Ensemble is an online resource for larps, live action role playing games, that facilitates an accessible presentation of characters and a quick way to learn them. It provides organizers and players with a very flexible tool and intuitive interface for presenting, sorting and categorizing characters. Remembering them is made easy, social and fun through a deck of flash cards, a booklet as well as an online database. There is no need for layout skills, Ensemble lets you print the cards and booklet with all layout done, and you don’t need an app to access the characters from your phone.

Ensemble is suitable for all kinds of larps, from small chamber larps where the organizer presents the players with pre-written characters and fixed relations, up to and including huge sandbox games where the players write their characters and group affiliations themselves.

So many of the larps we play portray very close-knit communities, be it a village, a spaceship, a military unit, a prison camp or a school class. You will typically have close relationships with a few other characters, and maybe learn about a couple more, but the feeling that you really ought to know all of them intimately lingers.

Through Ensemble the players can realistically be expected to arrive at the site already knowing most of the other characters. This means less onsite time has to be allocated for character and group presentation workshops. Players will be more familiar with the social structure of the larp and feel less stress about “who is who”, they will feel more immersed and can more easily play with everyone instead of just the players they know the best. Basically, the players will have a better game.

This demo project does not showcase the full system, only the different views available to players when using Ensemble.

"Knowing the other characters at the larp is crucial - especially at larps where the characters have known each other for long, like in a village, household or organisation. But even at larps where the characters have not known each other for long, memorizing characters helps the players create more meaningful play from the very beginning of the larp, and reduces the workshop time needed to acquaint yourself with the other characters. Ensemble is the best available tool to facilitate this - the flash cards are perfect for memorizing names, faces and basic information, and the more detailed list view gives additional information that can be customized to what suits the larp in question."

"Ensemble is a great way to visualize complex social structures and networks before you even get on site for the larp."

"Ensemble has great potential. As a Player, it helped me learning the names of the whole cast of 40+ players in one night. As an organizer, it helps with "forcing" players to interact with the LARP."

"It's a super useful tool for preparing for larp especially when playing a character who has to keep an overview of everybody and also an easy way for me as a player to select what others should know"

"We used Ensemble during the larp Krigshjärta 8.4 and it turned out really well for all that needed to know each other but had little time for premeetings. The system is very clear and easy and perfect for a group that need to recognize each other as the larp starts. Having the cards in a bag during the larp also makes it easy to check a few names one has forgotten and need."

"The organisation Ursula has used Ensemble twice with great success. The first time it was a small game with less then 50 players, where all the players needed to know all the characters. The second time it was a bigger larp with over 130 players and getting an overall picture of groups of characters was more valuable."