the start of each phase/room, I will recap all rumors and gossip from the previous phase/room.
  
• The RP ends with the death of the king, or the completion of the last phase (which ends the ball).
  
• The “winner” is the one to correctly guess the king first. The king is a “winner” if he/she survives the night. Another “winner” is the one to correctly guess the most secret identities. The only real “losers” might be the king (for dying) or the killer (for killing the wrong person).
  
  That’s it, pretty simple on your parts, I think: talk, interact, and explore until you know who the king is! Maybe try not to get too drunk?
  
  Thoughts and comments appreciated.

[Seperallis]

Okay! So I've popped up the character form in the original post for people to fill out as well as a plot/setting overview. You can go complete them! For convenience, I've posted them below as well.
However, I'll be coming up with a form that'll walk you through creating your character's costume for the ball. It'll be a day or two before that gets done, most likely.


The Setting:

The year is 1595, modern day: the tycoon business mogul and philanthropist, the Lanlanian Baron of Bärøn, is throwing a masked ball and you have been invited! Few if any have seen this "famous" eccentric Baron in person, and the mystique and thrill of seeing the mysterious man - or is the Baron maybe a woman? - is drawing quite a crowd of interest from the party-goers! Ever quirky, the Baron has decided to make a game of the proceedings: those who can correctly identify him/her from among the party guests, or correctly guess the identities of the most guests, will win a "Fabulous Prize!" Truly, the party will be a night of games, socialization, merriment, and lots and lots and lots of drinks!

However, rumor has it that one of the guests has a feud with the "good" Baron. It would be a shame were the party to be interrupted...


Create Yo Characters:

Send the following form code, filled out with your character information, to me in a PM. Do NOT post it here, or people will know who you are.
At the end of the form is a link to follow. This link will take you to a thing to create your masquerade costume. (Coming Soon!)

Code:

[b]Real Name:[/b] [Your character's actual name. Include titles if you must. Be as insufferably elitist as you want]

[b]Party Alias:[/b] [Any name other than your real name that you'll go by while in disguise at the party. Can be whatever. Think 50's superhero names...or Furrsonas. Whatever.]

[b]Biometrics:[/b] [Hair and eye color, height, weight. Male or female? Descriptive or numbers, doesn't matter]

[b]Biography:[/b] A short bio of your character, where they're from and what they do. Family, kids, what-have-you. At least a couple sentences, but I doesn't need to be huge.

[b]Likes:[/b] [Things you really like. List or paragraph is fine, but please more than a couple]

[b]Dislikes:[/b] [Things you really don't like. List or paragraph is fine, but please more than a couple]

[b]Willing to be Baron:[/b] [Yes or no, would you like to be the Baron. Don't dead.]
[bWilling to be Killer:[/b] [Yes or no, would you like to be a killer. There may or may not be more than one.]

Now that you're done, go create your costume: https://goo.gl/forms/ZUVUOIlIxr7cQsYl1

[Seperallis]

Just to clarify, the ball is taking place in modernity.

I also added more description for the "party alias." This is the name your character will go by while at the party, to mask their identity. Of course, if you want to drunkenly reveal your actual identity, you're free to do so.

[Seperallis]

Some inspiration!


The costume form has been created. It's unlikely anyone will have exactly the same costume with even these limited options, but I wanted something that'll be easy to give hints about during the course of the evening. The form is now located within the character submission form, but for convenience, you can find it here, too:

https://goo.gl/forms/ZUVUOIlIxr7cQsYl1

That's it! There's nothing more to wait on! Make your character!