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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CleverNickName" data-source="post: 8794121" data-attributes="member: 50987">It's more complicated than that, but only slightly.Basically: the tower is a tension-building device.   The premise is that the Tower will eventually collapse, ending the scene.  If it collapses on your turn, that usually means the scene ends badly for your character.  So the higher the tower, the higher the stakes, and therefore the higher the tension.At the beginning of the scene, you set up the tower.  The Narrator might pull one or two (or twenty) Jenga sticks out of the tower to "dial in" the speed of the next scene...the more sticks they pull out of it, the less stable it is when the scene starts, and therefore, the more quickly it will eventually collapse.Then they begin narrating the scene.  You take turns telling parts of the story, and when you eventually come to a "challenge," the Narrator will tell you how many sticks you need to pull out of the tower to succeed.  For example, let's say that in this particular scene, someone is injured and you decide to apply first aid.<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">If your character is a nurse, the Narrator probably won't even ask you to pull any sticks at all, because this is literally your job--the Narrator will just describe you saving the person's life, and then move on.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">If your character was once a Boy Scout a few years ago and had some basic first aid training back in the day, the Narrator might ask you to pull one stick out of the Tower.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">If your character is an accountant with absolutely no first aid training and faints at the sight of blood, the Narrator might ask you to pull two sticks from the Tower since this challenge is especially difficult for you.</li> </ul>If you successfully pull and place the stick(s), the scene continues.  But if you cause the Tower to fall, something bad happens and the scene ends: maybe your character faints from the sight of blood, the injured person goes into shock, and the scene ends with your character being sent to the hospital with the injured person (and removed from the game).  Then the Narrator resets the tower, and starts describing a new scene for the remaining players.And so it goes, until the story reaches its scripted ending or everyone is eliminated.  A typical game has about a half-dozen scenes, and takes about 2-3 hours to play from start (character creation) to finish (the end of the final scene)...which makes it a pretty decent choice for a party game.</blockquote>

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