What is Storium anyway?

[Dalillama]

"An online storytelling engine" isn't real helpful, and I can't find any other written information on their website or Kickstarter. Watching the video is impractical as my speakers are otherwise engaged (also, I hate videos).

[Anthony]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/arti...d-Write-Online seems informative, though it doesn't especially make me interested in supporting it. Then again, I don't generally favor kickstarters.

[sir_pudding]

So it's basically a VTT for a very specific card driven RPG system?

[PK]

The best introduction I can think of is this short video explaining how it works.

(What follows assumes that you've watched that video. I'm not going to attempt to further explain how it works, just offer my thoughts and experiences.)

I've been using it for about two weeks now. I'm playing in three stories and narrating one of my own. My experience is that the "card-play" system provides just enough of a "game framework" to preserve the RPG elements that we love -- resource management, tactical play, etc. -- but is "lite" enough to facilitate asynchronous play.

By asynchronous play, I mean that the site and system do not require (or even assume) the narrator and players to be logged in at the same time. Everyone logs in when they can, at whatever frequency they can. (When the narrator creates a story, he sets expectations, such as, "2-3 scenes per week" or "1-2 scenes per day"; ideally, players will only sign up if they can meet those expectations!)

Clashing schedules is one of the hardest things to overcome in remote gaming, and the "challenges" system built into Storium targets that issue very well. I have players who log in 4-5 times a day, and one who can only log in every other day, and it doesn't matter -- the story is flowing smoothly.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by PK

(What follows assumes that you've watched that video. I'm not going to attempt to further explain how it works, just offer my thoughts and experiences.)

I signed up already on the strength of the people involved. I really hope there are going to be some non-video explanations of how to use it: I started trying to watch that one, but had to stop (I'm partially sighted and getting meaningful information out of moving pictures and listening to speech at the same time is really hard for me; reading text that holds still is easy).

[Graham]

Originally Posted by johndallman

I really hope there are going to be some non-video explanations of how to use it.

I didn't watch the videos, but learned it from the 'How To Play' pages, reached from the top right of the home screen:

https://storium.com/how-to-play

(You'll need to have a beta login account to reach that.)

Graham

[Grouchy Chris]

For those who have tried it, how invested in your character do you feel compared to a face-to-face game with a heavier ruleset? Does it make a difference?

[PK]

Originally Posted by Grouchy Chris

For those who have tried it, how invested in your character do you feel compared to a face-to-face game with a heavier ruleset? Does it make a difference?

Equally for me. But then again, complexity of the rules system has never affected my character investment; there's no difference for how much I like a character if I make it in GURPS vs. Fate vs. Storium. How invested I am is usually based on how well the character "clicked" for me when I came up with their initial concept.

[Rocket Man]

Originally Posted by PK

Equally for me. But then again, complexity of the rules system has never affected my character investment; there's no difference for how much I like a character if I make it in GURPS vs. Fate vs. Storium. How invested I am is usually based on how well the character "clicked" for me when I came up with their initial concept.

Agreed. Once a character finds his or her center, the rules become secondary for me. (In my current one-in-one, it's become noteworthy when we actually pick up the dice.)

[Langy]

Originally Posted by PK

The best introduction I can think of is this short video explaining how it works.

(What follows assumes that you've watched that video. I'm not going to attempt to further explain how it works, just offer my thoughts and experiences.)

I've been using it for about two weeks now. I'm playing in three stories and narrating one of my own. My experience is that the "card-play" system provides just enough of a "game framework" to preserve the RPG elements that we love -- resource management, tactical play, etc. -- but is "lite" enough to facilitate asynchronous play.

By asynchronous play, I mean that the site and system do not require (or even assume) the narrator and players to be logged in at the same time. Everyone logs in when they can, at whatever frequency they can. (When the narrator creates a story, he sets expectations, such as, "2-3 scenes per week" or "1-2 scenes per day"; ideally, players will only sign up if they can meet those expectations!)

Clashing schedules is one of the hardest things to overcome in remote gaming, and the "challenges" system built into Storium targets that issue very well. I have players who log in 4-5 times a day, and one who can only log in every other day, and it doesn't matter -- the story is flowing smoothly.

I've had a pretty decent amount of experience with freeform play-by-post 'games' before, and one thing I've noticed over that time - it is much more hit-and-miss than in-person gaming for keeping a story flowing. You'll very, very commonly run into people who simply stop posting, or go much slower than they anticipated, etc. Watch out for that.

A lot of those games were less collaborative and more adversarial in nature - the very basics of the Storium system might still work in that sense, but it doesn't sound like it's set up to handle it. It'd basically require a rework such that non-narrators can set up challenges. Not sure how that'd work out *shrug*

Anyways, I haven't backed Storium yet and I'm unsure if I will (though I realize I only have a short time to decide). I wish there was a way to actually see the site and how it works without backing, but it seems to be very much a 'buy blind' effort at the moment.