Storyworld Gateway: The Display Page
You first encounter a storyworld on its display page, which looks something like this:
The central panel button labeled "how to play" brings you here. We recommend everyone read How to Play in its entirety before playing a storyworld for the first time. Understanding how to use the Storyteller interface will increase your enjoyment.
Once you've read this page, return to the display page by using the "Go Back" link at the bottom of the page, or the back button on your browser.
Playing a Storyworld: How to Launch
Click play me. You'll get a Java popup window that looks something like this:
This is a standard Java alert for web-based applications. Click Trust. The Storyteller window may take up to a minute to load, depending on your connection speed. If you have trouble loading the storyworld, click on the troubleshooting link on the storyworld display page, which will give you an alternate method of launching the storyworld.
NOTE: Here are a couple of technical things to be aware of while playing a storyworld:
Playing a Storyworld: Storyteller Display
The Storyteller window is divided into two halves. The green left half shows you what has just happened. The blue right half is where you decide what to do about it. All of this is expressed in a toy language called "Deikto," a simplified version of English that the computer can understand.
You use Deikto to make your decisions. Your sentence will always begin with a box containing the word "I." Next to it, a menu will pop up listing the verbs you can choose from. Pick whichever verb suits your fancy. Don't worry about making a mistake; if you change your mind, you can always change the word. When there's only one word that fits the situation, Storyteller will pick that word for you and proceed to the next word. This only happens when there is simply no other choice. This saves you the effort of saying the obvious.
Once you have chosen the verb that you want, plus any additional words required to finish the action you want to take, click the period to complete the sentence. That tells Storyteller that you have decided upon this sentence and it should execute your command. It does that, figures out the response of the other actors, and presents you (on the left side of the window) with what happens next. And off you go!
Sometimes you'll read a sentence that begins with "Fate." Fate is the magical dramatic force that makes things happen. So if you read the sentence "Fate crash airplane," it means that the airplane crashed.
You'll probably want to know who's who, what's what, and where's where in the storyworld. To get such background information, just click on one of the four buttons in the upper right corner of the window.
To review the history of the story you have created so far, click on the Storybook button. (At the outset of the story, there won't be anything to see.) Here is a sample Storybook, after a few turns of storyplay:
Once you've chosen your verb, Storyteller will give you a new list of choices; pick one. If you decide to go back and change a previous choice, just click on the box containing that word and you can choose something different.
Storyworlds are made to be replayed. After you've tried playing a storyworld once, go back and try it again, making different kinds of choices. See what changes in the events that unfold.
Getting Background on your Progress: People, Places, and Things
If you get stuck as you play, don't know why one choice is better or worse than another, or get curious about what is going on "behind the curtain," Storyteller provides you some ways to find out more about what is going on. The three buttons below Storybook—People, Places, and Things—give you background on the Actors, Props, and Stages you are interacting with. Click on the words in the righthand panel to learn more about each person, place, and thing.
Under these background screens, notice that there is usually some text telling you a bit about that person, place, or thing. There might also be an image, and some information about their traits or characteristics. To select a new item, click on the name, and notice how the information presented about that item changes.
Pay close attention to the traits listed in each screen. For people, traits listed are the different Actors' physical, emotional, and/or social or political status. These traits are very important clues on how they will react to your choices. For places, traits might tell the nature of your location at a given point during play. Traits for things might tell you how you can use those objects to your benefit (or how they might be used to harm you!).
In Storytronics, traits always range in a series of steps from minimum to maximum. They can be either unipolar (e.g., in Balance of Power-21st Century, GDP), or bipolar (e.g., Oppressive_Free). Bipolar traits would appear as two opposing traits on a continuum. For instance, in a Romeo and Juliet storyworld, one personality trait might be Pragmatic_Romantic: the degree of romanticism in each character's soul.
If at any point you can't figure out the relative benefits of one choice over another, spend some time reviewing the information provided to you in the People, Places, and Things screens. The storyworld author often provides clues there about what is important to focus on. Also, you can track the progress of the story by noting how the characters' traits (and other storyworld attributes) change as you go along.
Getting Background on your Progress: Relationships
The computer-generated characters you are playing with all have personalities, and they have perceptions of each other—and of you. They evaluate each other based on the responses—and they evaluate you! These perceptions of each other's personality traits are listed in the Relationships screen.
These relationships are extremely important. They are the force that drives the storyworld, and they change as you play.
For instance, imagine you are playing Romeo in a Romeo-and-Juliet storyworld. The Actors' degree of romanticism, and how it conflicts with their sense of loyalty and commitment to their family ties, would have a big effect on their behavior toward you. These would be the people traits. However, just as you are trying to figure out what the Storytronic Actors are up to, as you play, all the other characters are making guesses as to how you feel and what your personality and values are, based on your actions. They use this to make decisions about how they should respond to you (they are also making these evaluations with regard to how to respond to each other).
The Relationships screen tells you not what the Actors' traits actually are, in other worlds but rather what the others think they are.
To use the Relationships screen, choose the trait you are interested in the dropdown list at the top of the Relationships screen, then select the Actor whose relationships you are interested in with the radio button next to the Actor's name in the first column.
For instance, in Balance of Power, other countries' impressions of your clout are very important in determining how they will respond to your negotiations with them. To find out what other countries think about how much clout you have, select Clout from the dropdown list and click on the USA radio button. What others think of you is in the righthand column.
In our Romeo and Juliet example, if you wanted to know what Romeo thought of others' pragmatism versus their romanticism, you would choose Pragmatic_Romantic in the dropdown traits list and click on the button next to Romeo's name. The middle column would tell you what Romeo thinks of the rest of the Actors' romanticism. The righthand column tells you what the others think of Romeo. This feature helps you predict other Actors' behavior, but be forewarned-the storyworld's author may not show you everything.
Storyworld Display Page: Ratings
Once you've played for a while, you can rate your experience and see what other players say using the Storyworld Display Page rating feature.
Move your mouse over the stars, and click on your preferred number of stars, to rate the storyworld.
Storytronics Community: Join the Discussion!
Storytron has an online community for interactive storytelling aficionados: the StoryBoard
Each storyworld has its own forum for discussion in the Players section, and there are plenty of forums and subforums for general discussion, as well. Click join the discussion from a storyworld's display page to go straight to the subforum for that storyworld. You can reach the main StoryBoard site by clicking on the StoryBoard button from any of our main pages.
You can read the topics without having an account, but in order to participate, you will need to register for an account. Click on the "Register" link at the top of the StoryBoard page to create an account.
Your account will default to a player account. However, we also have author accounts for people who create storyworlds for others to play. Storyworld authors have their own private area. If you think you might be interested in an author account, request one in the Request admittance to Author's Guild section of the StoryBoard > Everyone > Technology forum. (Be sure to let us know if you also want a Storyworld Design Diary subforum of your own, and if so, what to name it.)
Have fun, and we hope we'll see you around!
You first encounter a storyworld on its display page, which looks something like this:
The central panel button labeled "how to play" brings you here. We recommend everyone read How to Play in its entirety before playing a storyworld for the first time. Understanding how to use the Storyteller interface will increase your enjoyment.
Once you've read this page, return to the display page by using the "Go Back" link at the bottom of the page, or the back button on your browser.
Playing a Storyworld: How to Launch
Click play me. You'll get a Java popup window that looks something like this:
This is a standard Java alert for web-based applications. Click Trust. The Storyteller window may take up to a minute to load, depending on your connection speed. If you have trouble loading the storyworld, click on the troubleshooting link on the storyworld display page, which will give you an alternate method of launching the storyworld.
NOTE: Here are a couple of technical things to be aware of while playing a storyworld:
- The Storyteller has a connection to the web page that you launched the storyworld from. If while playing a storyworld, you navigate away from that startup web page in your browser, the Storyteller will end the storyworld prematurely.
- If the Storyteller doesn't hear anything from you in 30 minutes, it will end the storyworld prematurely.
Playing a Storyworld: Storyteller Display
The Storyteller window is divided into two halves. The green left half shows you what has just happened. The blue right half is where you decide what to do about it. All of this is expressed in a toy language called "Deikto," a simplified version of English that the computer can understand.
You use Deikto to make your decisions. Your sentence will always begin with a box containing the word "I." Next to it, a menu will pop up listing the verbs you can choose from. Pick whichever verb suits your fancy. Don't worry about making a mistake; if you change your mind, you can always change the word. When there's only one word that fits the situation, Storyteller will pick that word for you and proceed to the next word. This only happens when there is simply no other choice. This saves you the effort of saying the obvious.
Once you have chosen the verb that you want, plus any additional words required to finish the action you want to take, click the period to complete the sentence. That tells Storyteller that you have decided upon this sentence and it should execute your command. It does that, figures out the response of the other actors, and presents you (on the left side of the window) with what happens next. And off you go!
Sometimes you'll read a sentence that begins with "Fate." Fate is the magical dramatic force that makes things happen. So if you read the sentence "Fate crash airplane," it means that the airplane crashed.
You'll probably want to know who's who, what's what, and where's where in the storyworld. To get such background information, just click on one of the four buttons in the upper right corner of the window.
To review the history of the story you have created so far, click on the Storybook button. (At the outset of the story, there won't be anything to see.) Here is a sample Storybook, after a few turns of storyplay:
Once you've chosen your verb, Storyteller will give you a new list of choices; pick one. If you decide to go back and change a previous choice, just click on the box containing that word and you can choose something different.
Storyworlds are made to be replayed. After you've tried playing a storyworld once, go back and try it again, making different kinds of choices. See what changes in the events that unfold.
Getting Background on your Progress: People, Places, and Things
If you get stuck as you play, don't know why one choice is better or worse than another, or get curious about what is going on "behind the curtain," Storyteller provides you some ways to find out more about what is going on. The three buttons below Storybook—People, Places, and Things—give you background on the Actors, Props, and Stages you are interacting with. Click on the words in the righthand panel to learn more about each person, place, and thing.
Under these background screens, notice that there is usually some text telling you a bit about that person, place, or thing. There might also be an image, and some information about their traits or characteristics. To select a new item, click on the name, and notice how the information presented about that item changes.
Pay close attention to the traits listed in each screen. For people, traits listed are the different Actors' physical, emotional, and/or social or political status. These traits are very important clues on how they will react to your choices. For places, traits might tell the nature of your location at a given point during play. Traits for things might tell you how you can use those objects to your benefit (or how they might be used to harm you!).
In Storytronics, traits always range in a series of steps from minimum to maximum. They can be either unipolar (e.g., in Balance of Power-21st Century, GDP), or bipolar (e.g., Oppressive_Free). Bipolar traits would appear as two opposing traits on a continuum. For instance, in a Romeo and Juliet storyworld, one personality trait might be Pragmatic_Romantic: the degree of romanticism in each character's soul.
If at any point you can't figure out the relative benefits of one choice over another, spend some time reviewing the information provided to you in the People, Places, and Things screens. The storyworld author often provides clues there about what is important to focus on. Also, you can track the progress of the story by noting how the characters' traits (and other storyworld attributes) change as you go along.
Getting Background on your Progress: Relationships
The computer-generated characters you are playing with all have personalities, and they have perceptions of each other—and of you. They evaluate each other based on the responses—and they evaluate you! These perceptions of each other's personality traits are listed in the Relationships screen.
These relationships are extremely important. They are the force that drives the storyworld, and they change as you play.
For instance, imagine you are playing Romeo in a Romeo-and-Juliet storyworld. The Actors' degree of romanticism, and how it conflicts with their sense of loyalty and commitment to their family ties, would have a big effect on their behavior toward you. These would be the people traits. However, just as you are trying to figure out what the Storytronic Actors are up to, as you play, all the other characters are making guesses as to how you feel and what your personality and values are, based on your actions. They use this to make decisions about how they should respond to you (they are also making these evaluations with regard to how to respond to each other).
The Relationships screen tells you not what the Actors' traits actually are, in other worlds but rather what the others think they are.
To use the Relationships screen, choose the trait you are interested in the dropdown list at the top of the Relationships screen, then select the Actor whose relationships you are interested in with the radio button next to the Actor's name in the first column.
For instance, in Balance of Power, other countries' impressions of your clout are very important in determining how they will respond to your negotiations with them. To find out what other countries think about how much clout you have, select Clout from the dropdown list and click on the USA radio button. What others think of you is in the righthand column.
In our Romeo and Juliet example, if you wanted to know what Romeo thought of others' pragmatism versus their romanticism, you would choose Pragmatic_Romantic in the dropdown traits list and click on the button next to Romeo's name. The middle column would tell you what Romeo thinks of the rest of the Actors' romanticism. The righthand column tells you what the others think of Romeo. This feature helps you predict other Actors' behavior, but be forewarned-the storyworld's author may not show you everything.
Storyworld Display Page: Ratings
Once you've played for a while, you can rate your experience and see what other players say using the Storyworld Display Page rating feature.
Move your mouse over the stars, and click on your preferred number of stars, to rate the storyworld.
Storytronics Community: Join the Discussion!
Storytron has an online community for interactive storytelling aficionados: the StoryBoard
Each storyworld has its own forum for discussion in the Players section, and there are plenty of forums and subforums for general discussion, as well. Click join the discussion from a storyworld's display page to go straight to the subforum for that storyworld. You can reach the main StoryBoard site by clicking on the StoryBoard button from any of our main pages.
You can read the topics without having an account, but in order to participate, you will need to register for an account. Click on the "Register" link at the top of the StoryBoard page to create an account.
Your account will default to a player account. However, we also have author accounts for people who create storyworlds for others to play. Storyworld authors have their own private area. If you think you might be interested in an author account, request one in the Request admittance to Author's Guild section of the StoryBoard > Everyone > Technology forum. (Be sure to let us know if you also want a Storyworld Design Diary subforum of your own, and if so, what to name it.)
Have fun, and we hope we'll see you around!
How to Play a Storyworld
