It's been over ten years since I played //Once Upon A Time//, but I remember enjoying the game a lot. There is currently a hole in the market for narrative games, as OUAT is only printed once per edition basically and disappears for years at a time, and other games like Aye, Dark Overlord! and Baron Munchausen aren't big enough to be found globally. Then there are games like Story Cubes which isn't really a game but just prompts.

So what I had in mind is something similar to OUAT. But with a twist, I want it competitive and focused. Rather than the cards being events you must mention, they have to be a punchline or ending to the story. The mechanic is constructing circumstances in which playing that card produces a satisfying conclusion.

Everyone has their own ending but they need to play out their cards one after another and steer the story to an ending they need. Basically it's not about telling an enterteining story only, it's about getting to the conclusion by shedding your cards, so if the ending is "And from that day onward, nobody entered the forest again." you're spending the game to try and introduce a forest, establish a danger, and getting the characters into it, and so on. Using your other cards as stepping stones that let you justify that trajectory. Meanwhile the other players are trying to turn the same story towards their own ending, like "And so the princess married the baker."

Basically I think I got a very simple game here that I can work on (albeit i need to try OUAT again to see if it's too close to this idea). Perhaps the setting also shouldn't be fantasy and something more original but with a wide appeal.

--- update ---

i think having a series of objectives are how we will solve this (basically a narrative bingo lol). here is an idea;

there are characters, scenarios, and endings. a player need to tease out all the specific cards to fulfill their story arch without potentially having the cards themselves, and before someone ends before you do.

e.g. you have the character Rory on objective cards - someone need to play the card which introduces the character Rory, if you want someone to do that assuming you didn't draw that card, you have to tell a story where Rory shows up, whereupon a player can play the Rory card - but note, the player WANTS to play the rory card too, because shedding cards give extra points. once rory is played, you also reveal your first objective card. it's important though that these story nooks are played with scenarios that make sense, e.g. you have a card that says "The school bus", so in the narrative you would play the card and say Mary boarded The School Bus to Noxwille High School. All window seats were occupied so she opted to sit down next to Rory (Rory card plays by other player!).


-- update --

perhaps the only way to make this work is to do hidden characters. who needs specific cards played in their favor, without being discovered by the other players who they are. so you need to fulfill the cards quota to win.

Perhaps the game ends when all cards have been played out - but everyone has a special order they need to fulfill depending on character and won't be able to play them all by themselves - so it becomes a nudge and tug of war of who score the most 'chains' to win.

-- update --

nevermind characters, let's solely focus on the players getting a randomly drafted person through the school day and they must fulfill cards in certain orders to meet their secret endgame goal. it is allowed to interject and ask questions during a players turn to play cards when you need to, or to generally interrupt a players goal.

many cards are ignored too for the secret chain so that chains don't break when someone interjects but only might break if they do.

e.g.

gets on the school bus > to knoxhigh school > sitting next to love interest > gets approached by bullies.

you end the game by reading all the cards from the stack and see who fulfills the most chain combos in their secret ending.