Cuckolds & Coquettes

This was originally going to be a rather longer post, but I've realised that I don't really have time to assemble the whole together, and it's one of the lessons from "The Man in the Iron Mask" that I want to capture before my memory fades.

One of the things that is quite evident throughout the Musketeers saga, but most especially from "Louise de la Valliere" and "The Man in the Iron Mask", is just how much of the storyline is driven by characters being involved in various sexual relations. (It's actually impressive just how extensive this is, given that at no time does Dumas describe any actual sexual activity - it's all implied. And when compared against the reality of Louis XIV and Louise de la Valliere, even the implied stuff is positively tame.)

And yet, that's something that tends to be missing entirely from RPGs - even if there is a romance in place, it tends to be the only such romance to feature in the campaign, it tends to be of the generic "rescued princess and her hero" variety, it happens almost entirely off-screen, and it tends also to proceed in a fairly idealised manner. Part of which is entirely appropriate - a sixteen stone bearded Scotsman tends to do a poor line in rescued princesses!

Yet I think the game misses a trick here, especially as regards "courtly intrigue" games - the interplay of personalities in the novels makes for some really intriguing plotting, and can add an entirely wealthy dimension to events in a campaign. The PCs may not be able to approach the King directly, but if they know that his mistress is partial to a particular type of chocolates...

(Where this post was going to be longer was that I was thinking of proposing some sort of construct for such a game. But, as I said, I haven't had time to work on it. However, one thing I would suggest is that each PC and each major NPC should probably have some sort of record of three key connections - Patron, Spouse, and Lover. Obviously, one or all of these could be empty. But the key is that each of these connects the character to one other NPC, serving to build a network of such. But that's as far as I got.)

Anyway, it's something to consider.