In January 2024 we presented the all-new Good Society Bundle featuring 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 Good Society Bundle presented the entire roleplaying line (excluding the LARP version) for an uncommonly civil bargain price. There were three titles in our Society Collection (retail value $68) as DRM-free .PDF 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 Jonathon Strange and Mr Norrell) and the Scarlet Pimpernel-inspired Sense, Sensibility, and Swordsmanship
- The Love & Longing Deck
Ten percent of each payment (after gateway fees) went 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 that are being threatened.
