Storium Theory: But...But I Only Have "Spendthrift!"

Another submitted topic this week, as mikitracey (who honestly should be writing this topic as I think she's better at this than me!) wanted me to take some time to write about those situations you can run into in Storium games where the cards you're in just kind of don't seem to fit the situation you're in.

I've written a bit on this in the past--or rather, on how to lower the chances of running into it. I've written about making sure you write Strengths or Weaknesses with wide meanings, about widening your perception of your cards, about avoiding situational cards, and on the narrator side, a bit about making sure you're building the game around the characters you received.

But...look, no matter what, you're sometimes going to run into this situation. The fact is that sometimes, you have certain traits on your cards that just don't seem like they quite fit the scene that you're in, and you find yourself wondering...what the heck do I do now?

To blatantly steal mikitracey's example to me, sometimes you end up in a fight scene and all you have is Political Thinker and Spendthrift.

What do you do? How do you participate?

I've written before on widening your perception of your cards--of making sure that you acknowledge not just the basic meaning of a card, but what else it could mean, or what else it could influence about you. I think that's key here.

But there's something else, too, that I haven't addressed...and that's widening your perception of what it means to address a challenge.

It can be easy to look at the challenge as the now. It can be easy to get stuck into addressing it by thinking about what your character is doing now, in this moment. But think about your life. When you confront a challenge in your life, is it all about what you do in those moments? Of course not. It's about what you did to set up for that challenge, or to be ready for the unexpected. It's about your goals or ambitions. It's about what drives you. It's about what you did ten minutes ago, and what you're going to do five minutes from now.

In the same way...when you play a card on a challenge, you don't have to focus on the now.

Let's take a look at the past, at preparation.

It's hard to see how Spendthrift might help you during a fight, right? But what about before?

Well, think about it: if you're a Spendthrift, that means you spend your money unwisely. Can you see where this might influence a fight? Maybe you spent your money on something silly instead of on good, useful weapons and armor. Maybe you bought a weapon that looked fancy and exciting and the darn thing snaps like a twig in battle. Maybe that golden armor wasn't the best choice. Or maybe you bought the latest and greatest gadget but it failed when you tried to use it in battle. Essentially, you bought something wasteful instead of something useful, and you're paying for it now.

That's the easiest tie, but it's not the only one! What about what you might be worrying about, and what it might make you do? What if you've gotten yourself in financial trouble because you're a spendthrift, and that's making you fight more desperately and less cautiously here because you want to get the battle over with so you can get paid and pay back some of your debts?

So that's a weakness...let's take a Strength, Political Thinker. What about the past? Well, you might have prepared by making an alliance with someone before and being able to call in a favor. Or maybe you're thinking about the future? Maybe you fight harder and better here because you know that if you succeed you'll be owed some favors (maybe even just to improve your own group's perceptions of you)! Or maybe it's about the enemy...maybe one of them is someone who owed you a favor, and that one, at least, backs off from fighting you and lets you do something you needed to do to help the others.

To get away from the ones that mikitracey graciously handed me, let's imagine the opposite: you're in stealthy situation and the only card you have left is Brilliant Swordsman. Obviously there's arguments that you could use that to kill off a guard or two and still technically be "stealthy" if you were quick and quiet about it, of course, and I agree with those. But let's say that for whatever reason, you're in a stealth situation where actually using your swords is absolutely *not* an option. What do you do?

Again...widen your perceptions. Maybe your ability as a brilliant swordsman simply means you're more dexterous and able to move quickly and gracefully, so you're able to keep ahead of the guards or security detection magics or what-have-you. Or maybe you've trained in a similar fighting style to these guards, and you know how they'll tend to move and what their balance is. Maybe you recognize their blades because, as a brilliant swordsman, you've seen all sorts of styles, and you know that this type of blade is used by this type of mercenary and they have a tendency to bunch up and fight together when trouble starts, so if you cause a little distraction over at Point B, they'll run over there and Point A will be clear for you to go through. Maybe there's a trap along the way and while you don't spot it like a stealth expert would, you gracefully avoid it and cut the mechanism to stop it from working so the others could get by. Heck, maybe it's just the fact that you have swords, and that lets you jam them into something to stop it working or pry it open (not that I advise treating swords that way)!

The point is this: when it looks like you can't play your cards, think about more than their most direct meaning...and think about more ways to address the challenge. Think about your past--what might you have done because of this trait? Or...what did you do while acquiring this trait? Think about your future--what will this trait make you look forward to? What will it make you worry about? Think about alternative meanings, about the way the trait makes your character see the world, about how those things could impact the challenge.

There's variance on this among Storium players and narrators, I recognize that...but here's my belief: There should never be a point at which there are card slots open on a challenge and no player is able to play on them. If I believe that, then, I must inherently also believe that any card must be able to be played on any challenge...and thus, cards must be interpreted broadly and be able to have meanings beyond what first appears, and challenges must be about more than just the now.

You do ultimately need to relate your actions back to the now, mind! When you're talking about what you did ten minutes ago because you're a Political Thinker, come back and tell us why it matters now, too. When you're talking about that shop you went to because you're a Spendthrift, tell us why your actions there turn out to matter now. You still need to show the impact on the challenge's current events...the point is just that you can have an impact now with something you did a while ago, or with the motivation to do something later, or with the worry about what might be going on elsewhere, or any number of different things.

Think broadly. Think about what lies beyond the surface. Then, even if you've gotten stuck with what seems like an "unsuitable card," you'll find yourself thinking of unusual ways it could work with a challenge--and you'll have an easier time powering through the writer's block that can otherwise threaten.

One more thing: Never be afraid to ask for help in a situation like this! You'd be surprised how often you'll find another player, or the narrator, has a slightly different view of one of your cards or of the challenge, and that view lets them think up something when you're having trouble. Remember: you're all in this together. Storium is collaborative...don't be afraid to collaborate!