Carnival Row

Runescryer

@bored Actually, in the show, the main brothel is based out of an old, multi-story hotel. Not like 40 workers there, but definitely around 2 dozen.

Also, there's always the option of a player establishing their own, rival business.

And while the series is heavily social and personal-story themed, there's still a good amount of action and politics in it as well. Black market. Smuggling in refugees. Fenian-style uprisings. Murder mysteries. Magic is more in the background than all-pervasive.

tek

@Runescryer Please run this game. Your head is in the right place.

bored

@Runescryer Tongue and cheek as all that was, I wasn't really worried about the physical logistics so much as the tendency toward niche-protection on games.

If the premise is that it is not merely a game that has a fairy brothel, but an entire game built around the fairy sex work subeconomy with an expectation that all PCs will be involved, then the problem is alleviated and my not so seriously phrased concern is withdrawn!

Derp

@Runescryer said in Carnival Row:

Also, there's always the option of a player establishing their own, rival business.

This sounds all well and good until every single PC wants to run their own.

Learn from WoD games. Don't let them all have nightclub brothel apartments.

Auspice

@Derp said in Carnival Row:

@Runescryer said in Carnival Row:

Also, there's always the option of a player establishing their own, rival business.

This sounds all well and good until every single PC wants to run their own.

Learn from WoD games. Don't let them all have nightclub brothel apartments.

My nightclub brothel is also the local werewolf bar.

Wretched

@Auspice What special thing is in the basement?!

Auspice

@Wretched said in Carnival Row:

@Auspice What special thing is in the basement?!

Elysium.

Seraphim73

@Wretched said in Carnival Row:

@Auspice What special thing is in the basement?!

We don't talk about what happens in the basement.

Arkandel

@Seraphim73 said in Carnival Row:

@Wretched said in Carnival Row:

@Auspice What special thing is in the basement?!

We don't talk about what happens in the basement.

You just broke your own one rule!

Cupcake

At the end of the day, all anyone wans to do is TS as a pix so they can get their wings to glow when they orgasm.

Obviously.

surreality

And if there are too many fae prostitutes, it can be resolved in the traditional way:

a hoedown.

(I'll see myself back out.)

square dancing

Seraphim73

@Arkandel I'm a rebel, what can I say?

Ominous

@Cupcake

I mean if we're honest. I haven't had a good toe-curling, wing-glowing orgasm in years

Brunocerous

@Runescryer I just started watching the show a few days ago. I'm only three episodes in.

That said, I think it's a fantastic setting. I would recommend that you continue to think along the lines of what you are already considering with factions, and doing something along the lines of what @skew did with Chontio and establishing some orgs that PCs can join from the get-go. Some examples/ideas:

A fae group that investigates crimes that the police won't
An org that helps Fae refugees escape to the Burgue
A lobbying org that works behind the scenes to curry political favor with humans
A team that seeks to rescue artifacts and lore from Tir-Na-Noc before the Pact can discover or destroy them
An org that helps arriving Fae refugees get settled in the Burgue

Also, if you are still looking for a game system, you might take a peek at Victoriana. The setting is very close and it might be adaptable.

Lisse24

Got a few episodes under my belt, thanks to being sick. I can see why the show would be appealing to someone who really likes Changeling, or who the aesthetic appeals to. There's also a lot of inspiration to be had for settings.

But without those predilections the show itself is ... ouch.
The acting isn't Sandsnake bad, but it's not great, and the politics are about as subtle as a sledgehammer.

I've watched enough to get a feel for the setting, which, again, has a ton of potential, but I don't think I'll be finishing the show.

Arkandel

@Lisse24 said in Carnival Row:

Got a few episodes under my belt, thanks to being sick. I can see why the show would be appealing to someone who really likes Changeling, or who the aesthetic appeals to. There's also a lot of inspiration to be had for settings.

But without those predilections the show itself is ... ouch.
The acting isn't Sandsnake bad, but it's not great, and the politics are about as subtle as a sledgehammer.

I've watched enough to get a feel for the setting, which, again, has a ton of potential, but I don't think I'll be finishing the show.

I agree with the acting (at least from the main two protagonists, for the most part it was much better than that) but I think it's off topic for this thread, which is more about games set in that universe.

Characters can act more convincingly than Orlando Bloom. Then again who can't?

The Sands

@Brunocerous said in Carnival Row:

@Runescryer I just started watching the show a few days ago. I'm only three episodes in.

That said, I think it's a fantastic setting. I would recommend that you continue to think along the lines of what you are already considering with factions, and doing something along the lines of what @skew did with Chontio and establishing some orgs that PCs can join from the get-go. Some examples/ideas:

A fae group that investigates crimes that the police won't

An org that helps Fae refugees escape to the Burgue

A lobbying org that works behind the scenes to curry political favor with humans

A team that seeks to rescue artifacts and lore from Tir-Na-Noc before the Pact can discover or destroy them

An org that helps arriving Fae refugees get settled in the Burgue

Also, if you are still looking for a game system, you might take a peek at Victoriana. The setting is very close and it might be adaptable.

I think one of the things I like about the setting is that it looks like it offers a lot of possibilities. Yes, I know that there is a very real danger of a lot of it degenerating to activities in and around the brothel but the possibilities for more still exist.

I know that a lot of people are of the opinion that when you step into a new game there should be stuff to clearly aim new characters toward a goal, but for me what I want are possibilities. If I want a story where someone decides the path the characters are going to go down then I'll read a book. The whole reason I'm on a MU* is so I can create and explore, not do what someone else tells me to.

Ghost

What about setting it during a story with a linear timeline rather than a "Day in the life of" game?

Rather than "It's Carnival Row!" as the driving force, why not focus on a linear story in which the characters could bind together on and keep driving the story? Like the invasion of Tir-Na-Noc or another island similar to Tir-Na-Noc?

Sounds like a win to me. You get The Greatest Generation crowd hungry for quasi-Victorian World War 1 action, and you get the Fae Rpers hungry for a fae game.

Pretty sure someone would love to play stuff like a flying pix runner scout during trench warfare or a satyr-type fae diplomat trying to woo human lands to join them in the fight. You could leave TirNaNoc alone and run parallel to the show without being slaved to what happens on TV, but evolve the game based on the events of the show.

Edit: Oh, you could also then allow human characters in the form of sympathetic humans who emigrated to the island to help in the fight. Stuff like chaplains, soldiers, war profiteers, weapons runners, lovers, God-children to pixies, people bound to join by prophecy or promise...

Arkandel

@Ghost said in Carnival Row:

What about setting it during a story with a linear timeline rather than a "Day in the life of" game?

Rather than "It's Carnival Row!" as the driving force, why not focus on a linear story in which the characters could bind together on and keep driving the story? Like the invasion of Tir-Na-Noc or another island similar to Tir-Na-Noc?

Sounds like a win to me.

Not to me, but that's my personal opinion.

If I hear there's a Carnival Row game out I'd want to play... Carnival Row. Not something vaguely 'inspired by' it, yet with a completely different focus than the show that I liked in the first place.

Ghost

@Arkandel Counterpoint. Anything not specifically mimicking the TV show would just seem like an adaptation of, but may also feel like you're slaved to the show itself.

I'm not saying "dont play carnival row", but instead "play the carnival row universe, just not on carnival row itself with a storyline that binds people together."