(Some) Recurring Design Patterns in Storylet Narrative

Dietmar Rabich, Rome (Italy), Piazza della Rotonda, Hub of a Coach, CC BY-SA 4.0 This article is mostly an attempt at naming and cataloguing some recurring design ideas from Fallen London, which are definitely relevant to anyone building a game largely out of storylets—but also probably interesting to look at in the context of games with storylet-narrative systems, such as strategy games with Paradox-style event systems or many other kinds of narrative games. Storylet systems in games vary wildly in their role; for some games, like Fallen London, the storylet system is almost the entire game. Other games use a storylet system as one component of a broader narrative design; or as the main narrative component of a game that's not story-driven all the time. So the applicability of these patterns will vary, but they are all generally relevant at least to either the maximalist use case of a storylet-driven game like Fallen London, or the lighter common use case of event systems such as the…