Suggest-a-Quarrel

[Khalid ibn Walid]

OK, in the spirit of the 'Suggest-a-Quest' and a 'Suggest-a-Case' threads, here is a new one calling for contributions.

Basically, it is asking anybody to suggest & compose a quarrel between the various internal city factions. The same 'cause' over and over again tends to get boring.

If you want to go further and also suggest a different kind of 'resolution' to the quarrel, beyond the street-fighting or tower-capturing imbroglios, I would be most appreciative.

[To those unfamiliar with the game, there are several internal factions in a city.

- The burghers have four factions: the 'companies' of San Matteo, San Marco, San Luca and San Giovanni. The burgher companies are organized around a neighborhood ('contrada') and are owned and run by the guilds of that 'hood.

- The nobles have two factions (e.g. Lambertazzi vs. Geremei, exact name varies by city), one of which leans Guelf, the other leans Ghibelline. The noble factions are organized as syndicates ('consorteria') around privately-owned city towers.

Here are examples of the quarrels they might have. The quarrels are explained by the captains of the factions:

Burgher vs. Burgher: Our guildmasters have had enough with those greedy patricians of San Giovanni and their scare tactics and have decided to teach them a lesson. Our armed company will be visiting their quarter tonight to make our feelings known. If their gang tries to stop us, God help them.

Burgher vs. Noble: The Geremei launched an attack on a rival faction's tower, but that came to naught. Frustrated, they decided to look for easier prey and naturally looked to us. That gang of blue-blooded bastards pillaged several of our warehouses and even ransacked our guildhall. So we're going to visit Piazza Geremei tonight and let those thugs know the people of San Matteo don't like being sucked into their little wars.

Burgher vs. Noble: The noble consorteria of the Lambertazzi, was ordered by the Council to pull their tower down. But they have defied the order and began fortifying it instead. My informers tell me the consorteria have temporarily closed the upper battlements to allow the masons to prepare the scaffolding and the Lambertazzi tower is only being defended by a light force of retainers. This is our chance to cut these high-born ruffians to size. Our armed company will be going over to their piazza tonight to teach them a lesson.

Noble vs. Noble: The son of one of our captains was betrothed to a certain young lady from the neighboring county, who's father owns some substantial estates and has no heirs. There were great festivities at the announcement of the betrothal, everything was set to go. Then, out of the blue, a perfidious captain of the Geremei intervened, captured the girl and forcibly married her to his own son. We cannot let this pass. The Geremei are going to pay for their perfidy. A group of our knights will be going over to their piazza tonight to teach Bonifacio Geremei and pals a lesson.

Since these are inner-city quarrel, the fight will likely be in the city streets, or the outlying fields. But it need not always lead to a fight. You can figure out some other 'resolution', which may involve bribery, assassination, intrigues with a marquis, intrigues with a faction in a neighboring city, perhaps a rival city, whatever your fancy. The only thing I'd beg is to refrain from involving the pope or the emperor or the league as a whole in this. The quarrel has to be very 'local'.

But you need not come up with a whole thing from scratch. Even just another wording of the excuse for a street brawl or a piazza-and-tower fight is plenty.

[stone]

Domonic, the son of the famous mason Cinomod, who together built the great city church and donated it, has run off with Isabella to a countryside home.

Love is great and the essence of life, but Isabella is of noble blood and was promised by her Father to marry the son another noble. In anger of not being consulted, and desperation of wanting to spend her life with Domonic who she grew to love since childhood, Isabella sought help from her Priest.

The Priest was a practical man who respected the goodness in the hearts of man as well as the love of God, and consulted with Cinomod who became his friend after the great Church was completed. Together they met with Isabella's Father to discuss the situation, and offered heaven and earth for him to respect his daughter's wishes, but despite their attempts the Father steadfastly refused. When Isabella and Dominic were told of the news, they swore to be together in the face of any danger or even death, and rode off together to the countryside.

Upon hearing the news that Domonic ran off with his daughter, the Father of Isabella rallied his fellow nobles to hunt down Domonic and to return his daughter unharmed. In response to hearing that the nobles were hunting down two young and kind souls in love with one another, and wanting nothing more than to be left alone, the countryside peasants rallied to their cause to defend them.

1. Cinomod will pay you to protect his son and Isabelle from the noble hunting party, and the church will secretly be greatful to you. The church cannot openly support this conduct, but they are indebted to Conomod for their grand Church, and need the support of the countryside peasants.

2. The Father will pay you to capture Domonic for punishment, or possibly worse. The nobles will be greateful for your support, and will return the favor in the future when you need their support in your rise to power.

3. You decide to not get involved, as this is not your quarrel, but knowing full well that that Domonic and Isabelle risk death.

[ingolifs]

While i'm no good at writing up these sorts of quarrels, I think i'll just suggest some basic scenarios.

Contrada scenarios:

-Defend your contrada from nobles. Similar to the attack the nobles scenario, but in this one, you assail them from the safety of your contrada's confused alleyways and passages. The cavalry will be easy to defeat, but their heavy infantry will pose more of a problem.

-Three way contrada battle. Two contrade are planning a strike on each other, and your contrada captain is planning to strike them both while they're fighting. (this is done by spawning the two contrade right next to each other, while spawning yours further away, out of immediate sight)

-Three way contrada + noble. Either two noble factions, or a noble faction plus a contrada, are duking it out, and your caption orders a small band to take them out while they are occupied.

-Stand contrada battle with backstab. Like one of the above examples, except the third contrada isn't yours. Basically, this reads just like the standard 'attack this contrada' battle, but there's a chance a third contrada spawns out of sight and attacks you when you're vulnerable.

-Teaming up. Two contrade (yours plus another) team up against a noble with a full force.


Noble scenarios: Most of these are as above, but with teams switched around.

-Attacking a contrada. Involves taking your nobles into their rabbit warren streets and fighting in close quarters.

-Defending your tower. You face either one contrada on your own turf (but with reduced supply of troops), or two allied contrade with a full list of troops.

-Tower is attacked by the other nobles. This reads like the current noble scenario, the difference being if you win, they get chased away, but if you lose, you have to defend your own tower against them.

-Some sort of backstab. Basically picking two contrade or a contrada/noble group that are currently embroiled in a fight, and pasting them.

-You get backstabbed. One of the above scenarios, except there is the added presence of another faction trying to do you in, mid-battle.


I can't think of much in the ways of non-battle tasks. I do have one interesting idea though... Perhaps a task where you've got to wait till the dead of night, and sneak into an enemy contrada, and do something nasty (like perhaps setting a place alight, or painting with big red paint, exactly what you think of this contrada). You are then discovered. Anyway, all this takes place by dialogue, and you are then dropped by the scene of the crime, alone, with a large number of enemies around you, and you have to hightail it out to safety (make it to a passage which has your contrada shield marked over it), before they catch you and smack you up. Various spawn points would be placed around the maze of streets for enemy soldiers, and they'll surprise you every now and then.

Oh, and one more thing. Can the contrada fighters be given proper weapons? Attacking a bunch of knights and crossbowmen with high quality gear when you yourself carry a wooden sword or a toy bow, just doesn't cut it.

[Khalid ibn Walid]

BRILLIANT!!

Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant!

It's gonna take a little while to code all those things.

And oh, for variety's sake, in the long-run, there probably should be a few more 'rabbit-warren' street layouts, varying by fight (or even picked randomly). If anybody is up for it.... (hint, hint, nudge, nudge).

[ingolifs]

If anybody is up for it.... (hint, hint, nudge, nudge).

*grumble mumble* All right then *mutters something about being overworked and underpaid*.

[Khalid ibn Walid]

ingolifs said:

*grumble mumble* All right then *mutters something about being overworked and underpaid*.

Less whining, more rowing...





Seriously, don't worry about it. You've done a lot already. I can script with the streets we have now and am sure someone else can help out.

(And what 'bout that deserved break you promised to yourself?)

[damien]

For a quick, easy one: Group A (could be anyone) blames Group B for a shortage of local grain, claiming they have been aiding the local breadmakers in skimming from the warehouses. Group A clearly feels vindicated in attacking Group B, but will also accept a payment of either grain or money.

So, you could either join in attacking them, or try to convince them to pay up. If they refuse, fight ensues.

[ingolifs]

Perhaps for that 'running away' mossion, it could be because you stole their gonfalon or something. (running around in san matteo gear, holding the san giovanni gonfalon.)

[tomhill]

Perhaps when you're a lowly person, a few sons of nobles try to pick a fight with you, you can just be submissive or you could fight them just knocking them out or having consequences with the law if you kill them.

Maybe too if the fight goes too long town watch arrive to arrest the lot of you for dueling?

It could be like a novel i read once, when some Noble's brat kids tried to provoke the protagonist because he appeared like a pauper, but when he turned to face them he had his hand on a sword under his rags.

[decanter]

This is amusing.

Here are some suggestions - made despite the feeling of inadequacy I am experiencing - I am not too well studied in medieval history.


1 - NOBLE VS. NOBLE someone resembling Girolamo Savonarola (A Craaazy preacherman) comes along and starts spouting anti-papal rhetoric. He becomes the focus of conflict between the Guelf and Ghibelline Nobles who get so pissed they decide to fight it out.

SOLUTIONS?

Choose to fight for Guelf in a pitched battle
Choose to fight for Ghibelline in a pitched battle
Choose to escort Savonarola out of town - defending him and his band of badly armed monks from assassins.
Choose go out into the country, find Savonarola, Kill or Capture him, haul him back to town and burn him at the stake! - this could mean an interesting battle between you and a bunch of Dominican monks armed with staffs.
Choose to ignore everyone

2 - BURGHER VS. NOBLE

The Geremei just got hold of a load of fine silk from Constantinople. The fools - instead of selling it at a reasonable price to the burghers, who would then use it to turn a great profit for the good of the city, are hoarding the stuff until a disruption in trade forces the price to rocket up. This infuriates the Burghers.

SOLUTIONS?


Choose to fight for the Burghers. Storm the Nobles residence and take a quantity of the silk back to the honest merchant people. Naturally despoliations and plunder during the sacking will reduce the amount of silk.
Choose to fight for the nobles. Create an artificial resource scarcity by attacking the Burghers Silk Stores. Sell the plundered silk, along with the nobles, at hugely inflated prices.
Choose to sneak into the Nobles Tower and away with alot of the silk (or attack a caravan with the silk or something.)
Choose to convince the nobles to sell the silk cheaply. Cheep silk!
Choose to go to some other town and buy a large amount of silk, 300 units perhaps, bring it back and sell it. The Drastic lowering of the prices will convince the nobles that they should sell before the prices decrease any more. Cheap Silk!
Choose to bribe one Noble to begin selling his silk. This will cause the other nobles to do the same.

3 - Burgher VS. Burgher

SOLUTIONS?

Two Burgher factions decide to meet up outside the city gates to discuss a business deal secretly. This annoys the other factions who do not like the idea of syndicates.

Choose to attack both of the meeting participants.
Choose to spread dissension among one group, making it attack the other along with you.
Choose to support the syndicate and defend it against a heavily armed attack from the other factions.
Choose to bring a great deal of alcohol to the meeting site. Getting both parties drunk will cause one to attack another.

[ingolifs]

A question:

How deadly were these fights between factions in a city?
I can't imagine there'd be many slaughters to the last man. I can't imagine a city being able to sustain its population if many of those events occurred.
I sorta imagine these scuffles as involving a lot of shouts, curses and sword-waving, but not very much violence - perhaps after a small fight a few people get injured or someone gets killed and people start to back off. Two clashing companies of ten I don't think would destroy each other until only a couple remained.

[Khalid ibn Walid]

Good question. While probably not as deadly as all that, and while there was certainly a lot of swagger, it wasn't all posturing either. The run-of-the-mill urban rumble would probably involve several seriously injured/killed in the course of it (and frequently civilians in the crossfire). But no, not usually massacres down to the last man.*

That said, they used real weapons. And the Medieval towers of Italy still have all the pockmarks of serious urban conflict around them.

* - I had intended not to have so much murder in urban fights by using the "arena" mt where you 'knock' out people rather than kill them. Unfortunately, the arena mt takes away the green labels and you'd have no idea who'd be friend or foe.

[lawllawl]

Corrupt priest gains wealth via designated resource(should be random) you decide to:
1. blackmail, you gain either some of the resource hes using to make money, or a direct payment
2. kill, you gain all of his resources but (insert consequence)
3. report, you gain a small sum for your good deed, possibly some renown or honor
4. ignore, need I say more?

Maybe a major clash of cities is to occur, some Condotteiri are beginning to choose sides, you can:
1. join side A, obviously gain relation with side A and lose relation with side B
2. join side B, consult results of A, but reverse relation changes
3. dont get involved
after choosing side A or B you should be requested to summon X amount of men, should be dependent on player level and wealth. If amount is not reached, you will only recieve payment proportionate to the amount of troops you brought out of the requested amount. Possibly even request certain types of troops, or certain amounts of a troops from specific troop branches, or levels within the branches, once again should depend on player level, possibly wealth and renown.

Upon entering tavern drunkard mocks you, you:
1. reply with (insert negative remark), he might engage in a non lethal fight
2. reply with (insert positive remark), he might mock again, or leave you to your business
3. fight (non lethal combat), load a fight arena with tavern as setting, and only you and him in a fist fight
4. fight (lethal combat, player should be able to die in this case), load fight arena as in 3. but lethal, you can unsheath weapons and kill him
5. leave tavern, need I say more
possible results, 1. if you beat him in non lethal fight you dont gain anything, as you replied negatively
2. if you reply positivly, he will leave you or mock again and you lose the positive reply opt. beat him in a fight after positive reply and gain honor or renown for defending integrity?
3. same as one, but since you initiated fight, you dont gain anything, possibly lose honor or renown
4. lethal combat, your quick and violent retaliation may result in some sort of combat between tavern dwellers and you because you attacked a person they know, if not, you may loot the corpse but also may lose honor and renown. relations with the city go down. player should have death as a window here, regardless of wether he fights one drunkard, or a bunch of pissed tavern dwellers.

[axoteoroke]

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