Trickster's Ball

Every 13 years, the world's greatest tricksters gather for a masquerade ball, to trade stories, lives, names, and faces.

Trickster's Ball is an experimental secrets-heavy dancelike where characters can swap memories, powers, and identities.

Long Description

Note: This will be a beta run of a game that even at its best is intended to be confusing, and it will likely have some pretty rough edges, uneven pacing, or unfinished story elements.

Camilla: You, sir, should unmask.
Stranger: Indeed?
Cassilda: Indeed, it's time. We all have laid aside disguise but you.
Stranger: I wear no mask.
Camilla: (Terrified, aside to Cassilda) No mask? No mask!
-The King in Yellow

Steal a heart, steal a name, steal a face.

Every thirteen years (give or take a few decades), the Trickstar’s Ball brings together the thirteen greatest tricksters, illusionists, fairy pranksters, shape-shifters, disguise artists, fabulists, venture capitalists, and gods of chaos.

If you’re talented enough to earn, steal, or forge a valid invite (and not fall for one of the many fakes or duplicates), you probably know some of the other faces. You might have friends here, or enemies, or past lovers, although who they are now is anyone’s guess.

Just don’t count on staying safe and sane. If you’re not careful, you could lose your identity, or even your life.

Why would you take the risk of attending in the first place? Maybe you’re seeking a truly weird favor. Maybe you’re an agent of chaos. Maybe you can’t remember who you are or why you’re here. Maybe Loki tricked you into it.

If someone asks you to sign something, make sure to read it very carefully first. Especially if it’s a dance card.

The masquerade is not without its own peculiar rules — something old must die, something new must be born, and someone will be forced to switch places with the strange and terrifying King of Faces — but you know better than anyone else that rules are made to be broken.

At the end of the evening, everyone present will choose one final partner to swap masks, names, and identities with (though side deals and unofficial identity trades will happen all evening). To achieve your deepest desire, it might help to end the evening paired with the correct mask — but then again, deepest desires are overrated, and you can always try again next time.

The Trickster’s Ball is a “secrets & secrets” dancelike LARP built around a masked ball where characters have the option to trade away any or every part of their identity. The game will switch off between social breaks and dance numbers, though dancing is never actually required. No skill or experience with ballroom dance is necessary. The game will include a brief waltz lesson, but not all dances will be waltzes.

All characters will be expected to wear masks or hats, which represent each character's conceptual identity. GM can provide masks for players who are unable to bring one. If you are uncomfortable wearing or trading masks, we can make some accomodations for this.

This game is inspired by other similar paired dancing games, but characters will seek to end the ball paired with the correct mask instead of the correct partner. However, you'll be playing a trickster — while pairing up with the right mask might be the easiest way to achieve your goals, there will always be other ways to achieve them as well.

This game is intended to be confusing; you will want to keep your character sheet close, and your enemies list closer, though if you’re not careful you could lose both. Expect betrayal, rug pulls, nonsense, stolen pronouns, mpreg, and unreliable narrators.