On card games, storytelling, and why your first grade teacher is wrong

The Acquisitions Department recently procured the tabletop game of Dixit: Odyssey (a followup to the original Dixit by Asmodée). I’ve had the pleasure of playing a few times so far, and I am really impressed with the gameplay, the production quality, and the art. For those of you who aren’t familiar, Dixit is marvelous storytelling game that operates sort of like a visual Apples to Apples. Instead of matching nouns to adjectives, players try to pick a card that best fits a story told by the storyteller in relation to his chosen card of that round. The cards are unique, wordless works of art: all are beautiful, some are enigmatic, some are deeply strange, some rather sinister (but still safe for an 8 year old). If you’re casting about for a family prezzy this December, you could do worse than wrapping up this game for someone.

But what really struck me as a writer was how playing Dixit can redefine what a story is, and how the narrative-free cards can inspire new stories.

In Dixit, a “story” can be a short as a single word. It can be a quotation, a phrase, or a little tale of its own. The rules are deliberately very open. Here’s a few of the “stories” that were told in a recent game:

“Avatar”

“glass half empty, glass half full”

“Yeah, I’m a jack of all trades. I can do anything.”

“Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?”

“A most intriguing specimen...”

“Barons are stupid.”

“extracurricular activities”

There was also a story that ran about one minute, filled with pirates, time travel, Atlantis, Alexander the Great, and western democracy. But this story-shaped story was an anomaly. Are these other examples stories? Perhaps. They don’t fit the definition of “beginning-middle-end” that we were all taught in school, but why should we still let our first grade teacher tell us what’s what?

Because you can’t see the storyteller’s inspiration for each story, you must use your imagination to figure out a plausible illustration from your own cards, in an effort to present an “authentic” enough card to fool the other players as everyone votes for what they think is the “true” card.

Interestingly, you score higher if some (but not all) of the players pick the right card. This means that Dixit encourages you to tell tales that are not totally obvious. You don’t simply want to describe the card...you want to obfuscate the elements a little, or add a bit of misdirection and mystery. Like any writer, you can’t win by bludgeoning the audience with detail, or choosing telling over showing. You want to spark their interest. You want to make them think of several interpretations, make them wonder what you are thinking.

I like that Dixit also acknowledges that listeners/readers bring something to every story; that’s why players gain points when they offer a card that someone else picks. It’s an admission that interpretation varies. For instance, not everyone hears the word “vampire” and pictures the same thing. Some people see a guy called Vlad, some see a Lestat, some see a dude named Edward.

Perhaps the most interesting part of Dixit, at least for me, were the recurring moments of terror and bewilderment when my turn as storyteller came up. I’d stare at the six cards in my hand and think “What the hell?! I am not prepared to make up a story with this crap! I need to think for a few days. I need to develop characters. I need to revise! What if no one gets it? What if everyone thinks it’s stupid? Oh, god, why didn’t I go to school for something practical?!?”

But then, something happened. I’d look at a card, and a few words would suggest themselves. On one card, a knight kneels before a wall of televisions, sword in hand. Be careful what you worship pops into my brain. Ooh, that’s interesting. I can work with that. And there we go. Off and running.

It’s easy to forget where stories come from. Writers can talk about discipline and craft and process until the Sun burns out. Those things are important. But they don’t address what storytelling is. Storytelling is spinning something out of nothing. It’s looking at discrete elements and drawing connections. It’s explaining something inexplicable. It’s making something up because if you don’t you feel like you’ll drown.

This game is one way of sparking that crazy sense of inspiration. Maybe you can think of others. It doesn’t matter what helps you get writing. Just as long as you keep doing it. Because writers keep the world from being boring.