Steve Hatherley
When I first started writing freeforms, I found writing plots really difficult. I didn’t know how to do it and the fact that they worked was down mainly to a lot of hard work and checking.
Now, and several freeforms and many years later, I find that plots are pretty easy to write. That’s partly down to experience, but mainly due to the fact that I have a system.
This is it.
A plot is nothing more than something to do. If you have one character talking to another due to something written on their character sheet, then you’ve created a plot.
Plots vary in size from massive conspiracies that involve everyone in the game to tiny little filler plots that affect only a small number of characters. They’re all written in exactly the same way.
Plots also tend to have the same sort of features, such as:
Features of good plots:
I now follow a fairly standard process when I’m writing a freeform, and I don’t start writing plots until I’ve got a good idea of what the freeform is about or who the characters are going to be. (I know that sounds like very basic stuff, but you might be surprised at how many freeforms I had to write before I worked that out.)
The whole process itself is mapped out here – The Freeform Writing Process.
Coming up with an idea for a plot is both the easiest and the hardest bit. The first few plots are always very easy to write – but that’s because of all the steps that have happened earlier in the process. So by the time I come to write the first plot, I’ve got a pretty good idea of the kinds of things that I want to happen in my freeform.
For example, when I wrote Hollywood Lies I knew I wanted these sorts of things:
I find that it gets harder when I am writing “filler” plots – small plots that can involve a small number of people to make sure that they are as busy and having as much time as those characters in the early plots.
If you're struggling to come up with ideas for plots, do what authors the world over have done – steal! In the same way that Seven Samurai became The Magnificent Seven, I get inspiration for my plots from all sorts of fiction (novels, movies, television). It's true that they do often need some reworking so that they fit my freeform's setting – but that also helps to disguise their origins.
My next step is to write the plot out in bullet points so that I know who is involved and to what extent.
The idea of this stage is to work out an overall plan for the plot. I try and differentiate between those that have goals and aims (ie, the plot’s main movers) and those who just have knowledge or clues.
Here’s an example: The Council of Elrond
Finally I then write out the plot fully in a single document. During this stage, I assume that whatever I write will end up on the character sheets. My plan is to take the text that I’ve written in the plot document, and paste it into the relevant character sheets.
Here are a couple of examples: Enoch Flint’s Revolver, The Whistable Society
If I’ve done my job properly, then I shouldn’t need to do much rewriting – and as I write each plot, the characters are effectively writing themselves. (Inevitably there is some final editing to make sure that character sheets flow. But hopefully that’s about it.)
The next stage is to cut and paste the various sections into their final homes – whether that’s the character sheets, rulebook, background notes or wherever.
Once I’ve updated the character sheets and rulebook and everything else, if I make further changes I only make brief notes to the plot document. Keeping the plot document fully up to date at this stage is just making work for myself. I do, however, update it if I make significant changes (such as add an extra character).
With the plot written out in a single document, it’s pretty easy to check for inconsistencies and irregularities. For example, it becomes obvious if you’ve described an event in one place but missed it elsewhere.
It’s also easy to add extra characters if you need to complicate the plot – you just add them to the plot.
One of the important features of a freeform is that everyone is the star – there should be no favourites, and the king should be as important as the lowliest slave. So it’s important to check that all the characters have a roughly equal amount of plot.
There are two basic rules that I use to do this – the first is the plot matrix (which I describe in The Freeform Writing Process) and the other is the plot database (which I describe in Creating a Plot Database using Zoho.com).
The two are basically similar, but I prefer the plot database as it is much more flexible than the matrix and gives me a better feel for the overall structure of my freeform. (My experience at Freeform Games suggests that the database works much better than the matrix - the matrix doesn't work if the author doesn't understand how to score character involvement. This is less of a problem in the database as I can easily see how the character is involved and, if necessary, adjust the score myself.)
In both cases, scoring the characters’ involvement in their plots is important – if you get the scoring wrong then you will end up with an inaccurate idea of how involved that character is.
So here’s how I do it – using Enoch Flint’s Revolver as an example. I use a score of 1 to 5, with 5 being “this plot will keep me very busy” to 1 being “This plot is incidental to me – I know a piece of information, but that’s about it.”
In general, if the character has a goal, then I score them at least 3. If they don’t have a goal, then the most they will score is 3.
| Character | Score | Reasons for my score |
| Enoch Flint | 3 | This is a relatively minor plot, and it’s unlikely to take up much of Enoch’s time. |
| Jenny Flint | 2 | This is mostly character info – Jenny doesn’t have a goal. |
| William Black | 4 | William needs to sell the revolver, so it’s relatively important for him. |
| John Savage | 2 | This is relatively trivial for John. |
| Meg Squire | 1 | Meg only has information, so she scores 1. |
| Hilary Forrest | 3 | Hilary scores 3 because he/she needs a gun. |
| Sam Metcalf | 3 | Sam scores 3 because he/she needs a gun. |
| Pat Gunn | 2 | Pat scores a 2 because even though he/she has a goal, I don’t feel that this particular plot is likely to be that involving for him/her. |
In general I prefer to score low rather than high, because I’d rather my players had too much to do than too little. (If I were to err on the high side, then I might think that my characters had plenty of plot when in fact they have very little.)
Obviously, this is all very subjective. However, the actual score is unimportant – the important thing is that each character has roughly the same score.
Once you’ve completed your plot matrix or database, it’s likely that you find a few characters that are a few points short. So what do you do when you find that characters A, D and H are a little too light?
You have two options – you can either shoehorn them into an existing plot, or create a completely new plot.
Adding characters to existing plots needs to be done very carefully. It’s relatively easy to give a character a snippet of information about a plot, but just giving characters lots of information is unlikely to make them fun to play. To really work, you need to get them involved in the plot, and that usually means giving them a goal to work with. If you’re plots are complete, it may not be easy to add another character.
A better alternative is to come up with one or two new plots that characters A, D and H can be heavily involved in to make sure they have enough to do. It’s likely that any plot you come up with will spill over into other characters – but that’s unlikely to do any harm (unless you end up giving more goals to already busy characters, in which case you may end up back where you started).
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