Player best practices for collaboractive storytelling

Collaborative storytelling isn't a core part of every RPG, but every RPG benefits from players who practice it. Here are some principles to simply tell a story together before a single game mechanic is even uttered. These were stolen from various other games and corners of my mind, rewritten and thrown together for the first player kit of The Dreamcatchers.

Set up opportunities

  • Play to find out what happens. The fun of a roleplaying game lies in all the things that you wouldn’t have thought of if it was just you writing a story alone. It’s in the obvious thing another player does that would not have occurred to you. It’s in the twist a game mechanic adds. So do not plan. Instead, set up a situation rife with opportunity and play to find out what happens next.

  • Yes, and. Your adventure is an open conversation in which you accept what another player states, and expand on that. “YES your fire suddenly rages like a blazing phoenix, AND the flash is so intense, it's blinding to rest of us.”

  • Create an opportunity for the next player. Imagine your player group as a volleyball team. Your goal is not to hit the ball (although this can be challenging enough when you start out), your goal is to set the ball up for the next player. And up and up it goes, bouncing from player to player. Your fiction should feel like that bouncing ball. When another player creates an opportunity for you to add something, take it, make eye contact with another player, and create an opportunity for them to take.

  • Make opportunities fleeting. When you create an opportunity for another player, add a detail that makes the opportunity a fleeting one, giving the next player a sense of urgency and excitement to jump into the conversation. “Blinded, I stumble towards where you were just standing Veejay, hoping you can help me. However, in that fleeting moment, I trip and fall straight towards that spot.” The fleeting opportunity for Veejay’s player is to create a dramatic moment where Veejay catches his friend in need, or a slapstick one where maybe Veejay is also blinded, and both characters collide and plummet to the floor, flailing arms and all. Setting up fleeting opportunities is a skill that requires practice, but the more you do, the more your story will simply tell itself.

Ask questions

  • Ask, say, roll. When you have a question about the current scene or don't know what to do next, ask it right away and let anyone answer.
    • If noone does, say whatever answer comes to mind.
    • If you want to be surprised instead, roll the dice.
    • If you have a question that is unlikely to affect the current scene, park it for later. Stay in the scene.

  • Trust your gut. When an answer comes to mind for a question about the fiction, use it. Don’t try to think of a better answer. Trust your gut. The purpose of your answer is not to make the fiction more interesting, it is just to keep the fiction moving. It’s okay if the answer raises more questions than it answers. Questions give the story open ends to explore.

  • Answer through the fiction. When you answer a question about the current scene, try to answer by describing what the characters observe or do: "Oh man, is there even a place to sleep in this town?" "Well, I see a tavern in the distance. The street looks hella shady though, I mumble that we should let this one slide and move on." and just like that we're right back in the fiction with a fleeting opportunity for the next player to jump on.
Stick to these principles of setting up opportunities and asking questions, and your story will always keep moving. It might not be the direction you were expecting. In fact, I hope it takes you deep into the unknown!

Location: Utrecht, Nederland

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