The Story Co-Author

Story games · Share the pen, and make your friends look great.

You think like a writer at the table. You frame scenes, name the rival, call a flashback and hand someone else the moment that defines their character. Your say over the story doesn't depend on what your character can do, and you spend it on the whole table.

Your best-fit GMs: The Catalyst Co-Author. Both share the pen: players write the world, and the GM pushes it back at them.

In story games, player authority is the point. You trigger flashbacks and win narrative control on a success, and the GM often doesn't roll. Good players hand out fan mail and keep the stakes real.

What you do well

You set up other players' moments, and you hand out fan mail when they land.
You fill gaps in the world with names and places the whole table builds on.
You'll steer your character into trouble because the story wants it.

Where your style trips

The dominant author. You know the system best, so you frame more and more scenes and quietly become the GM nobody chose.

The fix: Put a refresh gate on yourself: after you frame a scene, wait until everyone else has framed one. Ask more than you answer.

Things to practice

Once a session, play the monster: make a choice that makes things worse for your own character.
Give fan mail the moment you love a scene, and say what you loved.
Play one scene in first person, inside your character, with no narration from above.

Who you play like

You'll probably recognize yourself in Storyteller, Method Actor, from Robin D. Laws's player types. Most players span several.

GMs who'll love you at their table

Best match: The Catalyst Co-Author
Also works: The Arc Showrunner
Talk it through first: The Diegetic Sandbox Referee. Agree who decides what's true: the referee's prepared world, or facts players add in play.

Send your GM the GM style quiz

How to prep

The Plus-One rule: in someone else's scene, add exactly one thing, then hand it back.

Pitch your table with these

On screen: Inception, The Lego Movie, Ocean's Eleven (2001), Knives Out, Leverage
Actual play: Candela Obscura, whose d6 pool is often compared to Blades in the Dark, plus writers'-room tables where players frame scenes and write the epilogue together.
Games: Blades in the Dark, Fate, Monster of the Week, Burning Wheel, Masks: A New Generation, Brindlewood Bay

A culture of play describes a table, so one 5e group could sit in two cultures on two Tuesdays. From John Bell's "Six Cultures of Play". World simulation isn't on his list, and sits beside it here.

Terms on this page: Fan mail, Knives, Plus-One rule, Story games

The 6 player styles

The Dungeon DelverOld School Renaissance (OSR). Your wits against the dungeon. Bring a ten-foot pole.
The Tactical StrategistTactical Neo-Trad. The build's a puzzle, and the fight's the payoff.
The Questing HeroTraditional (Trad) play. Bite the hook, and play the hero to the end.
The Arc ProtagonistNeo-Trad play. Bring the backstory. Expect it to come back for you.
The Story Co-AuthorStory games. Share the pen, and make your friends look great.
The Systemic RealistWorld simulation (simulationist). The world has physics. Your character has to survive them.

Glossary

Creative agenda: What a group sits down to do, across a session or a whole campaign. Ron Edwards, 2001.
Fan mail: When you love another player's moment, you hand them a token. From Primetime Adventures (2004).
Knives: Hooks you hand the GM to use on your character: a Tie, a Fear, an Obligation and a Secret.
Lines and veils: Limits set before play. Lines keep content out; veils keep it off-screen. Ron Edwards, 2003.
Neo-Trad: Trad since about 2015, in two kinds: collaborative (a shared point pool) or tactical (packaged abilities, rules-fluent GM).
OSR: Old School Renaissance: classic dungeons, modern player-facing design. Player skill tackles the game, referees use common sense, failure buys information.
Player skill: Solving problems by observation and description, ahead of your sheet. "Player skill over character skill" is Matthew Finch's OSR slogan.
Plus-One rule: In someone else's moment, add one thing to it, then hand it back.
Script Change: Film controls like Pause and Fast Forward that turn a boundary into an edit. Beau Jágr Sheldon, 2013.
Session zero: A meeting before play to set expectations and limits, often building characters together.
Stars and Wishes: Closing ritual: everyone names one thing they loved (a star) and one thing they want more of (a wish).
Steering: An out-of-character choice, dressed afterward in an in-character reason. Montola, Stenros and Saitta, 2015.
Story games: A culture of player authority: players trigger flashbacks, successes can win narrative control, and GMs often don't roll.
Trad: A storyteller GM with a plot. Mechanics mostly serve combat; the story sits above them.
X-Card: Anyone can tap it to cut content, no questions asked. John Stavropoulos, 2012.

Credits and further reading

Built on John Bell's "Six Cultures of Play", Robin D. Laws's player types, Mary Kuhner and John H. Kim's threefold, Ron Edwards's creative agendas and lines and veils, Matthew Finch's Quick Primer for Old School Gaming, steering from Markus Montola, Jaakko Stenros and Eleanor Saitta, Ben Milton's player duties, John Stavropoulos's X-Card, Beau Jágr Sheldon's Script Change and Ginny Di on romance.