What’s in a brief?

Format

By default, character briefs are fairly long and detailed text documents.
If for accessibility reasons, you would prefer yours as an audio recording or a briefing call with the organisers to talk through things we are happy to do that. If anything else would help, please get in touch before booking and we’ll see what we can accomodate.

Ethos

Play to your brief as much as possible

Characters will develop over the event and make compromises. Please stick to the key elements of your brief as much as possible – for example it would not really work for most players if Katherine of Aragon simply gave up on Catholicism after a quick conversation with a Lutheran, but she might accept a Protestant heir in return for maintaining some power or status in future.

Most briefs have have some elements that characters will or won’t compromise on – from their loyalty to their religion. This should be a useful guide for where you’re most persuadable, and where you will want to be uncompromising, but…

The brief is how your character starts, not how they end up

The briefs are where your character begins and how they’ve got to that point. From then on the character is yours to play. It’s a game of messy compromises, betrayals and politics. It’s fine to dramatically change allegiance for revenge, for love, for faith, etc. during the game. We expect this to be where a lot of the fun drama comes from in the game. Please don’t make dramatic changes to your brief before the game without consulting with the organisers.

Your brief is not a reason to have a bad time

If for whatever reason, part of your brief is meaning you’re not having a good time at the event, you are 100% welcome to come up with a reason to do something that gets your game back on track and do that fun thing. You don’t need our permission for this.

But! If you need some help from us you can speak to the organisers or The Fool any time and we’ll try to work with you to improve things.

Brief contents

Name, title, age

Who you are, your title, your age. Any political bodies you hold power in.

Any unusual abilities, responsibilities or powers your character has.

Background

Your biography from childhood to the time of the event, people you know, major events.

This is a few pages of A4 in length.

Ambitions

A list of things you care about and want to achieve at the event.

Most characters have about 3-5 of these, and many will deliberately conflict with other characters’ ambitions.

Religious views

Your personal religious views, how strongly you hold them, and your wishes for England’s future.

Timeline

A personal timeline summary of key events from the main timeline that have impacted your character’s story.

Connections

A summary of the main relationships you have with other player characters, and how you feel about them.

Some connections are left for the players to negotiate the details of. For example you have the option to decide on a close friendship, an unrequited love, or a secret romance depending on player comfort. These are clearly marked in briefs where they are present.