You find yourself at a crossroads; a fork in the road, with a sign that points to two paths in opposite directions. One sign reads of a town name—painted recently, radiating a sort of pride to its name. The sign is big, and it provides you with a sense of knowing where you want to go. The other sign is smaller, and more run-down—left without maintenance, and shadowing the town sign; however, the sign provides an image rather than a word. It’s mysterious, but it compels you to want to explore the path and find out what awaits on the other side.
There is always the option to go a different direction—find a path that no one has before and discover something that has been left unknown for who knows how long. Figure out whether to go further left or further right, or try the un-ventured path that remains in the middle of the two. Or you could always turn back and plan for something else—there’s nothing wrong with regrouping with yourself and finding a different route to venture towards.
What do you do? Where do you think the story will go? How will you decide where and when the story ends?
In a Choose Your Own Adventure (CYOA) story, there is always a choice that leads towards a path with even more choices, and that choice is counted towards a path that eventually leads to a special event. Whether that event is the end, or that path causes another option to open, depends on the choices that have been made beforehand. This genre of storytelling has been incorporated into the world of video games, as well as Tabletop Roleplaying Games (TTRPG) as another fun way to tell a story that is more engaging and more interactive than activities before it.
Each CYOA story has a quest that the protagonist (you, or the character that represents you) must go on, as represented by one of the seven quest-types that all adventurers go on according to Dan Roam:
- The quest towards home after the long battle, or after getting lost in oneself.
- Striving to win the prize, whether that be wealth for your gain, or a prize to an object that could save the world.
- Hunting for revenge to avenge a fallen loved one, or to strike down those who have done you wrong.
- Harking on a battle to fight the evil dragon taking over the world, or enemy that goes against the better of the world and its people.
- Going on a journey of self-discovery to find yourself once more, or to be reborn.
- Risking the climb to reach the top and make to where no one has before.
- Searching for true love, whether that’s the love that comes from someone else, or you find the will to love yourself.
Each of these quests are what make a story relatable and captivating, placing you into a situation where you can get lost in, as well as relate the experiences to yourself. They create an agency to discover more about the in-world story, as well as find where you fit in and see what kind of changes you can make in it. This gives people the chance to discover a story that they can connect with, as well as explore different paths and decide for themselves what may be the more interesting option, or connect with a choice from experiences from their personal life.
These are stories that I have grown fond of over the years, and I tend to play games where I can create a character, or create someone to play, and play a game where I can determine the story—as best as I can, anyhow. I’m forced to play a main role in the games that I play, which makes up for my absence as a leader in the real world; but, I can say that storytelling games and media where I am forced to take the role as leader for myself inspires me to try and be more confident in my actions, as well as inspire myself to help others more in anyway possible.
“Choose your own adventure” by scanlime is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 
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