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.

Writing and publishing Messages from Callisto

I’ve just published Messages from Callisto, episode #4 of my long-running science fiction first-contact freeform larp campaign.

That’s a bit of a mouthful, so let’s break it down:

Episode #4: Previous episodes are (in order) The Roswell Incident, All Flesh is Grass, and Children of the Stars. I’ve written two more episodes (The Stars Our Destination and Aurora Horizon), but they need to be worked up into a presentable state. I think there may be two or three more episodes in the saga.

Science-fiction first-contact: Some of my favourite SF books and movies involve first contact with aliens – so that’s what these are. They are set on Earth – and we are not alone…

Freeform larp: A type of larp involving prewritten characters with detailed backgrounds shoved into a situation they must deal with. (Or in other words, the kind of games that this site is written for.)

The premise: Classified images from Voyager showed a regular, pyramid-shaped structure on the surface of Callisto. The structure looked too regular to be natural, and in 1983, the US government sent a follow-up mission, Arcadia, to Callisto to learn more.

It is now 1993, and the first signals from Arcadia have arrived. UNET (United Nations Extraterrestrial Taskforce) is meeting in London to discuss Callisto along with several other issues that have all come to a head at once.

Writing Messages from Callisto

I wrote Messages from Callisto using the process explained here and in my book. It came together fairly easily, once I had my main ideas. 

My design notes for the game are here, which explain my thinking behind many of my decisions.

Running it

I have run Messages from Callisto twice so far. The first time was on Discord in 2023 (see here for a more detailed writeup) and then later that same year at Consequences (see here).

The second run was particularly ambitious, as I also ran Children of the Stars at the same convention, and I wanted decisions in the Children of the Stars to affect Messages from Callisto. That made everything much more complicated than it needed to be – as this blog post explains.

I next expect to run it in 2027, which is when the third campaign is due to get to it.

Making it publishable

It took me a while to get Messages from Callisto ready for publication. The main challenge is that it follows on from three other games, and decisions made in those games mean that history might change. 

This may even mean that different runs will have different characters!

The way I have dealt with this is through different coloured text. Black text is the standard game text – that doesn’t change. Red text is my “default” text. If you’re playing Messages from Callisto as a standalone game, then use the red text. Blue and purple text represent variations – including some that haven’t yet featured in my games, so I had to write that from scratch.

The game files are MS Word files, so that GMs can make whatever changes they need.

So when you come to run Messages from Callisto, you can amend the coloured text to suit your particular campaign. 

And if your campaign has gone in even stranger directions – you’re free to make whatever changes you need to make.

Publishing format

The other thing that took a bit a longer was putting it into the format I’m using to publish the games. When I first wrote Messages from Callisto, I hadn’t started publishing these games. When I did, I changed the format of the files a little. That meant that I needed to change the format first.

That shouldn’t be a problem going forward, as I now know how I am publishing the games.

The British Library version

The final thing I did was prepare a submission for legal deposit at the British Library. 

Before the 2023 cyber attack, they had a portal that could be used to upload electronic copies of documents. That hadn’t been available since the attack, so I dropped them an email to find out what  I should do.

Anyway, the British Library isn’t set up to manage lots of different files, so for a larp like Messages from Callisto, I’ve combined all the files into a single pdf. (This was their suggestion when I got in contact with them for Freeform Games.) After all, the files are for record, not to be actually played.

So that’s what I did. (In Messages from Callisto’s case, I turned the MS Word files into pdfs first, before combining them.)

Messages from Callisto

So there we have it. You can now download and play Messages from Callisto. Enjoy!

Using AI to help write freeform larps

A couple of years ago, I wrote a series of posts on my blog about using AI to help write freeform larps.

I'm not going to move them to this blog, but instead I will link to them. (I have no doubt I will revisit the subject in due course.) And I'm not going into the ethical or moral considerations of using AI to create games.

It's worth noting that AI has moved on since 2023, and no doubt the AI responses would be better.

Using AI to help write freeforms was my first post, where I take a few tentative steps in exploring how AI might help identify potential characters for a freeform.

Using AI to help write freeforms: Plots looked at using ChatGPT to help write plots. The takeaway for me, was not to take AI's first response, but to ask further questions.

Using AI to help write freeforms: Angst covered the challenge of writing an angst-filled plot.

Using AI to help write freeforms: Hordes looked at using ChatGPT to help writing a horde game.

My AI takeaways

AI is great for brainstorming and coming up with ideas.

AI is terrible at producing finished text. You will need to edit it.

To get the best from AI, ask questions and drill into the answers.

Updating Venice

Over on my personal blog, I talked about attending Continuum and running Venice, a freeform that I mention in Writing Freeform Larps. Here, I’m going to talk about Venice and what I did (and why I did it) in more detail.

Venice

Venice is a 15-player freeform set in sixteenth-century Mythic Venice. The Doge has been murdered, and the five ruling families must elect a new Doge. Meanwhile, there are weddings to arrange, secret societies to discover and pirates to defeat.

Venice is what I call a “factions” game. The players play members of factions, each with their own goals. In Venice’s case, we have several overlapping factions:

• The families (five of them, each with two rivals and two allies)
• Societies such as the Inquisition, heretics and more.

Venice at Continuum - the Corleones (photo by Tsijon)

Faction games are an easy way to write a game for a lot of players quickly. Characters are rarely very deep, and as as much roles as they are characters. While they may have personal goals, they will also have goals on the faction sheets.

In Venice, characters have their own goals, their family goals, and their society goals.

Venice at Continuum

I haven’t run Venice since writing it at Peaky 2013. (I wrote about that here.)

Since Peaky, I gave the game a light edit (including the changes I talked about in that writeup) and uploaded it to Itch, where it has been downloaded 93 times (to date). I’ve no idea if it has been run at all.

When the call for freeforms at Continuum went out, I wasn’t sure what to run. I thought about it, and decided to run Venice. I wanted to see how the changes I made following Peaky 2013 actually worked.

So that’s what I did. I didn’t make any changes in advance – I just printed it out, packed the envelopes and ran the game at Continuum.

The Capulets (photo by Tsijon)

And I was really happy with how Venice ran. I was a little worried beforehand. As I was packing the envelopes, I could see that the characters were thin, but I could also see the bigger picture of how the factions and families might clash as they jockey for position.

The newly-elected Doge - and his wife (photo by Tsijon)

And that’s pretty much what happened. I felt there was a good energy in the room throughout the game – something I always watch for as it’s a good sign that players are enjoying themselves.

Always playtesting

At Peaky, many writers call the first run of their newly-written game a “playtest”. I don’t like that term at Peaky for a couple of reasons.

First, Peaky is often the only place where I will play these games. So for me, it’s not a playtest, it’s just playing the game.

Second, I’m always playtesting. After every run of any game, I always find something to change. Hopefully it’s just a tweak or two. Sometimes it’s something more fundamental. So in that sense, I’m always playtesting.

And that’s how it was with Venice.

The GM doing GM things (photo by Tsijon)

(Oh, for the Peaky runs, I prefer the term premier. Sounds much fancier. And they really are the game’s first run.)

Updating Venice

So although Venice went really well and lots of the players were engaged and having fun, there were a couple of players looking a little out of it. Maybe they were just having a quiet game (it happens – it’s not always the game’s fault), but maybe I could make a few tweaks to increase the amount of fun.

So I have made changes.

I made the edits immediately. I find my enthusiasm drops the longer I leave it, so I find it best to strike while the iron is hot. 

So here’s a summary of the changes I made

• Typos: Goodness, I was disappointed to find so many typos. I’ve fixed all the ones I could find, but no doubt a few more have snuck in.
• Names: We didn’t put a lot of thought into the names back in 2013, and they didn’t feel very Venetian. I’ve now changed that.
• Romance: The romance plots were solved very quickly, so I’ve made them a little more complicated. A little.
• Information: I’ve spread more information around – so characters know a little about other characters that they didn’t know before.
• Fonts: I now use Google fonts, so I changed the fonts and embedded them.
• Secret societies: I added two more secret societies, and added a status tracker for societies as well
• Casting: I included the questions I used to cast Venice in the instructions.

Download it now

You can download the updated Venice right now from my itch.io page.

More Photos from Continuum

All photos below by Tsijon.

The Sopranos

The Montagues

Contingencies

This isn't a complete rewrite of the contingencies section of Writing Freeform Larps, but further thoughts on them following discussions on the ukfreeforms mailing list. When I get to a second edition, I will review the section on contingencies in light of this post.

The background to the discussion was that I was writing Aurora Horizon, a game set aboard a spaceship where the crew awakens from cryosleep with somes of their memory missing. The first part of the game would be about them dealing with that.

I wasn't sure how to approach the idea, so I started a discussion on the mailing list.

Player preferences (ie, everyone is different)

It quickly became clear that some players prefer the surprise of in-game reveals, while others prefer to know everything in advance, as it allows them to think about how to play the character and integrate the information into their roleplay. 

So while some may enjoy the rollercoaster of unexpected twists, others prefer to know the key points ahead of time.

(And me? I don’t know – I’ve not done either. I suspect it depends on the game. I’ve written about it before on my blog, though.)

Should I ever create a second edition of Writing Freeform Larps, I will update the section on contingency envelopes to reflect this.

Contingencies

Contingency envelopes can be triggered by in-game events, by other players, or by time. (Or they may simply be handouts from the GM.)

Contingencies are a popular way of dealing with hidden information – I’ve used them.

For many players, opening a contingency is great – it’s like a small reward, and it’s exciting to find out what’s inside.

However, contingencies aren’t perfect:

• Sometimes, the contingency is a disappointment and doesn’t contain anything new.
• Reading lengthy information mid-game can be overwhelming for players with dyslexia or those for whom English is a second language.
• Interrupting roleplay to read an envelope can disrupt the flow of the game.
• Players might forget triggers and miss vital information. (I’ve certainly done this! Backup triggers may help here.)
• If other characters reveal information before a player opens their envelope, it can be deflating.

Full disclosure

Providing all information upfront means putting all of the information in the character sheet in advance and explaining (through GM notes) how I imagine the character might be played.

This approach:

• Allows players to plan their roleplay.
• Enables players to foreshadow and create a richer character experience.
• Reduces the burden on GMs.
• Allows players to role-play their character’s surprise when appropriate.

However, not all players like this approach – especially those who enjoy being surprised by twists and turns.

I often use a full-disclosure approach for minor bits of information. So rather than use a contingency, I will often now write: “GM note: If you see item 25 (a painting), you recognise it as one that your grandfather painted and used to hang in your study. What is it doing here?”

I’ve yet to see a player abuse this, and it simplifies packing character envelopes.

Hybrid approaches

Of course, it is possible to combine both methods.

Players who like full disclosure can open their contingencies in advance. (The opposite isn’t quite so easy, of course.)

I may decide to have some parts of the game as full-disclosure but also have some contingencies for what I think are key secrets. (And if I really don’t want players to open them in advance, I could do them as GM handouts.)

Memory loss specifics

Amnesiac characters require a few special considerations.

• Reveals should enhance a player’s experience, not detract from it. A contingency that completely changes a character’s nature should have some foreshadowing so it doesn’t feel too jarring.
• It’s worth thinking about how the reveal is staged – giving it space and making it memorable. As a result, I am considering adding a psychologist/therapist character who can be the focus for recovering memories to give it a sense of importance.
• Players should know that their character has lost their memory. Otherwise, they may assume that a lack of information indicates a badly written game. (We’ve all been there!)
• Given the nature of memory loss, a single contingency could include too much information for a player to read and absorb while actively playing. So if possible, time “heavy” contingencies to suit any breaks.
• Some players may not like receiving lots of new information during the game – something to consider as part of casting. 

Aurora Horizon

In the end, for those characters in Aurora Horizon who were having memory problems, I wrote the first page of their character sheet (including some goals) from the perspective of having just woken up from cryosleep.

After that, I put the rest of their character information (including more goals) and told them that it was up to them how they wanted to play recovering their memories. If they were enjoying playing an amnesiac, then they could do that for as long as they wanted. If they didn't, then they could get their memories back sooner.

(And for a few specific memories, I used contingency envelopes.)

From what I could tell, the approach seemed to work. Letting the players decide is often best!