Scalable Character Creation in Trohetslöften
Editorial note: This article was originally published in the Knutpunkt 2026 book Seasons of Larp. It has been reprinted from there with the editors’ and authors’ permission. It has not been edited by Nordiclarp.org.
How can we reduce the amount of work we put into character writing while still delivering high quality, well connected characters? I have pondered this question through the years. For many designers, the character-writing process is both the most pleasurable part of organising, and at the same time a source of stress and burnout due to the sheer amount of work that is needed for a large larp.
I was very excited when I learned about a way of doing it that has seemed to work very well both for the designers and the players. For the larp Trohetslöften (Sweden, 2025. Eng. Pledges of Allegiance), Mimmi Lundkvist, Alma Elofsson Edgar and Rosalind Göthberg designed a set of 15 reusable characters for a 45-player larp. This design reduced the workload for the organisers and had the added benefits of making it easier for the players to have an overview of all the characters in the larp, and to have mirror characters that gave perspective to their own.
In this article I will first give a short description of the larp and describe the concept. We will get some player perspectives based on their feedback forms. Then I’ll let the designers tell you more about how they got this idea and chose to use it for this larp, what sort of larps they recommend using this process for, and some tips for people who might get inspired. I will finish off with some thoughts about how I would use this inspiration.
What is Trohetslöften?
Trohetslöften is a larp about common people in 17th century Sweden. It is a story about the devastating consequences of big politics and war, and at the same time, a story about everyday life and the small and big joys in life, told through the events of weddings and conscription.
The larp was designed and run by Mimmi, Rosalind and Alma through the organisation Bread and Games in July 2025, in the larp village Berghem in Skillingaryd. It had 45 players and lasted two days, with on-site workshops, approximately 24 hours of playtime, and an evening of debrief and afterparty.
The concept: sets of reusable characters as opposed to unique characters
In the Nordic larp tradition, the most common way of creating characters is that the designers write a set of characters that together form the ensemble of the larp. The characters usually have a written description that can range from three sentences to 25 pages, with a typical character being 1–2 pages of character background, personality, relationships to other characters, motivations and other relevant information. Most importantly in this context: The characters are usually unique. For a larp for 45 players, you write 45 different characters.
One set of characters makes a small larp
For Trohetslöften Mimmi, Alma and Rosalind designed a set of only 15 characters. These 15 characters were divided into three families that together formed a neighbourhood within the village. All relationships were contained within the neighbourhood, and the players only needed to learn who the characters in their own neighbourhood were. In this way, the neighbourhood functioned as a small larp in the larger larp. The rest of the larp became a backdrop for the small larp, providing play opportunities with extras and more spontaneous relationships.
Three sets of characters makes a larger larp
The designers used three of these sets to make up a village of 45 characters. If they had wanted a larger village, they could have added a fourth or a fifth set, without much more work than adding new names.
Each of the characters and each of the families had a name starting with a different letter of the alphabet. In this way, the players could recognise who was who in the other neighbourhoods. Since they knew that for instance Kirstin in their neighbourhood was the mother of the bride, they knew that this was the case for Kajsa and Katarina in the two other neighbourhoods too. In this article, I will refer to this as ‘same letter characters’.
Character shells for co-creation and making the characters distinct
The characters were fairly simple. On the webpage they were described as ‘character shells’ that the player would have to fill in based on questions. Similarly, the families had a very basic structure, but the rest had to be fleshed out by the players, based on a set of specific questions. This was done in a digital workshop, and filled into the family document. The neighbourhood was not described beyond a name.
The characters had a description of who they were, of how the character was perceived, their family, their relationships and a dilemma. In addition they had some questions the player needed to fill in, to flesh out the character and the relationships.
For instance, one character had an injury that would make them ineligible for conscription. The character sheet had some concrete questions for the player to answer like: ‘Did you hurt yourself to avoid conscription? Could you have saved yourself, but still let the trunk fall? Or was it a complete accident?’
The character also had a relationship marked by conflict. It had the accompanying questions: ‘How long has the animosity between you been going on? Have you always been in conflict, or were you friends previously? In that case, when did the friendship turn sour, what happened? How is your animosity evident to you and others?’
In this way, the frame of the character was designed by the organisers, but detailed by the players. This gives more ownership to the character’s story, personality and values, and it is easier to remember details when you have made them up yourself.
Characters in the Nordic larp tradition sometimes have a list of questions that are meant as inspiration to make the player reflect on how they can make the character come to life, and the process for Trohetslöften might not seem too different from that. One of the most important reasons for letting the players fill things in here, though, was that this process made the characters that were based on the same, reusable character text distinct from each other.
Player perspectives
I first heard about this idea because I met three very enthusiastic players at a party. What they told me is echoed in the feedback forms from other players. Although there is always a chance that players who didn’t like the concept have opted out of giving feedback, a significant part of the players gave very positive feedback.
The neighbourhoods
‘The neighbourhoods with lettered characters were an innovation. Without having learned the others’ details, it worked to make an illusion of a village where we knew each other.’
‘It was easy to understand the dynamic [of the other neighbourhoods] as they were directly parallel to ours.’
‘It was very good to get to know so much about the other neighbourhoods just based on their names!’
‘Our neighbourhood filled all my needs for play. I didn’t play with the others, and didn’t miss it. But I liked the concept that several neighbourhoods created a village.’
One player thought the designers could have communicated clearer that the neighbourhoods also had the same letter, and that each neighbourhood had a specific naming culture (Norse, Christian, Germanic) to make it easier to understand what neighbourhood a character was part of.
Several players said they would have liked time in the workshop to talk between the neighbourhoods, for instance for the servants to talk together, or to form relationships.
Co-creation
Some players said it was challenging to organise themselves and would have appreciated help. They also acknowledged that they knew what they signed up for.
One player said they had a hard time fleshing out the character on their own, without the context and an understanding of the other characters and the whole drama, but that it got better after talking with the player who played their sibling. Others liked the balance between what they got from the designers, and what they had to create for themselves.
Same letter characters
When it comes to playing with their same letter characters, people had different approaches. One player was not disturbed by playing with them, but avoided going too deep into family dynamics. Another player avoided playing with the others of the same letter, because they were afraid it would be too silly. Others were very happy about playing with them.
‘I played [X] and had a lot of play with the other [X’s]. It was fun to know they were in the same situation, were marrying their daughter off etc.’
‘I played a lot with the other [Z]’s. It felt good to get to develop the character on our own, so they felt different. […] I think we would have benefitted if those of us who played the same character had gotten to talk about the similarities and differences between us in the workshop.’
Interview with the designers
Mimmi, Alma and Rosalind have worked together in different constellations. Mimmi and Alma made Lindängen Riksinternat (Sweden, 2013 Eng. State Boarding School of Lindängen), and Rosalind and Alma have made Den utan synd (Sweden, 2019. Eng. The One Without Sin) together with Siri Sandquist. All of them together have made Snapphaneland (Sweden, 2022) and Trohetslöften (Sweden, 2025). They like to explore themes like social realism, reality, common people, and historical questions.
When I talked to them about the design, they told me they had a very good time organizing Snapphaneland together, and wanted to do a new project with the same group. During a planning weekend for the rerun of Snapphaneland, they watched a TV-series on Swedish history, about weddings and military conscription in the 1600s, and got inspired to make Trohetslöften.
How did you come up with the idea of writing sets of character shells, instead of individual fully written characters?
We had floated some ideas for a different way of creating characters between us for a while, so when we got the idea for Trohetslöften we saw that this was a larp where we could experiment with our process for character writing. We had three sources of inspiration.
A larp in the larp
The first is the larp Fortune and Felicity (Sweden, 2017) that Mimmi and Rosalind designed characters for. Fortune and Felicity is a Jane Austen inspired Regency larp. The larp was for approximately 100 players, divided into four groups. All relationships and groups were shaped within the group, and the other three groups / 75 players served as a backdrop, a larger community around the players’ native group. In this way, each player only had to learn who the people in their own group were, but had the possibility to play with the full larp.
We saw that this gave the benefit of both a small larp where you can have the overview of the characters paired with the benefits of a large larp where you can feel that your character is part of something bigger. We wanted to see if we could do something similar.
Workshop weekends in a digital format
The second source of inspiration is the sort of character creation we used to do in pre-larp workshops 10-15 years ago. When we made Lindängen, we had our players gather for a full weekend of workshop four weeks before the larp. In this workshop we led the players through a process where they co-created their own characters and their own groups.
We believe that this way of creating characters gives the players more ownership to their characters and the whole experience, and empowers them to take charge of their larp experience. They get a character they want to play, and they learn both their own character and those around them better.
We still believe that a good workshop process is needed to make sure everyone is in line with the vision and themes of the larp, and that the power balances work out. However, we didn’t think that our players would commit to a workshop weekend these days, and we had limited time for on-site workshops, and so we asked ourselves: ‘How can we get as much of these benefits as possible, without running a workshop weekend?’ We figured we would have to do it digitally, and then we asked ourselves what the players would need from us.
Character sheet as a questionnaire
The third source of inspiration was that Rosalind and Alma have experimented with making characters based off a questionnaire and a two-line character concept for Perfect Match (2023), but there the characters didn’t know each other. We were curious to see how we could make it work for a larp with pre-existing relations.
Did you save time and work creating the characters this way?
It probably took us longer to write the individual characters. In creating the characters as a mix of prewritten and questions for the players to fill out, we had to make a lot of decisions, like what questions should they answer, what should be in what part of the character or the family, who should decide what?
Since we have written two larps in a similar setting, we could probably have written these characters quite swiftly based on that previous experience. So, it took us at least as much time to write the characters in this format as it would have to just write them out. But when we could multiply the sets of characters, instead of writing 15, 30, 45 more characters, that’s where we saved time.
When we decided what needed to be pre-written by us and what could be answered by the players, we needed to take into account whether the players had the competency to be able to answer the question in line with the historical setting or not. For instance, we had a couple of siblings who were born out of wedlock, and in the 17th century that was nowhere near as shameful as it became later. When writing historical larps, it can be tricky with the things that changed between the 17th and 19th century, as the 19th century has shaped more of what players think of as ‘the olden days’. The good thing was that we knew we would have a lot of players that had played our previous 17th century larps, so they already had a certain grip on the era.
So how did it work out?
We must say it went beyond our expectations. We were particularly happy with a few things. One was that the same letter characters could be a mirror to your own story. One player told us how impactful it was to see how one of the others chose a different fate than her. Several of the players also reported having very nice play with the other same letter characters.
Another strength the players pointed out was that they only needed to learn who the 15 characters in their neighbourhood were to be able to read the basic concepts and the dynamics of the rest of the larp. It made the village a living place with much less effort for the players.
The biggest benefit from our point of view is that the players felt more ownership of the larp. In the workshops between acts they took more and more charge of the process. Since there were only 15 people to coordinate and not all 45, they had a good overview and could take responsibility for the development.
The people playing the neighbourhoods also got to know each other well and knew each others’ stories. This created a strong community feeling among the players.
Were there any weaknesses with this design?
We should have thought about what we would do if we got dropouts and replacements after the family workshops, and communicated to the players how we wanted them to handle that. We should have decided whether the replacement would get any say in shaping the character and the family, or if they would just take over what the dropout had been part of planning.
We also knew that when we outsourced part of the character work to the players, they would engage with it to a varying degree. There was some frustration when the players couldn’t get hold of everyone in their family to have a meeting. At the same time, we clearly communicated on the website that the players organising themselves was a precondition for us to organise the larp.
What sort of larps do you think this process works well for?
We think this works well for larps where the players get a very unified story, where the characters are expected to experience very similar things, where you want to design for a streamlined experience.
It works well to spread out play on the main themes of the larp, here it was the wedding and conscription. In a regular larp there would probably be only one wedding. Here there was one in each neighbourhood, which meant everyone was involved somehow.
A larp like this probably only works if you have a super clear vision. It must be evident to the players what the designers want to bring to life. We made a very clear homepage, and leaned on herd competency of players that had played our larps before.
On the other hand, the sets of reusable characters would not be right for a larp like Den utan synd. In that larp, what happens to the whole village is what is important, and for that reason the diversity in the ensemble is important.
Do you have any advice if people want to try this out?
Think through what happens when the players get this amount of responsibility. How important is it that they do specific things? How can you facilitate that?
Consider if you need to tweak it if you have less structure and longer playtime. Our act structure was very tight, with four acts played over 24 hours. The acts had clear structure and themes, and we workshopped in the act breaks. We don’t know how it would work for three days without act structure and common events. Maybe you then would have to design for more diverse play, to make it less evident that you had duplicates of characters.
Factor in that co-creation gives the player a weaker alibi than if the character had been fully written by the organisers. If you are making a larp where some or all of the characters need a strong alibi to do what is expected of them, you might need to think even more about what you write in the characters and what they decide for themselves.
It was really important that we as workshop facilitators were coordinated, as we ran the onsite workshops mostly separately in the different neighbourhoods. If we had added a fourth and fifth neighbourhood, we would probably have included those workshop facilitators in the design of the workshops, to ensure that they were coordinated with us.
Finishing thoughts
The designers finished off our talk by saying that it would be really cool if it could inspire more people to not put more work into organising than needed. This is inspiration I take to heart.
For larps like Till death do us part (Palestine, 2012) and 1942 – Someone to trust? (Norway, 2017), I have written ensembles of characters in a documentary fashion, with the goal of conveying knowledge and insight into the characters’ situation to the players. Each character represented an aspect of the history we wanted to tell, and together they made a whole.
But I doubt that anybody has read the 35 characters for Till death do us part or the 100 characters for 1942, or even has an overview of them. If I write another documentary larp with the goal of conveying information to my players, it will probably be more effective to create a smaller set of characters, and then duplicate them inspired by the way Mimmi, Rosalind and Alma did for Trohetslöften. And a lot less work.
“No criticism, just YES to more of this!”
(Player feedback)
Ludography
Den utan synd (2019) Elofsson Edgar, A., Göthberg, R., and Sandquist, S., Berghem, Skillingaryd, Sweden, Bread and games
Fortune and Felicity (2017) Hultman, A. and Westerling, A., Medevi Brunn, Motala, Sweden
Lindängen Riksinternat (2013) Elofsson Edgar, A., Lundkvist, M., and Rognvall, E., Fågelmara, Blekinge, Sweden, DIS Rollspelsförening
Perfect Match (2023) Elleby, C. Ø., Elofsson Edgar, A., Göthberg, R., and Markehed, E. W., Østervrå, Denmark
Snapphaneland (2022) Elofsson Edgar, A., Göthberg, R., and Lundkvist. M., Berghem, Skillingaryd, Sweden, Bread and games
Till Death Do Us Part (2012) Abdul Karim, F., Adawi, J., Anderson, A. M., Arouri, F., Herning, V., Lindahl, T. L., Lofstad, V., Nielsen, M., Rabah, M., Sader, S. E., and Zatera, S., Bir Zeit, Palestine, The Peace and Freedom Youth Forum and Fantasiforbundet
Trohetslöften (2025) Elofsson Edgar, A., Göthberg, R., and Lundkvist. M., Berghem, Skillingaryd, Sweden, Bread and games
1942 – Someone to trust? (2017) Alvestad, M., Andersen, A. M, Edland, T. K., Holmøy, J. R., Johansen, S., Kleven, B., Lindahl, T., Raaum, M., and Tanke, I., Flørli, Norway, Foreningen for levende historie
Other sources
Interview with Elofsson Edgar, A, Göthberg, R, Lundkvist. M. conducted on Messenger October 22nd 2025.
Feedback from players, collected by the organisers in July/August 2025.
This article is republished from the Knutpunkt 2026 book. Please cite it as:
Lindahl, T. L. 2026. ‘”Let’s Just Add Another Neighbourhood If We Get More Players”.’ In Seasons of Larp eds. Erlandsson, A., Svanevik, M., Holkar, M., and Brind, S. Gothenburg. Knutpunkt.
