(no subject)

Via kickstarter, I discovered Storium, a software toolkit for running online storygames. There are a lot of neat things about it. It provides simple, universal mechanics for sharing control of the story between players, and for forcing players to make interesting story choices. It will feature campaign settings created by a variety of the coolest and most interesting writers around today both in SFF and in roleplaying circles- Chuck Wendig, Saladin Ahmed, Mark Diaz Truman, Karin Lowachee, Maurice Broaddus, Mur Lafferty, Elizabeth Bear, Ryan Macklin, Ursula Vernon, Tobias Buckell, etc... (And it's not something I've seen commented on, but the list is astonishingly diverse for an SFF community project that isn't ABOUT race or gender.)

But my favorite part so far is the way that the campaign settings are laid out. They're extremely formless: The things the author provides you are cards containing characters, items, locations, potential challenges, with no notes toward how to integrate them. And you have tools for creating your own cards, too. So building a game using one of the campaign settings is like flipping through a sourcebook for cool, atmospheric things to pull into your own game, which in my experience is how most gamemasters build games anyway. Just flipping through one of the worlds I came up with a half dozen immediate ideas for neat characters and setting details to add in, and several of the premades gave me instant adventure hooks.

I just started a game last night with a few friends, in a sort of LOST type setting, and I'm really looking forward to seeing how it turns out.


EDIT: And as a backer I have the ability to invite people to play in my games... so, is there interest in me running a Storium game for some people on my dwlist? It's asynchronous gameplay, low time commitment- I'm unlikely to harass you unless it's weeks between your posts.