And Now For Something Completely Different - Jane Austen Roleplaying

[ffutures]

My first contact with the idea of literary fandom was reading Rudyard Kipling's "The Janeites" (1924), a story about WW1 soldiers who manage to maintain their sanity via a shared interest in the works of Jane Austen. But it's somehow taken a century (as far as I know) for the first Jane Austen RPG to be published... Good Society, a Jane Austen-inspired roleplaying game from Storybrewers Roleplaying.

Good Society

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/GoodSociety

This all-new Good Society Bundle presents Good Society, the Jane Austen-inspired roleplaying game from Storybrewers Roleplaying. Good Society is a collaborative Regency RPG that captures the heart, and the countenance, of Jane Austen's novels, as well as shows like Bridgerton, Downtown Abbey, and Upstairs Downstairs. Create your own Regency character, from a wealthy heir who falls in love with the aloof new arrival, to a charming socialite bent on ruining a rival's reputation.

On the surface Good Society is about balls, estates, sly glances, and turns about the garden. Yet players must navigate powerful currents of social ambition, family obligation, and breathtaking, heart-stopping longing. Good Society gives you the power to change the story in your favor: taking control of influential connections; creating rumors and scandal; and orchestrating balls, carriage accidents, and even marriages. Exploit your advantages, connections, and family influence to achieve your secret desire, while jealously guarding your good name.

In Good Society you and your fellow players work together to create your own Jane Austen novel. By default Good Society is set in the fictional town of Habershire, a well-situated country locale three days' ride from London, in the years 1811-1818. (In both location and character, it resembles the Bennet family's area of residence in Pride and Prejudice.) However, historical and geographic details are only as important as your group decides. You determine during setup how important accuracy is to your game.

Each new game of Good Society begins with Collaboration and Backstory steps, where you decide what kind of story you wish to tell and create the major characters you'll play. The game proceeds in three to eight "cycles of play": Novel Chapter (in-character roleplaying), Reputation (adjust your status based on events), Rumour and Scandal, Epistolary (players dictate aloud letters written by their characters, to capture inner feelings or to further their machinations), and Upkeep. Each cycle should fill one play session. Gameplay uses print-and-cut Desire, Relationship, and Connections Cards to define character goals and circumstances. You can spend Resolve tokens to shape the story, and Monologue tokens to have another player reveal their character's inmost thoughts and plans.

Like Austen, Good Society is focused on the genteel class, and the rising class of professionals, merchants, and industrialists that emerged alongside it. The game is not concerned with the upper echelons of nobility, such as dukes, princes, and kings, nor with the fate of middle- or working-class characters. Good Society follows the emotional struggles of characters through everyday events, from a quiet carriage ride to the excitement of a ball. In a world of restraint, constraints, and formalized standards of behavior, small moments of interaction have a big impact on characters' lives. Though the events that Good Society depicts are commonplace (well, for the Regency), they form the background for the characters' subtle jostling for status, wealth, and affection.

This all-new offer presents the entire Good Society roleplaying line (excluding the LARP version) for an uncommonly civil bargain price. We provide each title complete in .PDF. Like all Bundle of Holding titles, these ebooks have NO DRM (Digital Restrictions Management), and our customers are entitled to move them freely among all their devices.

Ten percent of each purchase (after gateway fees) goes to this Good Society offer's designated charity, Rainforest Trust. Rainforest Trust protects threatened tropical forests and endangered wildlife by partnering with local and community organizations in and around the areas being threatened.

The total retail value of the titles in this Good Society Bundle is US$68. Customers who pay just US$17.95 get all three titles in our Society Collection (retail value $68) as DRM-free ebooks (these links go to the Storybrewers pages on itch.io):

• The Good Society rulebook and the Deck of Connections, plus the free holiday playset A Christmas Prince of Darkness
• Expanded Acquaintance, with fantasy-themed playsets like Pride, Prejudice and Practical Magics (inspired by stories like Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell) and the Scarlet Pimpernel-inspired Sense, Sensibility, and Swordsmanship
• The Love & Longing Deck

The closest I've come to this is the Regency add-on for Fiasco, which I played at Continuum last year, but that wasn't a fully-fledged RPG.

I really like the idea of this, especially if it proves possible to adapt it to e.g. Master and Commander and other adventure material with this setting - the Scarlet Pimpernel-inspired Sense, Sensibility, and Swordsmanship might be a good starting point for that - and the price is pretty good. It's lavishly illustrated and looks like a lot of fun. Unless you hate Austen I think it's definitely worth taking a look.

Comments

[jhall1]

"My first contact with the idea of literary fandom was reading Rudyard Kipling's "The Janeites" (1924)"

My own first contact with that was through reading Jane Austen's "Northanger Abbey", which pokes gentle fun at the fangirls of her day who were into the then fashionable gothic novels such as Matthew Lewis's "The Monk". I'm sure she would have been amused could she have she known that in a couple of hundred years time her own books would inspire a role-playing game.

Of all our set books for English Literature at school, "Northanger Abbey" was probably my favourite.

[ffutures]

Don't think I ever read that one - in fact it's a long time since I've read any Austen, I really ought to take another look.