System
The game's system uses playing cards instead of dice to simulate action. The system is geared towards live action role-playing, and players are required to keep an in-character diary instead of using a character sheet.
The system is fairly unusual and has been praised for its ease of use and utility within the game. The cards-for-dice was not done as a gimmick, but rather a design choice that fit the mood and tenor of the game. This was unique as many systems were moving towards more generic rules systems at the time. Falkenstein was notable for doing the opposite in order to achieve the proper atmosphere within the game.
Castle Falkenstein came out in time when many games were focusing on storytelling rules, fewer mechanics and more focus on an interactive story, but also when most of these games were dark dystopian futures (e.g. Cyberpunk 2020) or dark horror modern age (like Vampire: The Masquerade). Castle Falkenstein was notable for being set in the Victorian era and on the European Continent; as opposed to England where the vast majority of Victorian-based RPGs are set. Players were encouraged to actively work together to build the plot of the game (again a notable departure) and replicate the heroic adventures of Victorian literature.
Read more about this topic: Castle Falkenstein (role-playing Game)
Famous quotes containing the word system:
“To care for the quarrels of the past, to identify oneself passionately with a cause that became, politically speaking, a losing cause with the birth of the modern world, is to experience a kind of straining against reality, a rebellious nonconformity that, again, is rare in America, where children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)
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—Norman O. Brown (b. 1913)
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—Christine H. B. Grant, U.S. university athletic director. As quoted in the Chronicle of Higher Education, p. A42 (May 12, 1993)