Vice and Steel

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Vice and Steel is an adaptation of Dust Devils by Matt Snyder, shifting the setting from the Old West to the French Decadence or late renaissance. You will need Dust Devils to play the game. It is available for purchase at Chimera Creative and at RPGnow.

Vice and Steel

Vice and Steel is a roleplaying game of intrigue, passion, and human weakness set in a decadent Enlightenment world in the style of works such as Dangerous Liaisons, Scaramouche, and The Count of Monte Cristo. Players take on the rolls of swashbucklers, seductresses, desperate rebels, scheming nobles, and fanatical priests in a world of exquisite elegance and horrid corruption. Where Dust Devils have a Devil, every character in Vice and Steel has a Vice, a weakness or sin that drives them towards darkness and madness.

In a world of courts and pirates, church and state, ideals and carnality life is a passion play of power, freedom, money, and desire. It is possible for a person of vision to become wealthier than Croesus, more powerful than Caesar, or more despised than Judas. Characters have to face their own weaknesses while trying to scramble up the ladder to attain their goals. Vice and Steel asks the question: "Will your passions drive you to glory or to ruin?" In a world in which everyone is flawed but everyone wants to be great, how does a character balance between their raw lusts and their nobler goals?

Sinners

The first step in character creation is for the player to get an idea of who they want their character to be and what they want the character to do. Vice and Steel is open to a multitude of character types, from swashbuckling pirates to sensuous seductress, scheming nobles, fire-brand revolutionaries, musketeers, scientists or philosophers, and a million more. The choice of character will help define the game, and so due thought should be given to it.

Attributes

Vice and Steel defines characters with four attributes which mirror, but are slightly different than, Dust Devils’ attributes. Attribute ratings cannot exceed 5. Players assign 13 points among their character’s four attributes. Those attributes are:

Fineness – ♠ Finesse is the skill and aptitude with which a character controls their body. Finesse covers everything from leaping from a chandelier or fencing to riding a horse through a forest while being pursued by the Cardinal's men. Fineness replaces Dust Devils' Hand.

Savvy – ♦ Savvy represents the characters intellect, perceptiveness, and cunning. Savvy covers actions such as trying to figure out who the Duke is sleeping with to finding traces of poison in your glass – hopefully before you drink it. Savvy replaces Dust Devils' Eye.

Mettle – ♣ Mettle is a combination of the characters physical constitution, courage, and pure will. Mettle determines if a character can withstand being tortured by the Inquisition, face down a swordmaster in a duel, or ride for three days without rest. Mettle replaces Dust Devils' Guts.

Panache – ♥ Panache gauges how suave, social, and impressive a character is. It’s Panache that lets you seduce the Count, gain an invitation to the Cardinal's reception, laugh in the face of your executioner, and be more elegant than any human being has a right to be. Panache replaces Dust Devils' Heart.

Qualities

Qualities replace Dust Devils' Traits. Every character has two Qualities, things which set them above other people and show the epic potential of the character. These two descriptors should highlight the characters strengths in a short phrase, such as "gifted with laughter" or "smoldering eyes" to "strong as a farm lad" or "perfectly elegant" and even "knows that the world is mad." As with Dust Devils' Traits, Qualities give a player an extra card in any conflict in which their Quality is used to overcome the opposition.

Masteries

Masteries replace Dust Devils' Knacks. Characters in Vice and Steel do not have knacks – those are for peasants. Characters have skills that they master, abilities refined beyond those of the normal sheep. It is an age of excellence, and Masteries define what specializations the character has become excellent at. Masteries are rated from 1 to 4, with 1 being a talented dabbler and 4 being a master's master. Characters have 11 points of Masteries, which they can distribute among a maximum of six Masteries – after all, no one can master every skill.

As with Dust Devils' Knacks, Masteries allow characters to redraw to improve their hand. Example Masteries include: Acrobatics, Acting, Ambush, Appraise, Architecture, Art (specialization), Artisan (specialization), Athletics, Bribery, Carousing, Cartography, Dancing, Etiquette, Fast Talk, Fencing, Forgery, Gambling, Gunnery, History, Impress, Incite, Innuendo, Insult, Intimidation, Lawyer, Leadership, Literature, Logistics, Mathematics, Medicine, Music, Musketry, Occultism, Philosophy, Pike Fighting, Poison, Read Emotions, Recognize, Ride, Sailing, Sapping, Science, Scrounging, Seduction, Singing, Stealth, Tactics, Tennis, Theology.

Vice

Every Vice and Steel character has a Vice, a sin or weakness that threatens to ruin all their ambitions and goals even while it drives them beyond the constraints of normal men and towards greatness. A character's Vice is not just their wicked side, as everyone in Vice and Steel has more than enough of that; it is the wickedness the character cannot control, the sin that always draws them towards destruction and abandon.

A Vice can be a simple phrase, a sentence or two that sums up what the character's weakness or flaw is. Examples could be "the Count is driven by revenge, and is willing to destroy what he once loved in order to avenge even a small slight" or "Valios is a lecher, unable to resist seducing maidens."

A Vice should not be something that the character can get rid of easily. No matter how hard they try it should dog them, their personal imp hounding them towards their fall. The Seven Deadly Sins make good starting points for a Vice, but a proper Vice should be more fleshed out – tied to the character’s history and his goals. After all, someone who has the Vice of greed probably has cheated in the past and has goals based around fulfilling their greed.

Note also that a Vice is the combination of a characters weaknesses and the mistakes those weaknesses have made for them in the past. Lechery, for example, not only means the character is likely to give into lusts of the flesh, but that he probably has a good number of enemies from the maidens he has ruined in the past. Similarly, someone who is vengeful or murderous not only is likely to kill in the future, but probably has done so in the past.

Mechanically, the Vice works exactly like the Devil from Dust Devils.

The Demiurge

Dust Devils' Dealer is replaced with Vice and Steel's Demiurge. It is the Demiurge's job to bring together the stories and Vices of the player characters and guide them into shaping a story. It is the Demiurge that helps to bring order out of chaos, but it is also the Demiurge that helps push characters towards their grand finale – either glory or destruction by their Vice. This doesn't mean the characters have to die, but if their Vice wins they will become an empty shell, a slave to desire with no more potential for grandeur.

The Demiurge does this by creating a vibrant, exquisite, passionate, and utterly corrupt world for the PCs to master and fall to. The Demiurge does not create the plot, he makes the world of a host of interesting characters with Vices and passions of their own that will sharply conflict with, or conflate with, those of the PCs.

In all other ways the Demiurge acts as the Dust Devil's Dealer.

The Game

Some groups may find it a bit disconcerting to be playing Five Card Stud, a very American poker reference, while in a game of Vice and Steel. The good news is that the standard playing deck for poker is also known as "The French Pack" and was in use in France from the 1500s. So all that players disturbed by the nomenclature need do is change the name of the draw games and maybe a few terms, if they so desire*.

• The Joker becomes The Excuse, or the Fool – and is still wild. Other cards change as follows: Roi (king), Dame (queen), Valet (jack).
• Stakes can remain Stakes, or can become Penalty. They could also be called “Chelem” (Slam) – a term used in Tarot when someone takes every trick in a hand.
• Five Card Stud can be called a Garde (the Guard).
• Three Card Stud can be called a Prise (a take).
• Seven Card Stud can be called a Garde contre le chien (a Guard against the kitty – fitting as players usually get stakes for such a hand).
• A draw hand for an NPC can be called a Garde sans le chien (a Guard without the kitty – no automatic stakes).

(Note that these terms are being used horribly incorrectly – they are often Tarot terms stolen to make the poker resolution of Dust Devils sound more French, but the terms are not used this way in actual play, as Tarot is a very different game from Poker.)

Sample Sinners

Here are two sample Vice and Steel characters.

Valios De Leon

Valios was born just wealthy enough to get a taste of the good-life, without being nearly wealthy enough to sustain it without taking up a trade. So he took up the two trades that a gentleman could have – duelist and gambler. However it is neither his cruel nature nor his greed which has seen him chased out of three separate cities and one princedom – that honor belongs to his lecherousness. Valios lives on the road, making friends in high places and wringing money from them either through charm, threat of violence, or the gambling table. He is starting to see the end of his 20's however, and knows that he cannot live such a life forever. Now he is looking for a mark, either a rich widow or well-dowered maiden to make his life comfortable.

Vice: Valios De Leon is a lecher. His compulsive need to bed desirable women – generally young and virginal – makes him hated by fathers, brothers, and Christian women everywhere.

Finess 4 Savvy 3 Mettle 2 Panache 4

Masteries

• Fencing 4
• Gambling 3
• Seduction 2
• Lie 2
• Impress 1
• Cold Read 1

Qualities

• Cruel as a cat
• Living Quicksilver

Felise Toussaint

Raised in a convent, Felise was taught to spurn all the wickedness of the world and the flesh, to take shelter in the citadel of the spirit. So well did she learn her lessons that when her confessor tried to seduce her she raised a hue and a cry so fierce that it led to the man being excommunicated. As he had been the lover of the prioress Felise was soon put out of the convent, and found herself a woman in a wicked world.

Since then Felise has gone to live with two aunts, both of whom found her insufferable and kicked her out, and her uncle – who can only just tolerate her. She knows she must find either a husband or another source of income, but she must also do so without soiling her perfect self.

Vice: Pride. Felise is a good woman, a strong woman, and she knows it. The problem is she thinks she is the best woman, and that everyone else is inferior to her – either in intellect, morals, and usually both.

Finesse 2 Savvy 3 Mettle 3 Panache 3

Masteries

• Theology 3
• Art (Painting) 2
• Dancing 2
• Etiquette 2
• Verbal Overwhelm 2

Qualities

• Pure as driven snow
• Beautiful as an Angel

Sources

There are hundreds of novels, movies, and plays set in the period and many of them would be perfect for Vice and Steel inspiration. The following list is only a few of the most accessible and relevant sources.

Movies

Dangerous Liaisons (1988, Directed by Stephen Frears): A truly gorgeous, electric movie of lust, seduction, and power that shows the protagonists destroying each other, and themselves, because they cannot contain or overcome their Vices. Probably the best single source for Vice and Steel – except possibly the novel that the movie is based upon.

Dangerous Beauty (1998, Directed by Marshall Herskovitz): Set in Venice during the Renaissance, and thus a little earlier in history than the other sources, this movie is an adaptation of the book The Honest Courtesan. Telling the story of a courtesan with a heart of gold, a noble divided between love and duty, the inquisition and its sins, and the values of humanity it fits Vice and Steel perfectly despite being slightly out of chronological scope.

Amadeus (1984, Directed by Milos Forman): The story of Wolfgang Amadeus Motzart and Antonio Salieri is a masterpiece of film, deftly unweaving a story of jealousy, genius, and the human weaknesses that lead step by unavoidable step to death and madness. Though it’s a bit less swashbuckling than most of the other recommended sources it is one of the great examples of a story perfect for Vice and Steel in which a sword is never drawn nor royal plot ever foiled.

Novels

Scaramouche – A Romance of the French Revolution by Rafael Sabatini: A book about passion, paternity, acting troupes, and the horror and glory of the French Revolution. The complete text is available online.

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas: The classic novel of friendship sacrificed for passion, the choice between revenge and honor, and the horrible choices we make in search of what we think matters. The complete text is available online. In addition there are several movie versions of the work, including a very decent 2002 version starring James Caviezel.

The Man in the Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas: The end of the Three Musketeers, a story of passion, crowns, and divided loyalty. The complete text is available online. There are also several movie versions available, from the classic 1939 James Whale version to the 1998 version with the inestimable John Malkovich. The newer version is not quite as good as the classic, but does draw out the ways in which conflicting passions lead to death and dishonor.

Prince of Foxes by Samuel Shellabarger: A peasant boy who will rise to glory, no matter what. Cesare Borgia employs him. Shake well, server with adventure.

TV Shows

Blackadder (1983, Directed by Geoff Posner): Though it’s another that doesn’t quite fit the general timeframe, the delicious wickedness and utter depravity of the characters makes it well worth watching. Not to mention that it will make you laugh until you cry.