Constraints in Page Turners

Page Turners, the forthcoming game of dramatic interaction for one player and one GM, enables you to create a story that feels like a novel or a play. To help get you there, each scenario provides Constraints, a set of ground rules both participants absorb in advance. These storytelling guide rails ensure that you jointly create a reasonably coherent narrative that feels right for the genre and theme. They rarely tell you specifically what happens. Instead they mostly show what you should steer clear from to avoid disappointment when you reach the story’s conclusion.

For example, the constraints for my scenario “Love’s Lonely Laborers” define the boundaries in keeping with the principles of Shakespearean comedy. In this scenario, the player takes on the role of a wily servant, either the wise Mrs. Cheekly or the clever dogsbody Quick. They love each other and wish to be married, but can only live in the same household if their young mistress and master, respectively, overcome their hostility toward one another and fall in love. Antonio is the destined groom; Fernanda the bride. The constraints look like this:

Fernanda and Antonio do not conclusively unite until the end. Before then, when they are drawing nearer to accepting their betrothal, a new comic complication arises to pull them apart again. Now the protagonist has another problem to fix!

Comedies treat all social constraints lightly. But they exist all the same.

In the world, differences in rank determine all. Servants cannot openly defy their masters. They must subtly subvert them, making them believe that they are making the decisions and meant to do all along what the servants have maneuvered them into doing.

Even a master inclined to accept disobedience may not do so. Nobles must guard their honor and reputation ferociously. Punishment meted out to defiant servants may be harsh or it may be comical, but it must take place.

Noble houses must trade carefully around one another, lest violent feuds break out.

The prince can punish wayward nobles with exile, or punitive taxation. Though considered a benevolent ruler, Prince Sophoclus must not be flouted.

Renaissance Verona and Elizabethan England, where your play is written and staged, follow a strict patriarchy. Though, granted, it is one in which strong women of high rank can nonetheless hold their own and wield power. You’ll want to acknowledge this by winking at it, under the conceit that it’s really the women who understand and drive the situation behind the scenes.