No... not wetting the bed.

As I don't often buy new systems and generally pride myself on being practically immune to hype and having different tastes to the mainstream of whatever sub-culture I happen to be wandering through.

However...

I recently took an interest in the french game Te Deum Pour Un Massacre, a straight historical game during the period of the french wars of religion.  So last week I gave in and ordered it online, but I've also just seen the game's latest supplement.

It's essentially a huge campaign setting allowing you to run games set in the Scotland of Mary Queen of Scots and, to a lesser extent, the England of Elizabeth I.

Now, not only have I devellopped a taste for historical gaming since I hooked up with my current group but one of my favourite periods of British History is the period of the Gunpowder plot.  Largely because of the excellent mini-series Gunpowder, Treason and Plot.

In short.... GAH!

I haven't even received Te Deum yet but if the system's any good I know what my money's going to go on soon.  Thankfully term's started again and I'll have some cash coming in from the teaching.

Mmmmmm... it arrived today!

First impressions, it's a lot smaller than I expected.  The game comes in a sleeve like you'd get a DVD box set in and it's composed of little books the size of paperbacks with the same vellum paper covers that your more upmarket paperbacks have in France.

The box breaks down into a book giving you the history of Early Modern France, a book giving you the historical flavour such as how people relate to each other, foods and attitudes to things, a book of adventures and the biggest book... the rules.

At 150 odd pages I groaned slightly at the thought of having to wade through it but it turns out that about 120 of these pages are devoted to character creation.

You start off by picking your birth rank and then you choose a template for your life as a baby, as a child, as a youth and as a teenager.  Each social class opens and closes different options for progression, as does each choice you then make.  After you've picked your way through to adulthood you go back to the beginning and answer a few questions on each period of your life ranging from what your favourite hiding place was as a child to who your first lover was.

Each decision you make changes your skills and stats until you reach the age of 16 and you have to choose a profession from the possible outpourings of your apprenticeship.  These seemingly determine the bulk of your skills and they range from playing knights to rat-catchers and nuns to courtisannes.

Another nice touch is that the character creation system keeps a running total on how much money you have based on how profitable your various jobs and positions might be.  Also if you have a skill level of 4 or more you get the professional tools for the job.

The system itself seems to be quite straight-forward with your skill level being represented by a dice and a penalty dice which you roll against a straight difficulty number.  The combat system seems okay with hit-localisation, damage levels and the need for armour but it also has some quite flavoursome touches like a quite detailed range table for missile weapons and a table allowing you more or less actions depending on the length of your weapon... though that does seem like a bit of a hassle.

This is looking good!

Sounds good, how difficult is the French out of interest?

Chargen sounds like it could take a while, particularly if part way through you wanted to revist the initial options as it wasn't going as you wished.  Sounds like you get a really good feel for the character at the end though.

The French is a little tricky as it occasionally uses quite florid period language in much the same way as victorian games might use the word "fisticuffs" instead of "brawling" or whatever.

I've only skimmed it but I did have to stop a couple of times and think about what certain words could mean.  I'm fluent in French but I don't have a university graduate's vocabulary and I'm quite aware of that reading the book.

I actually think Chargen would compare quite favourably to that of something like Pendragon.  The life paths are actually quite clear right from the get go and if you start off with an idea of what kind of person you want to play you can easily steer the character creation in the direction you want.  But there's enough leaway and ambiguity in there for you to not only get a good grasp of who your character is during creation but also wind up with a couple of surprises at the end of it.  It's kind of a nice balance between random generation and point buy.

Care to post a full review?

Yeah, my batch of comissions is a bit low this month so I'm sure I'll be able to slip a Te Deum review in somewhere.

http://couroberon.free.fr/Sommaire_TD_zip.html

Sheets and the like for the game.  Nice looking sheets at that.

Yes, I saw those.  They're the ones I plan on using if I can get my friend to do some appropriate photoshopping.

So just to be clear, you definitely haven't outgrown the bedwetting, right?

RPGPundit

Oooooh... got the book on the rivalry between Queen Elizabeth and Mary Queen of Scots today.  I'm not going to use it this time because I've already selected a time and a place for the game (September 1563 in Le Havre) but it's really fantastically well put together.  It comes with a DVD-style sleeve like the core set but there's a space for the second book in the campaign setting... one on Elizabethan London.

[JFK voice] Awnser the question! [/JFK voice]

RPGPundit

I don't need to wet my bed.  The ladies do it for me.  Boooyah!

Quote from: Mr. Analytical misquotedIt's essentially a huge campaign setting allowing you to run games set in Mary Queen of Scots and, to a lesser extent, Elizabeth I.

Now that would be awesome.


Cheers,
Roger

You sick, disturbed motherfucker.  



RPGPundit

Quote from: RogerNow that would be awesome.


Cheers,
Roger

I agree, that was such a politically intense period, it would be easy to run a fight free game and still get people to grip their knuckles white.