Writing RPG adventures: How much detail is too much?

I’m playtesting The Dead Undead, the next Other London investigation for Desk 17, the Met’s occult crimes unit. In The Dead Undead, the PCs are investigating murdered vampires.

I wrote the investigation before Christmas, but it’s taken me a few months to get it to the table.

Draft cover for The Dead Undead

I know I’ve been critical about published adventures on my blog recently, so I may be sensitive to how I’ve written the investigation. But as we played, I wondered whether I’d put enough information in.

It’s a balance. I want to include enough detail but not too much. I want to give GMs enough information to run the investigation, but I don’t want to overwhelm them with details or make them worry about getting it “wrong.”

Reddish sand

For example, I wrote, “Audu’s bedroom contains a coffin containing sandy red soil.” (Audu is a vampire.) That’s all I say about the soil.

As the PCs sent the soil for analysis, I decided on the spur of the moment that the results would show that the soil was from Morocco. As a result, I’ve started to give other elements in that location a North African vibe.

That’s just how I’ve done it – I don’t mind if another GM decides differently and decides that the soil comes from Romania, or anywhere.

But because I’ve decided that the soil comes from Morocco, and as I’m the investigation’s author, does that make it canon? Does that mean I should update the text to include that detail?

Questions that set the scene

I try to write Other London investigations in a way that lets the GM (and players) make it their own. Creating characters is collaborative, and the players decide (during session zero) where the Desk 17 office is located, what makes it unusual, and who the support staff are.

Scenes start with a question to get the players to contribute to the scene. (In this case, What do you find unsettling about the sculptures and artwork here?)

I’m telling the reader that it’s okay for them to make the investigation their own. At least, I hope I am.

So, no, it isn’t canonical that the red soil comes from Morocco, and that detail won’t be in the final investigation.

But we’re all different…

Perfect Organism

Perfect Organism is my scenario for the ALIEN rpg set shortly after the events of Aliens – the Colonial Marines and ICC are investigating the loss of the Sulaco.

I’ve written the scenario in the style of a normal ALIEN cinematic scenario with pregens, acts and events for each act.

However, because I write concisely (and I’m not paid by the word…), I’ve not padded it out with unnecessary details. So the events are merely bullet points that the GM can flesh out to suit their game. (Eg, “On the ground, the convicts start coming around, and radio Kathar Station for help.”)

And of course, one piece of feedback wanted me to expand on those bullet points to make them more like the events in Free League’s adventures. As I find Free League’s adventures to be overwritten, I didn’t do that.

We’re all different

We’re all different.

What is too much detail for me might not be enough for someone else. 

But when it’s my game, I get the final decision.

Using AI to write freeform larps at Peaky

At Peaky 2024, I experimented with using AI (mostly ChatGPT) to help write freeforms.

How did that go?

Before Peaky

Ideas are usually discussed on the mailing list in the run-up to Peaky, and I said I wanted to experiment with using ChatGPT during the writing process.

This provoked the inevitable discussion about AI ethics and copyright, which I didn’t really want to get into, but clearly, there’s plenty of concern about using AI.

I explained I wanted to use it for brainstorming and ideas rather than actually generating text, which seemed to ease some concerns.

Steampunk name generator

On Friday night, when we were generating ideas, I didn’t get my laptop out and didn’t think about AI at all. But on Saturday morning, I wanted to start naming our characters. Being lazy, I headed over to the Steampunk name generator over on fantasynamegenerators.com.

While many were splendid, our characters were gender-neutral, so I decided to give ChatGPT a spin and in moments, it gave me several gender-neutral names suitable for our steampunk game.

• Emberlyn Steele
• Asher Grey
• Rowan Brass
• Quinn Gearhart
• Phoenix Thorne
• Skylar Steamwood
• Marlowe Copper
• Sawyer Ironwood
• Ellis Wilde
• Avery Clockwell

We found the surnames a bit cliched, but we used several of the first names. (Yes, we could have come up with those ourselves, but using ChatGPT saved time.)

I also asked for some Martian names and picked one.

Patriarch/matriarch fail

And then I forgot about using ChatGPT, until I was searching for a gender-neutral word for matriarch/patriarch.

I asked ChatGPT, but it was hopeless – I don’t know what it was thinking. (“Dominion Guardian” for patriarch and “Ascendent Sentinel” for matriarch!)

So I just went for “head of the family.”

And that was it for ChatGPT at Peaky, but it wasn’t quite the end of my AI experiment.

Dinosaurs for the win

Our game is set on Mars and has dinosaurs in it. We call them “marisaurs.”

Just as we were finishing writing, I asked Artflow for a picture of a “dinosaur on Mars”. And then I forgot about it.

When I came home, I remembered that I’d asked for the picture and sure enough, it gave me a picture of a dinosaur on Mars. You can tell it's a Marisaur because it has three legs! (I don't know if that's because AI art is crap, or it knows that Mars = tripods. I have my suspicions, though.)

After Peaky: content warnings

I was working through some of the comments from the players at Peaky, and one piece of feedback was that we ought to have some content warnings.

My first reaction was, “Really?” as we had deliberately made everyone equal, but the players pointed out that Steampunk could have colonialism themes. (I have blind spots on things like this; because I don’t find content warnings useful, I forget that some people do.)

So as I have blindspots, I thought I’d ask ChatGPT. Sure enough, it gave me ten:

• Violence and Combat: Expect intense combat scenes, potential gore, and steampunk weaponry.
• Colonialism and Cultural Sensitivity: Steampunk settings can unintentionally echo colonial themes; be cautious with depictions of Mars and its inhabitants to avoid harmful stereotypes or implications.
• Substance Use: If the game includes elements like steampunk-era drugs, alcohol, or smoking, this should be noted.
• Slavery and Oppression: Address the historical context of industrialization; avoid glorifying or minimizing systemic oppression.
• Classism and Discrimination: Consider how class structures and discrimination are portrayed in the game.
• Body Horror and Modification: Some steampunk settings might feature cybernetic modifications or body horror elements.
• Death and Loss: The storyline might include characters dying or mourning the loss of others.
• Language and Profanity: Highlight if there's strong language or profanity.
• Sexual Content and Themes: If there are sexual themes, innuendos, or explicit scenes, players should be aware.
• Mental Health and Trauma: Be mindful of depicting mental health issues or trauma, ensuring sensitivity and avoiding stereotypes.

Ten is a suspiciously round number (I didn’t ask for ten), and as the last four aren’t unique to steampunk (and aren’t appropriate for our game anyway), I think ChatGPT may have padded the list out. But it’s a good summary and contains points I wouldn’t have thought of (such as body horror for the cybernetic modifications).

I’ve summarised this as: Content warning: This is not a serious game. Victorian tropes of sexism, colonialism, class-ism, discrimination, slavery, and oppression have no place in The Canals of Mars. Everyone is equal on Mars (although some characters may think they are more powerful than others). (Again, that’s a first draft. The other writers have yet to amend it.)

Unfinished business

So there we go.

ChatGPT made a few things quicker and simpler, but it’s certainly not a paradigm change. At least, not for 2024.

Preparing freeform larps for others to run

I've now created a separate site for Writing Freeform Larps, and I've moved this post there.

You can read it here.

All Flesh is Grass - on Itch.io

All Flesh is Grass is now available to download for free on Itch.io.

All Flesh is Grass? What’s that?

All Flesh is Grass is a short freeform-larp for 13 players set in 1965 Wisconsin. It takes around two hours to play. 

It is August 1965. Yesterday, the residents of Millville in Grant County, Wisconsin (pop. 164) woke to discover a mysterious barrier around their village. Through trial and error, they found that the barrier lets no life pass through it – only inanimate objects.

Yesterday evening, a short story about the barrier appeared on page 3 of the Fennimore Herald.

Today, at lunchtime, Senator Wilson and representatives of the federal government meet with the mayor of Millville in a large tent erected across the barrier on the road to Bridgeport.

The barrier itself is invisible but stretchy. Trying to walk through it is like trying to walk while being pulled back by elastic bands. Eventually, the force is too great and throws you back.

That sounds vaguely familiar

All Flesh is Grass is based on the 1965 science fiction first-contact novel of the same name by Clifford D Simak. There are a few differences, but if you’ve read the novel, you’ll know what’s going on.

That doesn’t mean you know what to do about it, of course…

Didn’t you write another alien larp recently?

Yes, I’m writing a series of first-contact freeform larps, all in the same universe and featuring some of the same characters.

The first was The Roswell Incident, and that has been published by Freeform Games.

Coming up after All Flesh is Grass is Children of the Stars (set in 1983), Messages from Callisto (1993) and The Stars our Destination (1999) – and more planned, but at this point are little more than twinkles in my eye.

Sounds great! Who do the players play?

The players play either villagers or members of the government who are here to help.

Millville folk

• Morris: Retired carpet sales rep and Millville’s head council member
• Constable Martin: A police constable
• Carter: A real-estate/insurance business owner
• Sherwood: A gadget manufacturer
• Preston: Local reporter and council member
• Flanagan: Retired school principal and council member

Out-of-towners

• Senator Wilson: Senator for Wisconsin
• General Billings: US Army general.
• Shaw: Aide to the senator
• Dr Blake: Government scientist
• Captain Yip: USAF officer
• Agent Franz: FBI agent
• Jamie Flanagan: Chicago doctor

One player gets to play two characters – Jamie Flanagan and Captain Yip.

Huh? Why make give two characters to one player?

This occurred during the writing process and was an accident. 

When I started the project, I was talking about my ideas with a friend who suggested I should write the games for the same number of players. I thought this was a good idea, and as The Roswell Incident was for 13 players, so was All Flesh is Grass (and all the games since).

As I started writing, my original plan was that all the characters would be played by one player, and The Voice (the mysterious character not in the list above) would be an NPC or played by me. But as I wrote, I realised it would be better if The Voice were played by a player.

Ahah – that means you have 14 characters and 13 players!

Exactly.

I looked at merging characters, but I realised that two characters could easily be played by one person. I’ve played two characters in the same freeform before, and it has been a lot of fun. (It’s also a design space I think we can do more with.)

So I decided to keep all 14 characters and have one player take two.

I’ve run the game twice so far, and in each run, the players adapted to the situation without batting an eyelid. Feedback suggested that my approach worked well – and so I didn’t feel the need to change anything.

How did you decide who gets to play the split character?

I made it clear in the signup and casting forms that one player would play two characters (and which ones they would play), helping the players decide whether they wanted to play two characters or not. More on that here.

Sounds great! Where can I get it?

You can get All Flesh is Grass over on Itch.io.

Turning Writing Freeform Larps into an ebook

I've now created a separate site for Writing Freeform Larps, and I've moved this post there.

You can read it here.

Receiving feedback

Peaky was only last week and is always a good time to reflect on feedback. It’s something I find both rewarding and difficult.

It’s rewarding because feedback is a great way to improve. It’s difficult because I have thin skin, and sometimes I take criticism a little too personally. But I’ve learned to deal with that.

But I’m not going to talk about Peaky feedback; instead, I’m looking at the feedback for Writing Freeform Larps. (But my overall response, and the process, are much the same.)

I had the first draft of Writing Freeform Larps done in January, and I asked on the uk-freeforms mailing list for volunteers to give me some feedback. I had a few responses, so I sent pdfs of the book to my volunteers – and waited.

Red reviews

Luckily, I’m used to receiving feedback. For the last decade or so, I’ve been a bid writer (and bid manager) on numerous tenders. Part of the tender process always includes a review (we used to call this red review), which can be punishing.

I always warn new bid writers that red reviews can be punishing. It feels like personal criticism. However, I find it helps to remember that the reviewers are not criticising the writer (well, they shouldn’t be) – everyone simply wants to make the bid as good as possible.

I’ve weathered plenty of these, but I still find receiving feedback a little challenging.

Feedback

I go through several stages when receiving feedback.

Initial response: When the email lands in my inbox, my first response is an immediate adrenaline spike. What will they think? Will they like it? I then read through the feedback, from start to finish, without thinking too hard.

It’s always tempting to defend my work – that’s almost always a mistake. If someone misreads something or has a reaction I didn’t expect, I try not to get defensive. Instead, I try to work out what I need to change to ensure I convey my message more clearly.

(At Peaky, most feedback is given verbally. I find it best to record it in my notebook rather than try and engage with the feedback at that point.)

Wait: As I know my initial reaction is to reject any criticism or suggested changes, I usually wait a day or two to process the suggestions. I’ll try not to think about them in this period, but I know that by leaving a gap between the first read and when I come to action them, I will be in a more positive state of mind.

(During bids, I didn’t always get the luxury of waiting this long, unfortunately.)

Reviewing the feedback and making changes: My process for dealing with the suggestions was straightforward: I printed the suggestions and then worked through them, crossing out each suggestion once I had finished with it.

Sometimes I worked methodically through the feedback; sometimes I flitted from one piece to another.

For Writing Freeform Larps, I got feedback at different times. So once I’d completed that, I asked those who hadn’t commented whether they wanted an updated copy. One advantage that gave me was that I didn’t get contradictory feedback. (It wasn’t unusual to get contradictory feedback during red reviews.)

Accepting feedback

For Writing Freeform Larps, I accepted about 80% of the suggestions. All suggestions had some merit – but some pushed the book into a direction I wasn’t interested in or wasn’t how I would write a freeform larp.

Often, the feedback made me adjust the text, even if I didn’t directly respond to the suggestion.

Second edition

So now that Writing Freeform Larps is published, if I get any more feedback I want to include, I must decide: do I update the files immediately or wait for a second edition? We’ll see. 

(And I'm pleased to say, the feedback I’ve received so far has been overwhelmingly positive.)

Writing Writing Freeform Larps

I've now created a separate site for Writing Freeform Larps, and I've moved this post there.

You can read it here.

Always playtesting

It never ends, does it?

I recently re-ran The Fallen, a short Fate Accelerated Edition investigation for a couple of friends. It’s set in modern-day London, with the characters working for Desk 17, the weird department of the Metropolitan police.

The Fallen scene 1: Victoria Station Burger King

As was inevitable, the PCs did something slightly different to previous runs. Something I hadn’t thought of.

As this is a scenario on my website for publication, I felt I needed to update it. 

And so, I have. (You can download it here.)

Similarly, I am preparing Perfect Organism, my ALIEN scenario, for Furnace. And I’ve already spotted a few changes I need to make—and that’s before it hits the table. Once I’ve run it, I have no doubt there will be more changes.

The same goes every time I run a freeform.

Always improving

In a sentiment credited to numerous people, scenarios are never finished—they are abandoned. And each time I pick them up to rerun them, I find something to improve.

It never ends.

Current writing projects

Here are my current projects

Vanished in Vegas

Vanished in Vegas is the next game from Freeform Games. It’s pretty much written, and Mo is happy with it. I’m now going through it and giving it an edit, tightening up the language and making sure it’s clear and easy to run for hosts.

It should be done in a couple of months—certainly by the end of the year.

A steampunk game

Another project for Freeform Games, I’m working on a private commission for a steampunk game for 30-40 people. I promised this by the end of October, and there may be more work after that.

Children of the Stars

Children of the Stars is the third episode in my ongoing first-contact series of freeforms (which has an overall title of The Fermi Solution, but I may change that).

I’ve been writing this over the summer, and I will run it in a couple of weeks. (I am preparing more posts on the writing process, so expect those to start soon.)

After that, I have two thoughts. The first is to write the next freeform, but I may also go back and see if I can turn The Roswell Incident (episode #1) into something for Freeform Games.

How I write freeforms: the book

I’ve been writing articles about writing freeforms longer for almost as long as I have been writing freeforms themselves. This article is the core of the book—the overall process I use for writing freeforms.

I’ve taken this and other articles and am picking the best and improving them.

Interestingly, there are sections I find that I haven’t written stuff on (such as the structure of a freeform).

This will not only serve as guidance for writing freeforms but also as something I can direct potential Freeform Games authors to. It will be nice to have something in one place.

I plan to publish this on Lulu when I get it done—probably in 2023 at my current rate of progress.

Tales of Terror website

Tales of Terror was my first ever website, hand-coded in 1993. It’s gone through a couple of iterations since then.

Over the years, I collected over three hundred tales, which for a few years were languishing on my hard drives.

I’ve since started uploading them to their new home. There are now over 200, with about 100 to upload before I’m done. At my present rate, I should be done in a couple of years.

Great Murder Mystery Games

www.great-murder-mystery-games.com is my murder mystery games website. It’s where I promote freeform-style murder mystery games—not only those from Freeform Games but other publishers as well.

The site feels fairly mature to me—there’s not much more content I feel I need to add. However, I spend a few minutes each week on site maintenance (tweaking pages, cutting text, clarifications) because I don’t want Google to think it’s a “dead” site.

Enough for now

I think that’s enough for now!

A rant about game jargon

I just need to get this out of my system.

Technical language, or jargon, helps communication—particularly within a specialism.

But I don’t like using jargon to exclude outsiders.

So I am frustrated by some game jargon where the terminology has an everyday meaning different from its use as jargon.

It’s frustrating because it’s opaque, and it doesn’t help make our hobby more inclusive.

So my most hated game jargon:

Bluesheet

This originated in theatre-style larps for general background sheets. A group of characters, say US spies, would have a common background sheet explaining what US spies do and their goals. This saved copying it onto each character sheet, and ensures that everyone gets the game information. And because they were usually printed on blue sheets of paper, they became known as bluesheets.

And although I can’t remember the last time I saw one printed on blue paper, the term bluesheet lingers on. 

What’s wrong with background sheet or info sheet?

Bid (as in to bid a game)

This comes from Intercon, I think, and is now part of the UK’s lexicon for Consequences. To ensure a reasonable quality, all larps must be approved by the convention committee. That’s fine—I approve of that. Except that the process of submitting a game for proposal is called bidding.

Bidding?

That’s not what bidding normally means, but it seems too late to call it what it really is: submitting.

Module

I blame D&D for this. In D&D, when someone says module, they mean adventure or scenario. Module has perfectly good dictionary definitions (these are from the Cambridge Dictionary):

• one of a set of separate parts that, when combined, form a complete whole
• one of the units that together make a complete course, taught especially at a college or university
• a part of a spacecraft that can operate independently of the other parts, especially when separate from them.

None of these explain how an adventure came to be described as a module.

Freeform

So I know exactly what I mean when I say a freeform: a self-contained live-action roleplaying game with pre-generated characters, simulated combat and limited running time. (Typified, I guess, by the murder mystery games we publish at Freeform Games.)

Now I know that’s a rubbish term—at the time (in the 1990s), we (in the UK at least) were differentiating our games from ‘live-action’ larps, which typically meant running around outside with rubber swords.

Anyway, larp terminology changes across the world—we don’t have a common language and now freeform means different things.

What I mean when I say freeform is also known as theatre-style, or chamber larps, or secrets and powers larps. 

But freeform also now has other meanings—American Freeform is something else (although I’m not sure what), and in the Nordic scene, freeform means something else again.

I can take my fair share of the blame for promoting the term in the UK. I set up the uk-freeforms mailing list and UK-Freeforms Facebook Group, and I called my company ‘Freeform Games’. (Although Morgana Cowling’s 1989 The Freeform Book was extremely influential.)

I now call my games freeform larps, which is still a little imprecise, but I don’t have a better name for them. 

My writing is getting worse. And better. (Grammarly, PerfectIt and WordRake.)

Grammarly, PerfectIt and WordRake are add-on writing aids for Microsoft Word. They do slightly different things, which is why I haven’t been able to give up any of them. We’ll take them in the order I used them.

As with any writing aid, take their suggestions with a pinch of salt. Even though I don’t always accept their recommendations, they always make me stop and think.

I’m not sure how valuable they are for fiction writers. However, I write games and clearly expressing myself is essential, so I find these tools help.

PerfectIt

PerfectIt is proofreading software, and essentially it does lots of checks on your text to ensure consistency.

Spotting different version of cooperate/co-operate

So it does things like check that your bullet points and tables are consistent and that you’ve spelt words consistently (learned/learnt, co-operate/cooperate). I first used it when I was a bid manager in Jacobs, and it was invaluable in checking that our text was consistent and professional before submission.

Perfectit has loads of checks. For example, it picks up where you’ve used an acronym but not explained it, and also where you’ve explained an acronym but then haven’t used it again.

I now use it mainly for my Freeform Games work, and I find it catches easy-to-miss errors that would take me an age to catch.

WordRake

WordRake checks your work for clarity, removes redundant words, and tightens everything up. In addition, I found it draws attention to phrases I tend to overuse—in my case I use ‘a bit’ too often.

Always check each suggestion

WordRake is great at eliminating unnecessary words, making my writing shorter and punchier.

Grammarly

Grammarly is the editor everyone has heard of, and it’s pretty good. It picks up a wide range of grammar issues and makes them easy to correct. (It also picks up consistency issues but isn’t as thorough as PerfectIt.)

Grammarly makes it easy to make changes - just click the button

Grammarly has a free version, with basic spelling and grammar checks. But the paid version is better. I used the free version for about a week before trying the full version—and I haven’t regretted it.

However, I wish Grammarly used the document language when checking for spelling. I’ve set Grammarly for UK English, but we prepare our games for a US audience for Freeform Games. So Grammarly suggests changing color, recognize and so on. It’s a little annoying.

My workflow

My writing/editing workflow is now:

1. Write/edit the text.
2. Run Wordrake to tighten it up and remove unnecessary words.
3. Run Grammarly to sort out other issues.
4. Run PerfectIt to check consistency.
5. Read through it again to make sure I’ve not missed anything.

(And then 6, publish/submit it, followed by 7, spot another obvious error.)

You can’t proofread your own work

The best thing about these tools is that they catch lots of small errors I miss when proofreading my own work. They don’t catch everything, but they’re pretty good.

The worst thing is that I’ve grown used to having these tools to hand, making me sloppy. They don’t stop me from making mistakes, but they make it more likely that I don’t spot them.

Mistakes still slip through, so they’re no replacement for another pair of eyes.

If I only had one

I would pick Grammarly. While I continue to write and edit professionally, I’m happy to use all three. But if I was on a budget, I’d keep Grammarly.