Miseries & Misfortunes: Duel of Wits

The road to Occult Paris, 1647. Session 3

Before we draw swords—prior even to the first discharge of musketry—there are always words: insults, threats, accusations,confessions, apologies, seductions, and bribes. In 1648, a charmingor skillful speaker can be more deadly than a duelist, more accuratethan a marksman. Weapons of wit can be used in nearly any context: to score points in court, to convince a reluctant ally, to precipitate a bloody brawl, to exchange witty quips during a hard-fought duel or even to humiliate your enemy with scandalous pamphlets distributed about town.

—Miseries & Misfortunes, Book I.

We were down a player in our third play session, but this will let us use the mechanics for when a player misses a session when he returns, so I was all for continuing to play with the two players of Henrichus and Escroc.

Monsieur LeClerc's Displeasure

Monsieur LeClerc, in a fit of rage, dismisses Escroc and Henrichus, sparing them from the lashing he is about to deliver upon Mouston. With both the empty box and Leclerc's 'wrong' box in hand, the two fellows leave the warm home, filled with the delicious smells of supper, to venture into the cold, damp November streets of Paris.

We began with a recap, and I opened the session with Escroc and Henrichus, who were leaving Leclercs’s city home. What do you do?

The Encounter with Iean

By chance, they stumble upon a group of fishmongers, their day's labor done. Among them, to their surprise, is Iean. Quickly, they hide in an alley and follow the men to Le Poisson Rouge, a local drinking establishment. For nearly two hours, they endure the wine, chatter, and smoke until Iean's after-work revelry comes to an end, and he heads home.

In the shadows of the house alley, they wait for Iean to relieve himself of the day's drink. Surprised and angered, Iean becomes defensive as Escroc exclaims at the fortunes and divine wills that have placed them all in the same space and time. He asks for a moment of Iean's time to discuss a matter of urgency. Iean pushes back, insisting they have business to discuss tomorrow at noon.

Going into this session, I had a couple of 'opportunities' if the players were stuck. One was to present Iean, the uncle/kidnapper coming in from his "day job." and they jumped on this opportunity and followed Iean while the players talked in real time about what to do with this!! I'm a big proponent of roleplaying through the scene until we reach a decision point or someone wants something —doing it this way inevitably establishes fiction we can pull in if needs be. In our case, the players decided they wanted to "flip" Iean to their side, and then there was enough established to decide to accost him after he arrived home from all that drinking! And our first Duel of Wits!

Duels in the Alley

The conversation grows heated. Henrichus, filled with indignation, accuses, "You have kidnapped an innocent wife, Monsieur!" Furious, Iean tries to defend his actions, claiming they are employed by Monsieur DuPont to retrieve debts owed to him by the Basots. He declares, "There are no angels here; even the wife has played foul. And DuPont will have what is owed him."
The back-and-forth becomes a barrage of shame and accusations. Escroc and Henrichus, with a combination of clever words and poor insults, defeat the drunken Iean down in the alley.

I only wish I had recorded this scene of the players and (impossibly) the characters. Picture, if you will, Iean steps out of his city home into the alley to the urinals from an evening of drinking. Two men approach, to intimate distance, a thing in Duel of Wits, one to beg his pardon for pulling a pistol on him earlier. The other man shames him for kidnapping Basot’s wife. I love Duel of Wits because words and dice go hand in hand, and this version takes how close you are into account! Who speaks first matters; the scene is comical, but the discourse is serious!! I say GOOD NIGHT, SIR!!

Henrichus's Deception

Later, Henrichus hosts a gathering with Escroc, with a devious plan to trick his mooching uncle-in-law into opening the "wrong" box from Lecleric’s home, which is wrapped and sealed with wax. Fearing it might be trapped, he hopes to rid himself of his unwelcome relative once and for all.

As the box is opened, instead of a trap, they find a beautifully crafted blade. Sharp and deadly, it swiftly cuts Jarrod's hand as he reaches in for the promised bottle of cognac.

This was a player-initiated scene driven by the need to eliminate a dependant who is a mechanical drain on the PC’s wealth, and there are some layers. Hosting a party gets the player a boost to their reputation stat and presents an opportunity to find out what’s in that sealed box! I am here for moments like this!

GM's Epilogue (Player Spoilers Ahead)

In two short hours, we went deep. We started with a framing scene and a bit of discussion on what to do next. Then came the main encounter with Iean and a side plot with Henrichus's one-stone-at-two-birds scheme. And the debut of the new (and improved) Duel of Wits! It might read as fiddly, but we stepped through it like pros, and it played out wonderfully. We roleplayed the characters waiting in the alley and approaching Iean when he came out to relieve himself. Then we asked the big question: What do the players want, and do we want to use Duel of Wits right now? When they said they wanted to "flip" Iean to their side, I knew it was Duel of Wits time! Range plays a factor in DoW, with different actions impacted by distance. We established an intimate range, perfect for the scene. There's an "initiative" based on your precedence stat—who gets to speak first—and penalties or bonuses depending on who speaks out of turn. Like physical combat, everyone goes, and the last speaker standing with Will above 0 wins—likely leading to a compromise!
There's reputation armor, which is great and limited, and not everyone gets it! I loved the tactical combat feel of this system and the scenes it produced in the fiction.

Looking ahead to session three, I anticipate the characters will return to the Basot cottage. The Duel of Wits result has left Iean exhausted and ready to hand over Isabel Basot and the whole affair to the player characters, but he needs to do it without losing Dupont's confidence. System-wise, we've got combat as the next big thing to tackle, and it could go down at the cottage. I pitched this as a 4-6 session series, so we're due for a player check-in soon, too. Notion continues to work for us without getting in the way, and I’ve made an NPC generator like you do for OSRish games!

M&M NPC Generator!!

Then there's the whole Basot-Knife-Dupont backstory—what really happened there? And did I mention there's a poor Templar Knight in this game?! You can't have a story about secret societies without including the OG Secret Society! How does it all come together and resolve?

“I don't know. It's a mystery.” —Philip Henslowe

The Shape of Play…