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Author Topic: Pigeons & Prejudice: Definitely deceased.  (Read 23414 times)

GreatWyrmGold

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Re: Pigeons and Prejudice: Chapter 1.5
« Reply #120 on: October 25, 2013, 02:37:04 pm »

Would you consider letting non-players control "N"PCs?
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lawastooshort

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Re: Pigeons and Prejudice: Chapter 1.5
« Reply #121 on: October 25, 2013, 02:43:18 pm »

Would you consider letting non-players control "N"PCs?

Probably not, although I will give it more thought. I'm not sure how I would make it work in my already actually quite complex (no really!) system. One early version of the game involved being gentleman pigeons, and, to be more authentically Pride and Prejudice based, I was going to write all the turns from the point of view of the ladies being pursued, for the most part in the form of diary entries. I thought this might end up quite hard work, so I had considered looking for a co-GM or someone to write one or more of the ladies' diary entries, but for various reasons I discarded this idea.

So to sum up, very probably not, unless I have a flash of inspiration as to how it would work to the game's advantage. This is not the place for discussing that though, I think.
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GreatWyrmGold

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Re: Pigeons and Prejudice: Chapter 1.5
« Reply #122 on: October 25, 2013, 02:48:06 pm »

I was thinking that it could lighten your load.

Although given that it would probably be more work to figure out than it would save...
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WillowLuman

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Re: Pigeons and Prejudice: Chapter 1.5
« Reply #123 on: October 25, 2013, 04:49:35 pm »

Are there Cockney and/or Northern Pigeons? Or has the surviving avian population been wholly absorbed into the aristocracy?

Given the criterion for activities, in this situation I would say that "Radioactive Fox-hunting" would not be wholly inappropriate. Take care to give the hounds their iodine tinctures first, of course.
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GreatWyrmGold

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Re: Pigeons and Prejudice: Chapter 1.5
« Reply #125 on: October 25, 2013, 07:57:39 pm »

Given the criterion for activities, in this situation I would say that "Radioactive Fox-hunting" would not be wholly inappropriate. Take care to give the hounds their iodine tinctures first, of course.
I approve.
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monk12

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Re: Pigeons and Prejudice: Chapter 1.5
« Reply #126 on: October 26, 2013, 12:22:44 am »

((Well, that went about as well as failure could have! I like how the status of Mr. Arcy's livingness managed to remain ambiguous.))

Determined to minimize the chance of a future faux pas on the ballroom floor, Lady Montagu practices her dancing technique over the course of the next week. She also accepts a visitor, both for the pleasure of their company and also to further explore the fallout of the recent ball.

notquitethere

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Re: Pigeons and Prejudice: Chapter 1.5
« Reply #127 on: October 27, 2013, 09:54:42 am »

When not dancing or thinking of bonnets, Charlotte, buoyed by the closeness she came to performing at the last ball, spends part of her week practising the pianoforte.
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Tiruin

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Re: Pigeons and Prejudice: Chapter 1.5
« Reply #128 on: October 28, 2013, 04:58:07 pm »

Alessa B. Thain, would you care to dance with me this starry night?
Oh no, sir Arbury. Not when we have so many to still do!
Milady, time is imperative to spend. Shall you prefer us in be-


The ladypigeon moved about in her study, seemingly enchanted by the previous minutes--gone were the days wherein she feared the scowl and judging eyes of the gentry, for now at least one person listened to her! It was a modest improvement, to say the least, but an improvement nonetheless!

Her books were strewn about and some left half-open, depending on the book in question as well as what she usually spent reading herself before sleep. Stopping at the windowsill, she looked out and wondered if humankind was pretty much like pigeons. Dependable and possibly thoughtful, with a hint of eccentricity. She went with the best idea and planned on Going Outside. Musing to herself in that time ahead, she planned to go ahead and indulge her creative manners in The Arts, capturing her mind's eye in visual form.

She wondered if watercolors on paper would do. Maybe something abstract, to better understand the human nature. Like...appendages! Their arms were so smooth and linear, much unlike ours which branched out. Or..or those tiny brushes on their skin. How crude they were, so minute and delicate, quite vulnerable to water unlike the feathery coat.

It was an intriguing prospect, humanity was, with all its aches and worries.

...Though she did wonder how everyone else was doing and whoelse was there to meet.

(Take 2 activities)
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Errol

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Re: Pigeons and Prejudice: Chapter 1.5
« Reply #129 on: November 01, 2013, 08:27:41 am »

Extremely short diary excerpt.

...most important tasks: Dancing Practice. This embarassment must not happen again. And, Accountancy. There has to be some money somewhere in this house...
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lawastooshort

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Pigeons and Prejudice: Chapter 1.6
« Reply #130 on: November 03, 2013, 05:04:55 pm »

Chapter Two – The Next Week

...most important tasks: Dancing Practice. This embarrassment must not happen again. And, Accountancy

Dear diary,

Accept my most heartfelt apologies for my earlier exceedingly brief entry. I know that I must confide in you, for it seems to be the done thing in a certain kind of human society – the certain kind that I wish to belong to, alas. And yet I know I should not, for even you, an unfeeling (please, take this not in the wrong fashion) book, will probably be scandalised with what I am about to say: this afternoon, I sat down for several hours, although the suffering felt rather like eternity, and-

I say. I believe I fainted with shame. I... did some accountancy. It was, perhaps, for I remember when I was a small girlpigeon, I once stared at a wall for three days, mother used to tell me, it was perhaps the most tedious thing I have ever had the misfortune to experience. …Luckily, I was barely competent and found it entirely impossible to differentiate outcomings from ingoings, for should I have been an expert in this hideous task I wager I would be dead from the embarrassment.

Talking of which, dear diary, I had enough embarrassment for one week already, with the horrible Mr Arcy scorning my delightful but perhaps too... original dancing style at the ball. His horridness is more than enough to wipe away any regret that one might feel at his being dead, the little swab. Anyway, talking of which, I spent an entire morning this week dancing, or, to be more precise, practising my dancing. …Unfortunately I doubt I improved at all, and at one point I damaged an eyelash, and silently muttered the word 'bother', which rather flustered me.


(Take 2 activities)

My most cherished confidant, today, I Went Outside. I know, I know – 'twas a risky business and a near run thing: I feared at one point that the wind would carry me off, or that a passing swallow might drop a nut of some kind upon my fragile head, possibly bruising one of the tendons in my delicate skull, but it was a refreshing experience, which brought gladness to my soul, a rather biting cold, for June, to my cheek, and – forsooth, I hope I am correct in my interpretation of these strange creatures' even stranger facial expressions – a smile to the face of  Reverend Halfton, whom I perchanced across on a windswept hillside, chasing a sheep, or a goat, I know not, being unfamiliar with farm animals other than turkeys. …He saw me and, I fancy, he saw in me some of his own romantic delight in the natural world, and some of the bravery to confront the considerable dangers of this magnificent country, and it was this sensing of some slight commonality of deep emotion which drew the smile across his face. At least, if I have learnt anything in the last long week about humans, and their males, this is what I imagine may have happened. 'Tis a shame I came not upon Mr Arbury... I should think he is rather appreciative of the splendours of nature... At times I rather think he is one himself, but then I reprimand myself for such flights of fancy.

Anyway.

…I got home and was so moved by these exertions – and, indeed, exerted – that I went straight to bed, and could only eat pale cabbage soup for the next three days. But! The next day I arose, and, an image of the beauty of nature still warm (or rather cold, like my cheeks had been) (or perhaps warm, like my heart became) in my tiny pigeonbrain, I sprang with a lively step to the studio, whereupon I painted with feverish determination.

Aha! Diary, I jest. Am I not a famous wit? I painted with, however, some application, at least, and enough skill for the passing observer to make out that I was, indeed, painting a series of limbs, human limbs, stacked in what I hoped would, for a human, be an attractive pattern on the hillside upon which I met Reverend Halfton earlier in the week. Afterwards, when I was done, I stepped back to admire my work, and one of the servant girls walked in and spied it. She screamed, and dropped a pot of tea upon the floor, which I suspect is a rather overemotional way – a human way, though not terribly English – of expressing approval.


Reverend Halfton likes you slightly more!

Sensitivity increased!

When not practicing her dancingor thinking of bonnets, Charlotte, buoyed by the closeness she came to performing at the last ball, spends part of her week practising the pianoforte.

Meanwhile, amidst all this feverish scribbling and scratching, some ladypigeons – notably some of those in the Fantail mansion – were too busy thinking of bonnets to waste time jotting down their vacuous meandering thoughts.

Just one such ladypigeon was Miss Charlotte Fantail, who nevertheless broke off her hat-related daydreaming to practice her dancing. It was something which seemed rather sensible to her: indeed, it seemed so sensible she was almost loathe to do it, yet she recognised the need to dance with a certain degree of skill in order to snare a husband willing to purchase bonnets on her behalf; this would one day be necessary, she felt, as mother and father would not always be there to buy her bonnets, and her only attempt at knitting her own bonnet thus far in her admittedly not exceptionally long life had ended in terrible tragedy, and was not an experience she was willing to repeat. …So she danced, and she applied herself, and she became, she felt, a little more competent in the moving of her feet, and the rhythmic twitching of her wings in a way that might, were she fortunate, prove somehow attractive to a human.

The next day she turned her attention to the pianoforte. She loved the instrument greatly, and it was one of the great joys of her life that her parents were able to boast a rather splendid one as the centrepiece of their music room.

She sat down in front of the rows of keys, and flexed her nimble fore-feathers. She delighted in the warmth of the June sun flooding through the tall windows, licked the tip of a feather, and turned the page of her music to the beginning.

She played; she played for what seemed a rather long time, and as she played she lost herself in the gentle tinkling, in the ascending melodies and the beautiful harmonies that her left wing brought to meet them; she lost herself in a delightful waltz of considerable light-heartedness, but also of considerable prettiness – not of depth, but of joy, which was what she felt as she played on in the sunlight, and then she leapt up with a start, fluttering her wings subconsciously and reminding herself that she was pigeon, and not air, light, and music: was that not Mr Arbury, with his face pressed up against her mother's window pane?

By Jove it was – all dressed up in his fox hunting costume, and gazing in with rapt admiration. It made rather unsightly bulges in rather unsightly places, but Charlotte found that the costume suited him particularly well – rendering him, if she were so bold to think so, almost handsome, in spite of the horridness that such a costume implied was not far away in either the past or the future.

She praised the Lord she was not born a fox, and wondered whether Mr Arbury was gazing admiringly at the pianoforte because she was playing it, or because he intended to break into the house one night and steal it.

…She suspected it was the former.

Dancing increased!

Pianoforte increased!

Mr Arbury likes you more!

Determined to minimize the chance of a future faux pas on the ballroom floor, Lady Montagu practices her dancing technique over the course of the next week. She also accepts a visitor, both for the pleasure of their company and also to further explore the fallout of the recent ball.

Dear diary,

This week I had to beat a peasant. Again. It was for the best, of course, as the fool dropped a small piece of salmon on me, and had I done anything else I should have been humiliated in front of the finest members of Derbyshire society. But is becoming a rather habitual occurrence, so much so that I wonder if the poorfolk around here have heard about it, and are in fact attacking me deliberately with the various canapιs and such like with which I have had accidents recently. Who knows. It was, I must admit, partly my fault – I danced so wretchedly that the salmon practically leapt upon me: I have heard that this is something that they are wont to do, in the wild, and perhaps for them a rural ballroom in the middle of England counts as the wild, in the same way that a desolate moor would for one as delicate as me. I digress: it was partly my fault, were one to pick nits, and so I took it upon myself to improve my dancing, and thereby avoid further fish-based peasant-assault in future balls.

…I feel that it may have done me good, but it is- oh gosh, a carriage doth approach! I shall return forthwith, once I have gazed longingly out of the window.

…Hmm. 'Tis the Reverend. The only one to have been overtly offended by my recent inability to faint. Perhaps I should have taken fainting lessons, rather than dancing. Well, needs must when the er... blast. Ooh, I say. Um, I suppose I had better entertain the man.



One-on-one entertainment mode entered!
In this mode awkward conversation between human and pigeon shall bluster forth until such time as it is determined that no more shall be had.

First step: decide upon a way of welcoming and entertaining yon guest!


Dancing increased!

Spoiler: GM notes (click to show/hide)
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Tiruin

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Re: Pigeons and Prejudice: Chapter 2
« Reply #131 on: November 04, 2013, 05:27:18 am »

[I love how you presented that la. Diary excerpt mode is the best mode :P]


Alessa re-read her diary and brought down what they had for an 'eraser' at the time being on a few lines, and brought the quill (for it was her mother's quill, passed down for its durability) to her side as she pondered.

It has been a quarter of a forthnight since I began writing in you, dear diary, and since then I have grown! Joy it is, I say, to see how the world changes under the prospect of action! I continue to dabble in their aesthetic properties, finding out the trivialities I have done and taken on the study of anatomical features. Dear me, indeed I see the many differences between humans and us avian beings, yet I wonder if our similarities are mostly, contrary to what I once believed, in the physical and the emotional state.

Perchance, I shall stay the morrow and the yonder day at home, for I am sure to be on something here. This train of thought is amusing, to say the least, and stimulating, dear diary. For last night after browsing through the books, I have come upon that which confounded me in the early years.

And it is called, colloquially or generally, as 'math'. Such strange, twisted symbols, and yet used mainly throughout the commonfare. An intriguing prospect, diary mine, and one I will explore after I finish this dashing portrait the maids have grown so accustomed to speaking of in hushed voices.


(Take 2 actions)
Do Accountancy!
Perform the Arts!
« Last Edit: November 06, 2013, 12:47:21 am by Tiruin »
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monk12

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Re: Pigeons and Prejudice: Chapter 2
« Reply #132 on: November 05, 2013, 11:41:40 pm »

The Reverend? The Reverend! Surely, Lady Montagu thought, Surely this a chance to impress upon him my multitudinous ladylike virtues, as he was clearly the one man least enamored of my actions this last ball!

"Peasants!" Lady Montagu shouted earnestly. "Serving men! Make ready to serve tea and biscuits in the sitting room, and by biscuits I of course mean cookies, and OH! Someone be ready to answer the door!"

So directing her servants, Lady Montagu bustled off to the sitting room, preparing to welcome her guest.

Tiruin

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Re: Pigeons and Prejudice: Chapter 2
« Reply #133 on: November 06, 2013, 12:48:53 am »

((Query: To whom does the Entertainment mode affect? All, or just one pigeon who...I cannot connect with? As I don't quite see anything in mine or..well, one of the others, I'm presuming that said mode is connected with monk here.))
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monk12

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Re: Pigeons and Prejudice: Chapter 2
« Reply #134 on: November 07, 2013, 12:57:46 pm »

((yes, I was the only ladypigeon who elected to entertain a guest. A bit unfortunate it was the Reverend, but I suppose if it goes well it will be a great boon for my 100% completion quest.))
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