YiffieMon:Session Zero:Story Building

The Trial

Begin by writing a two or three sentence description of a problem.

This problem is called a Trial.

It does not make reference to the character being created. An example:

The problem in Nottingham is that with King Richard off crusading in the holy land, the Sheriff has grown corrupt, instituted onerous taxation of the commoners, and created an evil power structure to support his ambition. Bands of lawless men wearing the Sheriff's colors roam the countryside, terrorizing the smallfolk with acts of pillage and rapine.

The Annotations

The next step is to underline significant words or phrases from The Trial, and to annotate them with a sentence or two each, for a total of seven sentences including what you wrote for the Trial. The sentences of the Trial are a very impersonal statement about a problem. The Annotations are what make it personal to the character. In the example above, the player might underline "King Richard" and write the Annotation:

I am the bastard son of the King, and have never felt like he acknowledged me for my loyalty and the way my actions as his bishop have lent stability to the kingdom.

As a general rule, you'll want to write moderately substantial sentences. Both you and the gamemaster will incorporate aspects of your Annotations into narrating conflict resolution outcomes after re-rolls. Underlining "King Richard" and Annotating it with, "I saw him crowned," doesn't give either of you a lot of material for those narrations.