Yeah, this would completely squash the organic feel of the game I'm in right now. Though, if some players want it... it could be an optional mechanic for narrators to enforce?

I'm thinking Storium needs a Default Set-Up for new Narrators (to not intimidate them), and an Advanced Set-Up for Narrators who want to modify the mechanics of their game.

Perhaps adding narrator options in regards to moves. For example, an assigned or randomly-assigned move order, including a 'pass' option; and/or a Moves-Per-Scene cap, which would not enforce the move order, but still prevents some players from doing too much while other players are unavailable (such as at work, school, or sleeping).

dropping cards available to pick up definitely helps get a scene moving as the first players get best choice/availability of cards to pick up. The option to specify per challenge 'at least 3 different people need to work together on this card' or 'everyone must take a turn on this challenge' would be really useful though too. Or a narrator option to poke a certain player to move/ask if there's a reason why they don't want to move right now, or have some kind of flag for 'I'm stuck, I don't know what to do next' or 'I'll be away for a while, carry on without me'. Technically all of these things can be done through commentary and narrator's instructions etc, though too

I thought, perhaps, a "Reply" function might help this out. Maybe you can't play cards in a reply, but... at least, you can respond to a character who has addressed one of your own characters.

I agree with Garrett. I happen to be able to post two or three times a day pretty easily, but I'm sure with time zone differences and life obstacles other people could barely get a single post up in a day.

What if there was almost like a cooldown limit? As in, each post you make kind of warms the meter (could just be a simple number of posts based thing) and if you fill it (or post 3 times in two hours for example) than you can't post again until it cools down again.

That way, people can still post out of order to engage other characters or make critical moves for a goal, but they can't keep firing off post after post and blocking those who haven't gotten to move from contributing to the story.

I like the free-for-all, but only if everyone can participate a relatively equal amount. Some people can post several times a day, others less than once--that's where some limit or enforcement of turns might be helpful, to give others a chance.

@Scrow I hear what you're saying, but that's not what I'd expect to happen most often. Flip it on its head: When one character has something to say to another that will greatly impact everyone else's move, ("Why did you kill Mr Body, Professor Plum?") and the narrator wants to make sure that one answer happens first, then the dibs mechanic happens.

I suppose this could be an option for the narrator, but I don't see this as conducive to the story-building. What if a character wants to talk to another character...whose "prescribed move" isn't for two or three rounds? What if a character wants to jump in to assist another with a challenge, but the next character in the move doesn't have anything helpful to play?

I definitely prefer the focus on collaborative storytelling versus potentially cumbersome game mechanics. Maybe some sort of social mechanic to deter this behavior would be better.

Just thinking out loud really, but given the board-game-meets-D&D nature of Storium, I wonder if it's best to have some kind of dice roll or drawing of straws at the beginning of each scene that sets the reply order. Then you can only reply when Storium recognizes it as being your turn. It would add extra value to winning scenarios because that would be the only time you can make two consecutive moves.

Right now it's based on a free-for-all honor system and I haven't seen any problems with it yet, but theoretically one person could keep responding to everyone before others get a word in, or before the character that the Narrator wants to speak to can actually do anything, since there's nothing stopping them from doing so.

If one character starts to hold everyone up because he takes too long for his turn, the others could cast a unanimous vote that gives the Narrator power to skip that person's turn until they finally respond, and then the Narrator would lose that power until the next unanimous vote happens.

Like some commenters have said, there are advantages and disadvantages to enforced move order. Personally, I'd be reluctant to enforce move order with a group I didn't know that well, as the risk of stalling out the game would probably be greater (although in a tabletop RPG, forced move order is kind of essential to stop glory hoarders). With closed games, where I know the players, I'd like to have a scene by scene option to enforce move order (along with other options that affect which players can move, in which order and in which ways). Might be worth implementing enforced move orders in a game informally to see what impact it has on play.

I like the idea of either enforceable turn order or the ability to pick "effective turn order". In other words I see a problem where going last is incentivised.

Jeff, I've seen the same.

Hmm, enforced turn order implies a rotating start player, which might help to share spotlight time if everyone has a change to go first, or at least first right of refusal.

I think that this depends on what kind of game you are running. Set move order kind of implies that the Narrator has absolute control, limiting the freedom of the players. I have, occasionally asked the players, in the comments section to hold off moving until another moves.

Scott, yes, very often a free-for-all is nice.

However, I would greatly like to see this implemented ad-hoc so that it can be off or on as needed, maybe even on a per-challenge basis. Surely there's times where the story demands one player should have next dibs.

I'm not advocating a *constant* move order... unless a narrator chooses that.

I'm in favor of the free-for-all. Sometimes people are busy and the game shouldn't have to grind to a halt for them. Some times it makes sense for a character to act twice in a row. The limit of 3 cards per scene per player ensures too much hogging doesn't happen - just give them multiple challenges or save some challenges until midway through the scene.

I am once again running into the problem where, due to the fact that my group can't all always be online at the same time, a set move order that's enforced by the system would be very helpful. Hell, even if I can't decided it and it's completely random, that would be better for us than the current free for all system.

I'd prefer to set it up several posts in advanced but I could work with the "next dibs" suggestion.

Pretty good option I would say, Mischa.

Perhaps a "X player has next dibs" enforced option.

I looked at this as more of a narrator set option. Free-for-all or set move order, preferably something that could be flipped scene to scene. Combined with the idea of limiting some scenes to certain characters, I think this could solve a lot of problems with "Okay who moves now?" that my group is running into.