Introduction | Session Report | Comments

Introduction

We’re back to playing vanilla A Weekend in the Country (Second Edition) by Lari Assmuth, since we were introducing some people to RPGs.

Session Report

Dramatis Personae

Victim

Lord Adler, retired colonel of the Imperial Yeomanry Cavalry.

Suspects

Lady Adler (Q♥), Lord Adler’s young wife. A child of merchant wealth rather than the aristocracy.

Lady Blakeley (Q♠), amateur artist and friend of Lady Adler. Her sickly older husband is not visiting the estate.

Lord Entwhistle (K♦), a young lord here with his mother, the widow Lady Entwhistle. His late father served with Lord Adler but was dishonorably discharged following a court-martial.

Mr. Cooper (J♣), Lord Adler’s ambitious valet.

Detectives

A Weekend in the Country is designed to have a single detective investigate the Adler murder, with all players controlling that one detective. However, our group of four players decided to each create our own character. The three adults form the Inspect, Detect, Protect Agency, and the youth works for them.

• Selene, secretly a time traveler from the far future. Has strange gadgets, including some impressive glasses. Inspect.
• Smidge, a street urchin. Able to get into small places and other spots too tight for adults.
• Eph, bastard son of a lord. Won’t inherit, but lives a comfortable life. Detect.
• Miss Marple, overly dramatic. Everything is a convoluted plot in her eyes. Protect.

Clues

1. Bedroom/6♠: Selene finds a broken porcelain figure behind the dresser. It must have been knocked over in the struggle. She tastes the dust and concludes it was made in Meissen.

2. Attic/8♠: Smidge goes up into the attic to look around but returns with no clues because it was dark up there. Selene chastises him for not turning on the lights, but when she yanks the cord, they find the lights are in fact out.

3. Kitchen/5♥: Eph goes to talk with the serving staff in the kitchen, since those are the ones with the juiciest gossip. The housekeeper is happy to chat, and though she admits to some Adler having an affair with a servant, she is not more specific than that.

4. Servants’ Quarters/6♥: Miss Marple searches for the murder weapon in the servants’ quarters, but instead she finds some rather compromising photographs. 

5. Study/7♥: While in the study, Selene hears voices through the vents. She suspects they are coming from the attic, where the guilty party could be plotting.

6. Attic/10♥: Smidge uses the dumbwaiter to sneak into the attic in order to see who is holding a secret meeting. However, right as he opens it, someone throws a nightgown in his direction, blocking his view. Perhaps they thought that was the laundry chute. (threat = 11+6 = 17, just barely safe)

7. Servants’ Quarters/A♥: Lady Adler tries to seduce Eph, and he goes along with it. He’s no stranger to such affairs; he’s the product of one, after all. And besides, people are most vulnerable during pillow talk.

Accusation

We have a heart flush at this point, so if we’re going to accuse anyone, it has to be Lady Adler. We decide that Eph elicits a confession from her. She has a thing for hard-working men and has had affairs with some of the servants. She killed Lord Adler because she wanted to inherit his money before an inconvenient pregnancy got in the way.

Lady Adler almost got a heart flush as a defense, but even if she had, we still would have beaten her, ours being ace-high. As it is, her defense is just a pair of jacks, which we interpret as two of the servants who are in love with her stepping forward to offer an alibi. Since she has already granted Eph her confidence, though, their efforts are in vain. We turn Lady Adler over to the police and ask Eph how come it is that he somehow always ends up in bed with the murderer.

Comments

This is the sixth time we have played A Weekend in the Country, and it was the most salacious. The rulebook does contain a note about safety and boundaries, but this is the first time one of our games ever came to a “fade to black” moment. I suppose we just hadn’t gotten too many heart clues up until now.