“Story” can mean a book, a movie, or a campfire tale. But many games—through cards, a gameboard, dice and mini-figures; or an electronic game—will also tell a story, or, better yet, induce the players to invent their own tale.
Successfully combining a game with a story is trickier than it sounds. Many baked-in aspects of games—rules and structure, competition, winners and losers—can be inconsistent with story creation. Game designers have developed a range of mechanics to create interesting challenges for the players yet allow the freedom to tell (or in some games, discover) a story.
Recently, I played Fall of Magic by Ross Cowman, a cooperative storytelling game, and one of the most successful and popular of this type in recent years. Two to four players take on characters who travel a fantasy landscape and encounter settings, people, and complications while the players weave the tale of their adventures.
The premise of the game/story is thus: Magic in the land of Umbria is dying, and the Magus isn’t doing so well, either. The players create characters to accompany the Magus on an investigation trip.
As players, we are free to imagine Umbria and its surrounding regions anyway we want. The players are also in charge of deciding who the Magus is and what motives him. Lists of vague, yet evocative, character names, roles, and home regions come with the game and the players choose an identity that speaks to them. (Starting with “Justice, a Crab-Singer,” my character turned out to be a sort of extremely lawful moon-child hippie, always ready to sing the songs of the crab-nation.) A few minor rules govern the characters’ abilities, attributes, and growth through the course of the adventure.
Unlike some board games with strong story elements (the Pandemic Legacy games come to mind), a specific tale isn’t embedded in Fall of Magic. The game experience provides a series of prompts such as locations, encounters, or characters, and the players take turns adding to the tale by incorporating each prompt as it is encountered.
Fall of Magic is one of the most beautiful games on the market today. The map of Umbria and adjacent kingdoms is silkscreened on an actual canvas scroll, with the underworld sections of the map on the backside of the scroll. (Nice touch!) The coin-shaped pawns have a satisfying heft and lovely design. The game is also available for online play and in a print-and-play paper version. The rule book is tiny, and its contents are more suggestions, really.
I played Fall of Magic with one other person, both of us experienced in role playing games, and we had no difficulty developing twists and turns in a story based on the prompts provided. Fall of Magic would also be a good cooperative storytelling experience for players who are new to the genre because the game mechanics and system help the players create scenes with tension and conflict.
