Becoming a Story Teller

Becoming a StoryTeller is a pretty easy thing--you just need to become familiar with our games and then start taking on StoryTeller tasks yourself. Here's the route that we suggest for becoming a highly-acclaimed StoryTeller.

Play in Our Games

The first thing to do is to learn about how our games work. Clearly, you'll want to play in some Stages. Since they started appearing in the early 1980s as Live Action Roleplaying Games, Stages have evolved a lot, and StoryTellers have learned numerous effective ways to get people involved and to keep stories moving. By playing in Skotos' Stages you'll learn some of the techniques for running effective and fun Stages.

We also suggest playing in the rest of Skotos' games, including the Grand Theatres and the Worlds. Grand Theatres use a lot of the same storytelling techniques as Stages, since they tend to be social games. Worlds, on the other hand, show the upper capabilities of the Skotos StoryBuilder Server and may give you new ideas for what to incorporate into your own Stages.

Skotos' first Grand Theatre, Castle Marrach, will become available for beta-testing in Fall 2000. The first Stages will be available to StoryPlayers later in 2000 and will be announced on the Skotos StoryPlayer web page.

Help Host Games

Taking on a full Stage is a pretty daunting prospect. In addition, they won't be available for StoryTellers until January 2001, and you may want to get your feet wet first. To do so, we suggest offering to act as a Host in a Stage.

Apply to play a regular character in a Grand Theatre. You'll learn a lot about characterization and also start to think about plots--though the plots in the Grand Theatres will typically be more complex that those in Stages.

Alternatively, you could offer to take the role of a major character in a Stage being run by another StoryTeller. Although this will be a more sporadic thing than helping out in a Grand Theatre, it'll give you a very direct understanding of how a Stage works.

Skotos will begin accepting applications for roles in Castle Marrach in late 2000. Skotos may also be looking for Hosts for its early Stages, also scheduled for late 2000. Watch the StoryTeller web page for more information.

Run a Story in a Stage

Now that you have a basic understanding of Skotos StoryTelling and StoryPlaying you'll be ready to run your own Story in a Stage. When Stages go online in January, 2001, there may initially be some limits on who can run them--the most acclaimed StoryPlayers and StoryTellers. However, you'll have a head-start on that, since you'll already have played in a number of stories and helped to Host others.

More information on putting together a complete story is available here.

The capability to run Stages will become available in January, 2001.