Don't underestimate the power of the comments section. Something like, "Hey, no one move until I continue the scene." Asking goes a long way. Many times I've been in games and either myself or another player has said, "Please no one post until I have my move done" and the request is respected.

I've had a problem where I requested revisions because a player made a very disruptive move (changed the scene location!) and another player picked up on it and ran with it. Would've been nice to be able to pause play and re-center the scene before that happened.

I haven't had this problem, but it sounds like a great idea.

@Adam I think you and I are on the same page- a notification that, say, "Player Xenia has an active draft as of five seconds ago!" or "Player Yorrick is waiting for Player Zuul." would be helpful.

I was thinking about that it could be good (especially for certain groups) that maybe there is a "button" for the players that's something like "I've read the moves, will not do any move" which also pauses the scene until everyone either posted their move or ticked the button. Only the player or the narrator would be able to tick it so that the story doesn't run away from you just because some people are at home with plenty of time while others is at work w/o internet access (for eample)

It could be something that is optional for the narrator to activate in the setup as well so every game can choose if it's a good idea or not.

I'd like to have this functionality too, but would also like a status for the players to select -- like "working on post" or "waiting to see what happens" or "don't F&()*&ing post anything because I've spent 2 hours writing something, and I know you're going to post something when I've got less than 5 minute to finish"

Also, there should be a timer for the narrator -- or clock that shows when the narrator plans to progress the story, so PCs have a deadline to work against. This should be able to be overridden if the PC's agree, so definitely not a hard and fast rule. I'm not even certain it needs functionality beyond a "in XX Days/Hours the narrator will progress the story" countdown.

this is useful, I'm planning to add extra jeopardy mid scene with new challenges, so the ability to pause it if I head off to work or whatever so that the game doesn't get beyond me, and I can hit the right beats of "here's yet another thing to deal with" to make my players existences awful.

Yes comments can work as well, maybe that'll be fine.

All excellent comments. I think the narrator should be able to pause the game. Also, he should be able to selectively highlight that one particular player must act next, thereby locking out other players. It may even be good to be able to set a specific player order (think initiative order) at certain times.

Naturally, the more mechanically complex this gets, the more involved the game becomes. Most of these issues could be worked out easily in the comment section as a game is underway. So far this game seems to have an elegant simplicity. I'd like to keep the core game that way and let players house-rule more complicated things if they want.

Now that I think about it, there doesn't need to be a pause button. Just post a comment in the game and say "hey guys, pause the game until we work out xyz problem or until I get home from work".

This is something that is going to become a borderline necessity once Storium becomes available to the masses.

The idea of a narrator pause button is a good one since they are the ones moderating the story and providing the overall plot.

I dont agree with the concept of a player pause button because I can see it being abused as much as players who go crazy and post at a much faster pace than everyone else. A player pause button would slow things down a bit too much.

I actually think it may be beneficial to implement something like this for players as well. Maybe a "pause for 15 minutes while I edit my post so I can actually edit my post" button. As to the "Vacation Mode" comment below the initial comment I think that if this is the case there should be a "Co-Narrator" option so that the game can continue on even if the narrator is busy or if the narrator disappears the game can eventually flip narrators to the active one.

I agree that some kind of mechanic like this would be good for the game...
- if the Narrator needs to respond to something the player(s) have done; IE, something completely unexpected or which takes the story off on a real tangent
- to account for delays in player or Narrator replies
- to cover short vacations or business trips (OTOH, for things like that, perhaps a break in the game would be more proper, depending on the time frame)
- or for similar things that just pop up from time to time; the unexpected
Just my $0.02...

Or at least be able to slow players down (to one move a day or something). Need some way of dealing with the fact that some players have less computer access than others, and for players in different time zones.

Or something to request narrator action post move maybe?

Agreed. Sometimes a player's action demands that the Narrator HAS to be the next one to write, without others muddling things up in the meantime.

This sounds like a very solid design choice to me as well. The Narrator should certainly have the ability to stop posts long enough to type what they want to happen next, seeing as how they're essentially playing as the 'DM'.

There's definite need to notify everyone all round when someone has an active draft- and maybe only the narrator can snooze other players' moves.

It occurs to me rather than a 'pause' button a 'snooze' button with a duration might be better.

Or "vacation mode."

This is a good idea. It also would allow for a narrator to "pause" the story while they write out a continuation of the scene and they don't want players moving until their continuation has been published.