I Say, My Lordship...

[Shyria Dracnoir]

Got this idea for a round-robin storytelling game in the vein of The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen (http://www.panix.com/~sos/bc/baron.html).

Here's an overview of the general rules:

1. The players challenge one another to tell the most outlandish story based on a one or two line prompt (stories themselves should be able to fit in a single medium-sized post or so). Class, wit, and general upper class twitery is encouraged. Each player tells one story per game.

Example:
"I say, Thadius darling, tell us again how you once stole into the private storehouses of the Grand Vizer of the City of Brass and made off with his favorite coffee mug and a bag of arabica beans plucked from the gardens of Shamballah itself."

2. After a player has told their tale, the others can attempt to hijack the story and make it harder for their opponent to finish in the form of wagers. wagers and objections. Wagers are obstacles planted by the other players in an attempt to prevent the storyteller from reaching their original goal by introducing new elements or complicating existing ones:

I'll wager that the minute he laid a hand on those beans, he was accosted by an animal trap containing seventeen Queenslandian drop bears and a very angry squirrel.

The player telling the story can either find a way to work these additions into their story or else ignore them and potentially lose standing in the eyes of the other players. I think for an online game it might be a good idea to put a cap on wagers (2-3 might work, depending on the number of participants).

3. Once everyone has had a chance to tell their tale, the players vote on who they thought had the best story. The person with the most votes wins

So, does this sound like an interesting start to a game idea? I'm a little too tired to try and refine the rules at the moment, so I beseech anyone who has a suggestion to throw it in. I hope I don't come off as a complete buffoon for suggesting this.

[Ryanderman]

This sound intriguing. Small point of confusion though, is the player telling the tale supposed to tell the entire story in one post? Then other players make wagers based on story points within the post, and the story teller has to go back an incorporate them?

[Shyria Dracnoir]

Yeah. First player tells their original story in one post and posts again to clarify if someone makes a wager.

[krogothwolf]

Wouldn't it be easier if the Story Teller told his story up to a point of interest and the wager are placed at the point of interest.

So Thad would tell his story and then get to a point like breaking into someones house. Then he pauses it and waits for a wager. It would make it a little less confusing I would think. Because in the game I played that's like this IRL you interrupt the guy as he's telling the story and then he has to change it on the fly.

[Ryanderman]

You mentioned wagers and objections. How does an objection work?

[krogothwolf]

Objections work where you refute a part of his tale. So he says he fought 2 giants and a ogre barehanded. You object saying it was only 1 giant and a ogre and he was armed with a sword. They have to alter their story to that.

[IHateMakingNames]

There should be a reason why some one wouldn't include a wager or objection into their story. The only reason one wouldn't right now is if they don't like the wager or objection, but not including it would basically be a given mark down on their judge score.

[Shyria Dracnoir]

There's a provision in the original game that the storyteller can challenge the interloper to a duel if they really don't like what they're saying (for example, calling them a liar, challenging their honor, ect.) Haven't been able to find anything that explains those particular rules in much more detail though, so I don't know how those actually play out.

[PyrosNine]

In a duel, the interloper must give his own suitable explanation for how things are done, essentially "Well, if you don't like how I'm telling my story, how about you give it a shot?", on the condition that he does so on all previously given wagers or objections, including his own.

So if I'm explaining about that time I inspired Krinkels to make Madness 5 by breaking into his apartment suite in Sealand and taking out the raincoat mafia within, on a wager that that the raincoat mafia is invisible whenever it's not raining, and that I was armed only with my wits and a shovel on a rope, and on the objection that the rope was only 2 feet long and that I'm a halfwit, and then some wanker goes and throws on the objection "that the raincoat mafia is invincible while invisible", I can say with all my gentlemanly pride that I would like to see how you thought it was done.

So then the interloper would not only have to tell my own story for me, but also with the objection he just shoveled in. If he can't do so, but I am still able to, It can be said that I won the duel. If he proves capable of doing it, he has essentially told my own story for me, (or hijacked it and made it his story) and thus I lose respect, and also the duel.

[IHateMakingNames]

I assume this game is normally done in person, and stumbling during your story or pauses count against you. But since this is a forum, you'd have days to think of ways to integrate any objections or wagers or duels.

It would seem difficult to integrate wagers and the sort in a forum version, since you also cannot interrupt a story.


And since I followed the link, whatever happens with the rules, there should be a word limit on stories. Otherwise people can just keep writing and writing to fit everything in and make their story seem better by length.

[PyrosNine]

Well, the original story should be really really short.

I wanted to do this, here, with these other people, and I did so by this, this and this, with a few details on how it was particularly difficult or awesome.

The wager should increase the original story (and you can reuse parts of the original story) by a good amount, with really difficult wagers making it double in size. Ditto for two wagers, and any objections, but it still shouldn't be like, 5 pages worth of writing.

As for forums, I guess you'd have to stop between pieces of the story. So, after being told about an adventure in a flying castle, you'd have to first explain in a post how you got on the flying castle with a little detail, and if someone wanted to wager or object, with claims that the castle has an artillery defense, or that spinning turtles can't fly, then they could reply to the post with afterwards. If the post was satisfactory, they could just reply for the story to go on with a "And then what happened?"

Of course, for an online forum, you'd probably also have to limit the number of players. I can forsee each section of story getting 21 wagers and objections. Or at least a limit to how many wagers/objections at a time. Perhaps both, limit players to 4 or 5, only 1 interjection per section of the story, maybe take turns as to who can Wager, Object, or ask for the story to move onto the next section.

[Ryanderman]

Or maybe limit the total number of Wagers and Objections a player can make, between everyone's stories. So the incentive would be to save them for particularly opportune moments.

[krogothwolf]

I'd say limit players plus wagers/objections for the players. It would also cut down on people trying to ruin things by just being jerks if you cut down on the players.

[Shyria Dracnoir]

How's this for a setup:

4-5 Players per game
2 Wagers per player
1 Objection (Substituted for 1 Wager)

So, each player can pester the storyteller a total of twice (2 wagers or 1 wager/1 objection)

[Rejected Again]

Count me in.

[KeienSlayer]

Is the two wagers a per story or per round?

(As in, could I make two comments on Thad's story, then make another two comments on Loyal's, or do I only get to make two comments between the 5 stories?)

[PyrosNine]

A story is a round, as you can only pester a given storyteller twice, and once his turn is up, there's another storyteller.

[krogothwolf]

5 players, with 1 player as a storyteller and 8 interruptions, that shouldn't make it to long.

The issue is because of how much time can be taken between posts is I would remove dueling from this game because the whole point of dueling is the objector being forced to continue the story on the spot.

[Shyria Dracnoir]

A story is a round, as you can only pester a given storyteller twice, and once his turn is up, there's another storyteller.

Pyros has it. By the end of the game, there should have been four different stories told (in a game with four players).

[Ryanderman]

If this ends up starting after Labor day, or if it is otherwise convenient to add me at that point, I'm totally in.

[Shyria Dracnoir]

I'll try to have an official sign-up thread up by tonight with the revised version of the rules. We'll see how it plays out, and depending on the results I can tweak things a bit.

[Ryanderman]

We should start this game.

[Shyria Dracnoir]

My bad. Been settling back into school life and waiting on my new computer to get here. My goal is to have something up by this weekend though.