Description

As a game, Talecraft aims to promote creative thinking through story creation. As a story-creation tool, Talecraft aims to help writers generate ideas for stories, and help combat Mental Block.

Talecraft provides the different Genres and Archetypes as cards. Since the setting is dependent on the genre of the story, Talecraft leaves the creation of the time and place to the imagination of the player. For the plot, Talecraft uses the Key cards, where a player may either be given plots, or keywords that would govern the story. Players may be required to add more characters to his cards. In this event, the player’s story would be more character-driven than plot-driven.

A player of Talecraft has to create a story using the cards he had picked. The limit the picked cards set to a player prompts the use of the player’s resourcefulness; and the need to fit all the cards into a story stretches his imagination.

It is not a requirement to appoint a winner when playing Talecraft. Since the aim of the game is to make stories, and the basis of a good story often depends on the judge's personal taste, Talecraft is often played without declaring winners. Should a winner be required, however, here is how it is done:

Each player will have a cup before him. After the player tells his story, all the other players will drop coins in the storyteller’s cup, depending on its impact on them. If a player thinks the storyteller’s story was not well made (like if there are a lot of loose ends, or if the events of the story are too scattered), the player does not drop any coin into the storyteller’s cup. If the player thinks the story is acceptable but has little impact on him, he drops a coin in the cup. If the story manages to amuse the player, he drops two coins. And if the story awes him, he drops three coins. At the end of the game, or rounds of game, the players tally the scores. The player with the most coins wins.

Another way to decide a winner for Talecraft is to appoint a non-player as a judge who would decide who the winner is to be.