Hello folks, been a while. 
A while ago I finished writing a little project called Donna’s Diner. Some of you might remember it, most probably not, but to cut to the chase I’ve been feeling the writing itch again. It’s very early on, so I haven’t got any prose to share but I figured I’d share what I’ve been thinking and get some more minds on it.
Picture this: You’re a scullery maid (or footman or what-have-you) serving under the stewardship of the Marquisse D’Grosse-Taille, a woman of great nobility… and appetite.
You are Nobody
You’re at the bottom of the pecking order. Things aren’t cutthroat, but the Marquisse runs a tight ship.
This is especially true of-late as the estate prepares to host the annual 
Festival of Feasts - a week-long celebration where nobility from miles around gather to let loose and make absolute hogs of themselves. Behind closed doors of course.
A Wide, Colourful Cast
Rub shoulders with a variety of strange and debauched guests, exchange pleasantries, run bizarre errands, indulge their vices and maybe even get in their good books? Flattery will get you uh… somewhere.
Serve Yourself
Raise your status, make a name for yourself or literally just help yourself to the obscene amount of leftovers. They won’t notice. Probably.
But yeah, uh, I’ve got a few unknowns to nail down - like, would I make it a period drama or light fantasy? - but I’d be curious to hear what other folks make of it.
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This certainly sounds interesting, especially the ‘elevation’ of your social and physical standings.
Personally, this sounds already like a period drama, very Georgian/Regency, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make it also Light Fantasy - there’s nothing stopping you from making these gluttonous nobles Fae or Vampires or something, which could add another dimension to the court politics and to the interactions with the player and food.
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Good point, a blend of the two wouldn’t be the worst idea, I guess the question would be what kinda blance feels most workable. Magic would probably facilitate more hijinx, and there’s a lot to work with when it comes to Fae and food, so I think there’d be a lot to work with.
I think I could thread that needle tone-wise, just a case of committing to the flavour (ha) of weirdness and keeping it tastefully low-key.
I’d be curious to see what sort of content people would be eager to see, cause I dabbled in PC and NPC gains in my last project. I’m thinking of doing a similar opt-in kinda scheme again, but I think hearing other people’s personal tastes would be interesting.
2 Likes
Personally, the more characters to fatten, the longer the game can be played, but you should really just go with what you feel the most strongly towards. I’d argue the existence of fairies, vampires, demons, dragons, etc. would be simple enough to deal with, but would say DnD-style magic (fireballs and overt spells) would be a bit far for the scenario.
Making anything/everything optional would enable catering to wider audiences, and should enable easier content filtering / addition, if you implement modules, which would help give logical major patch goals, too. So long as you get major systems down in the core segment, you could then add whatever [genre] content you feel like later on.
Looking forward to seeing what you come up with, regardless of which exact direction it takes, anyhow.
1 Like