As we’ve said:
The above is a story game. It’s the most accessible game to tell a story. You have a situation in a location that affects some characters. The game is playing to find out what happens and how that scenario is resolved. How is this different than traditional RPGs? And not just different, but BETTER? Let’s look at some common RPG problems and see what we can find. 1) Rule ComprehensionThe rulebooks of RPGs are called rulebooks for a reason. These things are 300+ pages with tons of dogma, history, statistics, and indexes. And they cost a ton just to sit on your shelf (no shame, I’ve purchased games that have been unplayed for a decade). With the amount of money you spent on it, you want the thing to run itself for you (like a CRPG). Or come with a short video tutorial. Or have someone help you get started. But no. You do the heavy lifting, the reading, the understanding, the spreadsheets. And the game doesn’t even thank you for it, it just expects it. The rules of story games are SIMPLE. Those 35 words at the top are something young children understand. And play! By being a game of words instead of a game of numbers, a person’s understanding is hardly ever limited by maths. Instead the heft of the game moves to the world of play: All world, story, and personal knowledge can be applicable in play. Within a clear framework, the rules allow for infinite application. And I mean infinite. It would be ironic to spend more time explaining what makes these games simple, so let’s move on. 2) GM PrepOne person in the group carries a load greater than everyone else when RPGs are involved. Let’s be real: it’s you reading this article. The referee is the organizer, cheerleader, rules-master, monster-guy, dungeon-cartographer and so much else. In modern RPGs, the GM buys the rules and the screen and the minis and the dice. In old school games, the GM also wades through hundreds of (admittedly great) adventures to prep. They get it all ready just for players to come in and smash everything to pieces. Repeatedly. In story games, all you need is to sit down with a group of cool people with a scenario in-hand. The rules are easy to explain (and even re-explain!) and the scenarios are simple enough to get everyone on the same page: “The Sheriff of Nottingham has captured Maid Marian!” “There’s been a murder at ye olde inn, Mr. Holmes!” “ZOMBIES, RIGHT NOW, IN OUR HOUSE!” Everything else, all the bits and bobs that add to game like maps and handouts, are optional. Do you want to make a map of Sherwood forest? Want to write out the last letter the murdered man wrote? Maybe you’re into making a detailed inventory of all the good zombie apocalypse gear in your house? If you want it, go for it. Name tags are cool, pawns are fun, spark tables can just be neat to have at the table. These games start with very little and can easily be added to, even in the spur of the moment during play! The prep is largely an opt-in process of story games instead of a requirement. When it comes to prepping scenarios for the story games podcast or for a family trip, the whole process takes me as low as fifteen minutes. Anything after is “do I feel like it or not?” The low barrier to prep and play is something I see as a huge advantage and differentiator: imagine a game jam full of bite-sized story games, any one of which you could print off, skim, and play with anyone. Easy, breezy, lemons over-easy. 3) GM BurnoutPaired with the above, RPGs often ask GMs to drive the game. You start the scene, you ask “what do you do?”, you try to drink water, you answer and ask follow-up questions, you draw a map while players roll initiative, you subtract hit points, you spend spell slots, you forgot to drink water… and on it goes. Modern RPGs are a HEAVY lift. They expect a lot and you have to be ON to make them work. And as much as I love OSR and FKR games, those take a lot of energy from the GM to transmit and re-transmit the genre, flavor, and trappings of the world over and over. These games take a lot of material to fuel their engines, usually at the expense of the GM’s time and effort and mental bandwidth. Story games, in contrast, leverage the shared understanding of the world to its maximum. These scenarios are often near-universal, pulling from popular fiction, genre homages, and historical events. Story games understand that the scenarios are negotiated between players. These games happen in everyone’s head, not just the referee’s. As an example, when I ran a zombie story game, the question came up about how these zombies “worked.” The table came to an agreement that they should function like the zombies in The Walking Dead. Now, had I seen that show? Did I know all the ins and outs? Nope, didn’t need to. It was explained on the fly. And if I needed clarification, I just asked. Even as the host, I didn’t have all the answers. I could rely on the other players to sustain the world on their shoulders as well. I wasn’t spending all my energy insisting on my view of the universe: the players instead came to agreements. And that is a much easier load to bear. The story game form also doesn’t need your constant attention… or even your PRESENCE?? One of the first times I ran a story game was online with some buddies of mine, all experienced role-players. When we were about an hour and a half in, I got pulled away to an emergency in real life. I told the players what was happening and they were onboard to keep playing. They kept the game alive in their imagination, playing the scenario until it was resolved. Then I asked the next day how it all went down and they relayed the thrilling conclusion. Could such a thing happen if the GM walked away from a TTRPG? By no means. The game just stalls, waiting for the inputs coming from the GM aka the entire rest of the world. And if you have to keep going all the time to oxygenate the game, that’s a recipe for burnout. 4) SchedulingTo steal from Justin Alexander: Imagine I want to get you to join this cool activities club of mine. “What it’s like and what does it take?” you ask. “Well,” says I. “It’s fun! It takes four hours per session and we prefer to have sessions every week. Otherwise the returns are diminishing. You have that in your schedule, of course. You’ve been jumping at the chance to sacrifice a bunch hours for something new, right?” That’s almost always the ask of modern RPGs and old-school games of new players: four hour blocks, as often as you can, until the end of time. Or else you lose momentum, forget what happened, and never get anywhere. Contrast that with story games: get in, get out. Sit down with your fellow players, then walk away with a complete story for the same amount of time as watching a movie. (And if you can’t schedule a slot for a movie, then you really can’t go out with friends or go to a party or sporting event and have bigger problems. Pretty straightforward that.) And the story game ends when the scenario is resolved. All of the games I play in finish in the same session and are all the more satisfying for it. You don’t walk away with a gnawing sense that you left something incomplete. A punchy, short story is the result of play, not an obligation to return to and feed like a feral animal. So yes, a shorter time commitment makes it easy to fit into busy lives, but it also makes it so easy to introduce to new players. Take it from someone who has played this with youngsters and oldsters alike: these games are FAST to pick up. And hobbies like this one need new lifeblood and this is the way to do it: make the investment comparable to other things they already DO. “Instead of Catan tonight, what about we play in the universe of Scooby-Doo?” or “How about we skip the Marvel movie and actual PLAY as the Avengers?” or “Let’s tell another Batman story on the drive to grandma’s house, shall we?” In modern life, we can’t really expect everyone (especially newbies) to be available as often as we’d like to game. So what’s wrong with accepting the limits of busy schedules and instead using smaller blocks of time? Especially if it’s the difference between actually gaming and only dreaming about gaming? Nothing wrong with that. 5) Creating a Cohesive StorySoapbox time (as if this whole post hasn’t been already): Many RPGs expect the host/referee/GM to be some sort of superstar movie director, coming up with deep characters, interesting dialogue, and smooth pacing. The GM has to be ready with a script to deliver, but also be ready to adapt to the chaos of player decisions. It’s an impossible ask of the GM: tie everything together but without the power of a director or author (“CUT! No, you’re supposed to reason with the bad guy, not chop his head off. This whole scene will pay off in act five!”). It’s unreasonable to put anyone to that standard of high-polish (aka the Matt Mercer effect). But modern RPGs do it all the time. The expectations on the GM to deliver are high, but so too are guardrails on the players. How many RPGs players agree on their course of action as a group? Yeah right. One player wants to kill the princess, the other wants to pledge allegiance. What happens? One player has to give in or else complete chaos. 99% of RPGs can crumble under this kind of conflict in player interests. Disagreeing over what to do happens all the time and RPG aren’t equipped to handle it. (This is why RPGs often tack on rules of a “session 0” to get ahead of these issues and set expectations. But that’s no guarantee to solving disagreements.) In fact, RPGs usually opt for enforcing natural and unnatural consequences, the leading reason why every RPG group has suffered an “everyone goes to jail” scene (usually naturally) and a learning of the lesson “don’t split the party” via sudden monsters (usually unnaturally). Neither of these situations or outcomes make things more interesting. They usually lead to a dead-halt and a “do you regret that now?” Despite disagreements being a common situation, RPGs just ignore what to do here. If player A wants to go The Grotto and player B opts for The Mountain, the only options as GM are to somehow force them together or plead “pls guys, can’t we just do one location at a time?” (Again, the burden goes back on the GM for everyone’s fun). You have to agree. How do story games handle this? For direct disagreements (“kill the princess” vs “save the princess), it’s easy: “If there’s uncertainty, roll dice.” If you can’t agree on where the story goes, whoever rolls higher wins. You have an objective way to settle it and move on. What about indirect disagreements (“go to the Grotto” vs “go to the Mountain”)? Do as a majority of stories do: split the screen-time between the two. SO MANY stories have an “A Plot” and “B Plot” if not more and it’s common to switch back and forth. Sometimes the answer to “what happens next?” is, “we cut back to the Grotto and see a VERY GRIM situation for our hero… and then….” And so play proceeds. If there’s a BIG disagreement, like someone has the “clever idea” to introduce something way out of left field into the story game, the host has the power to veto. Not to patch the story or come up with some explanation as to why that doesn’t make sense. Nope. Just a “no.” It’s not relying on the GM is fix everything as director or to hand-hold players into making smart decisions so they don’t end up in jail or monster food. Just tell the story and say what happens next. One final point on using RPGs to tell stories and it’s we can all relate to: the finish. There’s no pre-defined ending to an RPG. The assumption, according to the rules, is often what people call a “forever game”. Uh huh. Because as we all know, TV shows and other long-form media with no determinable finish line keep everyone satisfied… This is why even sports have seasons and not just strings of games that go on forever. This is why franchises spin off, spin out, and are eventually spat out. How many “see you next week”s go unfulfilled as games slowly suffocate and die? Too many. Infinite play means infinite opportunities for play to become tiring, abandoned, or worst of all, boring. Instead, play a game with RULES for finishing the game: “End when the scenario resolves” as the rules say. “Robin Hood has saved Maid Marian!” “Good show, Mr. Holmes, putting that villain behind bars.” “Whew, we’re finally safe from the zombies.” Story games recognize that a satisfying game has a beginning, middle, and end. The beginning is defined with the problem statement from the scenario. The middle is defined by the majority of play. The end is defined by a resolution and a “the end”. The scenario pitch promises the players, “once this is over, the game is as well.” It starts with the end in mind and is genuinely curious about how the story will get there. What happens in that time between start and the finish is negotiated between players under the guidance of the rules. The mechanics say how to clearly handle disagreements within the confines of the game. It expects that players will disagree and to roll dice when it happens. And story games do the one thing our modern media can’t seem to do: Stop. Land the plane. Fin. ConclusionAnd with that, it feels appropriate to end. Story games: the most accessible games to tell stories. Low rules comprehension required. Low-to-no prep needed. Easy to facilitate. Schedule-friendly. Co-operative storytelling with rules for the beginning, middle, and end. It does this for large groups, small groups, few characters, many characters, young players, old players. Fantasy, horror, mystery, sci-fi, slice of life, and beyond. You can play in the car, around the campfire, at your living room table. So where should you start? You can start with this zombie game I made. Need an example of play? Listen to this podcast my buddy and I put together, telling stories in the worlds of Scooby-Doo, Phineas and Ferb, and Samurai Jack. Make your own story game? As a starting point, think of the last escape room you went to, non-fiction book you read, or movie you watched. Write down a problem in that setting, genre, or tone. Write down six or more characters, some are allies, some are in opposition. Write down with six locations. Done. Add materials like a map, character portraits, or handouts, as you like. Do let me know how it goes, I enjoy our visits. Story Games Sojourn is free today. But if you enjoyed this post, you can tell Story Games Sojourn that their writing is valuable by pledging a future subscription. You won't be charged unless they enable payments.
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Thursday, 21 August 2025
5 reasons story games > traditional TTRPGS
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