Castle Falkenstein Rules Summary

Whenever a player wants to do something

that would require a Challenge, his characters
appropriate Ability is compared to the difficulty
of the Challenge. In addition, the player may
add the value of one playing card to his
characters Ability for the purpose of resolving
that Challenge.
The numerical values for the Abilities are as
follows: Poor (3), Average (6), Good (9), Great
(12), Exceptional (15), and Extraordinary (18).
Every Ability has a suit associated with it,
and cards of that suit are worth face value
when added to the characters Ability. (Jacks
are worth eleven, queens are worth twelve,
kings are worth thirteen, and aces are always
worth negative five.) Cards of the wrong suit
are always worth only one point (excepting
aces.) The red joker is worth twenty points.
The black joker is worth negative ten points.
(You don't need to memorize these values;
they will be written on the cards used at the
game.)
Each player is dealt four Fortune cards at
the beginning of the night. When engaging in
a Challenge, the player may play one or more
of his Fortune cards, or he may select one
random card off the top of a deck (decks will
be left in convenient places around the
gaming area.) A players Fortune cards may
not be replenished during the game session,
nor may they be given to other players.
Fortune cards left over at the end of the game
session are discarded.
If a Challenge is not opposed by another
character (for example, picking a lock, or
leaping a chasm), then the difficulty is
determined by a gamemaster. This difficulty
will not be revealed to a player.
If a Challenge is opposed by another
character, the difficulty of the Challenge is
determined by the other characters relevant
Ability. For example, if one character attempts
to pick anothers pockets, the first character
uses his Stealth, and the difficulty is
determined by the second characters
Perception. In this case, the other player may
also draw a random card from the deck or play
any number of Fortune cards from his hand to
add to his Ability.
In a contested Challenge, the player
initiating the action must choose what kind of
card or cards to play before the defender does
(the type of card being used will be obvious;
different backings will be used for the Fortune
cards and for the random decks.) Both
characters totals should be revealed at the
same time. (Neither player needs to reveal the
value of their Ability or card separately, merely
the total.)

If the players total exceeds the difficulty of

the Challenge, he is successful; if the total is
equal to or less than the difficulty, he fails.
If the players total is less than half of the
difficulty of the Challenge, the result is a
Fumble. Conversely, if the players total is
more than twice the difficulty of the Challenge,
the result is an Overwhelming Success. In
either case, contact a Gamemaster for
adjudication.
If the players total is precisely equal to the
difficulty of the Challenge, the result is a Push.
The character and his opponent are at
stalemate. They may either drop the matter,
with nothing resolved, or may continue to
struggle, in which case a Gamemaster should
adjudicate what secondary Ability is to be
used in a follow-up Challenge.
Out-of-Game Actions
After each game, each player may submit a
list of actions that he wishes to have his
character perform during the period of time
before the next game. Obviously, this could
become rather cumbersome; thus, we are
forced to ask the players to limit themselves
to twenty lines of e-mail (of eighty characters
each) per session.
The more specific the description of an
action, the more care your character will take,
and the more likely it is to succeed. For
example, suppose you wish to seduce the
daughter of Count Nymphenburg. If all you put
in
your
OOGA
is
"I
seduce
Count
Nymphenburg's daughter", then obviously
your character is not putting much effort into
it; as such, your Charm will probably be
counted as a couple of ranks lower for this
purpose. On the other hand, if you spend
twenty lines explaining exactly how you woo
the young lady, using all the proper forms,
ingratiating yourself with her father, sending
bouquets of her favorite kind of flowers, and
having your mutual friends mention your good
breeding and character to her, your Charm will
probably be considered to be a rank or so
higher than usual. Obviously, this means that
there is only so much you can effectively
accomplish between game sessions.
At the end of each session, if you have a
particular activity in mind that you wish to
make part of your Out-of-Game Action, you
may select an appropriate card from your
Fortune deck and give it to a gamemaster. You
must then specify, in your Out-of-Game Action
message, exactly how you wish your Fortune
card to be applied. Only one card may be used
in this way per player per session.
Random Events

It is our experience that anything unusual

that happens to a character between games is
instantly assumed to be the action of another
player. For this reason and others, we will be
generating random events for each character
between sessions.
We will draw a card for each character
between game sessions. Low cards (ace - six)
will indicate bad events; the lower the card,
the nastier the occurrence. High cards (nine king) will indicate fortunate events; the higher
the card, the luckier it is. Sevens and eights
will be discarded, and two new cards will be
drawn for that character instead. The suit of
the card will indicate the nature of the event,
in much the same way that certain suits
correspond to certain Abilities. It will naturally
be up to the discretion of the gamemasters to
determine
the
exact
nature
of
the
occurrences.