A collaborative story

[sabotabby]

radiantfracture made a storytelling game, and it is an amazing storytelling game, and we made a story together that amused me to the degree that I had to share.



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]

* * * * * *



Into the Pit - A Playthrough of Getting There


Driver
The alleged car is a new type of EV, but designed by techbros who were far more interested in a grift than in making a functional vehicle. They were also, as it turns out, amateur occultists. The battery works, in theory, but in addition to charging, it on occasion requires a blood sacrifice. Not a whole human, necessarily. Just a little blood.

Passenger
We're late because your biomechantronic arm caught a virus and went all evil hand and kept swerving us into the ditch. We had to pull over and have a long argument with it about fate and destiny and being a part of something larger than itself.

It's partly your fault for not downloading the software updates and partly whoever set loose the virus, and partly me for starting a conversation about free will with it in the first place (I was bored and stressed out), so everyone's in an extra bad mood now, and also it's possible we're too late to stop the pseudoSingularity which might, as we explained tersely to your rogue arm, render all this free will more or less moot.

Driver
We brought the runic silicon chips, which carry on them the ancient invocation that will debug the pseudoSingularity, but did we remember the manual for their deploy and operation? We would have, if you had ever been the sort to read the manual.

Passenger
You're not wrong about me and manuals.

We're going to the Pit, that toxic junkyard of discarded magitech a thousand stories deep, with a seething lake of heavy metals and vampiric data spectres at its heart.

That's where the Sibyl sent us after a very rushed and expensive divination. There's at least a 50% chance that she's in the pay of the BludDies anyway, but we're out of options.

I'm frantically chanting every incantation I know in case one of them is the right one, so occasionally the windshield wipers start up, or flames shoot out of the hand-of-glory hood ornament.

Oh, and we're running low on blood.

Driver
Running my biomechantronic fingers over my scab-studded human one, I consider whether it's time for another blood draw. My nano-monitors are edging into the orange territory on the anemia marker, but what good will a normal WBC count do me if we stall out on the highway and get our eternal soul data devoured by ferals?

After all, the High Queen of the BludDies is an old friend and sometimes lover, and I wouldn't want to disappoint her.

Passenger
I bowl out of the bloodEV with the silicon runes rattling in my hand as the howling hypotheticals come screaming out of the pit.

And there's the High Queen between me and the edge, her void eyes glittering, information streaking down her limbs like mercury, but she's not looking at me. I might as well not be there. In a minute I won't be.

I'm just the means to this end, you and this dead-eyed glory burning like a phosphorous flame.

It's never been you and me, not really. It's always been you and her, and it's you and her now, here at the last showdown before the next showdown.

And maybe you didn't even know what you were going to do when you got here, until you got here. Maybe you were teetering between hero and heel turn.

But you know now.

Comments

[radiantfracture]

Thanks for sharing your pyrotechnic imagination with me.

(I don't know if you like this idea, but I did a little table hack thing to make the text show up as back-and-forth dialogue between the two speakers. I have no idea how that will look and whose browsers it will break.)

[EDIT] No, that's not working. I'm going to fool with it a bit.

[sabotabby]

I do like this idea, so if you figure it out, let me know.

[symbioid]

The Battery can have a little blood, as a treat.
This is making me think of those "Solo RPGs" I'm trying to learn about; I'm not sure they're my thing but they seem to be similar to these lines of creating a story as a game.

[sabotabby]

He's been doing those a lot—you might want to pick his brain on it!

[lapinlunaire]

I LOVE SOLO RPGs, let me know if you need recs!!

[symbioid]

Cool! Thanks for the offer. Am I right that they're kinda like choose your own adventures with dice? And maybe some bling (like maps or the book is a journal, etc...)

Any particular standouts? I prefer like sci-fi or weirdness/unique thing. Fantasy is ok. Not a huge pirate person. Everyday life could be ok if interesting plots twists.

Whatcha got? :)

[lapinlunaire]

Sorry for taking so long to reply!
Yeah, you're kind of right, though the ones I've played are much more open-ended than choose-your-own-adventures. As to the bling, that depends on the game -- some are more oriented towards grids, maps, and strategy and have stuff like that, while others don't.

Personally, I like journalling games, which are more like getting prompts (about your character or your story) and writing about them. Most use just dice and/or playing cards, and some use a Jenga tower (though people have come up with alternatives for people who don't want to use one).

My personal favourite so far has been Thousand Year Old Vampire, and I really liked Lörd, my playthroughs have led to some fun stories. They're more horror/fantasy, though. I'm not sure about sci-fi but I've heard good things about The Wretched and I'm curious to play it -- it seems to have originated a system I like, which I called Wretched and Alone and tends to make for meatier games, but ymmv.

I think a good way to get a feel for all the different is too look at the singleplayer and solo tags on the physical games section of itch.io. There's plenty of games that aren't there, but I think it's a good place to get an idea of what you'd like in a game, since they range from "experimental and practical unplayable" to "there's a strict system and lots of maps" to "you just use these prompts to journal your adventure".

I hope this helps! Sorry if it's tl;dr.

[symbioid]

Not tl;dr! Thanks for the links! Probably be a while til I can get to it, but I'm bookmarking for later! :)

[curgoth]

This really makes me want to play Baron Munchausen. And some Powered By The Apocalypse games. And Fiasco.

But not enough to actually *run* anything.

[sabotabby]

There is that small issue.

[rdi]

That's amazing

[sabotabby]

Thanks!

[frandroid]

That's great, expand on iittttt,,,,

[sabotabby]

It's tempting but I got a novel and a half to write before the current series is done with me.

[china_shop]

And maybe you didn't even know what you were going to do when you got here, until you got here. Maybe you were teetering between hero and heel turn.

But you know now.

Ooh, nice! The worldbuilding in this is fascinating and beautifully obscures the bitter twist at the end. Brava!

[sabotabby]

Given that we made it up (and the twist) as we went along, thank!