Creating detailed characters for a Good Society one-shot

In my last post, I talked about what I will do differently when I run Good Society as a one-shot next, and I created a playset based on the character sheets, desires and relationships.

It didn’t change the game, but put everything onto a single sheet of A4 for easier reading – apart from the relationship cards, which would still be exchanged during setup.

But why not go further?

Making it more trad

Why, in a convention one-shot of Good Society, should I expect players to create their characters at all? 

After all, I didn’t roll up characters for the other games at Furnace—Traveller, 7th Sea and Cepheus Universal. I was given a character with names and backgrounds complete.

Yes, they were all trad games and have a different playstyle from Good Society. But I think there’s an advantage in giving players fully developed characters rather than expecting them to come up with something coherent in under 30 minutes.

Going awry

I find it easy to go awry when collaboratively creating characters for story games like Good Society (or Hillfolk or Fiasco). It’s particularly easy if you aren’t experienced at the game. And I’m not – I like to play and run a good range of games, but as a result, I’m not an expert at any of them.

As a result, I find it’s a big ask to facilitate the creation of a coherent set of characters in under 30 minutes for a convention game. (Vee Hendro allows 22 minutes in her video on running Good Society at conventions. But she wrote the game.)

Too eager to please

And because I’m bad at saying “no” to player suggestions, characters can sometimes end up a little “off”. And as a result, we can end up with ideas that don’t feel very Jane Austen-y. 

Now, that usually doesn’t matter. We still have great games, but the purist in me wants to play a Jane Austen-y game (even if we are ignoring the more awful views of that time).

I’m sure that’s my lack of experience, along with not wanting to upset anyone.

Luckily, this didn’t happen at Furnace this year, but I can think of games of Hillfolk where player choices (and my lack of pushback) meant we stuttered in places.

Making it more freeform-y

So that’s what I’ve done. I’ve taken the Wealth and Fortune playset (page 196) and fleshed out the characters and relationships.

I’ve given the characters names and genders. I’ve not touched the connections – we can still do that as part of setup at the start of play.

The character sheets look much more like freeform characters now. Mostly backstory, with just a little room for mechanics. The character sheets are also clearer and simpler, as I cut plenty of text that, once I’d made a decision, wasn’t needed. I can’t say I’m displeased with this.

Harder than I expected

But it wasn’t easy. In fact, it was a lot harder than I expected.

In Jane Austen-land, women don’t have as many rights as men. They rarely own property, and in the stories, the female characters’ fate is often entirely in the hands of menfolk. (Now I know in a game things can be different, but I’m aiming for a traditional Jane Austen vibe. It’ll go crazy enough as soon as players are involved—I don’t want it to start crazy.)

I started with the five-player set: Heir, Cornerstone, Dependant, Tutor, and the New Arrival. (I ignored the suggested spare character.)

Traditionally, the Heir ought to be male and the Tutor female. The others were less clear-cut, but the relationships (in love, cousins, previous romance, patron and so on) made it harder to create coherent backstories than I expected.

For example, the Tutor has a patron, but that is unlikely to be the Cornerstone or the Dependent (who both have money problems, so are unlikely to be able to sponsor her) or the New Arrival (unless the Tutor is also a new arrival, but that has complications elsewhere), which leaves the Heir as the Tutor’s patron.

(That assumes I stick to standard Jane Austen heterosexual genre tropes. I don’t have to, of course, but as I’ve said, I want to create Austen-compatible characters.)

I wanted roughly equal male/female characters, and played around with combinations for a while until I realised I needed a relationship map. So I created one:

I found this really helpful – I referred to it constantly. The spurs to unnamed characters (eg to the unnamed uncles) are for minor characters. We will add those by hand at the table.

(In a regular game of Good Society, where you have a full session zero to thrash this sort of thing out, I don’t think it’s a problem. But in a convention one-shot, time is pressing.)

Changes for four players

Changing to four players should be easy, right? Just drop a female character (so we have two male and two female characters) and shuffle the relationships to fill the gaps.

But it wasn’t that easy. If I dropped the New Arrival and reshuffled the relationships, that would make the Heir and Cornerstone (both males) old flames. That’s fine for a queer-game, but it doesn’t work for my Austen-compatible game.

(And if I drop the Tutor, then the Dependent and the Heir become cousins, which changes the dynamic of the inheritance desire. And dropping the Dependent means the Tutor and the Cornerstone are publicly engaged, which would need explaining, given that Cornerstone’s family has money problems and the Tutor is a, well, tutor.)

So I dropped the New Arrival and looked for a completely different relationship (rivals).

Here’s the four-player relationship map:

One-shot backstory madness

Thinking all this through has revealed how hard it is to create a coherent backstory in under 30 minutes for a one-shot. 

I found it interesting that a notionally very flexible playset turned out to be actually fairly restrictive in trying to get it to make sense.

Anyway, now I have a set of characters I’m happy with, and I’ve uploaded them here if you want to see what I’ve done.

Is this an improvement?

Well, that’s a good question, and I don’t have enough experience to tell at this stage.

Am I taking too much away from the players? I’m not touching their connections, so they will have some input. But is that enough? I won’t know until I try it.

And will players mind? I doubt it – pregens are common in convention games.

(I can apply the same logic to Hillfolk. Creating characters is fun, but there’s rarely enough time at con game to do it justice, and if the players aren’t firing on all cylinders, the result can be a little weak. So maybe I should create the characters myself and then concentrate on play?)

What have I learned?

I like ttrpgs where the players drive action. I want to see dramatic scenes where players are trying to outwit and complicate their fellow players. So games like Good Society and Hillfolk.

However, a weakness of storygames like these is that creating characters in a rush can be unsatisfying.

The games are supremely flexible, and with enough time, you can really dive into the relationships and background and create solid characters. But at a convention, I don’t have time. As much fun as character creation in these games is, there’s a lot to be said for creating a solid set of characters for players just to pick up and play.

But of course, I’ve yet to try it…

(And if you want to try them yourself, you can download them here.)

One-shot Good Society: Changes

Having recently run Good Society as a one-shot at Furnace (see here), I have some thoughts.

From what I could tell, the players enjoyed themselves getting up to Jane Austen-y hijinks. It was definitely a success, but I think a few things would have made it easier for me to run it.

My changes

Five main characters at most

Maybe Good Society is happy with more main characters (which is what Good Society calls its PCs), but not in a time-limited one-shot. Having fewer main characters gives everyone more time to play.

Don’t play and facilitate

I tried to both facilitate and play a character. That was a mistake. Perhaps with an experienced group it would be fine, but with players new to the game (and, honestly, a relatively inexperienced Facilitator), I should have stuck to facilitating.

Simplify character documentation

The Good Society character sheets are pretty, but didn’t find them particularly practical for a one-shot. They consist of an A4 sheet with three columns, one of which is taken up with a character portrait, plus another third of an A4 sheet (for family background), plus a desire card and a relationship card…

They also include things that aren’t necessary for a one-shot (eg inner conflict), and the text is tiny because of the huge character image. 

So I have redesigned the character sheet to be simpler:

• Removed the image and put that on a separate card as an identifier/standee.
• Removed the unnecessary information (inner conflicts)
• Added the desire to the character sheet – that means I can eliminate the desire cards.
• Added their side of the relationship card. (The relationship card itself will still be given away during the backstory.)
• Added summary details for their connection. (But connections are otherwise unchanged.)

It's not as pretty, but it is more readable.

Have a starting scene in mind

This wasn’t an issue, but it’s worth having a starting scene in mind to get the game moving. Our first novel chapter was set at a ball for the New Arrival, and the starting scene I had in mind was the host (or hostess) welcoming the New Arrival.

Create a relationship map

Which I didn’t do, and I lost track of how everyone knew each other. And that was just the main characters – let alone all the minor characters… I’ll know better next time!

Ignore reputation conditions

A one-shot has only one reputation phase, so they are unlikely to trigger. So instead, use the reputation tags for roleplaying (and resolve tokens).

Redesign the public information sheet

Everything is too small. Move the reputation tags to table name tents (see below) and make everything bigger. There are unlikely to be more than seven or eight rumours (there is only one rumour phase in a one-shot), so use the extra space so you can write larger and more legibly.

(And I’ll add a blank relationship map to it as well.)

Use table name tents

(You should do this in every game – not just Good Society.) Include your character, their role and family, their reputation tags – and the name of the player playing them.

In fact, I’ve gone one better and created some bespoke table name tents for the characters. (Click here to download the table name tent files.)

Is play different?

Play is basically unchanged. During backstory, the players will still exchange relationship cards and create connections. And then we’ll play.

Trying it out

And all I need now is an opportunity to try this!

But before I do, I have ideas about making a one-shot game of Good Society more like a freeform. More on that soon.

Messages from Callisto

A very short note to say that I've published Messages from Callisto, the fourth in my series of first-contact freeform larps, on Itch.io.

Classified images from Voyager showed a regular, pyramid-shaped structure on the surface of Callisto. The structure looked too regular to be natural, and in 1983, the US government sent a follow-up mission, Arcadia, to Callisto to learn more.

It is now 1993, and the first signals from Arcadia have arrived. UNET (United Nations Extraterrestrial Taskforce) is meeting in London to discuss Callisto along with several other issues that have all come to a head at once.

Messages from Callisto is a 3-hour freeform larp for 13 players.

I've written a longer post on Writing Freeform Larps, going into some of the details in publishing Messages from Callisto. TL;DR: It was more involved than expected.

Posts about Messages from Callisto.

Furnace 2025

It’s October, which means it’s my annual trip to the Garrison Hotel in Sheffield and two days of great ttrpg gaming.

It was Furnace’s 20th anniversary, and the organisers gave us each a nice dice tray! (You can’t miss them in the photos below – they’re bright orange.)

New for this year was taking over the hotel restaurant space for eight tables of games. That gave more space for games, but more importantly, the new space was light and airy – a huge improvement on some of the dingier tables elsewhere. (I predict that next year they will be snapped up quickly!)

I played four games. (I don’t play in slot 3, Saturday evening, as I go home instead.)

Calli’s Heroes - Traveller

John ran Kelli’s Heroes, a military heist adventure for Traveller, inspired by a certain movie. Set during the Fifth Frontier War on Becks World (or “Space Iceland” as we described it), we were a Recon company sent to check out a downed shuttle that led us to rescue some scientists who had discovered a vault of Ancient technology.

Lots of fun – with a nice scene where we intimidated the heck out of some Vargr, forcing them to flee rather than actually engaging them in battle. I played squad leader Calli, a compulsive gambler, who was heavily in debt and happy to go after priceless Ancients artefacts!

We had two firefights – the first lasting no more than two rounds, the other over in the first salvo.

The Price of Arrogance – 7th Sea

Remi ran The Price of Arrogance, a swashbuckling adventure involving sinister conspiracies, a mysterious artefact, a race across the sea and a slave uprising. I played Eberhardt Fischer, a merchant.

It was my first time playing 7th Sea. We were playing second edition, and there was some debate as to whether it was better than first. I have no idea – it seemed fine to me, very dramatic and encouraged over-the-top actions.

I particularly liked the rule that gave you an extra die to roll if you describe what your character is doing with flair (rather than just say “I attack”). I’d happily incorporate that in other games.

Good Society

I ran Good Society, the Jane Austen rpg, on Sunday morning. I  had five players, and I used the Romantic Comedy playset from the book. (I used Storybrewers one-shot advice from here.)

The players seemed to enjoy themselves and leant into the spirit of the game – secret betrothals, marriage attempts, a very sweet gay romance between two of the minor characters, and even a duel.

A few things I will take away:

• I made a mistake in also playing a character. It wasn’t my original plan, but one of the players suggested I do so. Well, I wouldn’t do it for two reasons.
• Six main characters is too many in a three-hour slot. (Storybrewers recommend 3-5 players.)
• I found it hard to juggle both facilitating and running a character, and I don’t think I did my characters justice. With longer, or fewer players, I’d happily facilitate.
• Strangely, the players found the minor characters almost more interesting than their main characters. I don’t know if that’s because we had the main characters (as cards) on standees, while the main characters were just character sheets.

Anyway, I will run Good Society again, probably with a different playset.

Pirate Bait – Cepheus Universal

Graham ran a Cepheus Universal game, which put our crew of adventurers on a remote survey outpost as bait for pirates.

I played Tara Vix, an ex-media star (rank 6, “National Treasure”!) turned navigator on the Quicksilver, our 300-ton starship.

Our adventure ended with a space battle against the pirates (we were only supposed to be bait – our backup never arrived…), which I think is the first time I have ever used space combat rules in Traveller (or a Traveller-derived game). We destroyed two fighters and got away.

Graham had good table bling, including stands for the characters, a full-colour hexmap, and standees for the ships.

And that was me done! I wonder what I’ll run and play next year?

Halloween Night

Over on my Great Murder Mystery Games site, I’ve written a review of Halloween Night, an interactive murder mystery for 8-24 people (and a host) aged 18+ and published by Murder and Adventure Games in the UK. I’m not sure who the author is, as they are uncredited.

The game is set in 1892 Transylvania, at the castle of Count and Countess von Falcate. There, a tour party gathers for a social evening. Unfortunately, tragedy has struck lately – three local villagers have been savagely attacked and murdered. But who did it?

You can read my full review here.

Thinly-disguised larps

Halloween Night occupies the same sort of space as our Freeform Games’ murder mystery games – they’re thinly-disguised larps.

However, although neither company uses the term “larp” when describing the game, I think Halloween Night assumes a greater level of responsibility on the GM than we do. We provide a lot of help to hosts because we understand that hosting a larp is a significant step.

Halloween Night, unfortunately, expects more from a host (as I explain in my review).

And although Halloween Night doesn’t say who is behind it, I think one of the people involved is Richard ‘Doc’ Williams (who you can see in some of the videos on their YouTube channel). He used to run freeform-type murder mystery games at RPG conventions back in the late 80s/early 90s.  I may even have played one of them – I’m not sure.

Failed crowdfunding

Interestingly, I’ve just found this failed 2024 crowdfunding page for it.  Curiously, although it failed, they haven’t posted an update announcing the final game to potential backers. Perhaps you’re not allowed to do that.

(I’m not sure they got their marketing right – I would have been a key target for this, yet I didn’t hear about it until August 2025.)

Will I run it?

Yes, probably.

I’d like to run it to see how it works and how it compares to both our murder mystery games and also other modern freeforms. But I’m not sure when or where. 

Legend of the Sky Raiders session #2: Mustafa

I’m running Legend of the Sky Raiders for my regular group. Last time, I talked about our first session. This is session #2.

The Travellers

A quick reminder of our players and their characters:

Jon is playing ex-Scout Timo Sosak  8A9B84 Age 38.

Terry is playing Sir Sidderon Dubois 775ACC Age 34.

Thomas is playing Felix "Dusty" Pygrin 478CB7 Age 34.

Unfortunately, Jon can’t make it today. Luckily, Tom has joined the group (bringing some much-needed system mastery), and introduces his character, Mustafa Lama Doka.

With four players, I am happier 

Mustafa Lama Doka 586333 Age 38

Animals 0, Broker 2, Carouse 0, Electronics 0, Electronics (Remote Ops) 1, Engineer 0, Flyer (Rotor) 1, Gun Combat 0, Leadership 0, Melee 0, Steward 0

Aged before his time, Mustafa is a beaten-down refugee from the Zhodani Consulate. He has been sent to the re-education camps three times. Not necessarily at his own volition, he was part of a mass escape and ended up being people-smuggled out of Zhodani space. He washed up on Mirayn and has attached himself to the group, where he makes himself useful, haggling for prices and making apple tea.

(Adding a Zhodani is interesting. The Consulate is closer to Mirayn than the Third Imperium, so it makes sense that there are more Zhodani here than Imperials – not that Legend of the Sky Raiders makes anything of that.)

The fight

With Mustafa as part of the group, we restarted the game where we left off: a fight in a dark alley. We replaced Timo (Jon’s character) with Mustafa and carried on as if that was our original plan.

So, our three heroes (one of them armed with a stunner) up against four thugs (888666 with Melee 1 and knuckle dusters).

Initiative

Sir Sidderon has Tactics, and rolled 10 on his Tactics check, giving everyone +2 on their initiative rolls. This meant Sir Sidderon acted first, followed by Dusty, with Mustafa and the thugs acting at the same time. 

Two rounds later...

The fight lasts two combat rounds. Sir Sidderon takes out one thug while Dusty stuns two. The fourth flees, having failed a morale check. None of the thugs touched the Travellers – my rolls are terrible. 

Morale

Before this session, I looked through Mongoose 2e, swotting up on the combat system, and I thought I remembered something about morale checks. Nope, couldn't find it.

So I looked in The Traveller Book and, sure enough, I found this:

It always seems daft to me that enemies in ttrpgs often seem to fight to the death, so having a morale check makes sense. I'm not sure why Mongoose dropped it, but I decided to implement it for my game.

What seems odd is that the original rule appears to be aimed at the PCs - a “party of adventurers.” I kind of like this, but I know it takes agency away from the players, which is often frowned on. Anyway, I’m using it for the NPCs.

The shadowy Kalamanaru

With the fight over, the Travellers interrogate one of their assailants and learn that Bren Pylory hired them. Further investigation reveals that Pylory is one of Kalamanaru’s lieutenants. 

So why doesn’t Kalamanaru want the Travellers to venture into the Outback, the players wonder. Why indeed…

Finalising the expedition

The other half of the session was spent finalising the expedition. This was in two parts – the equipment and the route.

Expedition equipment

Between sessions I populated the group spreadsheet with the equipment and vehicles from the book. Rather than going for the huge expedition suggested in Legend of the Sky Raiders, the Travellers decided to keep the expedition small: the four PCs, Lorrain and her two companions, a guide and two drivers for the two hovercraft.

Let’s hope that’s enough.

Following the encounter with the thugs, they also armed themselves – including mounting a heavy machine gun on the back of one of the hovercraft.

Planning the route with Roll20

When it came to planning a route, I fired up Roll20 and invited them all to it.

The Travellers then planned a route to their first destination: a native village named Adalanayra. We will set off next time!

(I gather Tom likes Roll20 – he has added his character to it.)

Actions for next time

I need to:

• Read what happens next in Legend of the Skyraiders.
• Review the hexcrawl rules. How do encounters work?
• Create some stats for the hovercraft drivers.
• Remind myself about the natives.

Coming soon: A hexcrawl into the Outback

Previously: Session 1 or start this series with my review of Legend of the Sky Raiders.

Legend of the Sky Raiders: Session #1

I’m running Legend of the Sky Raiders for my regular group. Last time, I covered my pre-game preparation. Now it’s time to play!

The Travellers

A quick reminder of our players and their characters:

Jon is playing ex-Scout Timo Sosak  8A9B84 Age 38.

Terry is playing Sir Sidderon Dubois 775ACC Age 34.

Thomas is playing Felix "Dusty" Pygrin 478CB7 Age 34.

Setting the scene

We started the game with all the characters generated, but I had yet to set the scene. We spent 30 minutes figuring out why the characters were on Mirayn and down on their luck. We established that although they knew each other from their past, they had each made their way independently to Mirayn and had only now come together. We agreed that Timo’s Type S Scout, The Tyrant’s Fate, was on Alzenei, two parsecs away. (He apparently lent it to a friend. Hopefully it’s still there…)

More than once during this session, I regretted not coming up with pregens. (But then I remembered that I didn’t want to put the work in.)

We began with Lorain Messandi hiring the players to outfit an expedition to investigate the Sky Raiders. As part of that discussion, Timo tried bargaining with Lorain for a percentage of any finds - but rolled snake eyes, so that’s a fail. Hopefully not a sign of rolls to come!

Val Prezsar 

With the offer accepted, the action moved to the town of Val Prezsar. The Travellers are staying in the Loose End, a cheap hotel. They started by investigating Lorain’s father, Jothan Messandi, who went missing in the Outback two years ago. We worked slowly through the rumours and encounters - I’m pleased I extracted them into a more usable form (as I described last time).

After prompting from Loraine, they started thinking about outfitting their expedition. As they didn’t know where to begin, they interviewed the local guides and hired Hal Lewis, one of the NPCs in Legend of the Sky Raiders. Hal gave them a suggested equipment list for an expedition, which I copied from the book.

What I hadn’t noticed is that the list in the book includes the figures that the guides are using to skim from the Travellers. In particular, the food prices are super-inflated. Luckily for me, Dusty had already been calculating how much food they would need (I had shared the rules for exploring the Outback), so I said that he spotted the discrepancy.

(Another example of how not to present an adventure…)

Anyway, Hal’s suggested expedition was much larger than my players had envisaged - as well as Lorain and her team, the guides and labourers it allowed for eight PCs! Eight! (I couldn’t imagine running a table with eight players - we were made of sterner stuff back in 1981.)

The players were thinking about a seven-person expedition - them, Lorain’s team, and Hal Lewis. I suspect when they start planning in detail, they’ll realise they need drivers for their hovercraft. I offered to put all the details into our shared spreadsheet for next time.

Old Lin, and an ambush

I then introduced Old Lin, a survivor from Jothan’s expedition and the only truly critical encounter. He sold them his book and map (Dusty made a superb roll and got it for a song). At this point, I gave the players the detailed map of the Outback and realised I had left a native village on it that I should have removed! Bah.

The players started thinking about routes, but I told them that next time we would use Roll20 so they could scribble collaboratively on the map. (At least, I hope that’s what Roll20 will let them do.)

We ended the session with an ambush. Thugs want Old Lin’s map and book, and challenged them in a dark alley. We ended just as Sir Sidderon started to throw the first punch - partly to end on a cliffhanger, but mostly so that I have time to remind myself of the combat rules.

Actions for next time

I need to:

• Read the combat rules – and produce a summary that we can all work from.
• Put the expedition equipment list into the spreadsheet.

(I know from long experience that it’s not worth trying to get my players to do this. I don’t mind – I have more free time than they do.)

Coming soon: Session 2 and our first combat

Previously: My prep for the game. Or start this series with my first-impressions review of Legend of the Sky Raiders.