More Games for Creatives

A lot of my friends are writers. Some of them are poets, some of them are fiction writers. Some of them are game masters. Others write games. One even writes ad copy.

A lot of them ... no, scratch that.  ALL of them struggle with writer's block from time to time.

Just over a year ago, I wrote about some games that could be used to spur creativity.

I have a few - and I recently acquired another few. And another one will be on its way soon.

Rory's Story Cubes is fascinating. There is some argument over whether or not it's a game - and I understand the argument. It's more of a randomized storytelling tool than a game. The game consists of nine dice with a variety of things on their faces - pyramids and cats and houses and trees and arrows and ... yeah.  The rules are simple: Roll the dice and use the rolled elements to create a story.  There's an expansion, too, but it's not as readily available in North America. The expansion dice all show actions when rolled.  Together, they are a great tool for getting that story started.

I mentioned Dixit in my last post. Well, Dixit Odyssey is now out. If you were already using Dixit as a storytelling tool, this gives you 84 more cards to put to the same use. If you Dixit, Dixit 2, and Dixit Odyssey, you now have 252 cards to use.

Fiasco is a cooperative storytelling game.  Moreso even than Polaris. I really liked Fiasco, and the Fiasco Companion which is now available has some absolutely fascinating interviews with several teachers, authors, publishers, and others about how they've used Fiasco in their daily life to strengthen their creativity (and inspire it in others).

If you're using these tools specifically to drive creativity, you can combine them, too - use the Story Cubes as required elements in a Dixit-inspired story. Or use Fiasco, but roll the Story Cubes (or flip a Dixit card) at the Tilt instead of using the normal Tilt table.

Next week, I'll be posting about Demo Games and Demo Teams.  Yes. Again.

The following week, I'll be at GenCon. I've written the post for Gamethyme's Game of the Year already, but it'll go up after GenCon. During the convention itself, I'll be making numerous small posts from my phone.