Nick Keirle

paganmist

Goatdance

nestordoescuba

LilyBF

Chris Gardiner

FBG Test

Caitydid

Misterarendt

Emily St Aubert

March Hare

eli0745

Jim Still

rrainer

Rabbit Stoddard

sprspr

Liam Wickham

Eneko95

taserian

densewords

... and more

This is a StoryNexus content design pattern. Other patterns can be found on the Content Design Patterns page.

Midnight Staircase
This is a lot like a Venture. But instead of a single branch to spend the progress quality, there are several branches ('landings'). Playing each one knocks quality back down to zero and gives a different reward and/or fiction. This is useful for narratives where the character would be preparing for a few different events in the same way. E.g. preparing to commit a robbery, but with several potential targets. The player might want to repeat this content a lot, so it’s important to have various options to increase the progress quality.

Variants:

• The various spending branches have different required levels of the progress quality, so some need more preparation than others.
• The progress increasing branches have various risks and rewards. This enables the player to form a strategy.
• Can only be played once – and the higher landings are invisible until the lower ones are turned down. There’s a risk of losing everything if you go too high. This is good for suspense – how high dare you go?