Society Papers is a narrative first, rules light game that focusses on the sorts of stories which you might find in the works of Jane Austen or a TV series like Bridgerton. The game centres on a single family and how the passions of the members of the family interfere with their obligations to each other and to society more broadly. It’s a game which is interested on the farcical nature of scandal as exemplified by the Kemal Pamuk incident in the first series of Downton Abbey. The seriousness of scandal portrayed in The Crown is another touchstone but so is the slapstick of it in Jeeves & Wooster. It’s up to the players to set the tone of their game.

Society Papers is about a family and cooperation. The players will create the whole family together before deciding on their protagonists and each character will have their own conflicting passions and obligations. Scandals are driven by the tensions built into these conflicts.

In the tradition of ensemble cast TV dramas the game is intended to focus on the arcs of these lead characters over the course of a limited run series. At the end players may wish to move on to Season 2, they could focus on the next challenges faced by their characters or move on to different members of the family, the next generation or even another family they created in Season 1.

I hope you have fun with Society Papers as a game which aims to set your story in motion and fade into the background while you tell it. I’d love to hear how you get on with it and I’m excited to explore more of this world in future issues.

See you in the next one!