Aha! We're glad you asked. A Freeform is a roleplaying event somewhere between a table-top game and LRP (Live Role-Playing). Characters are assigned to players and pre-written by the organisers, complete with their own secrets and plots, in a similar fashion to the Murder Mysteries that you can now get in boxed sets. Freeforms tend to be a good order of magnitude more complex, and can include several murders to investigate or cover-up, romances, back-stabbing and political machinations, and anything else that might fit. Where possible, the organisers try to get a visually impressive venue, and people usually turn up in appropriate costume, so the whole thing is somewhat of a spectacle. The number of players involved varies, generally from about twenty to about seventy people, and the event can go on from about four hours to three days or so, depending on how much material is available.
By the way, should the term 'roleplaying' be a complete mystery to the casual reader, we're not going to explain it here. Have a trawl round the Web. There's enough there on the subject to keep you busy for a few years.
We're a writing collective who have so far run one Freeform, The Feast of All Souls, on 13th - 14th December 1997, at St. Briavel's Castle in South Wales (that's in the UK, overseas reader). We made no profit from doing all this stuff - it was strictly a labour of love. The plots and characters continue to be available to the players who were in FOAS at no charge. Since our last update (some time ago, we admit), we have learned that neither White Wolf nor Steve Jackson Games want (or are able) to publish FOAS, and so it may (eventually) be possible for the whole thing to become public property...
As is inevitable once you start with these things, we intend to write and run more Freeforms in the future. A sequel to FOAS is in the pipeline, although it won't be the next event - we have plans for an entirely unconnected one-off Freeform. This currently bears the title 'The King's Demons'. (Since this was written, TKD has been unfortunately put on indefinite hold, for a variety of reasons. Yet freeforms live on - see Other Writers.)
The first undertaking for Mortal Wombat was a fifty-seven player Freeform using White Wolf's Vampire: The Masquerade. The background, however, was heavily based on the tabletop campaign which Debbie Gallagher runs, set in Victorian London. Debbie has developed a different timeline to that White Wolf suggest, and it has only a few similarities with White Wolf's World of Darkness. For example, in FOAS, the Kingdom of London is under the rule of Prince Ana the Dove, who slew her Ventrue Sire Mithras in AD 388 and took the throne for Her own. She prefers the term 'Prince', by the way. The players take the roles of resident Vampires and Ghouls, as well as various visiting dignitaries and the like from all over the world. FOAS is set in 1888, a significant year for London in several respects (stop that muttering at the back; the Jack the Ripper mystery was just one of many plots at the Feast - the writers felt that it has been covered too often elsewhere).
This Website includes the introduction from the Who's Who for FOAS, and you can also download the whole Who's Who from there, should that whet your appetite. There are also a few selections from the Recent Events for the Freeform, and again you can download the whole lot, if you so desire. The full story can only be understood by reading the character sheets, however...
FOAS ran overnight, lasting eight hours (it has since been commented that we had enough material for another eight hours or so, and in retrospect this was probably true).
Also scattered across these pages are some pictures taken at FOAS of our barmy players in their finery. We were delighted and flattered at the effort people put into their costumes and their roleplaying; take a look at the pix and you'll see what we mean.
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