Campfire roleplaying

[luckykaa]

Saw this on an online rpg forum when someone asked for suggestions for games to play when camping.  This was basically off the submitter's head.  Reposted here with his permission in all its unformatted glory because I think this has serious promise.

Everyone sits around a campfire at night. No light except from the fire. The oldest player starts the game off. The story should always start like this "I'm going to tell you a story, something that happened in these very woods... there were x people there that night (where x is the number of people around the campfire) they were..." The story teller then points to each other player in turn and they say who their character is. Once everyone has gone around the circle the Storyteller continues the story. As the story goes the other players can, at any time give a thumbs up or thumbs down. If enough people give a thumbs down at one time the Storyteller position passes to the next person.

Oooh, another good idea. Instead of a character sheet everyone should have a paper cut out of a person. If their character dies, runs away, or otherwise leaves the story they should toss it in the fire.

There could be a bag/tin that things get drawn out of. Let's say it is a bag of black and white stones. At times the Storyteller will point at different players/characters and say "what do you do" (or whatever) and pass the bag to them. They say what they try and do and then draw a stone out. If it's black then the Storyteller comes up with something negative or scary that happens and if it is white it should be positive. Also, the storyteller should have a flashlight that they use to shine a spotlight on people. The stones should be tossed into the fire and the lead storyteller tells the ending when there are no longer any stones left to draw or when the fire has burned down. They could easily be crumpled pieces of coloured construction paper if you can't find enough stones.

You could also hand out cards at the beginning to each of the players with keywords on them. Things like "resourcefulness" or "strong", then during the course of playing the game the a player might say "I use my resourcefulness to escape" and then they toss the card into the fire.

The storyteller should regularly incorporate elements of their surroundings into the story. "There were shadows jumping from branch to branch, but only in a certain kind of tree... they looked like that tree over there" shines light. If there it is a bit breezy you could say something like "and as the campers settled in for the night a gentle breeze whispered into their ears 'go away'. Of course, the campers didn't notice the whispers at first, it seemed like just an ordinary breeze..."

Some elements that really work for me are that it makes the story the key mechanic, and uses the environment as a part of the system.  So, thoughts?  Ideas? 

Comments

[missgadget.livejournal.com]

I think it's an awesome set up for a game of 'Attack of the Psychotic Killer Undead from the Sea' for narrative driven 1950's cliché horror madness.

[eglantinedreams.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a drama school warm-up session for a storytelling module :)