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<blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 8858981" data-attributes="member: 7006">I'm torn on this question... because my true answer would be something along the lines of &quot;There probably shouldn't be any, because trying to 'gamify' a story is the antithesis of creating it.&quot;&nbsp; In other words... when you put in 'game rules', the players will naturally gravitate towards being more concerned with &quot;playing the rules of the game&quot;... and thereby missing the forest through the trees of creating a story.&nbsp; People get so tied up in how mechanics work that their focus would be on the storytelling mechanics, rather than the story that was meant to emerge from it.Now the reason I probably SHOULDN'T be the one to answer this question and why almost NO ONE should take my answer as by any means &quot;correct&quot;... is because my feelings and opinions are coming at it from a wildly divergent angle than probably 99.9% of the player base.&nbsp; Because I am first and foremost an improvisor and have been performing and directing and producing performance improv for a quarter-century.&nbsp; And as a result... my brain has been completely rewired and conditioned towards creating story out of nothing but the interactions with other people... without using any sorts of &quot;rules&quot; to do so.&nbsp; And even the so-called &quot;rules of improv&quot; that people tout are not actually rules that experienced improvisors follow... they exist merely to help new improvisors get better at the basics and middle-range stuff before they finally realize that &quot;improv rules&quot; aren't needed either.And thus &quot;game rules&quot; don't help you get better at story-based improvisation... they exist merely to focus and constrain story... not help generate it.&nbsp; Things like improv &quot;games&quot; are not there to help us create better improvised scenes... they are there more or less as a party-trick to impress the audience.&nbsp; &quot;Oh look!&nbsp; They are creating this interesting and compelling story with interesting and compelling characters... while also changing the genre they are in every 30 seconds!&nbsp; Cool!&quot;&nbsp; And likewise... any sort of commodified &quot;game mechanics&quot; are really just trying to &quot;teach you effective improv technique&quot; at a table while in the middle of playing the game you are using them for and without a professional improv instructor there to give you notes to tell you how or why these rules exist and whether or not your use of them is actually helping you do the thing you're trying to get out of it.Which means in truth that I can't effectively answer the actual question... because my answer for what would be the best &quot;storygame&quot; mechanics to add to D&amp;D would be-- take improv classes.&nbsp; LOL.&nbsp; Actually learn and practice the techniques of creating improvised story that &quot;storygames&quot; attempt to do while in the middle of playing it.&nbsp; But to me, that's like trying to learn how to play baseball during the actual baseball game.&nbsp; It doesn't really work very well.&nbsp; At best you learn how to play the mechanics-- the &quot;game rules&quot;-- but you don't really learn the underlying thing these rules and mechanics are trying to serve.But that's really a completely unhelpful answer and I freely admit it.And the only reason I bring it up is because the same way I'm an advocate of D&amp;D and RPGs to people who don't play them and don't realize how fun they can be... I am also an advocate for the art of improvisation itself and want to inspire as many people as I can to give it a try.&nbsp; Because in my opinion it ends up being the purest form of expression of what &quot;storygames&quot; are trying to teach us.&nbsp; So rather than stutterstep your way through it by playing something like Fiasco or Ten Candles... just go right to the source.&nbsp; Because once you do... once you learn how to effectively create a compelling narrative and story at a table without ANY rules whatsoever... then after the fact games like Fiasco and Ten Candles will become fun to play not because they are telling you how to do it, but because they are just helping you focus and constrain your improvisation the exact same way improv games like &quot;Film And Theater Styles&quot;, &quot;The Alphabet Game&quot;, and &quot;Stand Sit Kneel&quot; do.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="DEFCON 1, post: 8858981, member: 7006"] I'm torn on this question... because my true answer would be something along the lines of "There probably shouldn't be any, because trying to 'gamify' a story is the antithesis of creating it." In other words... when you put in 'game rules', the players will naturally gravitate towards being more concerned with "playing the rules of the game"... and thereby missing the forest through the trees of creating a story. People get so tied up in how mechanics work that their focus would be on the storytelling mechanics, rather than the story that was meant to emerge from it. Now the reason I probably SHOULDN'T be the one to answer this question and why almost NO ONE should take my answer as by any means "correct"... is because my feelings and opinions are coming at it from a wildly divergent angle than probably 99.9% of the player base. Because I am first and foremost an improvisor and have been performing and directing and producing performance improv for a quarter-century. And as a result... my brain has been completely rewired and conditioned towards creating story out of nothing but the interactions with other people... without using any sorts of "rules" to do so. And even the so-called "rules of improv" that people tout are not actually rules that experienced improvisors follow... they exist merely to help new improvisors get better at the basics and middle-range stuff before they finally realize that "improv rules" aren't needed either. And thus "game rules" don't [I]help[/I] you get better at story-based improvisation... they exist merely to focus and constrain story... not help generate it. Things like improv "games" are not there to help us create better improvised scenes... they are there more or less as a party-trick to impress the audience. "Oh look! They are creating this interesting and compelling story with interesting and compelling characters... while also changing the genre they are in every 30 seconds! Cool!" And likewise... any sort of commodified "game mechanics" are really just trying to "teach you effective improv technique" at a table while in the middle of playing the game you are using them for and without a professional improv instructor there to give you notes to tell you how or why these rules exist and whether or not your use of them is actually helping you do the thing you're trying to get out of it. Which means in truth that I can't effectively answer the actual question... because my answer for what would be the best "storygame" mechanics to add to D&D would be-- [I]take improv classes[/I]. LOL. Actually learn and practice the techniques of creating improvised story that "storygames" [I]attempt[/I] to do while in the middle of playing it. But to me, that's like trying to learn how to play baseball [I]during[/I] the actual baseball game. It doesn't really work very well. At best you learn how to play the mechanics-- the "game rules"-- but you don't really learn the underlying thing these rules and mechanics are trying to serve. But that's really a completely unhelpful answer and I freely admit it. And the only reason I bring it up is because the same way I'm an advocate of D&D and RPGs to people who don't play them and don't realize how fun they can be... I am also an advocate for the art of improvisation itself and want to inspire as many people as I can to give it a try. Because in my opinion it ends up being the purest form of expression of what "storygames" are trying to teach us. So rather than stutterstep your way through it by playing something like [I]Fiasco[/I] or [I]Ten Candles[/I]... just go right to the source. Because once you do... once you learn how to effectively create a compelling narrative and story at a table without ANY rules whatsoever... then after the fact games like [I]Fiasco[/I] and [I]Ten Candles[/I] will become fun to play not because they are telling you how to do it, but because they are just helping you focus and constrain your improvisation the exact same way improv games like "Film And Theater Styles", "The Alphabet Game", and "Stand Sit Kneel" do. [/QUOTE]

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