My son listened to a great podcast called Stories Podcast when he was younger. It’s a podcast for the about 6 to 12 audience, offering classic stories, fairy tales, and original material with a full cast most of the time. Mixed in there were some original stories about Max Goodname, Knight of the Realm, by Daniel Hinds. My son loved those stories and a new Max Goodname story was an event. I even bought the Kindle books, the only two Kindle books I’ve ever bought (I hate walled garden services).

In 2021, Stories Podcast and Michael Low, an English teacher, announced Starsworn, a TTRPG based in the world of the Max Goodname stories. This was huge for my son and we were (I think) the very first to enlist for their Patreon. You can still obtain Starsworn in PDF and printed versions at https://www.storiesrpg.com/

The game allowed kids and parents to play the game at home alongside the podcast episodes which continued to be released from time to time. These are full cast performances, a lot of work. Game scenarios were released from time to time, but in the end, not as frequently as originally planned. These are also a lot of work.

My job was to be the Narrator, which is similar to the “Dungeon Master” in a Dungeons & Dragons game – the Narrator sets the scene, enacts the various characters who are not players, and acts as a sort of referee. The players (my son and buddies) invent characters for themselves to be their avatars in the story, and essentially pretend and imagine what those characters do. The rules were a reasonable size, Starsworn could be read and played within the hour, maybe half hour. Because the players were already familiar with the world their characters inhabited from the podcast, it was easy to jump in.

This was a genius set up – having an ongoing story or stories happening in the podcast made the whole imaginary world seem more alive and engaging for the kids. They heard the stories, and knew that somewhere out there in their own game world, Max Goodname and his friends were actively on adventures. It made Max real. They would meet Max’s allies, friends and enemies as they played and moved through the world. They wanted to follow up story threads that emerged from the podcasts, chase the bad guys along with Max. And in the end, that is what brought the game to an awkward endless cliff hanging fade away.

The Stories TTRPG crew moved on to other stories with new characters in different worlds. My players weren’t interested – they were invested in Max Goodname and wanted to know what happened to him.

Scenarios were to be monthly, reasonably priced. But they quickly fell behind schedule. Several podcast episodes were released but then no more. Our game slowed, paused, never resumed. This was largely just bad luck – we were there at the start, eagerly waiting for more material that never arrived. For anyone starting now, it wouldn’t matter – the available material is all there is, so you know what you have to work with.

So what I learned about game design from this experience with what I think was a brilliant concept for a kids TTRPG was this…

The game played at home had to be aligned with the “official” story as presented in the podcast. So the Narrator had to be careful not to contradict the podcast, and more important, not to let the players follow story threads from the podcast which were still unresolved in the podcast, in case the players’ actions turned out to be out of sync with later podcast story direction.

The Narrator could use published adventures and/or invent adventures, which was fine and works. But I found the kids kept wanting to follow threads from the podcast. But it was extremely difficult to do that because of the large time gaps between either podcast stories or published official scenarios. As the game Narrator, I just didn’t have enough information, and I couldn’t invent narrative that might conflict with the next official instalment and so burst the bubble of imagination. 

Critical lessons I learned;
– Starsworn was an actively ongoing story players/narrators could coordinate with, as distinct from, just providing a backstory or setting which players/narrators can expand on.
– A notification from the publisher (which never happened) that game materials and podcasts had ended (no more future releases) would have made a critical difference and allowed us to continue without worrying about conflicts between at-home story and podcast story.

The frequency of published material (stories or game scenarios) has to keep pace with the general rate at which participants/kids/gamers are advancing the story at home in their own game.

Narrators (in the sense they function for Starsworn) need to have enough information about narrative threads in the published and forthcoming podcasts, stories and game scenarios to be able to work their own narrative invention around those official threads so they generally remain synchronized. That would possibly mean giving Narrators some sort of plot/story outline ahead of podcast or publications.

Alternatively, narrative threads in the podcast need to be resolved within timeframes compatible with general at-home rates of play. 

In the end our game stalled out. He wanted to pursue a villain from the podcast, which was impossible to do without causing story conflicts between the game at home and the podcast stories in future. We waited for new material to appear so we could move forward. By the time it was clear that there would be no more Max Goodname ( meaning we could have taken the story in any direction we wanted), the kids had moved on to other games.

As I said, it doesn’t matter for anyone starting with Starsworn now – you know what is available, so you know when you can diverge from the “official” story without any issues. And I recommend it – Starsworn is a great starting point for kids who want to try playing a TTRPG. The Max Goodname stories are great and my son and his friends loved them.