This article originally appeared in Pyramid #17

Pyramid Pick

COMME IL FAUT

Published by R. Talsorian Games
Written by Captain Michael A. Pondsmith
Price $17.00

What is comme il faut? The literal translation from the French (according to our French-English dictionary) is "How Things Are Done," but that doesn't begin to describe it. It's manners, and behaving properly in polite society, and keeping your cool under provocation (both verbal and physical). It's knowing your place in high society, everybody else's place, and your relationship to each and every one of them. It's behaving like a lady, or acting like a gentleman. It's that very rare quality in today's self-promoting, blame-shifting, tell-all society known as class.

And so, what is Comme Il Faut? Subtitled, "All Things Right & Proper," Comme Il Faut is only the second supplement for R. Talsorian's excellent Castle Falkenstein roleplaying game (which was a "Pyramid Pick" of its own back in issue #10). To recap, Falkenstein is set in a magical alternate-19th-century Earth called "New Europa," where historical fact (our history, that is) is mixed whimsically with steampunk gadgetry and all sorts of magic — secret societies of human sorcerers, faeries both good and evil, dragons, and all sorts of other neat stuff.

But unless you grew up on Jules Verne or Arthur Conan Doyle, the world of Castle Falkenstein could be a little difficult to understand and roleplay in. There's plenty of room for action, swashbuckling and derring-do, but Falkenstein is also a game of manners, . . .

This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.



Article publication date: January 1, 1996

Copyright © 1996 by Steve Jackson Games. All rights reserved. Pyramid subscribers are permitted to read this article online, or download it and print out a single hardcopy for personal use. Copying this text to any other online system or BBS, or making more than one hardcopy, is strictly prohibited. So please don't. And if you encounter copies of this article elsewhere on the web, please report it to webmaster@sjgames.com.