Cardenio’s Daughter, or “Follow the Lady”

Game Chef 2011

A game by Nick Wedig

“Mad let us grant him then. And now remains
That we find out the cause of this effect
Or rather say, the cause of this defect,
For this effect defective comes by cause.
Thus it remains, and the remainder thus.
Perpend.
I have a daughter”

-William Shakespeare, Hamlet

Perhaps this is the bottom line to mental illness: incomprehensible events occur; your life becomes a bin for hoax-like fluctuations of what used to be reality. And not only that–as if that weren’t enough–but you … ponder forever over these fluctuations in an effort to order them into a coherancy, when in fact the only sense they make is the sense you impose on them, out of necessity to restore everything into shapes and processes you can recognize. The first thing to depart in mental illness is the familiar. And what takes its place is bad news because not only can you not understand it, you also cannot communicate it to other people. The madman experiences something, but what it is or where it comes from he does not know.

-Philip K. Dick, Valis

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Cardenio has a problem. He seems to be slipping between realities. In one moment, he is Duke Cardenio, exiled to Spain after a disastrous civil war. In the next, he is aging literature professor Marcus Cardenio, dealing with his estranged daughter and a lost play of Shakespeare’s. And then just as suddenly, Cardenio flashes to a world where he is a foolish old rogue, hiding out in his daughter’s attic from the villainous Sheriff Vortigern. Though Cardenio remembers all three of these realities, no one else experiences these changes of perspective. Has Cardenio gone mad? Which one of the three is the true reality?

Setup

First, you need three to five players, including yourself. The roles in play will depend on how many players you have. If you have four or five players, one person will be dedicated to playing Cardenio himself. If you have five players, one person will play The Daughter consistently. If you have fewer players, then those roles will transfer from player to player.

You’ll also need a few cards from a standard playing card deck. You’ll need the Jack of Spades, the Jack of Clubs, the Queen of Hearts, the Queen of Diamonds, the King of Diamonds, the Two of Hearts, and a Joker. Separate out the remaining twelve spades in another pile.

Each player can choose their role, or the roles can be decided randomly. If you want to assign roles randomly, take a King, a Deuce, and a Joker from the deck and shuffle them. If you need, add the Jack of Spades and/or the Queen of Hearts. Deal out the cards, and turn them over. Whoever receives the King of Diamonds takes on The King role, the Two becomes The Deuce, and the Joker becomes The Fool. The holder of the Jack of Spades will play Cardenio, and the holder of the Queen will play The Daughter.

Ambition Players

The King, the Deuce and the Fool are called “Ambition Players”. These players will embody Cardenio’s unspoken desires. Periodically, they will speak out loud his internal thoughts, which even Cardenio’s player may not realize.

The King speaks for Cardenio’s Noble Ideals, which impel Cardenio to great, dramatic acts.
The Deuce voices Cardenio’s Mundane Desires, which impel Cardenio to small, personal acts.
The Fool plays his Terrible Flaw, which impels Cardenio to stupid, self-destructive acts.

Each ambition player will get a chance to customize the specific desires for which they advocate.

Realities

The three ambition players will also control one of the three realities that Cardenio experiences.

The reality that an Ambition controls is one where Cardenio lacks that specific desire. Ambition players can thus modify the world to highlight how this lack leads to Cardenio’s downfall. “Controlling the world” means describing setting, creating and roleplaying minor NPCs, and having final say on the details of the environment.

The King controls the world where Cardenio is a clever old rogue, hiding out from the authorities in his daughter Rowena’s house. Following a criminal caper gone wrong, Cardenio has come to his daughter Rowena’s house to hide out from Sheriff Vortigern. Cardenio the rogue lacks the Noble Ideal that the the King usually advocates.

The Deuce controls the world of Duke Cardenio, who is ruled by Grand Ambitions and Terrible Flaws. Duke Cardenio has been exiled to Spain, following a disastrous civil war in England. In the war, his daughter Rowena sided with Prince Vortigern, against Duke Cardenio.

The Fool controls the world of Marcus Cardenio, a modern literature professor who has found a lost play that may be Shakespeare’s. Professor Cardenio’s life is torn between large, abstract ideals and his petty desires. Cardenio has stolen a manuscript from Thomas Vortigern, his academic rival ans husband to Cardenio’s daughter Rowena. Cardenio believes the manuscript to be a lost play of Shakespeare’s, called “The Cardsharps, or Follow the Lady“.

The Daughter

The Daughter acts as dealer for the cards, though she need not be a fair dealer. The Daughter can deal cards out randomly if she wishes, but just as easily she can hand the cards out secretly according to her personal plans. She can also peek at anyone’s card at any time. She can even switch cards around, so long as the cardholder hasn’t offered a soliloquy for this scene.

In any scene where Rowena is present, the Daughter will roleplay for her, speak in her character, describe her actions, etc.

If you have five players, one person will play The Daughter throughout the game.

If you have fewer than five player, the role of The Daughter moves from player to player. In each scene, one of the ambition players will also act as the Daughter. You should have a token to identify The Daughter. The Queen of Diamonds from your deck of cards would work well as a token. At the end of each scene, the Daughter should give away the token to another player (not the player of Cardenio in the next scene). That player will act as the Daughter for the scene, then he or she will also give away the token, and so forth.

Creating Cardenio or “What A Piece of Work is Man”

Before you begin play, you need to define in more detail Cardenio and his situation(s).

If you have three players:

Each of you will take turns playing Cardenio.

Go around the table, taking turns asking questions. When it is your turn, ask another player a question about Cardenio and his situation. Good questions will push the story toward interesting avenues of exploration and reveal new aspects of the drama. Ideally, questions and answers make Cardenio’s story into one that interests you. This is also a good time to get detail on the desires, ideals, and flaws you will be speaking for.

When you ask a player a question about Cardenio, they get to answer in any way they like, so long as it doesn’t invalidate previously established information. Then they get to ask you a question in return, and you can establish new facts about Cardenio yourself.

Sidebar: Example questions

-Which side of the civil war was Duke Cardenio on?
-Does Professor Vortigern realize the value of the missing manuscript? Does Rowena?
-why is Rowena angry at Cardenio?
-why does Cardenio Shakespeare wrote the play?
-why did Rowena side with Vortigern in the war instead of with her father?
-what is the ancient feud between Cardenio and Vortigern?
-what was the criminal caper the rogueish Cardenio botched?
-what is Cardenio’s greatest regret?
-why is Rowena ashamed of her father?
-which other criminal compatriots are angry at rogue Cardenio?

If you have four or five players:

One player will play Cardenio throughout the game.

The process works the same, except all the questions are aimed at Cardenio. Take turns having the ambition players and the Daughter ask questions of Cardenio’s player. Every question is asked of Cardenio, and then Cardenio asks the questioner in return.

Once everyone has asked and been asked a question, then you just need to put any finishing touches on the situation. If any new NPCs were introduced, you should give them names and such.

After Cardenio’s life has been defined, you will begin regular play. Don’t worry if some stuff is still vague; you can define it in play or gloss over it.

Starting Scenes

Before the first scene, the Daughter will take three cards: the Jack of Clubs, the Jack of Spades and the Queen of Hearts. She will deal those cards out to the three ambition players, who will hold it for the scene. If playing with three players, everyone should keep their card face down, without looking at it. If you have four or more, the ambition players can look at the cards they were dealt.

The main body of the game consists of a series of twelve scenes. Each scene should only be about five to ten minutes. You can always return to a scene later if people want.

The first scene begins with the King player framing the scene. Thereafter, each scene will start with the person whose Cardenio card chose in the previous scene. E.g., if Cardenio chooses to listen to The Fool and give in to his Terrible Flaw, the next scene will be one set in the world of Professor Cardenio, which the Fool controls.

The framing player starts the scene by describing where it is set, who is present and what is happening at the beginning of play. Thereafter, everyone else can jump in, roleplaying Cardenio, Rowena and various minor characters. The player who controls the scene will also describe the world, create new NPCs and narrate in sudden twists of fate. The scene plays out however seems most appropriate to the players, until eventually Cardenio is faced with decisions. At this point, the others can offer Cardenio soliloquies.

Note: If you’re playing with three players, whichever player controls the world will also play Cardenio for that scene.

Soliloquies

At any point in a scene, the ambition players can offer Cardenio soliloquies. These are speeches that the ambition player speaks, but they represent Cardenio’s internal desires. Soliloquies are always spoken in first-person, as Cardenio’s own thoughts. By externalizing Cardenio’s interior monologue, we all learn about his internal state.

Once everyone has heard the soliloquy, the other ambitions can offer their own soliloquies as rebuttal if they wish. Cardenio’s player then gets to decide if that soliloquy is true or just a figment. If given several conflicting soliloquies, Cardenio can choose one or none to be true.

Eventually, though, Cardenio will accept one of the soliloquies as being true. Cardenio will then try to follow the ideas expressed in the speech, and will act to pursue that desire for the rest of the scene. At this point, the person who spoke the successful soliloquy reveals their card. The value of the card will determine how the scene plays out for Cardenio.

Sidebar: Interludes

The player controlling the scene/world doesn’t have an ambition to speak for. In the world of Duke Cardenio, the mundane desires of the other two Cardenios do not apply. Thus, the player controlling the world does not offer soliloquies. Instead, they offer interludes, which are speeches of the internal thoughts of NPCs or very brief scenes of action elsewhere that Cardenio is unaware of. If these are chosen as true, then the world acts upon Cardenio, instead of Cardenio choosing to follow one of his desires. This doesn’t end the scene or reveal a card like a soliloquy does, though.

Outcomes

If the revealed is the Jack of Clubs, then the scene works out poorly for Cardenio. Figure out how things can get worse, or how Cardenio can mess up whatever he was trying to do.

If the revealed card was the Queen of Hearts, then the scene ends well for Cardenio. Things turn out positively for him, possibly because of his choice and his actions, or perhaps because of blind luck.

If the revealed card is the Jack of Spades, then something weird happens. Cardenio is already questioning his sanity, and the Jack of Spades means that the unreality of that world escalate.

Surreal events, hallucinations, bleed over from one reality to the next, inconsistencies between established facts, false memories, etc. However this scene plays out from here, Cardenio is less certain of his sanity than before. It seems more and more like this reality is a dream. Do whatever you can to increase paranoia, uncertainty and mystery.

Ending a Scene

Once the outcome of the scene is determined, you play out the rest of the scene, armed with the knowledge of how it should turn out. After you have made the scene sufficiently good or bad or surreal, look for a good ending point for the scene. (You can always come back t a scene later, if it seems like there is more to do. It usually works better to go to a different scene then come back later rather than continue this scene.)

If the card revealed in the scene was a Jack, then the other players keep the cards that they may have. In the next scene, Cardenio’s choices will be more limited, since he’ll choose from one fewer cards. The Jack remains face up in front of the holding player, until the Queen comes out and the card are reshuffled.

If the card revealed was the Jack of Spades, then the person who controlled the world in that scene should put a (different) spade card face up in front of them. This means that that reality is more unreliable than before. If the card revealed was anything except the Jack of Spades, put one of the other spade cards face down in front of player whose world you played in.

If the revealed card was the Queen of Hearts, then the Daughter takes all three outcome cards back and deals them out again.

Ending the game

You reach the end of the game after each of the twelve non-Jack spade cards have been placed face up or face down in front of someone. At this point, you will have three final scenes, resolving the storyline in each world. Count how many spades are face up in front of each player. The player with the most will have a scene, that resolves their world’s plotlines, but also establishes that their world was a dream or a hallucination or a fantasy tale that exists within the next world. Then the player with the next most spade cards will host a similar scene: the plotlines for that reality conclude, and that reality is smashed apart as an illusion as well. Finally, whichever reality had the fewest spade cards in front of them is revealed as the true reality. Have a scene resolving that world’s plotlines, as well as Cardenio’s insanity.

What about ties?

The Daughter can decide what order you go in. If you tie for fewest cards, you should definitely try for an ambiguous, Twilight Zone style ending. Leave it a question which world is the real one and which is the dream. Or have the two realities blend together in unpredictable ways.

Option for a longer game:

If you’d like the game to go two or three sessions instead of one, then only put spade cards down face up when the Jack of Spades is revealed. When the Jack of Clubs or Queen are revealed, don’t do anything. Keep playing until all twelve spade cards are distributed. This will make the game go 24-36 scenes (if I understand my math right) instead of 12.

Customizing the game

It wouldn’t be hard to adapt the game to other purposes. In particular, you can easily take the initial situation for each reality and change the details. Maybe make one reality a wild science fiction epic, or a bleak dystopian future. Maybe Cardenio is king or fascist dictator following a brutal revolution. Just come up with a brief idea for the alternate reality, and let the question and answer phase flesh out the rest of the details when you play.

Final notes and thoughts

This roleplaying game/story game/whatever you wanna call it was made as part of the 2011 Game Chef roleplaying game design contest. Each year, a variety of game enthusiasts make roleplaying games based off of a random list of ingredients. This game was made using the theme of “William Shakespeare” and the ingredients “Daughter”, “Exile” and “Nature”. I’d explain how they apply, but I’m over the recommended word count already.

Cover art by Auntie P, brandichu123, Eivind K. Dovik, epSos.de, Kodak Agfa, Leo Reynolds, McD22, and Trondheim Byarkiv. All images found on Flickr.com and used under their respective Creative Commons licenses.