Manifest an original story in the same amount of time as watching a movie (bring a friend and popcorn)Story games, line-by-line!
Alright, here we go. Get out your pom-poms and say it with me!
The above is the story game. It’s the most accessible game to create a story. Seven lines? That’s it?! Yup, and you can play any story with it. That’s not a sales pitch. It can’t be a sale pitch because I just told you the ENTIRE thing for FREE. Terrible salesmanship! Again, not a sales pitch. It actually does any story. And not at all like your generic, “universal” system. (FATE and GURPS, I’m looking at you.) I mean it, any story. Sound like your standard RPG? Let’s walk through the text line-by-line and dissect to discern, digest to design. By the end here, you’ll see a new perspective on why the rules are the way they are. I hope it leads to a further love of purposeful design and you making your own scenarios to play with loved ones. Let’s begin. “First start with a scenario.”A story is made of situations and reversals, conflicts and resolutions; it is both tension and release. You can start with the tension. Introducing a problem is story dynamite because it often manages to relate time, space, people, and relationships all in one go. Other times you may just want a situation in which there are no immediate obstacles or challenges. Cozy stories often go this direction. The term “scenario” covers both problems and situations, and that’s why it’s used here. Read this article for more:
So what does this look like to start with a scenario? Let’s take a look at these famous lines:
In these sentences, we have major elements of the setting (the time period, where it takes place), some key players (Rebels, Empire, Leia, her people), and the crisis (get secrets plans away from Empire and free the galaxy). It’s quite a dense start, but it tells us so much. Does this read more like a preamble than a problem statement? Sure, but it’s dramatic. That “dot dot dot” is a BIG question mark for anyone participating. What’s gonna happen?! Starting with a scenario is THE differentiator for story games from RPGs. In roleplaying games, you start with a role, a point of view, and then the trouble finds you or you find the trouble. Story games instead start with a scenario and utilize the framework of the rules for resolving it. Story games have a clear and defined purpose and focus and give tools for addressing it (“say what happens next!”). Contrast with traditional roleplaying games, you find purpose (hopefully) after bouncing around from thing to thing. And the tools for finding purpose are intrinsic at best (enjoyment, camaraderie, play) and extrinsic at worst (XP, levels, numbers). In RPGs, players play characters and the GM plays the world. In story games, everyone plays the scenario. Being scenario-driven delivers a focused experience. The focus of play is clear; what’s left unclear is everything after: What happens next? How is progress made? Who gets involved? What do they do? Where do they go? How do problems get resolved? One scenario, many possibilities, many more endings. This is the starting point of the great unfolding of things. This merits a ton more discussion on what makes a good scenario, how to present obstacles, characters, locations, and such. But for now: scenarios are the source, the beginning. “Then say what happens next.”This is the foundation of play in a story game. And it’s mind boggling. We have ideas of what could happen next, but they don’t become real until we speak them. Or in solo games, journal them. Or in text games, write them. It’s all in your head until you force it out. And this is nothing new to the side of RPGs we’re familiar with: “the game is a conversation.” The game inhabits the time and space we spend and fill to play it. This is a recognition of it’s presentness. The scenario is the story’s potential energy. Saying what happens next is its kinetic energy. Instead of the essential RPG question “what do you do?” story games ask “what happens next?” I leverage this question all the time to invite others to speak. Then I usually do one of the following:
Coming from traditional RPGs, it’s strange to say what happens next and just have it happen. It’s also liberating. You’re writing the story with those around you. Where does the story go? Who does what? Where do they go? What happens there? Questions and questions, answers and answers. But in RPGs you have a character and say what they do; so what’s the deal here? You might champion a character in a story game, that is, have a name and short description on a scrap of paper in front of you (“King Arthur: ruler of the land”). You might move the story in a direction that involves the character you’re championing. But it’s not a requirement. Another player might control that same character for a time. There’s a way in the rules to push back if you don’t like what they say, but we’re getting there. The point is “your character” is not “yours” like they are in an RPG. You’re not playing a role, remember. In fact, you might play more than one character. You might play a whole ensemble. Or a country. Or a faction or two. Or the whole table might share one character. You might play a hero with one character and a villain with another. You might start with two characters, kill one off, trade the second for another player’s character, and create a new one. Playing this loose with characters means the possibility of playing characters together that would absolutely be problematic in traditional RPGs. Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Darth Vader, and Jabba the Hutt CANNOT be in the same adventuring party. But they’re all in the same story, connected to the same scenario. You might play all of them, albeit at different points. How cool is that?! Totally different from traditional RPGs. Find out more ways story games outclass the usual roleplaying games:
The story game is a frenetic evolution that progresses by answering the question “what happens next?”. The characters and locations are in service to the scenario, the problem. If the problem is about zombies in modern-day Arizona, it doesn’t make sense that Pikachu shows up to save the day. So have characters connected to the problem and locations that suit it well. You might start play with a small list of characters and locations. That list could grow as the problem is further explored. They partake in answering “what happens next?” But what if you don’t know something clever to say? Or dramatic? Or fun? Just say what’s obvious to you. It’s amazing how often a player saying what they think is logical dazzles everyone. “What? I thought that’s what everyone was thinking…” “No, but that was AWESOME!” Everyone has something to bring to the table, even if it’s just saying the stuff that’s apparent to them. That’s what happens next. “There is no turn order.”There are no turns or rounds. The game is real-time. The game moves with the conversation, absolutely synchronized. Stop talking? Play stops. Zing back and forth between players, each adding to the story in a furious crescendo? Play keeps that break-neck pace. You aren’t waiting for your turn. Sure, you might take a step back and listen. You might wait for a golden opportunity to lob dramatic into the unfolding events. Heck, you might even filling up your water at the sink and wondering about how things will resolve. But this is a very active game. You’re thinking about what could happen next. But you don’t know for certain. Stories mutate in unexpected ways at the table. The double-meaning here is that play can occur in-sequence, out of sequence, fast-forwarded, in slow motion, completely “paused.” The players are in the driver’s seat. There is no order of play. “Build on each other’s ideas!”This rule is funny to me because where all the other lines are instructions to follow, this is a COMMAND. And it has an exclamation point! So listen up! This is a game of cooperation. Working together with the goal of playing to find out and see the scenario through to its resolution. It’s cooperative in the same way that it would be if you were writing an episode of a show with a team or a performing a song with a band or making a humorous short film. So who can add to what happens next? Anyone! This is a command as well as an invitation. Letting others play is part of the game. You don’t need a character sheet in front you. You don’t need a copy of the rules. You needn’t have ever rolled the dice in your life. Just answer “what happens next?” Permission granted. This isn’t to say you don’t need context for what’s happening. Or should be flippant with your stories. It’s a reminder that everyone was once an outsider to this experience and that it takes courtesy to bring them into the fold. Think back to your own initiation: who invited you to this hobby? Extend that courtesy, pay it forward, play on. This is the “break barriers” rule. The “yes, and…” rule. One cool effect of this is that players may jump right in play. Or, as life happens, suddenly be pulled away to something else. The game doesn’t suddenly combust. Remember, we’re not waiting on people to take turns. Sure, their inputs will be missed, but they won’t be missing. Anyone. Include them. Come together. And if you’re playing solo, you’re still building on the ideas of others. You’re just likely turning to resources you collected like random tables and idea lists and fortune dice and decks. You’re collaborating with your past self and the authors of those resources. Build on those ideas! “If there’s uncertainty, roll dice.”When saying what happens next, you might not know how things shake out. The table might not want to make a decision. Perhaps no one wants to take the lead on stating exactly what occurs. It might be too important, or too unimportant to just decide. So let fate do it for you. Roll dice. Now, it’s vague, and it’s purposefully vague. This rule prescribes no set system for resolving this uncertainty. This is because everyone has their own way, their own means available to them. Maybe you only have six-sided dice at your disposal. Maybe you’re in the woods and you don’t have dice. Maybe you do rock-paper-scissors. Or maybe you want to flip a coin for the aesthetics. Without explicit prescription, it’s up the table to decide how to resolve these uncertainties. If in doubt about which dice to roll, just say two possible outcomes and roll a dice. Rolling odds means it’s one outcome, rolling evens means its the other.Easy peasy. Maybe there’s uncertainty about if a character will survive something deadly. “Captain Maybe you want to leave something up to chance. “What kind of party is this at Wayne Manor? If it’s odds, there’s assigned seating and a five course meal. If it’s evens, it’s a raucous party of Gotham’s upper class.” Uncertainty in the game can come from not knowing what happens next. It can also come from other players. With everyone saying what happens next, it’s likely that there is something said that you don’t like or don’t agree with. Maybe something saids doesn’t fit what you think happens next. Maybe it’s declared that one character overcame another and you don’t think that would be the case. Maybe another player said a character does something outside what you think they would do. This rules encourage you to challenge those statements with what YOU think would happen. “That’s not a certainty. What if X happened instead?” My workplace uses the verb “challenge” all the time. Supervisors, employees, everyone at every level is allowed and encouraged to challenge ideas of others from the lowest rung all the way to the CEO. It’s a recognition of equality and fairness that all ideas are open to discussion and equally open to challenge. It’s not an overrule. It’s a mark of respect: “I heard what you said, and I disagree with that.” If it’s fair game to suggest, it’s fair game to suggest something else. You can find uncertainty in what a player says and that’s not a put-down. One player challenging is stating that what the other player said shouldn’t prevail. Maybe the challenger has a different idea of what should happen next. Maybe they just don’t want it the way the other player said. Fair enough. How does this shake out? Roll dice. Perhaps both players roll a six-sided dice and the higher roller’s idea prevails. Or the two play rock-paper-scissors. Or the players try to get closest to the center on a dartboard. There’s no “hard-and-fast” prescription here, just come to an agreement. And there are also no take-backs. No matter how things change, the same question is asked: “what happens next”? Play proceeds. “The host may veto anytime.”This rule is the first reference to a host or referee or game master. If you’re reading this post, you’re likely the host of your table. The host is the player most likely to introduce the problem or design the scenario or even have the idea to play a story game in the first place. The host is the gardener of play. Finding fertile ground, planting seeds, and watering the saplings is very much like getting a good scenario, starting with the problem, and asking “what happens next?” Stopping disruptive play is like pulling weeds: nobody wants to, but it’s essential to keep things growing and alive. Say you are playing that zombie game set in modern-day Arizona and someone says “and then Pikachu swoops in on a rocket and zaps all the zombies re-dead and everyone else dead. Pika! Pika!” Say what happens next, right? Wrong. This rule is the last line of defense, the last resort. It’s the nuke against disruptive play and trolls. It protects the story and the table from Saying what happens still conforms to the tone and genre of the scenario at-hand. Continuing with the zombie example, maybe this a grounded, bleak story, like you might expect from The Walking Dead or World War Z. Or maybe it has a more humorous take like Zombieland or Shaun of the Dead. Or maybe there actually ARE Pokemon in this and so having Pikachu there DOES make sense. But these are things outlined in the scenario and any conversation before play. When the story becomes disrupted, this is the host’s explicit permission to step in and do something about it. If the table has no qualms about what was said, play on! Note also that the host is only given authority by the game to VETO, not substitute their ideas for someone else’s or break ties between players. It’s the dice’s job to resolve those uncertainties. The host is not the all-powerful master of the game, but the first among equals. This is the least-used rule of the game, but it brings the explicit permission to tell-off unwanted content. Essential and seldom used. Like airbags! “Finish when the scenario resolves.”The end. We’ve started with the end in mind. And now it’s here. How do you know it’s here? The table comes to a consensus when the scenario is resolved. When you know, you know. And the result? Was it a success or failure? Some mix of both? That’s not for the game to decide. That’s why it says “resolved.” It’s up to the participants to decide for themselves what the results of play mean. You might look closely at the character or characters you’ve championed: did they do alright? Did the problem resolve the way they wanted? In a game about words instead of numbers, the outcomes can be fuzzy. But sometimes, you just know. “Yeah, this character died, but she died saving someone she cared about.” “I liked this guy and he made it to the end, but he betrayed a friend along the way… he might need counseling.” “Well, this character I was rooting for became king!.. oh and the other one got that small farm he always wanted.” “The council is amused with the final turn of events.” “I think the planet will recover, but will probably pass stronger laws about nuclear firepower.” “Pikachu is happy that Ash got that gym badge and curls up content in a soft little bed.” “I can’t believe the villain got away. Batman will have to get him another day.” Though the game says “finish, you might take a moment to do an outro with the other players. How does the resolution affect the world and characters? What changed? Maybe that will tell us a little bit about how we changed as a part of the experience… Take the opportunity to reflect. As an aside, I’m a fan of “Stars and Wishes” micro-exercise: Each person highlights one moment they enjoyed (“Star”) and one thing they would want to see happen or change (“Wish”). Roundtable discussion, gives each person a chance to speak on the game that took place. Then break and grab a snack together :) To close this out,I will say that the rules of story games are not my favorite part. Despite my rambling on them. In fact, I’m generally weary of people saying that a system is their favorite part of a game. That’s like loving a car for it’s engine, not it’s function or aesthetics: totally valid, but also very pretentious (and straight-up weird, sorry mechanic friends). It is NOT the rules that excite me: it’s the scenarios. Here is my buddy and I with published actual play examples of scenarios in
These story games took me so little time to set up and write, time that I would’ve had to spend tinkering with rules and stat-ing NPCs and drawing up tactical maps. Those are fun things to do, but when I want to tell a story and play to find out what happens, I want to GET TO IT! It’s me telling the rules to get outta my way, I wanna play! And it’s not just the scenarios that excite me to play, it’s the people I’m playing with. Scenarios have different audiences from younger cousins to first-time gamers to hardcore players to siblings to film buffs friends. And they’ll even take the SAME scenarios in COMPLETELY different directions (ask me how I know). Story games break down the barriers to play: young and old, new and experienced players all have a great footing in this space. Breaking down barriers to play means you can focus your design on people and the play experience instead of systems. “What movies do my young cousins like, compared to my college buddies?” The obstacles in rules-cruft and adventure-design are MUCH fewer for story games than your traditional RPGs. And that increases the potential for people to give it a go. After all, it’s the stories that stick, not the procedures. What about you? Thinking about giving it a go? Thinking about friends and family just outside the comfort of a game of 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons? Thinking about people who might just want to start with a goofy game about zombies on their street? Or a who-dunnit mystery? Or a Crusoe island adventure? The rules are easy. You’ve read waaaaay more then you need to get started. The scenarios are out there (here’s the zombie one I keep talking about, it’s free), but you can easily make your own: start with a scenario, list some characters with conflicting points of view, list some locations that could come up Grab some players. Tell them about it. Say what happens next. 🙂 The Story Games Sojourn blog is FREE to all. If you wanna support this work, browse my itch.io page so you also get a game out of your generosity. Contact me directly here if you have any questions or want to tell me something cool. :)
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Thursday, 18 September 2025
Manifest an original story in the same amount of time as watching a movie (bring a friend and popcorn)
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