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.
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| 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!
