[This post is part 1 of 4 in a series examining Archipelago 2 and what parts of that game might help solve some issues in Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple.]

Ritual Phrases
Archipelago: I like that there are ritual phrases that help create consistent scene-framing throughout the a session of Archipelago. I have a big list of tips and suggestions very similar to the "Important Techniques" section, but nothing really bringing them into play.

Do: If I apply ritual phrases to each of my tips, that might be that extra nudge needed to make sure players know that they're the referees for story style. For example, one of the tips is to conserve secondary characters. In other words, to not introduce a new secondary character when you could reasonably add more details to an existing character.

Let's say Luke Skywalker's father has not actually become present in the story. But we have this character named Darth Vader who we don't really know a whole lot about yet. You *could* keep the two as separate characters, but it makes a far more interesting story if you conserve characters and say that Darth Vader *is* Luke's father.

So what would the ritual phrase be to make that happen? I have no idea... It's a cool technique though. You can see the tips I've listed so far here under "Making Trouble" and "Telling Stories." Maybe you can think of some phrases?

Remi pointed me to Archipelago 2 as a source of possible solutions to the creative exhaustion problem from the Dreamation playtests.

This is the sort of narrative, rules-light game that I was really into in college until I actually tried them out and realized just how much I needed structure in my play. I was skeptical about whether I'd find useful bits here, but only because I doubted whether I had the heart to potentially overhaul the whole game if the only solution was to make it more Norwegian.

Thankfully, I don't think that will be necessary. There are a lot of little gems to pluck from Archipelago without having to dye Do's hair blonde. ;)

There's a lot to talk about, so I will split these up into several blog posts to focus the comments on each subject:

Ritual Phrases
Destiny Points
Ownership
Resolution