Getting There: A Collaborative Question-Based Story Game

[radiantfracture]

Partway through this term, no doubt as a coping mechanism for actual life, I got obsessed with role-playing games.

Folks! I don't know if you know this, but there are a lot of games.

Let me propose a nonce spectrum, for this post only, from story prompt to rule set, where on one end is an improvised story based on a few seed ideas, and on the other an elaborate clockwork mechanism like D&D.

Just lately I'm captivated by games that lean towards the story-prompt end of the spectrum, which I found out about through the Party of One Podcast -- listening to Johnny Sims play Big Fight Feel with the host, Jeff Stormer, using MacGuffin & Co.'s micro-setting Primetime Colosseum.

Big Fight Feel is a great storytelling Q&A game that develops the backstory to a climactic pro wrestling match. It is a hack of In the Air Tonight, which tells suspense-heist-chase stories. Air is inspired by the "In the Air Tonight" scene from the Miami Vice TV show. Stormer has also done a playthrough of another Q&A game called Knowing You, which tells the story of a relationship in reverse, from breakup to first meeting.

What I like about story games is that even this minimal mechanic of the questions lifts away a lot of the stakes of "proper writing" and lets people revel in story.

So for my creative writing class, I made a little hack of the hack. It's very much a mini-game, designed to be played in a few minutes.


* * * * * * 

Getting There: A Collaborative Question-Based Story Game

(This game is a quick hack of “In the Air Tonight” by Austin Ramsay)

 

This game creates a story between two people, discovered through asking and answering questions.

Decide who is PERSON 1 and who is PERSON 2. Ask and answer the questions in turn.

Answer spontaneously, as the ideas come to you. Let the story take shape. If one person is having trouble coming up with an answer, the other can help them brainstorm.

When you have finished asking and answering the questions, use your story as a prompt to write.

 

PERSON 1: What vehicle are we driving and what’s wrong with it?

[PERSON 2 replies]

PERSON 2: Why are we late and whose fault was it?

[PERSON 1 replies]

PERSON 1: What are we bringing with us and what did we forget?

[PERSON 2 replies]

PERSON 2: Where are we going, and who chose the destination?

[PERSON 1 replies]

PERSON 1: What are you not telling me until we get there?

[PERSON 2 replies]

PERSON 2: What happens when we arrive?

[PERSON 1 replies]

* * * * * * 


My colleague and I did a quick playtest. We ended up as waster surfers on our way to a family reunion in a broke-down Vanagon burning oil, on a sweltering day, with a Styrofoam cooler full of fresh fish on rapidly-melting ice, trying to make it to the Okanagan in time to show everyone that we can too accomplish something, even if it isn't getting jobs, except we end up at the Naramata ER because it turns out, hey, we're also having a baby, so in the end my sister gets stuck with all that fish.

I must say I feel quite satisfied by that outcome.

{rf}