fuck around and find out

Good question!

BRAINSTORM is one part "Snow wants somewhere to put non-game CYOAs," one part "maybe my friends will want to have a community where they can practice CYOAs or just do them for fun?"

Here, you can run quick Choose Your Own Adventure scenarios, Heart Games, and other oneshot-style situations outside of murdergames and whatnot. These are meant to be run in between games, for whatever length of time you fancy (the traditional Monday through Thursday style, a whole week, a month - whatever you want!). There are no rules here, except not to be a dick (derogatory) to our friends and friends of friends.

Additionally, you can use this community and the stiickied posts as: references for how to create, execute, and complete CYOA; signups for both running downtime CYOAs/Heart Games and for participating in them; and asking for pointers on how to run or write them.

Join with any journals you want, make any arrangements you want, shitpost to your heart's content! If you need me, you can drop a comment here on the post (screened) or DM me on Discord.

Remember that this is just for fun and isn't meant to be intensive or stressful!

Hi, friend! So you want to run some CYOAs, Heart Games, or whatever else brain thoughts you have? Then you'll fill out the below form, and respond to the toplevel for runners. You have the choice of either leaving your comment screened - this means only I'll see it, and you can opt into being randomized with players for it - or you can opt into unscreening the comment. Unscreening means that people can see what you're up to, and sign up for the CYOA by responding to the comment. Only you, me, and God will see those comments. If you get a bunch of signups, you can reach out to the extra players to put them on deck for a repeat run of the CYOA/game/etc or for a future one.

To make life easier, fill out the form for every idea you have.

Name: Your name
Availability: Timezone and when you are/aren't available.
Randomize?: Do you want to have participants randomized for you?

Concept: This can be as brief or was wordy as you want, but just a general idea of the CYOA/game/etc concept that you're wanting to run. An example will be provided!
Length: If you don't have any real plans yet for how long it'll run, that's fine!
Warnings: Any content to warn of in advance?

<b>Name:</b> <b>Availability:</b> <b>Randomize?:</b> <b>Concept:</b> <b>Length:</b> <b>Warnings:</b>
Additionally, you should have access to creating tags on your posts! Please use ᴅᴍ: YOUR NAME for yourself, and include any additional, relevant tags. Some have been made already, but you can make more if necessary!

Do you want to play around in the brainstorm box? Have no fear, players are here! Just fill out the below form, and respond to the toplevel for players. Much like a runner, you have the option of either leaving your comment screened or unscreening it. Leaving it screened means I'll do some networking for you, if you'd like, while unscrerening it allows for potential other players and prospective runners can comment to do the networking!

Name: Your name
Availability: Timezone and when you are/aren't available.
Randomize?: Do you want to have a CYOA/game/etc randomized for you?

Characters: Any particular characters you'd like to put in these little runs? Just for funsies, and in case a runner wants to grab them for the Vibe.
Warnings: Any content you'd like to avoid?

<b>Name:</b> <b>Availability:</b> <b>Randomize?:</b> <b>Characters:</b> <b>Warnings:</b>
Unlike with runners, you're hypothetically fine with just commenting once, unless you want to update your comment for whatever reason and can't if someone's responded. I don't know your life, be free.

A CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE, or CYOA, originally came from a series of children's books where each story is written from a second-person point of view. The reader assumes the role of the main character and influences the plot's outcome by deciding their actions and behavior. The concept doesn't change all that much from the origins - you're just actively writing the CYOA, with the help of someone running it like a DND DM, as opposed to reading it and making the choices based on pre-existing ones that an author put in a book.

A HEART GAME, on the other hand, is a deep dive into a character's experiences, personality, associations, etc. It's basically traveling into the heart of the character. This could result in participants being able to change events in said character's memories or actual life, through their decisions throughout the game. Alter their perceptions of people important to them, change their memories... or alter their perception of you, before you manage to make it out from their heart. (If you do.)

Never run a CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE before, but want to?

Luckily, we have a bananas amount of examples, and even some docs! Here are redacted's, snowend's, chroma's, as well as Sisi's doc for her snowend CYOA.

Never run a HEART GAME before, but want to?

kyriakos has a whole FAQ devoted to the mechanic, and you can find some examples from 2015 here, here, or here! I don't have any current examples and will update when I do.

Want some help figuring out how to write or run something? You can ask on this post! I'll try to help, and anyone can also answer questions or offer any advice they have. We're all friends here just trying to have fun ok.