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?