Boardgames as storytelling engines
For years, I've been looking for games which could offer to generate actual stories. I tried a lot ranging from pen and paper roleplaying games to MMORPGs. I mean it.
And so far, the former appeared the most rewarding but they require so much investment whichever your side of the famous game master screen... And as years pass, free time becomes a scarce resource without mentioning the challenge of mustering a few friends for at least six hours.
Boardgames are then a good way to indulge your lust for interactive stories. For a decade, such games have proven to be more and more innovative, colorful and still easy to set up and share. A majority of them rely on strong mechanics offering their lot of interesting choices resulting in pure moments of drama and tension. If one game's background is not just a cosmetic excuse or too abstract, telling the story resulting from a session can shape into actual stories.
In recent years, the boardgames small industry produced a couple of true interactive storytelling gems... and they surprisingly all rely on a cooperative gameplay. Starting with Reiner Knizia's Lord of the Rings, followed by Days of Wonder's Shadows over Camelot and more recently Fantasy Flight Games' Battlestar Galactica, they all produce rare moments of gameplay, vivid memories and unique stories (without mentioning Pandemic which I didn't try yet).
Studying these games should be a priority for any game designer. Instead of pure game engines, they start from a storyworld or genre which has to be deconstructed and rebuilt as a system using symbols, tropes and drama rules able to produce meaning and potentially emotion.
I had the chance to play Battlestar Galactica recently and it was a unique experience which I can't wait to reproduce. For the fist time, I played a game and felt being part of an epic story (actually a tragedy as human race was destroyed by relentless cylon assaults and betrayal) full of dilemmas and constantly increasing dramatic situations with only few breathing rooms.
I won't review it, others did it well. If you chase the dream of marrying storytelling and systemic gaming : you have to experience it, praise its designers and publisher... and learn. A true masterpiece...
