Good Society at the table

Two years ago, I wrote a review of Good Society based on a read-through of the rules. 

Now, finally, I have played it. Here’s how it went.

The players

We have four players:

• Thomas playing Samuel FitzgGeorge (old money)
• Terry, playing hedonist Louisa Trotter
• Jon, playing meddler Elspeth Blackstone.
• Me, playing the socialite, Captain George Wetherby (I’m aiming for a Wickham/Willoughby sort – I’ve called him Wetherby because Jane Austen’s rakes often have surnames beginning with W).

Thomas is also facilitating. I’m not running it because I wanted a break after As the Sun Forever Sets, and Thomas was happy to bring Good Society to the table.

We also have a range of minor characters (known as connections) – for example, I’m also playing Louisa’s friend Hettie Bower.

Online with Trello

We’re playing online using Trello as our virtual tabletop and Discord for video chat. We have a weekly two-hour slot, but we don’t always play every week (because life sometimes gets in the way). 

That doesn’t mean two solid hours of playing, however, as we’re often slow in getting going as we start with some social chat and then have to remember what happened last time. (This is especially true if we’ve had a break of a couple of weeks.) So, on average, I guess our sessions are about 1 hour and 45 minutes of playing time.

Backstory (session 1)

In our first session, we set up our game and created our major and minor characters. 

As this is our first game, we’re keeping things simple and playing the Farce playset, which is light-hearted and suited for beginners.

Create major characters

These are the PCs – the stars of the show.

Set up the playset: Normally this would consist of choosing desire and relationship cards from a deck, but Thomas had done his homework and had put everything we needed on a Trello board.

Choose desires: We then each chose our character’s desire. I picked “A large income is the best recipe for happiness I have ever heard of” – my character wanted money! This then came with a relationship – a rival! Picking this desire also gave me my role (Socialite) and I chose the Military background.

Form relationships: We formed relationships by giving our relationship card to another player. I suggested that Thomas (who was playing the New Arrival) might want to be my rival, and he agreed.

Flesh out the major characters: Now is the time to collaboratively fill in the blanks and work out how the characters actually know each other and what has happened in the past. And while we did that, we filled out the rest of the character sheet.

Introductions: Finally, the characters are introduced. (And in our case, add appropriate illustrations to the Trello board.)

Part of our Trello board

Create connections

Connections are supporting characters – and we created two each. You can either use the deck of connections or use the potential connections on your character sheet. We did the latter. I created my father, Fitzwilliam Wetherby and Lydia Bennett, who has a huge crush on George.

Complete connection sheet: Fill out their name, their relationship with the major character, what they think of that character and so on.

Select a connection to control: Then choose a connection to control – ideally one that’s not linked too closely to your major character (because talking to yourself is awkward). I picked Hettie Bower, Louisa’s best friend.

And as that had taken up our entire evening, we left our first scene until the next session.

Playing the game

The game is played over a series of cycles, each of which is broken into phases.

• Novel
• Reputation
• Rumour and Scandal
• Epistolary
• Novel
• Rumour and Scandal
• Epistolary
• Upkeep

Cycle 1 (sessions 2-4)

Novel chapter: We started with an “event scene” (one where everyone is present) at a ball at Templeton Grange, held to celebrate Simon FitzGeorge’s return home. That gave everyone a chance to start to get to know their characters and interact with others.

Reputation phase: With the dance over, we checked whether our reputation had changed. There are mechanical ways this happens – and my reputation hadn’t changed.

Rumour and scandal phase: We then each had two actions where we could either create or spread a rumour (or create two rumours or spread two rumours). The rumours could be about anything, and in this cycle, we created rumours that were mostly true. In the following cycle, we started creating rather more fantastic rumours designed to help us achieve our goals.

Spread rumours get resolve tokens that can be spent to affect the game (although we took a while to understand how this worked). Rumours that weren’t spread eventually faded and dropped out of the game.

Epistolary phase: Letter writing! We each wrote two letters – mostly to other characters or sometimes to new ones. I wrote a letter to my father (a connection played by Terry) asking for money, and another letter to Elspeth (played by Jon), my old flame.

It’s fun writing the letters (they don’t need to be actually written out – you can just describe what they say), and I think the limit of two per player is to stop this phase from getting out of hand.

Novel chapter: And back to roleplaying. While our first chapter was an “event” (everyone present in one scene), this time, we had a “visitation” chapter. This consisted of individual scenes of the characters calling on one another to further their goals.

As Cpt George Wetherby, I struggled to work out how I would get money. The traditional way would have been to marry into it, but my old flame’s ardour had cooled and I wasn’t sure how best to proceed.

Reputation phase: Another reputation phase.

Upkeep phase: We ended our first cycle with an upkeep phase. First, everyone spends monologue tokens – which are used to get a character to speak their inner thoughts. Nobody had used a monologue token at this point, so we spent those. Then all the resolve and monologue tokens reset, at which point we realised that nobody had used a resolve token either.

(We aren’t using inner conflicts, which are also progressed in this phase.)

Cycle 2 (sessions 5-7)

I resolved to engage more with the mechanics in this cycle.

Novel chapter: Another event scene – this time a picnic. I was keen to try out the mechanics and burned through both my resolve and monologue tokens.

I arrived at the picnic with Lydia Bennett on my arm and spent a resolve token to make Elspeth (my old flame, played by Jon) jealous. There’s some negotiation with resolve tokens (in case you’re proposing something the other player objects to), but in this case (and perhaps because it was our first resolve token of the game), Jon accepted it.

I then spent my monologue token to hear Samuel FitzGeorge’s inner thoughts. He was concerned about the upcoming local elections, where he was the Tory candidate. I then struck up a conversation with Samuel, where he expressed his concern about the upcoming election. I then bided my time and, in a later scene, spent my last resolve token to get Samuel to accept my help in preparing for the election (and hopefully skim some cash for myself).

While this is going on, the others are also progressing their characters’ schemes – although some with more success than others.

Reputation, rumour and scandal: More of the same – my reputation is still unaffected.

Epistolary phase: My first letter was to Samuel from George, with various ideas for the upcoming campaign. My second letter was from my connection (Hettie) to a friend in London, seeking information about Samuel’s political rival.

Novel chapter: Another chapter of lots of little scenes with characters visiting each other. We also had a montage of Samuel and George campaigning for votes. During this phase, I figured out how to use rumours.

Samuel was showing an interest in courting my sister, Lilibeth. However, there was a rumour that “Samuel and Louisa spent some time alone in the Orangerie during the ball.” So I mischievously warned Lilibeth that I suspected Samuel and Louisa had an “understanding” (were secretly engaged) and spent the rumour’s resolve token attached to affect the story.

This immediately created chaos and several new scenes:

• Lilibeth has heard the rumour and tries to get Samuel to confess it, but Samuel does not know what is going on, and Lilibeth storms off.
• Lilibeth calls on Elsbeth and confesses her situation with Samuel, Elsbeth advises her to ask Joanna (Louisa’s sister) about it, as surely she should know.
• Hettie asks Louisa about Samuel’s proposal. Louisa denies it, and Hettie suggests Louisa should be more circumspect when keeping company with men. Hettie asks Louisa to make sure Samuel doesn’t think he’s proposed to her.

That ended our session – and I thought the chapter. Unfortunately, we continued the chapter in the next session, and I felt the scenes were less directed and full of padding.

Reputation phase: Check to see if our characters have done anything to affect their reputation. I may be playing George a little too safely, as I haven’t earned any reputation tags. However, Jon’s character has three positive reputation tags, and so he chooses to have Joanna as Elspeth’s protégé. (This is like Emma Woodhouse taking Harriet Smith under her wing in Emma.) This has lots of story potential and makes me wish I was finding it easier to earn reputation, good or bad.

Epistolary and upkeep: We ended with more letters and an upkeep phase where resolve and monologue tokens were refreshed. We also agreed that, as things seemed to be heading towards some kind of conclusion, the next cycle would be the last.

Cycle 3 (sessions 8-9)

Our last cycle, and things started getting crazy. In a good way.

Novel chapter: We start the third cycle at the election hustings, where my father finds out that I’ve been skimming from Samuel’s campaign funds. Later on we have a stand-up row, and he disowns me.  However, I spend a resolve token to impress Joanna (who has just come into an inheritance – something that was only revealed last cycle), and end up challenging George McDonald to a duel to defend Joanna and Louisa’s honour. (Yikes! A duel!)

At a post-hustings soiree, I kiss Joanna – and she seeks advice from Elspeth on what to do. Elspeth confronts me and I confess my fondness for Elspeth, but we fall out badly. Unseen by either of us, Lydia overhears… We ended the scene before the duel – and decided to refer to it during the epistolatory phase. (I have no resolve tokens left and told my fellow players that I was happy for my fate to be in their hands – to be decided in the next session.)

This was a superb session – lots of fast, punchy scenes and drama. Brilliant.

Reputation, rumour and scandals: My reputation took a hit this time! I showed strong emotion (a negative criteria for me) but I also stood up for Louisa and Joanna (positive criteria). Not enough, yet, for it to affect play though. (Technically, this being the last cycle, we should have skipped this phase. But we missed that rule until the end.)

Epistolary phase: More letters. Samuel spent a resolve token to have me wounded in the duel because my opponent cheated and shot early. (As well as wounding me, this let him achieve his political goals.) So that was the topic of several letters. Samuel was most surprised to receive one from Elspeth suggesting that he should propose to her!

Final novel chapter: My character arc was more or less complete – all I needed to do was propose to dear, sweet (and now very rich) Joanna. I was still out of resolve tokens, but the other players didn’t interfere. Instead, the chapter was mostly about Samuel’s dilemma. He had been courting Lilibeth (my character’s sister) but the letter from Elspeth had put his head in a spin. He decides to let fate decide, by racing two of his favourite horses bearing their ribbons. However, Elspeth spends a resolve token to turn his head in her favour, and we end the chapter with Samuel proposing to Elspeth. 

So a happy, Jane Austen-y ending!

Final epistolary phase: Set some years later, this functions as an epilogue to the game. Samuel and Elspeth are together and spend lots of time in London. Louisa continues to weave her webs of deceit, and George and Joanna are living in America celebrating the birth of their fourth child.

And after all that, what do I think?

We had a slow start to Good Society, mainly because it’s a different style of game to how we normally play. It’s collaborative and, at the same time player-v-player; play is directed generally towards other players rather than the GM/facilitator. That’s how I like to play, but for others, it was more of a shock, and it took us a while to get going.

I’m sure we’d find it easier with more practice. (We said the same about Fiasco.)

Players: I suspect Good Society sings when everyone is familiar with the Jane Austen tropes and stories. Unfortunately, only two of us were familiar with the stories – and while that wasn’t essential to have a good game (and we had a good game), I suspect things would have been smoother had everyone been on the same page. I would like to try Good Society with a different group.

(The fact we are all blokes, mostly beardy and towards the end of middle age, may have hindered our embrace of the romantic side of the game.)

Characters: During character creation, we should have been more specific about our character’s background. For example, Terry told us that his character (Louisa) and Jon’s (Elspeth) were former friends, until Louisa’s cruel actions ended the relationship abruptly. However, we didn’t initially drill down to find out exactly what those cruel actions were – the specifics would have helped the game. 

Scenes: Sometimes, we found scenes a little troublesome. They weren’t always clear, or they dragged on a little. Scenes are common in a lot of indie games – but rarely do they have good advice for setting scenes, and Good Society is no exception.

As we are so used to traditional RPGs, some advice on scene setting would have helped. I found my scenes were most satisfying when I kept the following in mind:

• Where is the scene set?
• When is the scene in the timeline?
• Who is present?
• What do you want?

However, we didn’t always do this (I wasn’t facilitating, and I didn’t want to step on Thomas’s toes). Consequently, I found some scenes saggy and dragged on.

Who calls? Who gets to call the next scene isn’t clear. I noted that in a couple of novel chapters, it seemed as if a couple of the players hadn’t called scenes. Their characters had been in plenty, so it seemed as if they were having a lot of spotlight time, but they’d not called scenes themselves and so weren’t necessarily progressing their desires. I wonder if having a randomised turn order (like I’ve been doing in Hillfolk) would have helped.

More care with names: We had too many similar names in our cast: George Wetherby, George McDonald, Samuel FitzGeorge, and Fitzwilliam Wetherby. The two Georges were a particular challenge, particularly in the ongoing game log, as occasionally it wasn’t clear which George was being referred to.

The system: the system isn’t particularly clunky, but it’s a bit fiddly and took us a while to get our heads around. Once I understood how resolve tokens and rumours and reputation worked, things were much simpler – but I’m not sure everyone did, as we had plenty of unspent resolve tokens at the end of the earlier cycles.

Would I play again?

Yes, definitely. Ideally with a group of players more familiar with the setting and tropes.

Good Society is available from Storybrewers Roleplaying.