Steve Hatherley
Plots tend to be made up of a number of elements – background information, character information, rules and so on.
Here I’ve described in a bit more detail the various elements that go to make up a plot. Not all plots will require all of these elements, but most plots will need several of them at least.
I’ve provided a few plot examples showing how these elements are built up at the end.
The plot overview is a basic high-level view of the plot. It can be as general or as detailed as you like, but it should contain enough detail that once you’ve read it, you have a pretty good idea of what the plot is all about.
If you are writing a game for your own use, the overview can be very brief. (You might not even bother with a plot overview for some plots.) If, however, you are collaborating with others, or you are expecting someone else to run your freeform, the overview will need to be fairly detailed.
A timeline is absolutely essential for all but the smallest and simplest freeforms. Without a timeline it can be very difficult to keep track of what happened and when - I find a timeline is the only way I can keep my characters consistent.
You’ll need a spreadsheet (or a database) to track this information properly. The fields need to be Date/Time, Character, Event, Plot. As you create your plots you can enter in the key dates into the spreadsheet. At periodic intervals you can filter and sort the spreadsheet to catch any inconsistencies. For example:| Date/Time | Character(s) | Event | Plot |
| 12 years ago | Harry Potter | Harry Potter born. | Harry’s Birthday Party |
| 14 years ago | Harry Potter | Harry survives Lord Voldemort’s attack. Harry’s parents are murdered. | The Boy Who Lived |
| Now | All | Freeform starts | NA |
| +30 minutes | Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy | Secret wizard duel (20 minutes) | Potter and Malfoy |
Note that you can write your dates relatively (ie, 4 days ago) or absolutely (13 March 2006) – but don’t mix the two.
The reason for including a "Plot" column is so that if you spot an error, you can quickly identify which plot has the error and correct it.
Once you've set up your timeline spreadsheet/database, you can also use it to manage timed events such as news arriving, or a council meeting or whatever. In the example above I've shown a timetabled event as +30 minutes, which means that it is due to take place 30 minutes after the freeform starts.
Public information is the public information about a plot – ie, what is known by everyone. This information will probably go in the casting sheet or the game background. (Obviously not all plots will have public information.)
Secret plot information is generic background information but is only known by a few people in the freeform. Use this section for standard sections of text that are either copied onto character sheets or inserted into character envelopes as a separate sheet of paper.
For example, if your plot involves a secret society or group, then the members of that group will have information explaining the rules and goals of that society.
Make sure that it’s clear who in your game receives the secret information. In a complex plot you might have several different pieces for different groups, and it’s important not to get them mixed up.
All plots should have this section as all plots should involve one or more characters. (In fact, I can’t think of a situation where your plot wouldn’t include information for characters.)
These are the kinds of headings you need to think about if you are writing this information in full so that you can cut and paste directly into character sheets (that’s how I prefer to work).
Each character involved in the plot will need his or her own section filling out – but they will not all have the same sections. For example, not all characters will have goals or abilities.
Some plots have events that are timetabled to take place during the game, and these will need to be detailed (and eventually combined into a single master game timetable).
By their very nature, some plots require drip-feeding information during the game. For example, to ensure that a murder isn’t solved within 10 minutes of the game starting, further clues are sometimes released during play. (You can rationalise this by saying that, say, the forensics evidence has only just become available and it has revealed that…)
Contingency envelopes are used to provide additional information (and possibly money, abilities, contacts and other stuff) in response to a certain trigger.
As an example, a contingency envelope might be opened when a character meets a particular other character (or sees a particular item). When the envelope is opened, they learn something new.
Try not to go overboard on contingency envelopes – and if an envelope is likely to be opened in the first ten or twenty minutes of a game, then it might be better written on the character sheet.
Some plots have important locations that will either be scenes of action or contain important clues and information.
For example, in a murder mystery the scene of the crime might be a location – and it may include an important clue to the murder. In this case you want to include in your plot a description of the location itself, and any extra notes such as clues to be found.
In the game itself, you might create the location physically (so you could recreate the murder scene in a room just off your main game space), or you could simply describe the location to anyone wishing to visit. Which option you choose is mainly dependent on your budget and how much time you want to spend preparing your game.
Some locations might be hard to find – or are only known by a handful of people (an outlaws’ den, for example). You may need to make it clear who can and can’t get to the mine.
If you are writing a complex freeform with several GMs and a handful of locations, you need a way to manage them for when players visit the location. I therefore suggest creating a piece of paper for each with the following information:
Here’s an example:
| Location: Death Star Detention Centre – A small office with a single corridor leading from it. Cells line the corridor. | |||
| NPCs: One Imperial
Officer – officious Three Imperial Stormtroopers Princess Leia (in a cell) – beautiful but strong-willed |
|||
| Items: None. | |||
| Time | GM | Characters | Actions |
| 10.30 | Steve | Han, Chewie, Luke | Killed the officers and stormtroopers. Released Princess Leia. Escaped into a garbage chute. |
| 10.45 | Gary | Darth Vader | Ordered bodies removed and mess cleared up. Replacement officer/stormtroopers put on guard. |
| 11.05 | Gary | Darth Vader | Returned Princess Leia to holding cell. |
NPCs
NPC is an acronym for non-player character – a character that isn’t being played by a real person.
It can be useful when you’re running a freeform that has been written by someone else to have a list of NPCs that are involved in some way in a plot. Such people might be a murder victim or contact or a long-lost friend or whatever. It’s useful to have a list just in case a player asks for more information about them (and that’s likely to happen).
So for a large or complex freeform I recommend creating an “NPC Bible” which simply lists all the NPCs and what their role is.
It’s a lot easier to create the entries for the NPC Bible as you write the plot, rather than afterwards.
Bit parts
Bit parts are small, unimportant character roles that you can use to add a little colour to your freeform. Few freeforms use Bit Parts (and even then they tend to be very large freeforms), although there are some freeforms that consist of a lot of bit parts (known as “horde” games in some circles).
Bit parts can either be played by dedicated bit part players, or they can be played by the main players as a short break from their “main” character. They may also appear in groups – it’s easy to create a small group of characters as bit parts.
Although we didn’t use them in the end, for Once Upon A Time in Tombstone we once envisaged including some bit parts. This is the sort of thing we were thinking about:
In many cases the bit parts were given a clue to part of a plot to give them something to talk about and get into the game.
Bit parts are written a little like main characters, but much, much shorter – and they are more likely to include specific actions that need to be carried out.
Some plots will require specific rules and systems for them to resolve. Here are some freeforms and the systems they required:
These are some of the things that I’ve seen representing these systems:
In general, the fewer systems you have the better. A large and complex freeform may have many systems, but a smaller freeform might not need any.
Article by Steve Hatherley. Steve is an active freeformer in the UK and has written a number of freeforms. For more information about UK freeforms, please visit uk-freeforms.wikidot.com. Steve is also a partner of Freeform Games LLP and has a website dedicated to freeform-style murder mystery games: http://www.great-murder-mystery-games.com