Using ChatGPT to help review freeform larps

The kind of freeform larps that I write can be complicated beasts. Numerous characters, complicated plots, items, abilities, secrets, contingencies. And a timeline that can easily be confused. Even an independent proofreader can miss things.

So when it was suggested that an AI might be able to help check a freeform larp, I thought I’d give it a go.

TL;DR – remarkably effective

The Highgate Club and ChatGPT

I recently re-ran The Highgate Club, a fourteen-player freeform that I co-wrote at Peaky in 2010. This was the third time I had run it, and you would have thought that by now, all the kinks had been ironed out of it.

Certainly, in terms of playing the game, it ran very well (read about it here). There were a few kinks (minor ones) that I needed to address. So I decided to use The Highgate Club as a test case for AI, because I knew the game well and I didn’t think there was much to find. That’s what I thought…  

I used ChatGPT. I have a paid account which lets me upload files into a folder so that ChatGPT can analyse them.

So that’s what I did. I uploaded the files as MS Word documents. 

(For clarity, at no point in this process did ChatGPT change the game materials – I made the edits myself. And ChatGPT doesn’t use the uploaded files for training purposes; at least, that’s what it says.)

The prompts

My first prompt: Read the entire LARP and review it as a professional editor. Produce a prioritised list of issues but don't rewrite anything yet. Classify each issue as Critical, Major or Minor, explain why it's a problem, and suggest a possible solution.

As you can see, I didn’t even introduce The Highgate Club to ChatGPT… In a later prompt, I remembered to tell it that the larp was written in UK English. I will try to remember that in the initial prompt next time.

(Although this review ended up identifying all sorts of (mostly minor) issues with The Highgate Club, it wasn’t very structured. I plan to develop a more structured approach for future games.)

ChatGPT responded to my post by recommending a full editorial pass rather than a quick proofread, which ended up as follows:

Editorial review

ChatGPT completed an editorial review in four passes:

• Pass 1: Core structure, rules and cross-document consistency
• Pass 2: Character consistency & information flow
• Pass 3: Plot dependency & failure analysis
• Pass 4: Continuity audit

I’m not really sure whether all those passes were necessary, but they brought up lots of points to consider. Obviously, ChatGPT was extremely complimentary about everything else, which was a bit tiring…

Character review

Then we moved on to characters. ChatGPT reviewed every character as a separate pass. I didn’t tell ChatGPT which character to do next – I just let it choose. (In future I will probably tell it which ones to do so that I can track progress. I got a bit lost towards the end – if ChatGPT had omitted a character, I might have missed that.)

Hallucinations

About two-thirds of the way through the character reviews, I realised that ChatGPT was starting to hallucinate when it mentioned a character that didn’t exist.

So I pointed out its mistake, and ChatGPT replied that: 

“After reading a large cast with multiple immortals, ancient civilisations, and overlapping mythology, I allowed my internal summary of the characters to drift instead of re-grounding myself in the source documents before writing the review.”

So it then re-read the character and revised its comments. At the end of that, it said.

“From now on, I'll re-read the relevant character sheet immediately before every audit, even if I think I remember it.” (ChatGPT’s emphasis.)

And then it immediately hallucinated again!

So in future, I will remind ChatGPT to re-read the character sheet before every character review.

The output

At the end of the review, I asked ChatGPT to summarise everything in a Word document. (It could also have created an issue log in Excel – I might try that later.)

It created a 15-page report containing 37 different findings which it ranked in order of criticality: Critical, Major, Minor. Each finding has an explanation and a suggested fix.

While I didn’t accept all of the points, I accepted the majority – and every single one has been a valid point worth considering. Examples of the kinds of things it picked up:

• Conflicting instructions
• A character had mistakenly received a handout
• Areas where we had not provided enough information – the sort of thing that we would handwave when running the game, but really should clarify
• Some items had mixed up item numbers
• Character backstory inconsistencies
• Information in the plot summary did not match the characters
• Conflicts in spellings and terminology – Holmes and Homes, for example

So all extremely useful.

One benefit was that ChatGPT doesn’t have my assumptions or biases – so it picks up things that I didn’t even realise were missing.

Other prompts

During the prompting, I also asked it to review the timeline in the game instructions to see if anything was missing. Sure enough, it highlighted a few things. I suspect it could probably assemble a timeline from scratch if I wanted it to.

I also asked ChatGPT: Imagine I've fixed all the consistency errors. Now imagine running this larp with experienced players. Predict the ten most likely problems that will arise during play, and explain why.

It came up with ten examples, all very interesting. I knew about two or three already, and having seen the game in action, I know that others haven’t arisen (and probably wouldn't). But I could see why it had identified each of the ten issues – definitely a good question to ask.

Plus I could ask ChatGPT to suggest other prompts.

Overall

Overall, I found ChatGPT an extremely useful tool in assessing The Highgate Club. You have to treat it with caution and watch for hallucinations, but it produced an extremely useful final report.

I suspect with a little practice (as I improve my prompts and learn how to use it fully), it will become even more effective.

And as for The Highgate Club, the files are now all updated.

GDPR for organisers of chamber larps, parlour larps, and freeforms

(Yes, I know they’re all the same kind of thing. I’m using the term “chamber larp” in this article because that seems to be gaining ground as the most common term right now.)

So, you’re organising a one-shot chamber larp for a convention. If you manage your players’ personal data (email addresses, names, and so on), GDPR may apply to you. And if you are in the EU (including the UK) or have EU/UK players, you are definitely subject to GDPR. (Other territories have their own data laws, obviously.)

Hosting Venice. Photo by Tsijon

Now, I’m not a lawyer or a GDPR expert, but this is my take on the GDPR requirements.

When does GDPR apply?

GDPR protects data belonging to EU/UK citizens and residents, and it applies even if you’re outside the EU/UK. So if you’re organising a convention chamber larp with European players, GDPR applies to you – wherever you are in the world.

GDPR applies to “professional and commercial” activities. So if you are organising a chamber larp for a few friends, GDPR doesn’t apply. But if there's some kind of commercial arrangement (such as a convention, or charging players to cover room hire), then GDPR applies.

Data controller

As the organiser of a chamber larp, you are acting as an independent "data controller" for a small amount of personal data (usually name, email address, perhaps accessibility requirements). GDPR applies, and requires that you handle the data sensibly.

Broadly, the key principles are:

• Collect only what you need
• Be clear about why you’re collecting it
• Don’t expose players to each other unnecessarily
• Have a retention policy

Collect only what you actually need

For most games, you probably need:

• Name (or preferred name)
• Email address
• Character assignment information
• Perhaps a few logistics questions

Information about disabilities or health conditions is considered special-category personal data under GDPR. You may need this information depending on your game, but be aware that it is even more sensitive than other data.

Only collect additional information if there’s a clear purpose (for example, if your game doesn’t care about your players’ ages, don’t ask them!).

Your responsibilities as a data controller begin when you first receive details about your players – normally from the convention organisers.

Be clear about why you’re collecting it

It helps to be clear about why you’re collecting the data. Ideally, when you first collect data (perhaps in a sign-up or casting form, you should include something like:

I will use your contact details to send information about the game you have signed up for, including character materials, scheduling information, and post-game follow-up if necessary.

Don’t unnecessarily expose players’ data

The golden rule when sending emails to a mixed group of strangers is always to use BCC for mass emails.

(This is an easy mistake to make.)

And don’t circulate participant lists containing email addresses. If you want players to communicate before the game, get explicit permission first.

For example: Would you like to be included in a pre-game player discussion group? Your email address will be visible to the other participants.

Be careful with character materials

If you’re like me, you’ll create a spreadsheet to manage your players, with columns for player name, email, and character. This is fine for your own use (and essential if you are using a mailmerge programme).

What’s less fine is accidentally sharing that spreadsheet!

Have a retention policy

The easiest GDPR retention policy is to delete the data you no longer need. (You can’t misuse data you don’t have!)

For convention games, this might look like:

• Keep contact details until the event is over
• Keep them for a short period afterwards (e.g. 1–3 months) in case of follow-up issues
• Then delete them unless the person has separately opted into future contact

(Set a calendar reminder! And if you’re a convention organiser who gave player details to their GMs, please remind your GMs to delete those records!)

I use Gmail, Google Forms and Google Docs, so in practice this means for me:

• Deleting emails about the game to players
• Deleting my contacts
• Deleting email addresses from my casting spreadsheet
• Deleting the responses from my casting questionnaire

(It’s surprising how widely these systems share data…)

What about friends?

Obviously, some of the people who play my games are my friends, and we are regularly in contact. So do I need to delete their details as well?

I think GDPR is a little unclear here, so this is my pragmatic approach:

• I delete all the responses from my casting spreadsheet and questionnaire
• For friends (and this is a judgement), then I delete neither their emails nor their contact details, because I will need them again

In practice, this tends to mean that if you play one of my games and you are new to me, or I don’t know you very well, then I’ll delete your details. If you’re someone I’ve shared drinks with in the bar, then I probably still have your details. (If that’s you and you don’t want me to have your details, just let me know and I’ll delete them.)

And what about photographs?

I often write about my games on my blog and like to use photographs of the games in progress. So as part of my casting questionnaire, I ask: May I use a photograph/screenshot of you playing the game in future publicity? (For example, on my blog, website and social media.)

So I need to record this, which is why I keep the casting spreadsheet (although I delete actual emails from it, just to be sure).

Marketing

For those of us who occasionally organise games privately, it’s important to separate "game administration" from "future marketing."

Just because someone played your game in 2020, they may not want emails about your future games in 2027. So if you want to maintain a mailing list, make it explicit: Would you like to hear about future games I run?

Keep that list separate from event administration records. And when you do send out emails, explain how recipients can remove themselves: Just let me know if you no longer want to receive emails from me.

Or use mailing list software that handles much of this automatically: If you want to hear about future games I run, click here to subscribe to my mailing list.

Use mainstream tools sensibly

Fortunately, we don’t need enterprise-grade infrastructure to satisfy GDPR. Things like Gmail, Google Sheets and so on are fine, provided:

• Your account is secured with a strong password and preferably MFA
• Sharing permissions are controlled
• You don’t make documents publicly accessible

A simple chamber larp organiser policy

So for running chamber larps as a volunteer at conventions, a practical policy might be:

• Collect only names, email addresses, and information necessary to run the game.
• Use contact details only for organising that game.
• BCC group emails unless players have opted into a shared communication channel.
• Keep accessibility or dietary information private and delete it after the event.
• Delete participant lists a few months after the convention.
• Maintain a separate opt-in mailing list for future games.
• On request, tell players what information you hold and delete it if there is no longer a reason to keep it.

That would put you in a much stronger position than most hobby organisers and aligns well with GDPR’s core principles without creating excessive administrative overhead.

I love it when a character comes together

One of my favourite parts of writing freeform larps is when I have written all the plots, and I am starting to assemble characters.

I’ve just gone through this with The Enigma Machines, and, as always, I get a thrill of pleasure to see the characters form before my eyes.

Playtesting A Haunting in Hartwick

In Writing Freeform Larps, this is part of step 7, writing the plots. But actually, I don’t start copying the plot text into the character sheets until all the plots are written.

Building a character

This is how it works:

• I start with a blank character sheet and change the name from “blank character sheet” to the character name.
• Then I add the character’s opening paragraph (from Step #4).
• Then I go through each plot document, copying the plot information for that character. (And other people, goals, and whatever other information is going on the character sheet from that plot document).

As for the order of plot information on a character sheet, I order it by how important it is to that character. So a major plot for that character would be earlier in the sheet than a minor piece of information about another plot.

(As I copy text over, I change the font colour in the plot document so I can remember what I’ve copied and what is left.)

Then, I read through the character and give it a light edit to make sure the character sheet flows. (Sometimes, I find I need to merge sections of text to make them read better. This is particularly true for other people, who often appear in more than one plot.)

Immensely satisfying

I find building characters this way immensely satisfying. While you’re deep in the plots, writing a freeform can feel like a bit of a slog with no end in sight. 

And then I start assembling characters – and suddenly the freeform is there, right in front of me!

Authority points in Café Casablanca

Authority figures, such as police officers, can present problems in larps, as competitive players may want to abuse their authority. Café Casablanca (written by Cruel Hoax Productions) limited their powers by giving them a limited supply of Authority Points that they had to spend to carry out official actions. 

Trailer screenshot, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Here’s how it worked.

(Although I have played Café Casablanca twice and been on the GM team once, I don’t know how effective these rules are, as I didn’t interact with them.)

Authority points

Each law officer (Captain Renault, the inspectors, the prison commandant and harbour security) has a number of Authority Points on a card that looks like this:

Police Officer A Authority Points

• Usable any time: O O O O O O
• Usable Friday evening:  O O O O
• Usable Saturday morning: O O O O
• Usable Saturday afternoon:  O O O O
• Usable Saturday evening: O O O O
• Usable Sunday:  O O O O O

The numbers varied by character rank. Higher-rank characters got more points (the numbers above are for a senior officer, not the highest-ranking officer, and certainly not the lowest).

Officers also get an authority briefing sheet that explains how the rules work.

Gaining authority points

Officers can earn more Authority Points by performing their duties well and often. (e.g., arresting a wanted felon and having them jailed gets the player more Authority Points, even if the captive later escapes).

Gross abuse of Authority Points can cause an officerto lose points.

Points are rewarded/taken away by the Police HQ GM.

Authority Rules

General rules

• Police Authority does not extend into the Casbah (a lawless area in Casablanca)
• It costs double to expend Authority Points on anyone with a blue badge (such as German officers, who strictly have no power to arrest here, as Casablanca is controlled by the French Vichy government).
• Outranking someone does not mean they are your slave. They may be given duties (such as “investigate so-and-so”) but not specific actions (like “shoot him”).

Exercising authority

Exercising authority (spending Authority Points) allows officers to take the following actions:

Create papers (0 Authority points): For example, replacing a passport.

Searching a room (4 Authority Points, or 2 with a warrant): Used for searching a character’s room (characters have an in-game location where they could store items). The magistrate (the Police HQ GM) may be approached for a warrant first (which must specify the location to be searched and what is being searched for). (2 points will be returned if an illegal item is found, or 3 points if the item specified on the warrant is found.) Non-illegal items will be left in place unless specified on the warrant.

Inspect papers (1 Authority Point): An officer may inspect any character’s passport upon demand. If they don’t have a passport or their papers are obviously out of order, the officer gets their Authority Point back, plus an extra, and the culprit is automatically arrested. They must be given new papers before they leave police custody (lack of papers is not a jailable offence).

Search person (1 Authority Point): After inspecting someone’s papers, an officer may search a character’s person to see what items the character is carrying. Nothing may be confiscated unless the person is arrested.

Arrest (4 Authority Points): An officer may arrest a suspect who accompanies them to the police station, where the suspect may be held and questioned for up to 15 minutes. The suspect must show any items he has on his person, but they may not be confiscated unless the person is jailed or the items are illegal.

If the magistrate (the Police HQ GM) agrees you have sufficient cause for arrest, three Authority Points will be returned (unless they were arrested during an inspection of papers). An additional two points will be returned if the suspect is on the “wanted” list.

(The Café Casablanca rules didn’t cover adding people to the wanted list, but I would require 2 Authority Points (and a strong argument) to add someone to the wanted list.)

Throw someone who has been arrested in jail (3 Authority Points): Can only be used at the police station, and only on a character under arrest. The character must remain in jail for one hour or until released. (During this hour, the player is issued a “friend of” badge to arrange his own rescue if he is not being questioned.) People on the wanted list cost no points to jail.

A prisoner’s items may be taken by the police and placed in the evidence locker (maintained by the magistrate/Police HQ GM) and returned to them when they leave after an hour. Prisoners who break out of jail do not get their possessions back! 

Imprison a jailed player (9 Authority Points from three different officers, each contributing 3 points each): Can only be used on a jailed character, and only if a magistrate (the Police HQ GM) agrees you have sufficient evidence and cause.

This action restarts the one-hour clock for being in jail. During this hour, the player is still a “friend of” his character. 

After one hour, the character is sent to the concentration camp in the desert and should be played out to enable a dramatic rescue (ie, the player should be marched through the game space under guard, visible to everyone). If not rescued, the player is issued a replacement character.

Execute a jailed player: (12 Authority Points from three different officers, each contributing 4 points each): Can only be used on a jailed player, and only if a magistrate (the Police HQ GM) agrees you have sufficient evidence and cause.

This action restarts the one-hour clock for being in jail. During this hour, the player is still a “friend of” his character.

After one hour, the character is executed by firing squad one hour after the sentence and should be played out. (ie, the player should be executed in the game space, visible to everyone.) If not rescued, the player is issued a replacement character after the event.

(As far as I know, no character has ever been executed in the three runs of Café Casablanca that I have been involved with.)

The wanted list

One character started the game on the wanted list.

Crimes

Other than the usual (murder, arson, burglary and so on):

• Being a citizen of an enemy state (Britain, China, etc.)
• Carrying contraband (guns, explosives, military secrets)

Relationships in Gateways

Recently, some larps have attempted to combine romance/rival/friendship (such as my Falling in Love and Tombstone’s Pardners) rules into a single coherent system. 

I’ve found these a bit uneven, but I thought Gateways’ version was the best so far. Here’s how it worked.

Relationships

The relationship rules covered allies, rivals and falling in love. The mechanics were optional, so that if you felt that, through roleplaying, your relationship with another character was developing, you could short-circuit the bookkeeping and simply give that character a relationship card.

Photo by TsiJon

Relationship cards

Each character had several relationship cards. They all worked the same, and they looked like this:

Avery Grayson’s Ally/Romance/Rival (pick one): You may Assist or Hinder the named character.  Permanent. No more than three relationship cards (one of each type – ally/romance/rival) may affect any single skill check.

You gave your card to your ally/rival/love interest, and they could then use it to assist or hinder you in skill checks. They didn’t need to have a relevant skill, but just being present helped (or hindered).

(I explain Gateways’ skills and task resolution system here.)

One thing I really liked about the relationship cards was how seamlessly they fit into the task-resolution system. And as a writer, I appreciated that Gateways’ authors hadn’t needed to invent unique heart abilities for each character, which were a feature in other games. With 79 players, that would have been a lot of rival/ally/romance abilities!

Paramount relationships

Characters also had paramount relationship cards – for the single most important person in your universe. (Maybe “the one”, or a ride-or-die ally, or perhaps even your nemesis.)

Your paramount relationship card looked like this:

Avery Grayson’s Ally/Romance/Rival (pick one): You may Assist or Hinder the named character. When you do, draw from the SAME deck. Permanent. No more than three relationship cards (one of each type – ally/romance/rival) may affect any single skill check)

So this ability is more powerful than a regular Assist or Hinder, as drawing from the same deck gives you a better chance of drawing a higher card.

Developing a relationship

So while I suspect a lot of relationships were cemented through roleplaying, how did the actual mechanic work? Well, it was very similar to the system I outlined in Writing Freeform Larps (and refined here).

The inside back cover of each character booklet included a table which looked like this:

Character	Romance	Ally	Rival
Character 1		III
Character 2	II
Character 3	IIII
Character 4			II
Example indicators of an ally/romance/rival relationship: Give me something I value / Take something I value from me Put yourself at risk to assist/defend (or to hinder/attack) me Go to a social event with me Help me accomplish something important to me Tell me something secret about yourself Discover we have a common/analogous history or trauma Do something important to assist/harm someone I care about Make me laugh, cry, or share some other emotional event Share a romantic and/or sexual encounter with me Discover we have ‘chemistry’ (Romance only – you have chemistry if you both draw the same number from a Skill Deck. Return the card and shuffle after the first draw.) Tell me how important I have become to you (ie, give me a relationship Ability card)

Notes

• The suggested target number was five, so if someone ticked off five indicators, you would give them a relationship card.
• There were specific rules for some aliens as they couldn’t form relationships.

Changing Relationships

And if you felt your relationship had changed, you could reclaim your relationship card (or change it). I have no idea if anyone did this – I didn’t.

What didn’t work

So for me, the rivalry ability card didn’t really work. Identifying a rival was fine, but I’m not sure how effective the ability card was, as I can’t see it being used much.

For example, I developed a rival during the game (although I forgot to give them a rival card – probably because this was new to me), but he was never present when I made skill checks, and vice versa. So while the rivalry card was nice to roleplay, it had no mechanical effect (for me, at least).

Mind you, I’m not sure what would make a rival ability actually work. Maybe that’s work in progress!

Gateways’ task resolution rules

Gateways was a weekend-long SF larp that I played in February 2026. It was conceived and written by Martin and Helen Jones, and Nickey Barnard, with additional material by Alan and Charlie Paull, and Megan, Michael and Peter Jones.

I wrote about the game on my blog, but here I want to discuss Gateways’ task-resolution rules.

Photo by TsiJon

Skills

Each character had a number of skills, rated as follows:

1. Trained
2. Competent
3. Expert
4. Phenomenal

There were very few characters with 4-rated skills. My character had five skills rated 2 and 3. Skills included things like Self-defence, Medic and Scientist (Physics). (I had a total skill rating of 10 – I don’t know if the GMs balanced the number of skills across the characters. I think that’s something I would have done.)

In general, if you wanted to do something, it ought to be something you could realistically do. My character had no experience with computer hacking, so I would not be expected to try it.

Task difficulty number

If you were attempting something (fix a reactor, heal a character, hack a computer), the GMs would set a target difficulty for that task. The difficulties were:

1. Easy (Anyone with basic training in the skill should succeed at this – no check needed).
2. Moderate 
3. Hard
4. Very hard
5. Exceptional
6. Impossible

The skill check

To make a skill check, a character added their level in an appropriate skill and drew from a Skill Deck (a deck of five cards: +2, +1, +1, 0, 0). The GMs had maybe 20 Skill Decks dotted around for players to use.

So if you had a skill of 3, your result would be between 3 (if you drew a 0) and 5 (if you drew a 2).

Helping and hindering

Assisting: Characters can assist if they have a suitable skill, or an ability, or because it makes sense. For each character helping, make a second skill check and choose the best result. (Don’t forget to return the cards after each draw!)

Hindering: Characters might want to hinder a task. Hindering is just like helping, but the worst result is chosen.

Several characters simultaneously assisting and hindering: These cancel each other out until whichever side has the most remains. (I never saw this happen.)

(If you play ttrpgs, you may recognise assisting and hindering as rolling with advantage or disadvantage.)

Results

If our result was…

• Lower than the difficulty number? Bad luck, you failed.
• Equal to the difficulty number? Success, but with complications.
• More than the difficulty number? Hurrah, you succeeded.

Player-v-player contests (including combat)

The system is the same for player-v-player contests, except that the opposing players play against each other. Whoever gets the highest result wins. (Ties are draws.)

Combat

For combat, if you are beaten by 1, you can either surrender or flee. If you are beaten by 2, the winner chooses the outcome. You might be injured, captured, or even die (but only if dramatically appropriate).

Wounded characters get wound markers, and all their skill checks are hindered until they are healed.

With multiple combatants, opponents should pair off. Unmatched characters can assist someone on their side.

Learning skills

You can train someone to a level one less than the skill you have. So a character with a level 2 skill can train someone to level 1.

Limitations to training:

• Training is limited to level 1 during the game only. Training to higher levels requires longer than is possible in the game. (Although there may be exceptions…)
• A character can only learn one skill in a single game session, and the training session should be roleplayed out. If the skill involves using a piece of equipment, that equipment must be available for training.
• Teachers can only teach one skill, but can teach up to three pupils per game session.
• The new skill is available at the start of the next game session. Add it to your character booklet.

Abilities

As well as skills, there were a handful of abilities scattered around. Not too many, which made it both easy to manage and (I imagine) easy to write. For example, my character had a research ability that let them look stuff up (ie, ask the GMs).

Did the system work?

The rules worked really well – they were just detailed enough to allow for some variety, but not so detailed that things became too complicated.

I’d seen similar systems in other freeform larps, but I think this was the best variant I’ve encountered so far. But perhaps that’s because I engaged with it more (I often don’t engage with the rules much).

Braunsteins and freeform larps

According to Google’s AI overview, A Braunstein is a type of experimental role-playing game (RPG) that is considered a precursor to modern games like Dungeons & Dragons. Created by David Wesely in the late 1960s, these games feature multiple players with secret objectives who interact within a fictional town, using a referee to mediate and adjudicate actions that are not predetermined by a script. This model emphasizes player-driven narratives, negotiation, and unexpected outcomes, distinguishing it from traditional war games.

Doesn’t that sound like a freeform? (Or maybe a megagame?)

Anyway, here’s a 2008 blog post by Ben Robbins (he of Microscope fame) which talks about that original 1969 and (not-yet-but-will-be-one-day Major) David Wesely, arguably the world’s first GM.

And this post, also by Ben Robbins, is more interesting as it contains links to details of that first game – including the character descriptions.

Student A

So here’s Student A

Student A

Background: You are a highly patriotic and loyal subject of your king and country (Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia). You have been dismayed to find that the dangerous ideas of the French Revolution are widely repeated by the students and faculty of the University. The Chancellor and the Mayor both refuse to listen to your warnings about the NBB, a radical pro-French student movement. Only the Landwehr major seems to hate revolutionaries as much as you do, but he is lazy and inept, and does not treat you with respect. You have gathered a band of students who will stand with you against the NBB; when asked what you call yourselves, you will say, "We are Prussians. Our honour needs no other name." And as leader of the fencing team, you can (and have) defended your honour on the duelling ground many times.

Recent events: Last night, you were insulted by Student B, the head of the pro-French NBB.  When you challenged him to a duel, he replied, "I accept: Beer steins at two paces!" and emptied his beer on your head! Your friends stepped in, the fight spread, and the Landwehr arrested everyone. You start in jail, with many of your fellow students. The Landwehr took away your sword.

Your objectives

1. Get you and your friends out of jail
2. Have as many of the NBB students kept in jail/hanged/shot as possible
3. Force student B to fight a proper duel with you (and defeat him)
4. Save Braunstein from the French Army, which is rumoured to be approaching

Isn’t that a freeform larp character?

We’d do things a little differently now (if nothing else, I’d give Student A a name), but basically, Braunstein 1 and freeform larps are pretty much the same thing. (The later Braunsteins seem to be a bit more gamey, and are perhaps closer to megagames.)

And while many people think that larp emerged from tabletop roleplaying games (eg, see the Wikipedia larps entry), it appears that it was actually the other way around. Not that anyone realised it at the time.