[Misspent Youth] Putting the "story game" in story games

[Robert Bohl]

So something I noticed recently is that most Story Games do not focus so much on creating a story as they do on a) giving you tools to affect story-substance rather than physics-of-the-world and b) tend to usually result in sessions which are not properly speaking stories, but rather are explorations of character and theme.

To be clear and disclaimery, I am not down on this in any way. I love my story games. However, I did want to include something in Misspent Youth which would help to construct a coherent story with a game. This also hopefully will solve the hideous problem I ran into the last couple of times I ran a playtest where I kept on saying, "So what are you doing now, guys?"

Anyway, here's a first crack at a solution. It's a strong scene structure for the game. A few things you need to know for this to make sense: Misspent Youth is a near-future science fiction game about youthful rebellion, friendship, and growing up. It uses a mechanic that used to be a lot more like craps than it is now. It's a stakes-setting game but where each roll back-and-forth produces description stuff a la Dogs in the Vineyard. The Tag is a totem that's passed from player to player, once per scene (maybe), when you make someone else look cool. It makes you the in-fiction leader of the crew of ruffians you're a part of and gives you powers and responsibilities. The Authority is the name for the GM role. It's also the villain you collaboratively create. The "claim" are the two numbers (along with 7) that The Authority will win on if they are rolled. If The Authority does win, it may choose to give on the conflict in order to permanently change the Youthful Offenders (PCs) by twisting one of their traits to a darker, grown-up version.

I'd welcome feedback on this. I suspect a lot of the "will it work?" questions will be answered empirically during alpha play testing, but I'd love to hear what you think.

Link to LJ 'cause formatting is hard.

[Emily Care]

Hi Rob,

Over on Story Games, you mentioned that you are looking to use a three-act structure for you game. How will that work?

best,
Em

[Robert Bohl]

Hi Rob,

Over on Story Games, you mentioned that you are looking to use a three-act structure for you game. How will that work?

best,
Em

Well it's all up there (on the LJ link anyway). My internet searchings have informed the scene requirements I built into the game, the ones listed on the LJ.

So we start with exposition which produces an inciting incident. Next you have the first plot point, then heating up where the opposition is introduced. After that you have midpoint, then climax, then denouement. Each scene is a different point on the 3-act-structure graph (as far as my Google-fu has shown me anyway).