A Modest Proposal

I love storytelling, and I love games, so you would think that storytelling games are a natural. I find that they are a hard sell to any gaming group, because, frankly, many gamers are shy and don't like being "out there" in front of a group, telling stories. So the following proposal is my attempt at bringing one of my favorite storytelling games to the realm of email.

PLAYING NANOFICTIONARY BY EMAIL OR ONLINE: FOUR PLAYER INSTRUCTIONS
Original Rules by Andy Looney
PBeM Revision by Walt O'Hara

Using Cyberboard for email games and/or VASSAL for real time games (eventually).

NANOFICTIONARY is a game of telling tiny stories published by the good folks at LOONEY LABS. Cyberboard is a free Windows based utility that can facilitate playing games by email.

References:
Nanofictionary- http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/2895
Cyberboard- http://cyberboard.brainiac.com

This Cyberboard gamebox and these instructions are provided as a free service to facilitate story telling games over the medium of email with a little help
from the web.

DISCLAIMER: NANOFICTIONARY remains the copyright and intellectual property of Looney Labs. It is assumed that the player(s) own an actual, physical copy of Nanofictionary before using and downloading this utility. This utility does not copy any of the artwork of the original game (beyond the logo) and you are depriving yourself of half the fun of the game without the real cards. See your local hobby shop, online retailer or go to http://www.looneylabs.com/OurStores/LooneyLabs.html to purchase a game. Nanofictionary is quite reasonably priced.

What is needed:

Four players (will expand to six if this approach playtests well)
Four Judges
A Cyberboard Savvy Referee
Someplace to post results and manage voting (like a blog or bulletin board)

Nanofictionary is primarily a story telling and judging game that uses a nice little card deck to facilitate common story telling elements (called Plot Devices) in the following five card categories:

ACTIONS: a meta-card that affects card play (purple)

and four types of color themed PLOT DEVICE CARDS:

CHARACTERS: A perons or persons that have a role in the story being told (green)
PROBLEMS: A complication to the current plot adding more depth to the plotline (orange)
SETTINGS: A place that has some impact on the story (blue)
RESOLUTION: A card that can end the story (yellow)

The rules to Nanofictionary are here: http://www.wunderland.com/LooneyLabs/Nanofictionary/Rules.html

Email Nanofictionary works pretty much like that for card handling and story writing, only the game will be refereed by a gamemaster (who might also play or judge) who will use Cyberboard to deal out cards and assign cards to players. MOST of the game will be handled with simple email notifications of what card players will be adding to their storytelling decks. The Judging phase might make use of some form of collaborative web technology to judge with. Scoring will be handled with a slight modification of the printed rules.

SEQUENCE:

1) CARD PHASE

The GM uses Cyberboard to "Deal" (pull five cards out of the .Draw Deck) for each of the players. The .Draw Deck is set to produce random pieces when tiles are dragged out of the "tray" in Cyberboard. The "random drag" feature of Cyberboard simulates a card deck reasonably well, as it was meant to do.

The players are sent an email of the cards they start with. Chances are they will *not* have enough cards to write a story immediately, as Nanofictionary states that You may have as many Characters in your story as you want; however, your story can only have one Problem, one Setting, and one Resolution. EXCEPTION: if the player states that a COMPLICATION Action Card (Purple) is being played. If that is played, then a second Problem, Setting, OR Resolution may be added from their hand.

Before the FIRST TURN ONLY, the players state what STORY ELEMENT CARD (green, blue, yellow, orange only, no purple) they wish to start their story with. As Cyberboard maintains a "map" graphic with tile overlays to represent pieces, the referee can send the players a picture of the "card table" graphic in Cyberboard, to illustrate what cards are in play at the start of the turn.


Figure 1: The Game Table as Depicted in Cyberboard


During the Card Phase, the players must email the GM that they are going to do one of the following:
1.) Add a Plot Device (Character, Setting, Problem, or Resolution) to your story, specifying WHICH of the cards in their hand they will add. Note that the plot devices you add to the story will be communicated to the other players UNLESS it is a RESOLUTION (yellow) card. That is always played "face down" in real NanoFic, and will not be revealed in email NanoFic.

Here is an example of a Character Card, a Problem Card and a Resolution Card:



2.) Use an Action card by discarding it and following its instructions
See Action Cards, below.

3.) Discard as many cards as you wish, and draw back to 5

ACTION CARDS in the PBeM game



Complication: Adds a second Setting, Problem, or Resolution to your Story from your current hand, then draw one card from the .Draw deck. Specify in email which card you wish to play.

Brainstorm: All active players draw a card from the .Draw, then give a card of their choice to you. You also draw an extra card for each inactive player. Then you play one card, and discard down to 5. The GM draws from the .Draw deck for each player and lets them know what it is via email. The player specifies which of their cards they will donate (by email) to the GM. The player using Brainstorm (there are only two in the game, btw) emails the GM which cards will go to the Discard deck.

Plagiarize: Steal a plot device from another player's story, by swapping it with a card from your hand that is of the same type. The Purple Action card is "played" by sending the GM an email saying "I am swapping my card X for player n card's Y". The card gets sent to the Discard bin, its job is done.

Uncrumple: Take any card out of the discard pile (except action cards), add it to your hand, then play one card. The Action card is discarded and the new (old) story element is back in your hand. The contents of the Discard pile are sent at the beginning of the turn. If you something you desire gets discarded in the current turn, you will simply have to pay attention.

Thus ends the CARD PHASE.

2. The WRITING PHASE

If the player has the minimal elements for a story in Nanofic terms (at least one character and only one setting, problem, and resolution per story), he/she might elect to "do a tell" (put together a story and allow the other players to hear/see it).

If we were all playing face to face (my favorite way of playing Nanofic), this would be done in the grand old style of the oral tradition. Alas, the Internet can't provide that sensation (yet?) and we can only weakly imitate with the written word. Given the restrictions of the written word, this is the Player's chance to excel. Nanofic's definition of a nanofiction is any story that encompasses every story element that has come into play for the player. Telling a NanoFic story is something more than writing a long run on sentence that mentions every term written on the cards. HUMANS read and score your NanoFic for this very reason.

This instruction can't tell you how to be creative; that part is up to you. Try to make stories brief (this IS *NanoFictionary* after all), approximately a para or two long (and not a long paragraph). Submit stories to the GM in text format, with Line Feeds and very basic formatting. The stories will be posted to a central point of access (a website, blog, bulletin board, etc.) so, please use some common sense about the content, as your name attachs to it.

Guidelines for writing are loose and easy-- as long as the judges can recognize the story elements you were dealt, you can make some contextual changes. You may change sex from male to female if you like, or plurals to singular and/or back again. Follow the guidelines that Andy Looney wrote for creating nanofictions, they still apply to the email game. Think of writing NanoFic as creating a Mad Lib in reverse. In Mad Libs, you are given the structure and asked to fill in variable terms. In NanoFic, you are given some specific terms and are asked to create the surrounding structure!

Examples taken from Figure 1:

North-West Player: "A Team of Super Scientists were plagued by terrible weather fluctuations all over the West Coast. By their prediction, a terrible super-storm was imminent and they had to come up with a solution, pronto! Just as things looked hopeless, their corrupt lab assistant, Benito, tipped them off about a weather-changing mcguffin that was stored in the Bus Depot, near locker 17. When they manged to jimmy the locker open, all they found were several plastic baggies filled with a strange white powder. Despite their strenuous objections, they each spent two years in jail for possession with intent to distribute. The irony was lost on them."

North-East Player: "The Bleary Eyed Waitress, Flo, went to the World's Fair in a vain attempt to lift her spirits. Each bright and shiny innovation on display at the Fair was a poignant reminder of stuff she would never own or a home she would never live in. Suddenly Flo's depressed reverie was shattered by screams! Up in the Sky loomed a menacing Circular object.. an Alien transport ship! A Hush fell over the crowd as the unseen speakers on the outside of the alien craft emitted: "PEOPLE OF EARTH-- WE ARE YOUR NEW MASTERS. WE HAVE COME A LONG WAY TO RIGHT AN INPONDERABLE WRONG! WE HAVE ARRIVED TO DISCOVER ... WHO STOLE MY BROWNIESSSSSSS????". No answer was forthcoming from the crowd, so a villainous death ray lashed over the planet, and the Earth was destroyed".

3. The JUDGING PHASE

If the GM is web-savvy, he will have set up a polling application on a website somewhere, facilitating voting for the current NanoFics. At the bare minimum try to have as many judge volunteers as you have players. Each judge reads the NanoFics for every submission, and gives it a score of 1 through 10. This is communicated to the GM in secret by each judge.

SCORING

Read this part carefully, as the Nanofictionary scoring system is somewhat different to streamline the process for email play.

Stories are scored in the following fashion:

Games are played in ROUNDS. The Game ENDS when the .Draw deck is empty.

A ROUND is complete once all four players submit stories. A player gets a COMPLETION BONUS AWARD for the order in which they complete their stories.

This is a Completion Bonus Marker in the Cyberboard gamebox:


There is a Completion Bonus Marker in the gamebox (1-6 for a maximum of six players, you only use as many as you have players). They are awarded in descending order, thus, the first person to submit a story receives the #4 Completion Bonus (and Four Points). The second person to submit a story gets the #3 completion Bonus (and Three points, etc.).

The first points a player gets is a completion bonus, per round. 4, 3, 2 or 1 points. More with more players.

Next, average the scores given by the (at least 4) judges. Add that to the player's score.

Next, add points for Action Cards played, per this table:

0 points per extra CHARACTER CARDS
1 point per extra PROBLEM CARD
2 points per extra SETTING CARD
3 points per extra RESOLUTION CARD

Total these points. In the unlikely event of a tie, dice off or flip a coin. Award First, Second and Third Awards per ROUND.

A Round Award looks like this:



FINAL GAME SCORE: Total Round Awards, as per this schedule

For every first place ROUND AWARD: 10 points
For every second place ROUND AWARD: 7 points
For every third place ROUND AWARD: 5 points

HIGHEST SCORE AT GAME END WINS THE GAME