Kickstarter Campaign: The Kickstarter campaign for our first two Tableau playsets, including Twilight Road πŸ›£, concluded April 17th and is fully funded! For more details and our roadmap for delivery, see NEWS: Tableau Kickstarter Success.

Tableau: Twilight Road πŸ›£ Playset 🎞- Cover Card

You are fellow travelers on the Twilight Road πŸ›£. Together your journey will take you through choices & transitions, quests & trials. What will you discover on your way? Will you find your destination or return home? Either way, you will arrive changed. These are the stories of the Twilight Road πŸ›£. Every game session is different, every road, every journey is unique.

Embark on a journey of self-discovery and personal growth. Unravel the themes of identity, purpose, and belonging as you navigate The Road filled with choices, challenges, and intriguing characters. Experience a transformative journey filled with choices, challenges, and intriguing characters as you navigate the winding path of Twilight Road πŸ›£.

Tableau offers cinematic storytelling in 2-3 hours, with no prep or GM required. Composable rules on poker-sized cards provide multiple playsets for versatile gameplay with 2-5 players, ages 14 and up. Explore the opportunities for collaborative storytelling and thrilling cinematic adventures possible with Twilight Road πŸ›£ and the Tableau Games system.

Available from…

Twilight Road Playset Cover Card

Twilight Road 🛣

Tableau: Twilight Road πŸ›£ playset is available print-on-demand from Drive Thru Cards Logo in three different versions: Cards w/Tuckbox! version contains 72 poker-sized Playset & core cards; Just the Cards! version banded in a plastic wrap without a tuckbox; or a Print-N-Play! PDF version suitable for printing on US Letter-sized card stock and cutting out manually using the cut-lines for use with poker-sized card sleeves.

Cards w/Tuckbox (coming summer!) Just the Cards (coming summer!) Print-N-Play (coming summer!)

Video Overview

Discover the rich narratives possible with the Tableau: Twilight RoadπŸ›£ layset 🎞 in this detailed 14m video overview!

Overview of Play

There is only rule required for Tableau Games: Tableau Core ꩜ which is described on three poker-sized cards:

Rule Card: Tableau Core ꩜ 1

Rule Card: Tableau Core ꩜ 2

Rule Card: Tableau Core ꩜ 3

After review of these Core ꩜ rules, the players will either choose a pre-defined Playset 🎞 of cards that works well together or combine specific Rules πŸ“œ cards to define the mechanics of collaborative storytelling, Story πŸ“– cards to describe the elements of the narrative, and optional Character Traits πŸ‘€ to create unique and complex characters.

Here is an example of a specific Rule πŸ“œ that might be placed on the table: Drama Tokens 🎭, where the storytellers do not use dice for tension, but instead use a form of good & bad karma to balance the different Moves available to Lead characters. But the storytellers might instead have chosen the Declare 🎭 or the *Push 🎭 card, which uses dice to determine outcomes and is useful for different kinds of stories.

Rule πŸ“œ card: Drama Tokens 🎭 (from the Twilight Road πŸ›£ Playset)

During the game, most selected Rules πŸ“œ will stay on the table, but some will be taken up and held by the storytellers. Typically each storyteller will have four cards in their hand, such as:

An Example of a Storyteller's Hand of Cards (from the Twilight Road πŸ›£οΈ Playset)

A Player Role πŸ—£, such as The Director πŸ—£, who is used in GMless-style games, or The Narrator πŸ—£, who is a storyteller with a unique perspective or a player who has been given narrative authority for a full act or a session. These are the most common Player Roles πŸ—£, but there are others such as The Spotlight πŸ—£ or this optional one: The Mapper πŸ—£, who is used in both Twilight Road πŸ›£ and Gate Watch πŸšͺ.

Player Role πŸ—£ card: The Mapper

A Story πŸ“– card that gives a storyteller authority over an element in this story. (This one is from Twilight Road πŸšͺ but could be chosen by the storytellers for any story):

Story Setting 🏘️ Card: The Road (from Twilight Road πŸ›£ Playset)

One or more of Character Trait πŸ‘€ cards to help define the unique character that a storyteller portrays. This one is Charming, an Approach πŸ›  from Twilight Road πŸ›£ but it can used as a Character Trait πŸ‘€ in other stories:

Character Trait  πŸ‘€ card: Charming (from the Twilight Road πŸ›£ Playset)

Here is an example of a second Character Trait πŸ‘€. This one is a Face πŸ§‘πŸΌβ€πŸ¦², which it is an archetype associated with a particular type of story. This one is The Runaway πŸ§‘πŸΌβ€πŸ¦² from Twilight Road πŸ›£, but like all the other cards, could be used in other Tableau games.

Character Face πŸ§‘πŸΌβ€πŸ¦²: The Runaway (from the Twilight Road πŸ›£ Playset)

Storytellers can have a huge numbers of options available for play in the game, but they will only use a few during any scene in the story.

Kinds of Twilight Road πŸ›£ Stories:

Tableau Twilight Road πŸ›£ Playset 🎞 - Inspiration Card

Types of Stories

Tableau inspires players to be creative, supporting a nearly infinite variety of potential stories.

While playtesting the Twilight Road πŸ›£ Playset 🎞, the cards collaboratively selected by storytellers resulted in a wide variety of settings & genres:

  • a historical fantasy, where a river journey across the Viking lands of ancient Russian followed the trail of Uncle Ingvar, lost while he was searching for the Silk Road and a lost city and treasure;
  • a 90s paranormal fantasy, in which a spring-break car trip led free-spirited students across America, each trying to find a lost icon on Route 66, looking for answers to a secret in their family history.

A game mixing storytelling cards from both Twilight Road πŸ›£ & Gate Watch πŸšͺ Playsets 🎞 was:

  • a dark historical fantasy, where a water well located in a German farming village at the end of WWII was the only escape from invading Russians, but led the villagers into a perilous journey through the lands of the fae, with no way home.

We’ve found the mechanics of Tableau work well for experienced gamers as well as those who are completely new to collaborative story games. From improv actors to experienced role players, a wide range of people have found the instructions and mechanisms easy to understand and fun to play. The resulting stories were imaginative, the settings and genres intriguing, the play dynamic, and most importantly, all had a satisfying ending in just a couple of hours of play. Tableau is a fun evening’s entertainment.

Inspirational Quotes for Twilight Road πŸ›£

β€œIt is always darkest before the dawn.” ~ Thomas Fuller

β€œIf you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.” ~ Lewis Carroll

β€œRoad movies have always been songs of the doomed, warnings that once you enter the open hinterlands between cities, you’re on your own” ~Michael Atkinson

β€œTake a walk on the wild side.” ~ Lou Reed

β€œAs nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged.” ~ William O. Douglas

β€œAs the world fell, each of us, in our own way, was broken. It was hard to know who was more crazy: me or everyone else.” ~ β€œMad Max” Rockatansky

β€œIt is easy to go down into Hell; night and day, the gates of dark Death stand wide; but to climb back again, to retrace one’s steps to the upper air - there’s the rub, the task.” ~ Virgil, Poet

β€œAll he needed was a wheel in his hand and four on the road.” ~ Jack Kerouac

β€œAs nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged.” ~ William O. Douglas

β€œMy paintings always feature trails that dissolve into mysterious areas, patches of light that lead the eye around corners, pathways, open gates, etc.” ~Thomas Kinkade

β€œStill round the corner there may wait, A new road or a secret gate.” ~ J. R. R. Tolkien

Mailing List

To stay updated on the latest news, including the official public release date of our first three playsets and information about future Tableau Games projects, be sure to sign up for our Tableau Games Announcements Mailing List. You’ll be the first to know about exciting developments, promotions, and future Kickstarter campaigns.

Credits

Written & Designed by: Christopher Allen ChristopherA@DyversHands.com

Β©2022-23 by Dyvers Hands Productions, LLC. β€” All Rights Reserved

(no license is granted for redistribution or derivation without permission, however, our goal is CC-BY-SA after a successful Kickstarter stretch goal)

Images Β© original creators & are Permissively Licensed. More info & image credits at www.DyversHands.com/Tableau

Tableau Gamesβ„’, Dyvers Handsβ„’, and Twilight Roadβ„’ are trademarks of Dyvers Hands Productions LLC.

Creative Contributors: Shannon Appelcline, Aaron Reed

Other Tableau Playsets

Gate WatchPlayset Cover Card Tableau Improv Playset Cover Card