nanofictionary

There's two phases to the game: making stories, and telling stories.

To make a story, players are dealt hands of six cards, and six cards are turned over as a discard pile. On their turn, they can either:

* draw a card from the top of the deck or from the discard pile, then discard from their hand down to six cards;

* discard their entire hand and draw six new cards from the top of the deck;

* finish their turns by putting down their hand, and not taking any more turns. The player must have at least one of each type of card (character, setting, problem, resolution), and a decent story in mind that uses at least one of each type of card in their hand. Remember what order people did this in; it's used later to break ties.

* when only one player is left, they get one more turn before they must put their hand down.

Second phase is telling stories. Each player tells a very short story using elements from the cards in their hands; they must use (at least) one of each type of card: a character, a setting, a problem and a resolution. The stories are like "flash fiction" (1000 words, or two pages printed) or "nanofiction" (55 words long!). After everyone has told a story, everyone holds up their hand, and on the count of "1-2-3", points to the person that told their favourite story. In case of ties, whoever finished their turns first wins.