The Malachite Crown is one of the biggest and grandest casinos in all of Vegas. There is at least a cool fifty million in the vault at all times, with more cash coming in as suckers gamble their life savings.

The casino has a darker side though: The mob runs the show, and the entire operation is a money laundering scheme, with cash coming in from the usual suspects of rackets, with pimps turning in protection and drug money piling high in their vaults.

For some of you, you want revenge against the criminals. For others, you just want to play Robin Hood. Some of you want money for yourself, and some of you are thrill seekers. Either way you have gathered together for one reason: To pull the biggest heist in the history of Sin City.

Welcome to Storium 102! Don’t worry, this is not the second class in a series, but just another beginner game. In this game you will play as criminals in the style of Ocean’s 11, and in the process get an overview of how Storium works. In the full course you will learn:

-How to make a character
-How the various types of cards work, including neutral cards
-How challenges work, including special rules a narrator might add to challenges
-How to strategize and work challenges using the game and card rules of Storium
-How to ignore the game and let this be a collaborative writing experience.

Beginners be warned: Many Beginner games are more “drop in, drop out” allowing for you to get your feet wet and see if Storium is for you. While those games are good and have their place, I generally design mine to have a more direct story and a thought process to teach the players.

If you do not want to stick around for a full game, this may not be the game for you.

Note: This Game For Beginners is now full. I’ll open a new short game very similar to this one as soon as we’re well underway here and I know I can accommodate it on my roster.

“Well.”

The Head Librarian looked the gaggle of mercenaries up and down, a single eyebrow lifting in her scepticism. “You’re not quite what I’d hoped for, but I suppose it’s not really the right season for adventurers in these parts.”

She swept over to the large map table at the end of the long reading room, gesturing for them to follow. “The Great Library collects all manner of objects,” she said, “not merely books. We also deal in scrolls, artefacts, rare animal specimens - even weapons, should they prove of interest.”

She glanced up, pausing to increase the tension before continuing. “One of my Senior Researchers believes he has located one such object - an amulet that was until now thought to be lost forever along with its owner. He believes that said owner - a singularly disreputable character known to the history books only as ‘Lucky Ginger’ may in fact have died wearing it. Lucky Ginger was eaten by a dragon.”

The pregnant silence that followed dared any member of the group to make a joke about Lucky Ginger’s relative good fortune. For whatever reason, nobody did. The Head Librarian began to roll a large map out across the table.

“As it happens, this narrows down the amulet’s location considerably. Since this was a good few hundred years ago now, said dragon ought to be dead, and we have no records of that particular beast’s demise, meaning it probably died of natural causes.” One long finger began to trace a route across the map before them. “As most of you will know, any dragon not killed by a dragonslayer goes to a single location to die.”

Oh no. Oh no no no. No way.

“Of course, I’m aware there are a lot of silly superstitions surrounding Boneyard Pass - ill winds and strange sightings and mysterious ailments and whatnot. Children’s stories, you know. But if you’d rather leave now, I completely understand. I’m sure no one would think any less of you. Or tell anybody you were too scared to fetch a necklace from a graveyard.”

Ahoy! Welcome to the good ship Devil’s Rose! A pirate vessel? Oh no no, this is a privateering vessel! We merely run cargo from one place to another. Just… Sometimes it happens to be on another ship first. And we have to take it. By force.

Maybe you’ve always wanted to be a pirate, or maybe you’re just down on your luck and need a source of income, or maybe it’s the greed that took you, always in search of that big haul.

This is a BEGINNER’S GAME, so only applicants who are in no other (or perhaps one other with reason) games should apply.

For those new to Storium, this is a beginner game (players/writers with no or limited previous game activity.). We will be focusing on learning how to use Storium more than writing and completing a full story. Each Scene will have Challenges that are designed to help you learn different aspects of the awesome Storium Universe and we will complete about 3 - 4 scenes for this Storium game.

Each scene will contain a set of challenges the Academy Trainees will need to complete.

It is your first day at DAO Academy located in the Catskill Mountains in New York State, USA. You are a rookie recruit for the DAO. The Department of Abnormal Occurrences (DAO) is a worldwide organization dedicated to dealing with strange situations. DAO Agents operate in a world filled with metas (non-baselines), mystical, magical, aliens, humans (baselines) and more all trying to find a place in this crazy world. You are on your way to becoming a DAO Agent. You just have to survive your basic training at the Academy.

The Academy is set in the extended DAO universe. Examples of other games in the same universe include DAO Season 1, DAO Season 2, and DAO: Vault 13. There is also a DAO Wiki

Don’t be daunted by the extensive history. Each game is a self contained story. No previous knowledge is required.

The world DAO Academy is set in is similar to ours. Though there is a fantasy twist. In this world, the supernatural and the fantastic exist. Aliens have visited. Fey toy with mortals. Scientist fiddle with the very fabric of space and time.

The average denizen of Earth had no idea there were magical and meta mixed in. It was the DAO’s mission to help contain the meta/magical world. This was easy when Metas and magic was “hidden”, existing on the fringes and edges of society. But times change and more are aware now of Metas and this makes the DAO’s job a lot more complicated. The world is in a time of transition.

This is set in the storyworld of Department of Abnormal Occurrences created by @Twisted_Gnome - thanks TG for letting us play in the DAO sandbox

This is a beginner game.

The small town of Akakios has always known peace–but with the rise of banditry in the area, it has found itself a target for raids in recent years. Now, though, things have become more serious–a local bandit lord has gathered an army, and intends to assault Akakios and take over. If he succeeds, he will make the town his seat of power and use it to strike out into the wider region.

Fortunate, then, that you–the citizens of Akakios and the wandering adventurers who have come at just the right time–are ready, willing, and able to fight.

“Defenders of Akakios” is a simple game taking place in a generic fantasy world. Characters can be any common fantasy race (Elves, Dwarves, Humans, Half-Orcs, etc.) and/or class (Commoner, Fighter, Wizard, Thief, Wizard, etc.). The story will tend towards combat/action situations, so for ease of use I recommend making characters who are able and willing to contribute to a fight in some way.

I have set this up to be able to complete in 3-4 scenes in order to teach some elements of the Storium systems to new players.

Though this is set up to run for a shorter time than other beginner games, standard beginner game rules apply. Come in, get the knowledge you need, and then if you’d like to leave and go on to other games, go on with my blessing.

That said, if you want to stay for the full thing, I think you’ll get the most benefit that way and have fun telling a little tale about saving a town from danger.

There’s something really special about the feeling of completing a game. :-)

I will accept 8 players for this game mostly on a first-come, first-serve basis, as that’s the most I can see myself keeping track of in a single game. If you see that there are already 8 players in the application pool but would like to join the game, please message me to let me know of your interest. I will do my best to periodically start up additional versions of this game and get new players in, or to invite new players if players drop from this.

The management of “Anatole’s” deeply regret that - due to the sudden arrival of large numbers of super-enthusiastic new patrons, the fire code restricts us from admitting any new customers at the present time!

However - if you would like to submit a character for a future round - please send our booking’s manager a direct message (@ceekayell) for consideration at a later date. Thank you for your interest!

This is a beginners game

Across time and space, across dimensions and that misty interface between fiction and reality are scattered a hundred million white cubes. No-one knows where they came from, or how they got their special power. The cubes are made of purest, smoothest white marble, and - no bigger than the palm of a human hand - for the most part, they tend not to attract very much attention, dismissed as part of the environment. But every so often, by accident or design, a curious soul might pick one up for closer examination.

What happens next to the person who picks up a cube is the night of their lives. The cube is a portal to a point outside of time around which has been built an ineffably cool bar and nightspot called “Anatole’s”. “Anatole’s“ has been designed as a place where characters from all walks of life can stumble in, order any drink their heart desires and chew the fat with the other patrons, before returning to their everyday life. Where else might you exchange poetry with a cyborg assassin, arm-wrestle a dead president and fall in love with a sentient paramecium… all in one amazing night! “Anatole’s” doesn’t accept money - drinks can be purchased for tall tales and inventive ideas. Once in a while, eponymous owner & barkeep Anatole will call “Time!”, close the tab, and drinkers are expected to pay their bill by sharing stories of their lives.

The bar caters for all languages and exists in a state of temporal grace - no weapons will fire (although that’s not to say the odd fight doesn’t break out - fists & cudgels still work just fine). And somehow the decor shifts to suit the current clientele.

Characters can arrive & leave of their own free will (or until Anatole throws them out!) There are no rules at “Anatole’s“ except civility… and an unspoken agreement not to upset Germ. No-one knows exactly who the hooded figure really is nor where she came from, except that she’s occupied the end stool for the bar for more than five millennia…

This is a beginner game.

The small town of Akakios has always known peace–but with the rise of banditry in the area, it has found itself a target for raids in recent years. Now, though, things have become more serious–a local bandit lord has gathered an army, and intends to assault Akakios and take over. If he succeeds, he will make the town his seat of power and use it to strike out into the wider region.

Fortunate, then, that you–the citizens of Akakios and the wandering adventurers who have come at just the right time–are ready, willing, and able to fight.

“Defenders of Akakios” is a simple game taking place in a generic fantasy world. Characters can be any common fantasy race (Elves, Dwarves, Humans, Half-Orcs, etc.) and/or class (Commoner, Fighter, Wizard, Thief, Wizard, etc.). The story will tend towards combat/action situations, so for ease of use I recommend making characters who are able and willing to contribute to a fight in some way.

I have set this up to be able to complete in 3-4 scenes in order to teach some elements of the Storium systems to new players.

Though this is set up to run for a shorter time than other beginner games, standard beginner game rules apply. Come in, get the knowledge you need, and then if you’d like to leave and go on to other games, go on with my blessing.

That said, if you want to stay for the full thing, I think you’ll get the most benefit that way and have fun telling a little tale about saving a town from danger.

There’s something really special about the feeling of completing a game. :-)

I will accept 8 players for this game mostly on a first-come, first-serve basis, as that’s the most I can see myself keeping track of in a single game. If you see that there are already 8 players in the application pool but would like to join the game, please message me to let me know of your interest. I will do my best to periodically start up additional versions of this game and get new players in, or to invite new players if players drop from this.

You’ve seen the commercials. You’ve heard the radio ads. You’ve read the testimonials. You’ve even watched the documentary TV show. You know the InSpectres.

In a world rife with ghosts, ghouls, and goblins, the Inspectres are the (privatized) front line of defense. When you’ve got werewolves on your property, vampires in your attic, or just a ghost that won’t stop stacking your chairs when you plan on using them, these are the people you call.

And it just so happens that a new franchise is opening in your area. That 9-5 grind isn’t quite the highlight of your life. The days are long and far from enjoyable. Maybe this is the perfect place to start fresh.

Welcome to InSpectres, a game inspired by the tabletop RPG by Momento Mori Games. In this heavily structured beginner game, you play as employees of the newly opened InSpectres franchise in Arcadia, California as they open shop and go out on their first mission.

In this game, beginners will learn:
-How to make a character
-How the various types of cards work, including neutral cards
-How challenges work, including special rules a narrator might add to challenges
-How to strategize and work challenges using the game and card rules of Storium
-How to ignore the game and let this be a collaborative writing experience.

It’s really shocking just how quickly things went to hell in a handbasket. But really, wasn’t that the thing that so many old stories were missing? Because when something goes wrong, humans don’t just fix it and move on, there’s not a measured response. There’s a response so grand that it warps everything else around it.

Most people believe it was the zombies that happened first. The zombies happening first are a good way to explain the bombs that hit every major city. Though that led to the strange, hellish creatures that seemed to come out of nowhere. It was really not a good time to be on earth.

This is a game for beginners! Please only apply if this is your first Storium game, as this will act as a sort of tutorial. Make sure to check the Info for more details.

Mulysa (means dirty dump in the native tongue) was a dead-end world on the edge of human space, given the formal name of Everlorn even as the few souls to stumble across its wasteland and make it home stuck to the native name. It was destined to skip through space as a forgotten lump of rock — until the day a prospector stumbled out of the desert with a million credits’ worth of hyperdrive crystals in his hands. Now spaceships thunder through the skies above the planet’s boomtowns, and fortune hunters fill the dusty streets. Strap on a blaster or pick up a digger and stake your claim in this space western. You may find yourself exploring alien ruins and risking the wrath of the desert tribes, or riding a howling hoverbike and living the life of an outlaw. You might be a farmer trying to help feed the masses or perhaps you just want to open a nice little shop in town.

It’s the wild west meets future space age (ok yeah it’s a lot like Firefly :)

For those new to Storium, this is a beginner game (players/writers with no or limited previous game activity.). We will be focusing on learning how to use Storium more than writing and completing a full story. Each Scene will have Challenges that are designed to help you learn different aspects of the awesome Storium Universe. Stay and play to learn and then when ready you can “leave town” and retire or hand-off your character, ready to ride off into the Storium Sunset to face new adventures ;)