Sometime Within an Hour
a collaborative storytelling game

by Erik Carlson



Something happened, in the past, within the framework of a specified hour. 
Perhaps a diamond was stolen, a relationship crumbled, or a stegosaurus took its first step. 
The players can decide the scenario as a group or let one member set the scene. 

At the beginning of the game, only the hour in which the event takes place is known. 
The goal is to decide when within the hour the event happened, 
which could be a single moment or a longer stretch, depending on the nature of the chosen event.


What is needed:
- any number of people
- a six-sided die


It is recommended to have a sheet of paper with the numbers 0 - 59 written on it, 
representing the minutes of the hour, so that players can make notes. 
Over the course of the game, the window for the possible time of the event will narrow from both ends, 
creating the story of what happened.

Players take turns adding to the story.

On each turn, a player will first decide on their character for the turn. 
It should be someone who could potentially shed light on the exact timing of the event. 
Perhaps a detective, or a child of someone involved, or a dog who was an eye-witness. 
It doesn't need to be someone new every turn. 

Then the player rolls a 6-sided die. 

If a 1 - 4 is rolled, the player helps build the narrative that will eventually find the time of the event, 
by telling something about a minute or minutes of the hour that abut or overlap with a previous piece of information 
(except of course for the first observations, which must either start at Minute 1 or Minute 60). 
So the story continuously builds forward from the beginning of the hour and backward from the end of the hour. 
Example: "in Minute 53, the man in sunglasses zipped his backpack and started walking North."

If a 5 is rolled, the player offers an neutral observation that does not, in the moment, seem to be relevant to the problem at hand. 
Example: "during Minutes 12-18, I remember there was a delightfully cool breeze."

If a 6 is rolled, the player should offer information about a minute or minutes that complicates the helpfulness of previous narrative. 
Example: "in Minute 45, the security tape has only static, meaning that it was tampered with."

(These can, of course, be much longer and more detailed than the given examples.)

When the players have filled in the story for the full hour and know during which minute or minutes the event occurred, the game is finished. 


(The result could potentially be used for an hour-long musical performance, 
with a single tone sounding during the time of the event.)