What Is Story at the Table?
Story at the Table is an ongoing project exploring narrative play: collaborative storytelling inspired by literature, film, history, and dramatic fiction.
Most stories come to us complete. The characters have made their choices, the events will unfold in the prescribed order, and the ending will remain unchanged no matter how many times the work is revisited. Narrative play works differently. Participants inhabit the characters within a situation, pursue their own goals, navigate relationships, respond to pressure, and discover where the events will lead them.
This project is for readers, writers, and anyone interested in stories as something more than a spectator experience. Whether the inspiration comes from a novel, a film, a historical event, a myth, or an entirely original premise, the focus always remains the same: character, conflict, and the unpredictable ways people respond when circumstances force them to choose.
The best place to begin is with the free book, Story at the Table: A Narrative Roleplaying Method. It introduces the core ideas behind narrative play and provides the foundation for everything else published here.
Articles
Articles explore storytelling. Some examine narrative structure, character, conflict, and dramatic tension. Others look at specific works, creators, historical periods, or ideas that illuminate how stories function and why they continue to matter.
Paid Subscribers
Paid subscribers receive new scenarios and other subscriber-exclusive material. Each presents a situation already underway: people with competing goals, unstable relationships, unresolved tensions, and pressures that can't be ignored. Some draw inspiration from literature, film, mythology, folklore, and history. Others begin from an original premise.
Subscribers also receive downloadable content drawn from the Lightspress catalog. More than 200 titles have been published through Lightspress over the years. As older material is revised and adapted for narrative play, that library gradually becomes available to subscribers alongside new releases.
Over time, your paid subscription builds a growing library of scenarios and resources, while helping to fund future work.
Support the Project
Subscribe for free to follow along.
Subscribe to access scenarios and support future releases.
If subscriptions aren't your thing, you can also support the project with a one-time contribution through Ko-fi.
