Legend of the Sky Raiders session #5: City of the Golden Walls

I’m running Legend of the Sky Raiders for my regular group. Last time was session #4, this is session #5.

The Travellers

Our players and their characters:

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

Terry is playing ex-space pirate Sir Sidderon Dubois 775ACC Age 34.

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

Tom is playing Zhodani prole Mustafa Lama Doka 586333 Age 38.

Alongside our heroes, I have six NPCs who are part of the party: Lorain Messandi (their patron), Drew Kensing (who fancies Lorain and whose dad financed the expedition), Tallia McKenzie (Lorain’s friend), Hal Lewis (a guide), the hovercraft drivers Dan and Kelli, and two unnamed support chaps (who I had completely forgotten about until Thomas reminded me this session).

City of the Golden Walls

I did very little specific preparation for this session, as I had leftover prep from before.

It’s the start of day nine.

After reminding ourselves of what happened last time, I shared my map of the City of the Golden Walls with the players.

They had left their hovercraft and kit, and the two drivers (including the spy), back at their camp – which was about 15km north. (So that’s at least three hours of hiking, which we glossed over.)

First, the Travellers used the drone to survey the lost city (Tlaynsilak, City of the Golden Walls). They had a TL12 drone with them, so I figured it was silent and better than anything the locals had.

(One thing that’s striking is that these old Traveller adventures tend to stick to the TL of the planet pretty rigorously. So the bad guys are using hovercraft, rather than shipping in a couple of air rafts. And they haven’t brought advanced weaponry or security systems. Luckily for our heroes…)

Surveying the city

Anyway, after a successful task chain involving piloting the drone, a recon roll, and finishing with archaeology, I explained that this was clearly a TL 3 civilisation, which was being picked clean of anything valuable by whoever these people were. And they’d been on site for months.

The survey identified where most of the excavation was taking place, a couple of hovercraft loaded with finds, huts used for accommodation, and mechanical excavators. All in all, about 30 people were present, including a small number keeping guard with rifles and SMGs. (The players didn’t know this, but they were guarding more against the wildlife than any intruders.)

And then Lorain spotted her presumed-dead father, Professor Jothan Messandi.

At which point it turned into a rescue.

Rescuing Professor Jothan

The PCs decided to lure a pair of the bear-sized creatures they encountered last session into the camp to distract the enemy. So they spent some time hunting for them, but the closest was about five km away, and they realised it would be hard to drive/lure the animals into the city.

So instead, they decided to wait until nightfall and kidnap Jothan Messandi.

They didn’t need everyone for this, so they sent the NPCs back, apart from Lorain, and waited until dark.

Under the cover of darkness, they crept closer and waited for Jothan to head to the latrine. They then lured him away using a recording of Lorain’s voice and pulled him into the bush. (A complicated task chain that, happily, worked. We’ve become big fans of task chains.)

The professor and his daughter had a joyful reunion, and he explained that he had been working the site for a year, but he didn’t think the Sky Raiders had anything to do with the city. He was funded by Eneri Kalamanaru (of Kalaman Enterprises), but he thought that Kalamanaru would be angry when he learned that there was nothing of real value at the site.

Escape!

As the discussion dragged on, the locals noticed the professor was missing. It was time to move.

The PCs (and Lorain and Jothan) snuck up to the hovercraft and prepared to hotwire them.  Meanwhile, people back at the huts were searching for the professor, and when the Travellers fired one hovercraft up, they started shouting and running.

The Travellers failed to hotwire the second hovercraft, so they sabotaged it using a burst from an ACR. That made Kalamanaru’s people open fire, and as bullets landed around them, the PCs left. Their hovercraft caught a bullet, but they escaped and beached it a few km up the coast (closer to where their camp is).

And that’s where we ended. It is the morning of day 10. The Travellers haven’t had much sleep.

So next time they plan to radio the camp and tell those back at camp to come and find them. They will then repair the hovercraft and decide their next move.

It’s not going to be that simple…

Reflections

Before this session started, I was worried we’d end up with a big fight. Canonically, Legend of the Sky Raiders has the players ambushed by Kalamanaru’s forces. I didn’t want that for two reasons – first, it’s extremely railroady. Second, I didn’t trust my players to do what the adventure expected and surrender – I imagine they would want to fight.

So I allowed them to scout the area and come up with another plan. (In the original adventure, one of the NPCs the Travellers hire is a spy for Kalamanaru – so the ambush can happen. I dropped that idea.)

However, I still need to get the PCs to the climactic scene, the Tomb of the Sky Raiders (where they actually find evidence of the Sky Raiders). According to the book, it’s over to the east of the map – but it’s going to be hard to get the players now.

(I did wonder about placing a clue to the location of the Tomb of the Sky Raiders into the game that the Travellers might find. But that felt too convenient. It seemed unlikely that the PCs would find this map rather than Jothan’s expedition, which has been on site for over a year.)

Breaking the railroad

Legend of the Sky Raiders is a bit too railroady for my liking, so I’ve made a few changes.

Being captured by Kalamanaru at the lost city: As I’ve said, I changed this so they could sneak around the site. I decided not to include a Kalamanaru spy in the group so they wouldn’t be automatically captured.

Government forces attack: Now that the PCs have found and misdirected the government spy, the government forces can’t turn up and try to arrest Kalamanaru’s group (which, as originally written, allows the Travellers to escape in the chaos). Government forces are out there somewhere – and may turn up when their spy doesn’t give them an update. But it’s not a railroad.

Finding the tomb of the Sky Raiders: According to Legend of the Sky Raiders, natives capture some of the party and take them to the tomb for sacrifice. That requires the PCs to be not too far from the tomb, but right now, they’re nearly 100 km away. So I will move the tomb.

Next time

The Travellers discover problems back at camp. 

Coming soon: Tomb of the Sky Raiders

Previously: Session #4: To (not) catch a spy or start here with my review of Legend of the Sky Raiders.

Legend of the Sky Raiders session #4: To (not) catch a spy

 I’m running Legend of the Sky Raiders for my regular group. Last time was session #3, this is session #4.

The Travellers

Our players and their characters:

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

Terry is playing ex-space pirate Sir Sidderon Dubois 775ACC Age 34.

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

Tom is playing Zhodani prole Mustafa Lama Doka 586333 Age 38.

Alongside our heroes, I have six NPCs who are part of the party: Lorain Messandi (their patron), Drew Kensing (who fancies Lorain and whose dad financed the expedition), Tallia McKenzie (Lorain’s friend), Hal Lewis (a guide), the hovercraft drivers Dan and Kelli, and two unnamed support chaps.

Prepping the session

After session #3, the more I thought about what is coming up, the more I realised how much is actually missing from Legend of the Sky Raiders.

Stats for the natives: I mentioned in my earlier post that the adventure doesn’t provide much detail on the alien natives. But I’ve just realised it doesn’t even give them any stats or skills.

Maps: I can see I will need more maps. At least one more, possibly two and maybe even three. I have got my crayons out.

Yes, I can make this stuff up, but surely it should be in the adventure?

De-railroading and scenes

I’m trying not to railroad the PCs. The Travellers should be ambushed and captured as soon as they reach the archaeological dig. However, instead, I had them spot it (and human activity) from a distance so that they could plan what to do. I’m not ruling out their capture, but I don’t want it to be the fait accompli the adventure presumes.

I’ve also thought up a handful of scenes between the players and the NPCs, dropping in some of the things they need to hear.

Starting the session

It’s the end of day 6, and the Travellers are camped in a native village (Sanalaysa), trying to find out if there is a government spy. They decide to get people drunk to see if anyone reveals anything they shouldn’t. So we set up a task chain: Mustafa served alcoholic apple tea (Steward), Sir Sidderon encouraged everyone to drink (Carousing), while Dusty watched for skulduggery and deceit (Deception). They fail…

Scenes

• Their guide, Hal, told Sir Sidderon that he thinks the scout hovercraft has developed a whine.
• Drew told Dusty that he is ever so grateful for saving his life.

Day 7

Worried about the scout hovercraft, Timo spends all day looking at it and discovers the main rotor bearing was cracked and about to break. Had it happened while they were travelling, it could have been catastrophic. He can’t repair it out here, but he could probably swap a bearing over from the other hovercraft. Either way, they are one hovercraft down.

(Timo rolled snake eyes while trying to fix the problem… Rather than suggest he broke the bearing while trying to fix it, I suggested that the problem was much worse than anticipated.)

The Travellers elected to abandon the scout hovercraft. They can just about fit everyone into the other, larger hovercraft.

A second attempt to find a government spy fails. (I can’t exactly remember how they did this, just that it failed.)

Scenes

• Lorain Messandi (the Travellers’ employer) discussed the Sky Raiders with Timo.
• Kelli (one of the hovercraft drivers) told Mustafa that she had talked to the natives. It seems that natives will grow more hostile as they go deeper into the swamp.  Apparently, the natives fear that humans will awaken ancient, terrible gods.

Day 8

The Travellers packed everything up into their remaining hovercraft and set off, finally leaving Sanalaysa. Their planned route took them around the site of activity and into the jungle so they could approach it from cover.

Entering the jungle, they encountered their first hostile native village—angry natives firing arrows at them. An hour or so later, they encountered a pair of bear-sized carnivores trying to shake something loose in a tree. It’s a lone native.

The bear-sized carnivores were no match for the Travellers’ high-tech weaponry, and they rescued the native, who was very grateful and told them about the "Strangers from Beyond" who caused great destruction before disappearing underground, where they wait sleeping. The jungle natives believe that humans are harbingers of the Strangers from Beyond – and must be driven off. (Hence their hostility.)

The native told the Travellers about a ruined city (Tlaynsilak), but it is a long way away, and the native does not go there. But there is another village closer to Tlaynsilak, that he/she/it can guide them to.

(This encounter isn’t in Legend of the Sky Raiders, but I realised I wanted the players to know why the jungle natives are so hostile. Maybe I could have made the encounter less cheesy.)

When they reached the native village, the Travellers found signs of a massacre. Dead aliens and shell cases. The bad guys have been here.

The Travellers made camp, and this time their plan to draw the spy out worked. (At last!) Dusty spotted Dan, one of the hovercraft drivers, heading into the jungle for his nightly ablutions, carrying his rucksack. (Very Ice Cold in Alex.) Dusty realised that Dan always keeps a close eye on his rucksack. 

But the Travellers were content to wait and observe, for now.

Day 9

In the morning, the Travellers came up with a plan. They explained to the expedition that they have a change of plan and will head east, across the lake, to look at a section of coastline. They waited for Dan to disappear into the jungle with his rucksack, and when he returned, they confronted him and found a radio.

And that’s where we left it.

Next week

The plan next week is to start with a recce of whatever is going on, from the safety of cover. 

I already have my map ready, so I think I’m more or less prepared. I wonder how the players will surprise me?

Coming soon: City of the Golden Walls

Previously: Session #3: The Trail of Stone or start here with my review of Legend of the Sky Raiders.

Legend of the Sky Raiders session #3: The trail of stone

I’m running Traveller's Legend of the Sky Raiders for my regular group. Previously, I talked about session #2. This is session #3.

(The long gap between this post and the previous post isn't because we've stopped playing. It's because I talk about spoilers in this post, and some of those spoilers are still relevant even after session #5...)

The Travellers

A quick reminder of our players and their characters:

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

Terry is playing ex-space pirate Sir Sidderon Dubois 775ACC Age 34.

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

Tom is playing Zhodani prole Mustafa Lama Doka 586333 Age 38.

We have a full house tonight – everyone can make it.

And alongside our heroes, I have six NPCs who are part of the party: Lorain Messandi (their patron), Drew Kensing (who fancies Lorain and whose dad financed the expedition), Tallia McKenzie (Lorain’s friend), Hal Lewis (a guide), and the hovercraft drivers Dan and Kelli. (And two other unnamed support personnel I had completely forgotten about...)

Into the Outback

After a little business (catch up, check on cats, trade goods), the party sets off into the Outback.

Day one

Each day we made several rolls.

• I rolled for animal encounters (varies depending on terrain)
• I made the Travellers roll for time lost:
• Swamps/jungles: Roll an Average (8+) Navigation (INT) check. If failed, lose hours equal to effect. (You’re lost!)
• Rivers/Lakes: Roll an Average (8+) Drive (DEX/INT) check. If failed, lose hours equal to effect. (Tricky rapids or other obstacles.)
• I rolled to encounter natives (9+)
• I rolled for encounters again

I pulled this together from page 24 of Legend of the Sky Raiders. Canonically, the referee just rolls 1D and subtracts that from available travel time to allow for time lost, but I changed that to a skill check. 

The first day passed uneventfully.

Day two

The Travellers saw a large jaguar-sized creature, but scared it off before it could attack. They then came across a native village, where they spent a couple of hours trading for information and some disgusting foodstuffs (including bright pink berries called “kek” that, if the Travellers understood it correctly, had narcotic properties).

For each group of natives, I rolled on the reaction table – the one that Mg 2nd edition doesn’t have, which I discussed here.

Legend of the Sky Raiders doesn’t give the referee any guidance on playing the natives. They look alien, but we have no sense of how alien they are. They are either “friendly” or “hostile”. (I probably should have thought about this before.)

Day three

After an uneventful day, the PCs arrive at the village of Adalanayra, their target. They traded goods with the natives and learned about the trail of stone, which isn’t far from Sanalaysa, another native village. They exchanged more trade goods for a guide to take them to Sanalaysa.

Day four

Another uneventful day brings the Travellers to Sanalaysa, where they meet the natives. They arranged for a guide to take them to the trail of stone the following day.

That night, Kelli, one of the drivers, tells Mustafa that they suspect that one of the others is a government spy. Kelli doesn’t know who, but it wasn’t unusual for the government to bribe expedition personnel to spy for them. Mustafa’s response doesn’t give Kelli much comfort.

Day five

En route to the trail of stone, Drew Kensing (an NPC) is attacked by a snickersnak. Dusty zaps it with his stunner, and it flees. (I realise as I write this up, that Drew should be extremely grateful to Dusty for saving his life. So I will play that up next time.)

The PCs pretty quickly dismiss the idea that the trail of stone might be a landing strip, but they want to find out what is at each end. (It is straight, like a Roman road.) Unfortunately, they fail their skill check, so nothing happens.

Tom then explains task chains to us all (in a much better way than I could – and even though the players have the rules, they’d not spotted it). And so we decided to try a skill chain the next day.

That night in camp, they discuss the potential spy but fail to take any concrete action.

Day six

Day six is a day of task chains. Mustafa flies a drone, Sir Sidderon uses Recon to scout ahead, and we end with an Archaeology roll, which reveals the trail of stone as it disappears into a huge lake. Another successful task chain, and the Travellers follow it across the lake, where they spot activity in the distance. (It’s an archaeological dig at the lost city of Tlaynsilak, although they don’t know that yet.)

The Travellers return to Sanalaysa and plan to approach the dig from the north, from cover. But that is for our next session.

(I have gone off script here. According to Legend of the Sky Raiders, the Travellers should be ambushed and captured as they approach the archaeological dig. But I’m trying not to make the adventure so railroady – I don’t think the adventure needs the PCs to be captured, although that remains an option should they be careless. We’ll see.)

Plans for next session

So their plans for the next session are:

• Use a task chain to try and identify the government spy.
• Then move closer to the lost city and observe it to see what’s going on.

Reflections on the game so far

I’m being a little more circumspect about my thoughts on Legend of the Sky Raiders this time. Until recently, my players didn’t read my blog. However, Tom has joined us, and he moderates The Tavern (a gaming discussion board that syndicates my blog). By the time I publish this, it will have been a couple of weeks, and the game will have moved on enough that this isn’t full of spoilers for him.

Anyway, I’m now juggling six NPCs – and frankly, they are being ignored. (I’d like a game structure that gave NPCs more prominence, but I suspect if we did that, it would no longer be Traveller.) So instead, I will create a series of scenes for each, a bit like I did with Kelli last time.

Adventure support: Frankly, I’m finding that Legend of the Sky Raiders isn’t giving referees a lot of support now that we are in the jungle. As I mentioned above, information on the Mirayn natives is thin, and three key scenes are coming up that would benefit from maps. Yes, I can come up with my own maps, but it would be nice not to have to.

We’re being followed! Then there’s the bit in the text that suggests the referee should hint that they are being followed.

“During the course of their travels through the Outback, the players may on occasion detect the pursuers by accident, Glints of metal in the distance, a faint hum of hovercraft engines, or a rumour of other strangers picked up from a native village can all be used to point to the presence of these troops. Clues should be passed to the group as if they were a part of the regular encounter process; otherwise, too much importance will be attached to them.”

I couldn’t figure out how to do this – if I told my group they saw glints of metal in the distance, or a faint hum of hovercraft engines, they’d be all over it in a second. So instead, I used Kelli to plant the seed into Mustafa that there might be a spy in the camp.

Actions for next time

I need to:

• Remember that Drew owes Dusty his life. Or that’s how he thinks it.
• Come up with some scenes for each NPC that breathes a bit of life into them.
• Think about how I get them to the scene AFTER the next scene, if I don’t want to be too railroady about it.

Coming soon: To (not) catch a spy.

Previously: Session #2: Mustafa or start here with my review of Legend of the Sky Raiders.

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?