Book of Feasts Question

[Tizun Thane]

What I call "high table" is "Above the Salt" where you win 2 geniality points / round without doing anything. With a success, you win 1 another point (2 pts with a crit.). So, the threshold is not that high, and cunning and lucky players can win much more.

[Atgxtg]

23 hours ago, Tizun Thane said:

What I call "high table" is "Above the Salt" where you win 2 geniality points / round without doing anything. With a success, you win 1 another point (2 pts with a crit.). So, the threshold is not that high, and cunning and lucky players can win much more.

Sure it is.  It requires the characters to  sit above the salt (2 geniality pert round) and  make a skill roll each round (1 geniality per round). That's actually hard to match, and requires that the a PK critical his  APP roll for the high seating  and  make every skill roll.

For those who are not sitting above the salt, they have to hope to get 2 genality per round through card play.

Yes, these can be beaten or exceeded by lucky characters but the threshold is high enough, especially for shorter feats to eliminate most PKS from the running most of the time.

 

 

[SaxBasilisk]

On 12/9/2019 at 1:25 PM, sirlarkins said:

When I do a revised version of the Feast mechanics, I'm definitely going to make adjustments to the Glory awards. My assumption was that feasts would be only occasional things (that's how I tend to run them), but folks seems to like to use them a lot more frequently. Which is certainly flattering, but it really throws off the Glory awards. Feel free to adjust the awards to fit frequency in your campaign.

Some of this may be how GPC, Book of Uther, and The Marriage of Count Roderick interact with the rules. Thus, in my campaign (GPC SPOILERS):

Year 479 - I try out a quick feast to celebrate all these new vassal knights - which is a reason given for a feast - and give the rules a go.

480 - GPC stipulates a coronation feast where Uther insults Gorlois. Thus, we have a feast, and one of my vassal knight players draws a card for a potential marriage, to which she agrees.

481 - No feast (due to aforesaid player's absence).

482 - A vassal knight's marriage is worthy of a two-round feast. After the Summerlands campaign, we've got a feast for Uther and King Cadwy (which I skipped).

In the future...

483 - Count Roderick gets married, and he gets a "grand feast".

484 - 485 - No feasts

486 - If the PKs succeed in their mission, the earl gives them a feast!

487 - The Great Sword Feast! And a feast at Lindsey.

488-489 - No feasts

490 - The Great Victory Feast!

491 - The king is married. If the count gets a feast, he should get a feast.

492-4 - A great sad dirth of feasts

495 - An Infamous Feast!

So that's nine feasts over sixteen years just in the GPC as written and expanded. Further, it's likely the PKs will all be married in that span, so you've got one feast for each of them.

It would probably be simpler to reduce the Glory for each feast than to try to wrestle with reinterpreting what's already in GPC.

(Another quick note for revision: it's logical that the bride and groom at a wedding should be Above the Salt, but it's not stated within.) 

 

[Tizun Thane]

Yes, it's easy to have one (or severals) feasts by year. You can add the christening of your son, the wedding of your sister, and in fact, many events.

For the little feasts, I use the old system (in knight adventurous or a better one in Tournaments of dreams) to quickly resolve the feast.

19 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

it is.  It requires the characters to  sit above the salt (2 geniality pert round) and  make a skill roll each round (1 geniality per round). That's actually hard to match, and requires that the a PK critical his  APP roll for the high seating  and  make every skill roll.

For those who are not sitting above the salt, they have to hope to get 2 genality per round through card play.

If I may, I disagree. I playtested it and my players won the game often. It's not that hard to seat above the salt. With a +10 bonus in App (easy to obtain with jewels), it's not that hard to crit either. As SaxBasilisc said, there is also times when the PK is logically above the salt without any roll (at his own wedding, the hero of the day, etc.).

If you are above the salt, it's not that hard to crit, especially if you are a social character with geniality bonus (and inspiration?). One of my players had 21 in flirting for example, and you can imagine how easy it was for him to flirt.

And even if you are close to the salt, you win automatically 1 geniality point/round+ any action. With lucky cards, you can win 3 or 4 points (I remember one time with 6 geniality points!).

So... For me, it's a bit like a tournament. Even with a good jouster, local ones are hard to win. So, a feast is like a tournament for social characters and should be easy to have fun, and difficult to win.

[Atgxtg]

2 hours ago, Tizun Thane said:

If I may, I disagree. I playtested it and my players won the game often. It's not that hard to seat above the salt.

Yes it is, it requires a crtical APP roll. Yes characters can get up to +10 APP from "bling" but few characters are goin g to end up with an APP high enough to reliably sit above the salt.Even a 15  APP  only has a 30%  chance.Then once they are there they only get to do 4 things and must make every roll to get more geniality. Yes, once they are several rounds into it it gets easier to make the roll due to the geniality bonus, but to assume 3 points per round is too much.

 

Also, by sitting above  the salt  the players do not g et to draw any feast cards, limiting them to the four standard actions and  making feasts pretty boring to play.

 

2 hours ago, Tizun Thane said:

With a +10 bonus in App (easy to obtain with jewels), it's not that hard to crit either.

Yes it is. An average character with  APP in the 10 range will only crtical on a 20. Most characters don't start with a APP high enough to make sitting above the salt all that common. At best, maybe 20% of PKs make the roll and sit above the salt.

 

2 hours ago, Tizun Thane said:

And even if you are close to the salt, you win automatically 1 geniality point/round+ any action. With lucky cards, you can win 3 or 4 points (I remember one time with 6 geniality points!).

Those 3-4 geniality per round cards are pretty rare. Most cards give 0-2 geniality  as a one time bonus

2 hours ago, Tizun Thane said:

So... For me, it's a bit like a tournament. Even with a good jouster, local ones are hard to win. So, a feast is like a tournament for social characters and should be easy to have fun, and difficult to win.

Except it's not all that fun.

Either the player sits above the Salt and make  one of the four standard rolls (flirt, game, intrigue or indulge/temperate) and has a dull time "competing" or they sit lower, draw cards, have a fun time, and probably don't hit t he 3/round threshold. 

With a tournament, the actions and victories along the way make the tourney both interesting and worth g lory. With feats the geniality awards are pretty minor, save for the winner, and not worth much except as a modifier to skill rolls.

[SaxBasilisk]

10 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Also, by sitting above  the salt  the players do not g et to draw any feast cards, limiting them to the four standard actions and  making feasts pretty boring to play.

Personally, if I were playing the system as I've seen it so far - and I've read through both the rules and the cards - I'd bump my knight's APP up to, but not past, 20 with jewelry. Not only are the cards more fun, but there's on occasion a long-term benefit they offer that's worth more than the Glory, IMO.

Edited December 12, 2019 by SaxBasilisk

[Atgxtg]

40 minutes ago, SaxBasilisk said:

Personally, if I were playing the system as I've seen it so far - and I've read through both the rules and the cards - I'd bump my knight's APP up to, but not past, 20 with jewelry. Not only are the cards more fun, but there's on occasion a long-term benefit they offer that's worth more than the Glory, IMO.

Yes, IMO that's one of the things t hat should probably be addressed in any future upgrade.

 The cards are fun to play, while the  four standard rolls are not. Maybe if they had some sort of tangible benefit beyond +1 geniality. In play, those above the salt either do the safe thing for the geniality or go skill check hunting.  Sometimes both, it their bonuses are high enough.It would be  nice if those standard rolls could lead into some other events  (for instance using  Intrigue to find out something about t he host that could apply to a future gaming or temperate/indulgent roll).

I think rather than denying characters above the salt from drawing cards,  any  geniality losses/embarrassing situations should have double the penalty for such  characters. Then it wouldn't be a restrictive, but still encourage characters above the salt to keep on their best behavior. In play, those with  high glory almost never play bad cards, anyway, since they  have so many cards to choose from. The chances of drawing 3 or 4 bad cards at once is rather remote. 

 

[Tizun Thane]

18 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Also, by sitting above  the salt  the players do not g et to draw any feast cards, limiting them to the four standard actions and  making feasts pretty boring to play.

I agree. It is if they have not a precise goal in mind, like intriguing with the count, flirting with the beautiful princess, and so on. Without RP, it's boring anyway.

By the past, I used a 2/rd threshold. It was a joke.

17 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

I think rather than denying characters above the salt from drawing cards,  any  geniality losses/embarrassing situations should have double the penalty for such  characters.

I agree, even if I think they sould draw less cards (-1? -2?) to increase the risks.

[Atgxtg]

5 hours ago, Tizun Thane said:

I agree. It is if they have not a precise goal in mind, like intriguing with the count, flirting with the beautiful princess, and so on. Without RP, it's boring anyway.

Yes, but Indulgent/Temperate and Gaming don't r eally lend themselves to RP at a feast. It needs some work. 

5 hours ago, Tizun Thane said:

By the past, I used a 2/rd threshold. It was a joke.

You characters must have both high glory and high social skills.  In  my  feasts most characters don't see 3 /round. That only showed up late when they were both famous and skilled at social situations.

5 hours ago, Tizun Thane said:

I agree, even if I think they sould draw less cards (-1? -2?) to increase the risks.

I think that is a general statement. What seems to happen is t hat once the players get to draw  3 or 4 cards the bad  cards pretty much disappear from play. I think the number of cards draw should be capped at 2 or 3, and  that Glory should probably factor in elsewhere, such as with the seating. Maybe glory bracket could give a modifier to the seating? A knight with 50,000 Glory isn't going to be seated poorly just because he is ugly. Maybe average Glory and APP? I also think the geniality bonus to skills is too much. Someone with no skill whatsoever can just rely on accumulated geniality to  succeed.   I think probably a cap, such geniality can't do more than double a skill, would help.

[Morien]

2 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Glory should probably factor in elsewhere, such as with the seating.

How about flipping the uses of Glory & APP? Glory determines your seating (as it should), and APP determines on how many cards you get to draw: Beautiful People get more opportunities to choose from.

Edit: Also, it means that the Ugly People are more boorish, since if they pull a bad card, that is what they end up with.

Edited December 13, 2019 by Morien

[Atgxtg]

18 minutes ago, Morien said:

How about flipping the uses of Glory & APP? Glory determines your seating (as it should), and APP determines on how many cards you get to draw: Beautiful People get more opportunities to choose from.

Maybe, but I honestly think that after a  point, it's too many cards.  The bad events never come up, and the great events come up too often, and the players take longer looking over their options.

18 minutes ago, Morien said:

Edit: Also, it means that the Ugly People are more boorish, since if they pull a bad card, that is what they end up with.

Yes, if the cards drawn and kept down. I think something like 1 card per 6 APP or so would be about right. That way most PKS would get two cards, some three, and only the real beauties would get 4 or  more. 

[Morien]

On 12/13/2019 at 7:52 PM, Atgxtg said:

Yes, if the cards drawn and kept down. I think something like 1 card per 6 APP or so would be about right. That way most PKS would get two cards, some three, and only the real beauties would get 4 or  more. 

How about doing it so that you are allowed to draw and discard one card at the time, rather than being able to draw the full hand and pick? And once you are in your last card, you HAVE to play it?

So you first make a choice if you are trying one of the skills or if you are drawing a card. If someone with APP 6 - 11 would choose to draw a card, then s/he has to play whichever card s/he draws. Someone with APP 12-17 would draw one card, decide if s/he wants to play it, and if not, discard and draw a second card, which they MUST play. Someone with APP 18-23 gets to discard up to two cards, but has to play the third and so forth... This would give the High APP some buffer (unlikely to draw several bad events in a row), but make it possible for them to have bad events if they push their luck and get unlucky.

I guess in this case, the number of cards could be increased a bit, which might make the limits a bit nicer. Such as 1 card per full 5 APP: APP 5-9 = 1 card, 10-14 = up to 2 cards, 15-19 = up to 3 cards, 20-24= up to 4 cards, 25-29: up to 5 cards. This way, lower than average APP (10) would have a clear downside, and it is possible to get to 4 cards if you are a Roman pretty boy.

Of course, I am also of the opinion that the APP bonus from Bling should be, at best, a pyramid sum: +4 would cost: 1+2+3+4 =£10, not £4, and in order to get to +10, you'd need: 10+5+6+7+8+9+10 = £55. Then again, I would be happy to have it logarithmic, instead: +1 is £1, but each additional +1 is x2 the cost. So in order to get to +10, you need to multiply by 2^9 = 512 => +10 = £512. Something the High King and Queen might be decked out in, but probably no mere knight, and even Great Nobles might struggle to lay on so much bling.

 

Edited December 16, 2019 by Morien

[Atgxtg]

4 hours ago, Morien said:

How about doing it so that you are allowed to draw and discard one card at the time, rather than being able to draw the full hand and pick? And once you are in your last card, you HAVE to play it?

I've considered that, but it might slow things down too much. As it is now, it takes a couple minutes for everybody to read through their cards and pick one. If they did then one at a time it would take even longer for the players to agonize over each card. This has become more pronounced as the hard sizes have increased. 

 

Quote

I guess in this case, the number of cards could be increased a bit, which might make the limits a bit nicer. Such as 1 card per full 5 APP: APP 5-9 = 1 card, 10-14 = up to 2 cards, 15-19 = up to 3 cards, 20-24= up to 4 cards, 25-29: up to 5 cards. This way, lower than average APP (10) would have a clear downside, and it is possible to get to 4 cards if you are a Roman pretty boy.

That's not much difference than my 1 per 6 with standard rounding: 4-8= 1 card, 9-14= 2 cards, 15-20 = 3 cards, 21-26= 4 cards, 27-32 = 5 cards.

 

Quote

Of course, I am also of the opinion that the APP bonus from Bling should be, at best, a pyramid sum: +4 would cost: 1+2+3+4 =£10, not £4, and in order to get to +10, you'd need: 10+5+6+7+8+9+10 = £55. Then again, I would be happy to have it logarithmic, instead: +1 is £1, but each additional +1 is x2 the cost. So in order to get to +10, you need to multiply by 2^9 = 512 => +10 = £512. Something the High King and Queen might be decked out in, but probably no mere knight, and even Great Nobles might struggle to lay on so much bling.

IMO, the problems with the bling are:

1. The rules make the bling somewhat mandatory. Without it most characters have only a 5% chance of sitting above the salt, and half will get sent to a lower table. IMO the whole seating thing is the weakest aspect of the feasts. Some knight with 40,000 glory shows up and gets seated below the salt because he doesn't have a pretty face. 
2. Bling is simply additive. Everyone winds up spending £10 on jewelry to get the +10. So it pretty much winds up being a permanent bonus  for all PKS after a point. An d it's worth it too, since better seating means extra glory every year.
3. Since jewelry lasts for every and clothing degrades, there is really no reason to bother with fine clothing at all. I think some sort of increasing cost for both, with each being capped at +5 would help. That way somebody would have to buy new clothes every year to keep the +10 bonuses. I think the doubling costs would be the best for that, since clothing degrades in value by half each year (so the bonus would drop 1 point a year).
4. The bonus doesn't take into account status or glory.  Basically, I think it should be easier for a poor no-name knight to get a +1 from a nice  bit of bling than for, say, King Arthur. I think the  costs for a +1 should be greater as the characters get more famous. So maybe tie  the costs to their glory bracket?

What if jewelry and clothing were separate and each capped at +5, and the cost for a +1 doubled, and was also increased by glory bracket (notable, Famous etc.)?

 

 

Edited December 16, 2019 by Atgxtg

[Tizun Thane]

1 hour ago, Atgxtg said:

Since jewelry lasts for every and clothing degrades, there is really no reason to bother with fine clothing at all. I think some sort of increasing cost for both, with each being capped at +5 would help. That way somebody would have to buy new clothes every year to keep the +10 bonuses. I think the doubling costs would be the best for that, since clothing degrades in value by half each year (so the bonus would drop 1 point a year).

RAW, jewelry is especially a good idea, because it's also a good way to convert your income excess into cash. All my players look like lords of bling from a rap clip. The rule is a bit broken (but fun to play!).

As a quick fix, I suggest to max the jewelry bonus with the cost of the clothes. (ie if i you have 2 £ clothes, you can only have a +2 bonus with jewelry, even if you worn a 20 £ of jewelry.)

Furthermore, I would add a "upstart" or parvenu rule, to maximize the App bonus according to your rank. Beyond this threshold, you look like an upstart, a parvenu, a nouveau riche, or a merchant (!!). Maybe

• bachelor knight: +2/+2 App max (clothes/jewelry)
• vassal knight : +3/3
• officer or estate holder: +4/+4
• baron or higher : +5/+5

As a vassal knight is supposed to worn 1£ clothes, I don't really get either why he should have a bonus. Instead, he should have a malus to worn shabby clothes. So he should begin with a -1£ malus to App.

Edited December 16, 2019 by Tizun Thane

[Atgxtg]

1 minute ago, Tizun Thane said:

RAW, jewelry is especially a good idea, because it's also a good way to convert your income excess into cash. All my players look like lords of bling from a rap clip. The rule is a bit broken (but fun to play!).

As a quick fix, I suggest to max the jewelry bonus with the cost of the clothes. (ie if i you have 2 £ clothes, you can only have a +2 bonus with jewelry, even if you worn a 20 £ of jewelry.)

It's not a bad  start, but I think it needs something more, basically an increasing cost for additional +1s. As written players pretty quickly get to +10, as it's a cheap price for a big bonus, and can cover part of a knight's ransom.

 

 

[Morien]

You could do a Parvenu rule, too. But I don't think it is necessary.

I think I'd make it so that Status is the main qualifier for the seating order (Kings before great barons, great barons before barons, barons before knights, knights before esquires, esquires before commoners). Then you can roll amongst the class (usually all PKs are knights of some sort, so it works out), based on Glory + Bling. More Bling, the more wealthy and hence important you are, is the assumption. More about this later.

This leaves APP alone to decide the feast cards: APP/6, round normally, everyone gets to choose their action all at once, and then everyone who is drawing a card declares that they are drawing and take a card, reading it and deciding if they want to play it or draw another card if they can. If they choose to draw again, go ahead. (Atgxtg, I don't think this would slow down the game, since now there is just a binary choice after you have read ONE card. Play it or risk it and draw another one. This is faster than, say, reading three cards and deciding what to do.) If they cannot draw again, they have to play it. The GM can start sorting out the cards as soon as they are played, leaving other players to decide on their cards if necessary. (Note: I don't have BoF, so I don't know if there is usually a reversed Glory order or something to playing the cards.)

As for the Bling, I think I would remove the whole jewelry thing and replace it with clothing, which degrades down to your Standard of Living (£1 = Ordinary). So if you are a knight with a £4 outfit and you are living as a Rich knight, you can't afford to restore it to its magnificence, and it degrades to £2. However, if you keep up being a Rich knight, that is as far as it drops: fixing it is accounted for by the standard of living, no extra cost. Now, it becomes very expensive to keep your bonuses up, especially since the cost now doubles for each +1...

Clothing

Value  Mod  Level

0.25    -4   Impoverished

0.5     -2    Poor

1       0     Ordinary

2     +1   Rich

4    +2    Superlative, Minor Estate Holder

8    +3    Spectacular, Banneret

16   +4   Minor Baron

32   +5  Baron

64   +6  Rich Baron

128  +7   Count, Duke

256  +8  Minor King (Escavalon, Estregales, Malahaut)

512  +9  King of Logres

1024  +10  High King, Emperor

You could even make it so that if the lord in question doesn't have his fine clothing with him (he is questing), then the host('s herald) has to succeed in a Recognize/Heraldry check to correctly assign the status. Similarly, if someone walks in with very fancy clothing, the assumption might be that they are of higher rank than they are, if the Host (or his Herald) fail the roll.

If I have understood the rules correctly from what people have said, being Below the Salt is a bit of an insult, so it shouldn't be too common. Thus, maybe the roll should be 15+Glory/1000+Clothing? This pretty much ensures that before 4000 Glory or so, good luck getting to Above the Salt (crit). Even then, it is going to be tough qualifying. However, once you are 8000+ Glory and regularly rocking Rich or better outfit, your chances are about 25% to get to Above the Salt. Seems about right to me. Note, I am assuming that the Feasts here are not dingy little family & friends gathering, but big ones, like Pentecost etc. If you are like in your Liege's court, I would toss the Glory roll out altogether; these people know what the internal pecking order is, so they would get seated in Glory order, unless the Liege has someone on his naughty list and wishes to express his displeasure like a mean girl: "No, Megan, this seat is already taken. Your seat is over there, with the other losers Below the Salt."

[Atgxtg]

I think both makes a  bit more senses as £1024/year on clothing is kinda out of even Arthur's budget. With two separate +5, it would be £64 total.

4 hours ago, Morien said:

If I have understood the rules correctly from what people have said, being Below the Salt is a bit of an insult, so it shouldn't be too common. 

It actually isn't. Sitting on the floor with the squires is the insult. Below the Salt is actually supposed to be typical seating for a knight, but since everybody spends £10 on jewelry, most end up sitting near the salt.  

Maybe if the seating were by glory (famous knigts sit together, notable sit together and so on), and the seating rolls could bump a character up or down a category or two?

 

Edited December 16, 2019 by Atgxtg

[Tizun Thane]

In the books, even the queen Guenever wore only 30 £ of clothes.

[Morien]

13 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

I think both makes a  bit more senses as £1024/year on clothing is kinda out of even Arthur's budget. With two separate +5, it would be £64 total.

 

1 hour ago, Tizun Thane said:

In the books, even the queen Guenever wore only 30 £ of clothes.

That was before BotW, though. We know that Uther has a personal domain of £2100 or so (BotW, BoU) and another £1900 from Royal forests (BoU). Who knows how much of the fee farm income he is keeping for himself, too? Presumably all of it, since otherwise it would be accounted for in the barons' income? In any case, his Standard of Living is at least £400, and another £400 Discretionary Funds, plus whatever of the fee farms.

As for Arthur, it would not be strange if he has doubled or even tripled this domain via conquest of the Saxon lands and lands in the North, Cambria and Cumbria. So we might be easily looking at something in the £1000+ range for Standard of Living. If the maintenance of the clothes is simply paying the half the price, then it would just be £512 for the pair of them* to keep maintaining the upper tier clothing, or about half of the standard of living. This seems OK to me.

Note that this doesn't necessarily mean that they have just one item of clothing. Indeed, it is much more likely that this is their whole wardrobe, with dozens of outfits through the year. But it is a reasonable simplification, IMHO. If a PK has just ONE fine outfit that he is wearing everywhere, it is the same as the fashionistas today: 'oh, he is wearing that old thing again', they'd sniff. Thus, even if the PK would have a single outfit that would match a single outfit of what a Baron would wear, the bonus would still be counted from the whole wardrobe.

YPWV, though. I don't expect that any PK would actually get this far in clothing. However, if the High King and Queen have just £64 in clothing for the pair of them, especially if half of that is coming from non-degrading jewelry, then this becomes something that even a PK can accomplish with their loot. And that feels a bit wrong to me, that a mere knight could outshine the High King himself.

* EDIT: Except that since £1 is the knight's own clothing, this doesn't work... So the High King might be limited to £512 personally, £256 upkeep. I would imagine that most of the Discretionary Funds would go to things like hosting tournaments and feasts, rather than their personal clothing. This does mean that we'd probably need to bump everything above Ordinary down a level and remove Rich, most likely.

 

13 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Below the Salt is actually supposed to be typical seating for a knight, but since everybody spends £10 on jewelry, most end up sitting near the salt.  

OK, so it is more like:

Fumble: Sitting with the squires

Failure: Below the Salt

Success: Near the Salt

Critical: Above the Salt.

In this case, the roll could be: (Glory/1000 + clothing mod)*3. This gives a starting knight a 'skill' of 4-5 or so, someone with 4000 a skill of 12, and someone with 8000 a skill of 24 (or more, likely having better clothing already). There is still a problem of the critical being a flat 5%, but I do like the house rule that we have about doing a confirmation roll on a critical (roll again, and it is a critical if you succeed a second time); this makes it much less likely that someone with skill 5 crits vs. someone with skill 12. We also use a fumble confirmation rule: roll again vs. skill-10, and if it is a success, it was just a fail, not a fumble.

Edited December 17, 2019 by Morien

[Tizun Thane]

I don't follow you on this. You can pay a beautiful castle with 512 £. A family of commoners can live with 1£ by year. And their is a limit to the cost of clothes. Sure, the queen have many fine dresses (a bit like Kate Middleton or other royals today), but each dress cost "only" 30  £ (or 32 £ as Atgxtg said).

 

[Morien]

19 minutes ago, Tizun Thane said:

I don't follow you on this. You can pay a beautiful castle with 512 £. A family of commoners can live with 1£ by year. And their is a limit to the cost of clothes. Sure, the queen have many fine dresses (a bit like Kate Middleton or other royals today), but each dress cost "only" 30  £ (or 32 £ as Atgxtg said).

If you read my post, you can see that I did make this point explicitly. That the whole clothing allowance would be for the wardrobe, not individual dresses.

However, if you want the PKs to be able to get higher bonuses, then yes, you could have them save their fanciest clothing for that single event and get the full bonus for it instead. And the 'seen that' factor could simply be -1 for every event after the first one, which would explain why the Queen, who hosts numerous feasts per year, has several fine dresses while a knight's lady might do with one for the Pentecostal feast.

[Atgxtg]

Well, it will  be a  bit of a fix. I'd rather keep the numbers lower, hence the +5 and  two different categories gems and clothing. 

[Morien]

50 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Well, it will  be a  bit of a fix. I'd rather keep the numbers lower, hence the +5 and  two different categories gems and clothing. 

On reflection, I recognize that there is an incentive to make this easy enough that the players might actually spend some money on tarting themselves up. The only problem is that since the Gems are obviously better (no wear and tear, usable as fungible treasure), the PKs will dress up in rags and pile on the bling.

One option would be to price them differently: Jewelry goes up in price as x2, but clothing might go up with a flat rate of, say, £2. So you'd get instead: £1, £2, £4, £6, £8 and, a bit bigger jump, £12 for +5 for clothing. While you would have to spend £32 in Jewelry to get the same bonus. Or you could go with x2 for clothing (and hence £32 for +5), but go x4 for jewelry (£4 +1, £16 +2, £64 +3, £256 +4, £1024 +5). That way, Jewelry is better, but much more of it is required for the higher bonus. Incidentally, the latter assumes that each knight would have £1 worth of bling and hence be at 0. If £1 bling already buys +1 and 0 is 0, then the top tier would be 'only' £256. Not even a baron's ransom. I think I like that latest option: the humble knight will probably go for some bronze or silver decorations on the belt buckle, clasp on the cloak, fittings on the hilt of the sword and/or scabbard... While the higher nobility will start piling on necklaces/chains, big rings with gemstones, etc.

I would definitely be giving Outrageous Consumption Glory for spending money on perishables like clothing. Probably not for Jewelry... or at least at a diminished rate, using the old 1 Glory per £1 up to £10, and then 1 Glory per £10.

[Atgxtg]

2 hours ago, Morien said:

On reflection, I recognize that there is an incentive to make this easy enough that the players might actually spend some money on tarting themselves up.

Yes. Plus  I also think there is a case to be made for rank. A  £5 gemstone is probably going to do more to help out a common knight than a baron.

2 hours ago, Morien said:

The only problem is that since the Gems are obviously better (no wear and tear, usable as fungible treasure), the PKs will dress up in rags and pile on the bling.

 That's why I think that if they were two separate bonuses it would  work better. 

2 hours ago, Morien said:

  I think I like that latest option: the humble knight will probably go for some bronze or silver decorations on the belt buckle, clasp on the cloak, fittings on the hilt of the sword and/or scabbard... While the higher nobility will start piling on necklaces/chains, big rings with gemstones, etc.

Me too. I think it is more  fun and playable without getting too out of hand. It also  means than knights who end up feasting after a battle  might noit have thier best clothes about for the +1 bonus. Let's look at the  progression for a second:

£1= +1

£2= +2

£4= +3

£8= +4

£16= +5

£32= +6

£64= +7

£128= +8

£256= +9

£512=+10

 

Hmm, So someone  who wanted the +10 bonus could either spend £512 on gems(!!), for a permanent +10, or spend £16 on gems and  £16 on clothing for a +10 that would degrade a point every year,  down  to +5, but would be a lost  easier to maintain. Yeah, that looks okay.  Oh, and we could probably add in a bonus for any  glory earned for events that took place shortly before the feast. So a knight who earned 1000 glory at a battle might bet an extra +1 to seating during the victory feast.

 

So Something like:

Critical: Sit two levels above station.

Success: Sit slightly above station

Failure: Sit at proper station

Fumble:  Sit below station

2 hours ago, Morien said:

I would definitely be giving Outrageous Consumption Glory for spending money on perishables like clothing. Probably not for Jewelry... or at least at a diminished rate, using the old 1 Glory per £1 up to £10, and then 1 Glory per £10.

One idea could be  to allow characters to just buy  a bonus for the  feast that way. Getting a new outfit, having their hair done and so on. Since it would be a one time bonus  (or we  could have it drop in half each year) then it wouldn't be an issue. Right now it is just spend £10 of gems  and be  done with it, which is no fun at all.

 

[Call Me Deacon Blues]

So, this is probably not helpful, but here's how I deal with clothes/gems:

Basically, a knight is always able to maintain their clothes at their expected standard of living (so I don't bother checking for degradation most times), with Ordinary clothes costing 1 L, Rich 3, Superlative 5, and Spectacular 7. You don't get a bonus for wearing the clothes you're expected to wear, so if you want to get a bonus, you have to spend extra, with a cost of 1 L per APP bonus; most of the knights in my group right now are ordinary, so they'd have to spend 2 L to get a +1 bonus, but one is a Banneret now, and is Rich, so has to spend at least 4 to get a +1 bonus. You can supplement this with jewelry and other finery, but not only is there a threshold, they only add half their value to APP. So basically, an Ordinary Knight would have to have finery equal to 4L to get a +1 bonus; Rich, 8L in finery, etc. The combined total for their clothes and jewels is capped at their APP, so an average or ugly knight can still only get to a certain level.

Now, this does meant that it costs richer knights more money to get bonuses, but I feel like it all kinda works out in the wash, because they have more money to spend on stuff like this. Plus, I include a free set of clothing equal to what their maintenance was this year, as well, so if a Knight who is normally supposed to be Ordinary decided to live as Rich, he automatically gets a set of Rich clothes costing 3 Libra, giving him a +2 bonus, and the Rich knight living as Superlative gets the same bonus, but it's much more likely he has extra money to spend on maintenance than the ordinary knight, since he can cover the difference right from his discretionary fund, while the Ordinary knight needs to have at least gotten 2 extra Libra somewhere or other.