Tales From an Inn

Tales From An Inn is an unconventional take on the Fantasy CYOA genre, and offers us something pretty rare. Although this style of embedding short stories within the choices, essentially creating a short story collection that works as the multiple branches, has been done before on the site, it's still always interesting to read a storygame that plays around with the conventions of writing a choose your own adventure, and I always will appreciate the writers who think outside of the box and try to do something different.

The conceit of multiple people gathering in an inn to tell a story reminds me a bit of the Canterbury Tales. I sure hope that Ogre did his best to vary up the style, prose, tone, and content of each story, because that was one of the really cool aspects about the Canterbury Tales: we got to hear stories from people from all walks of life, no one was treated better or worse, and everyone's perspectives were listened to. I have a feeling that Ogre will definitely nail this assignment, he has a fantastic amount of range.

Dwarf’s Story

I listened to the surly dwarf's story first.

I enjoyed the way Ogre wrote this story. I think he did a really fine job of writing from the dwarf’s perspective, using a unique vernacular and vocabulary style to really make the readers feel like the Dwarf is really telling his own story.

At first, I was worried, since I felt that the Dwarf’s accent and the vernacular got a bit cumbersome to read. Luckily, it wasn’t too hard to read, and when I sounded it out, I got the gist of the story more or less. The vernacular slowly started to grow on me, and by the end, I could easily understand every word. So, in essence, the prose is perfect, and Ogre did a really good job here.

I like the way that Ogre described the Dwarf fighting the knolls, and he wrote the fight scene in a detailed and descriptive way. It was a fun story.

Caped Stranger’s Story

I love the aura of mystery created right from the start with this story. In contrast to the story with the dwarf, this stranger is clothed in a cape and hood that shrouds their identity, and I was really looking forward to hearing his story.

I think this might be my favorite story out of the entire collection. I love the way you describe the heroes’ journey over the ice, and as the tension was building up, you introduced their shadow versions under the ice. This fight scene was incredibly riveting, because of how dangerous the shadow creatures were, and the treacherous nature of the ice they stood on. I also loved how Rizin, Kog, and the stranger all counterbalanced each other with complementary abilities, and I love how Rizin finally ended the fight by summoning a giant lightning bolt from the sky. That was pretty badass!

That was seriously such a cool scene, and a really great example of building tension through writing, then keeping it through a fight scene, raising the stakes till the reader is genuinely fearful for the survival of the characters. It’s so sad that Kog died, I was hoping they would all make it, and for a moment, it almost looked like they would.

Gnome’s story

I like how the gnome is up front about the fact that he’s not a fighter. The past 2 stories were from self proclaimed badasses, so it’s refreshing to hear from someone a bit more humble. This line made me laugh:

“Noi, I can do some damage to some ale and meat, but not so much to people who want to be in combat.”

Compared to the other stories, I like how this story starts off on an ordinary walk, but then suddenly escalates when the gnome walks near a prison, and the prison explodes, sending stone blocks everywhere.

I enjoyed Ogre’s descriptions of the witches, and I think it was a bold choice to put the storyteller outside of the battle, looking on.

The rest of the story was interesting, but at this point, some of the battle scenes started to feel a bit repetitive, likely because there’s a similar style of writing. And the way the fight was structured felt a bit reminiscent of the last 2 stories, but I still enjoyed this one.


This one was fine, but not one of my favorites. We don’t learn any of the character’s names, and in general, it’s a prison break with an expected ending. I wish we learned what the witches’ goal was, but they simply broke out, fought the adventurers then ran. I think this story was a bit of a struggle because when we don’t learn any of the character’s names, and watch the battle from the outside, the battle loses some of its glamour, so to speak.

Wench’s Story

I really appreciate the diversity in the story-tellers. Like the Canterbury Tales, this storygame features work from bar-goers from all walks of life.

This story takes the classic trope of a band of young people venturing into a haunted house on a dare, and getting more than they bargained for, and delivers admirably on the premise.

I really loved the descriptions of the house and the path, and I felt that Ogre did an excellent job setting the scene.

Ogre then slowly, and dramatically, starts ramping up the tension, making the adventurers feel like everything is fine, that the house isn’t dangerous. But despite the adventurers trying to convince themselves that nothing is amiss at Insanity Hill, we the audience know better. And things come to a head when all of a sudden, a massive thunderstorm hits.

The sensory imagery was well done, and I love how Ogre layers in several layers of detail so I could really feel like I was there. Sometimes in short stories, authors omit these details simply so they can move on to the next act of the story, but here, Ogre takes his time, ensuring that the horror creeps slowly on to the reader. He also utilizes common horror tropes in an effective way, such that even though I’ve seen stories like these before, I still managed to enjoy the way he writes it.

I thought that the skeleton hand and the water creature were pretty cool. Although, one thing I didn’t understand was how a finger made out of water could be “bony”? But I’ll just chalk that up to one of the mysteries of the fantasy setting.

Ogre really enjoys using lightning as a tool for dramatic symbolism. Every time something crazy or cool happens in these stories, there’s usually an accompanying lightning bolt.

Damn, I didn’t expect the lighting to fry Elora, that was pretty brutal! I love the way Ogre describes the rain drops sizzling as they hit the charred and blackened body, that’s a pretty disturbing image to think about.

The idea of a monster with lightning fingers is seriously cool, and I kind of like the way this story mainly focuses on the subjective emotional experience and perspective of the characters involved. Compared to the gnome’s story, which was a retelling of a battle from the perspective of an outsider who was accidentally present, this narrative feels emotionally grounded, and there’s a real sense of fear and attachment to the characters. This was a well written story, and it captures dread quite well. Although the actual monsters only appear in a few paragraphs, the way that Ogre builds tension and suspense throughout the work makes this story a good case study on how to write effective and efficient horror.


I like the way the story ends on an unresolved note, with a simple, brief and matter of fact sentence: “But I’ll tell you – if you hear of Insanity Hill, don’t think the rumors aren’t true.”

Wizened drunk’s story.

Once again, we’re back with the lightning bolts, but this time, it’s from the perspective of the person actually casting the spell. So far, pretty interesting.

I like how Ogre takes time to explain the mechanics of the wizard’s force bolt spell. One thing I find interesting in these stories as opposed to the thunderdome stories is that because there’s no set word count limit, there are elements that Ogre expands and may spend more time on. I kind of liked the explanation and found it to be quite interesting.

I also like how this time, the wizard takes a bit more time to talk about his friends. This way Aqia, Dexon, Ugoris, and Adolore doesn’t just feel like names on a page, but rather like distinct people with character traits that help flesh them out a bit more. It definitely made me more invested in the characters, because now I actually knew a bit more about them. Also, I’m glad we know Igadore’s name, that makes me feel more interested in him, I don’t know, but it does.

But there’s a con, and that Ogre mostly tells us these attributes through the perspective of the wizard, but I think showing vs telling would give us a better insight into their character. Like, instead of telling us that Dexon is an odd character in the beginning, show us how he’s an odd character, through an expository scene. Or instead of saying Aqia is smart, show us a scene where she does something intelligent.

I really love the way Ogre describes the environment. It was easy for me to picture the wide open flat space, with lush and green grass, along with the game trail twisting and turning away from the circle.

I did not expect an explosion to trigger when they touch the mushroom. I mean, I was getting weird vibes from the mushroom circle, but I figured nothing would happen as long as they left it alone.

I think having the group fight a ring of sentient mushrooms was cool! I actually wrote an article about fungal horror, so it’s a bit of an interest of mine! So it was really cool seeing it in your story, so props to you Ogre! Compared to the other stories, where the fight scenes started to feel slightly repetitive, this one felt way more interesting because I really love the way the mushroom creatures struck and fought. The spore attack was really cool, and I feel like you did a really good job raising the stakes where for a moment, our heroes looked like they might be overcome by the killer fungi.

Overall, I really enjoyed this story. It used an unconventional magical creature, novel and interesting fighting techniques, and was really enjoyable.


Guard’s story

Lol, I did not expect the guard to talk about fighting tree frogs! That was pretty funny lol, and I think the dryad did a pretty decent job of defending her territory. Some of the story’s style was pretty repetitive, so ultimately, I finished this one pretty quick. But still, a well written and fun story.

Overall Impression
This storygame takes a pretty literal interpretation of “Choose Your Story” by literally allowing us to choose between 6 short stories. I thought it was kind of fun, and I enjoyed all the stories, although at some point they start to feel too similar in style/combat descriptions. I think adding a few more stories would be fun, but each of the stories is a well written piece that can stand on its own and do fairly well in any Thunderdome.

I also appreciate how Ogre put some thought into differentiating the narrative voices of his different characters, and the stories do sound like they would come from different strangers you meet at a bar.

I think what would make this storygame even better is if there was some kind of unifying frame story that integrated all the short stories, like in Camelon’s Book of Vanishing Tales, or Mizal’s Read my stories or die! Game. Both of those storygames also used the style of a storygame comprised of multiple short stories, but their use of a unifying frame story enhanced the replayability factor just a bit.

Still, this was fun and I really enjoyed my trip to this inn of storytellers!

Ogre is a much more accomplished and experienced writer than I, so this comment is meant much more for the reader, rather than anything the author could learn from.

Now, to get straight to the point, do I recommend this story? It is difficult to say. Are you here to read some well-crafted stories or are you here to actually play them and make choices? If it is the former, go right ahead. If it is the latter, you may want to skip this one.

That's the ugly part about this story - it has no choices (other than the order in which you will listen to the tales). Now, the author is well aware of that and acknowledges it in the description, but that doesn't really fix the issue. It could have been easily fixed by, as mizal suggested, the option to punt the gnome or anything similar.

Now, if you don't particularly care for choices that much, then go ahead and read the game. You'll probably like it. But there are a couple of additional negatives I could add:

For starters, 5/6 stories are all quite similar: You're introduced to your main characters, they're on a journey of some kind or whatever, and then they get into a fight. A lot of fighting later, somebody, or multiple people, end up dead and the adventurer party is left broken and sad. So basically, by the time I started reading the third story, I could tell what was going to happen.

The one odd story still has some fighting in it, but it was a bit more of a horror mystery deal (the scantily-clad serving lady one). And it's probably the one I enjoyed the most.

Writing entertaining fight scenes is definitely hard and in many of my stories I very quickly gloss over them for that particular reason; so let's give credit to the author for managing to mostly make them different enough that it didn't get dull. Unfortunately, I also dislike reading so many fight scenes so I basically stopped after reading 3 stories and came back today to finish them. There's not enough story outside of the fighting to particularly make me care for any of the characters. I think the only one I felt sad about was the dead guy on the ice lake (whose name I forgot now).

The writing could be just a tiny bit more polished. I've spotted a number of typos (one of them very confusing, the character is introduced as "Xenia", but is referred to as "Xenis" in every single line afterwards), as well as some awkward, repetitive lines such as:

"The path was a very old path, really mostly spaces between the weeds and brush. You had to stay on the path because much of the brush was briars and tangleweed. The path wound back and forth up the steep hill." -> The word "path" is repeated 4 times in 3 sentences, surely it would have been better to say "The path was a very old one", "You had to stay on it" or similar.

Another example:

"The rain was blowing sideways and right through the window. The rain was ice cold. Looking out the window we could see puddles forming in front of our eyes in the heavy rain."

It is understandable, of course, given the author probably didn't want to spend too much effort into a story game that, from the start, wasn't going to be his magnum opus. But it still kinda affected my enjoyment.

I do have to give credit where credit is due, while the stories themselves are all quite similar, each of the "storytellers" has a distinctive storytelling style that differentiates them, in some cases perhaps even a bit too much (the dwarf one, reading it was hard due to the "accent", and I suppose writing it was even harder).

Overall, I rated this a 5/8. It is quite good and competently written for what it is. Its main issue is that it wasn't intended to be much from the get-go.

Tu escritura es magistral como siempre, Ogre. La historia del juego en sí está llena de contenido y opciones, y me mantuvo entretenido hasta el final. No pude evitar sentir curiosidad por todos los posibles resultados y decisiones que están tan clara y maravillosamente ubicadas en esta historia.

Disfruté cada minuto de esta historia. Me siento tentado a decir que te has superado a ti mismo, pero tu escritura siempre es consistente en lo buena que es. Gracias por otra lectura maravillosa. Anticipo con impaciencia el próximo juego de historia que puedas crear. Ya sea una secuela inspirada de esta o algo completamente diferente. El nivel de cuidado y atención al detalle que pones en cada una de tus historias siempre es un placer para leer y disfrutar.

Gracias una vez más por escribir esta maravillosa y apasionante historia.

Rather than a cys this is Ogre showcasing his great writing talent by sharing a collection of several very well-made tales. Taken in that context it's a great read; each tale is interesting on its own and the whole thing with it's consistent fantasy theme reminds me of the Ballad of Buster Scruggs, which is a Coen brother film depicting six unconnected tales from the Old West. I recommend this as a great way of letting someone enjoy some very well-written fantasy stories from a great writer and also, perhaps, putting them in the right mindset or inspiring them to do their own fantasy writing.

Ogre always makes really fun and entertaining games so I went into this with pretty high expectations also taking into consideration the setting in which this takes place in. Short stories compiled in a larger book is something I always enjoyed when I was younger and there was a certain book series that had rather quite a lot of them that I can't seem to remember but it reminds me a lot of it considering the amount of depth and detail put into each story that more than enough makes up more the low choices in my opinion. The dwarfs story was my favorite out of all of them, and it's swell that each story has it's own mood and theme which makes it easier for someone to resonate or like a story given their preference.

Overall very awesome game and entertaining read.

Highly recommend this story to anyone with a little time on their hands. It's even good in segments, like how I read it.
I love the details you've put into this short little collection of tales. It's almost as though I could really see the settings and action going on. You've found the perfect balance to be able to make the reader feel as if they're really there, while also keeping them interested in the story.
My favorite story was the serving wench's tale. Mostly the stories had entirely different kinds of moods. There were the more sad toned ones, like the serving lady's. The dwarf's seems less true and more enjoyable, partially because of the entertaining accent.
Despite it being short and (as you warned) choiceless, you can see there was a decent amount of effort put into this.
I enjoyed it immensely. If there were even just small options, it would be absolutely perfect, but as is I still give it a definite 7/8.

Very nicely written. The lack of choices is made up for by the amount of time and effort put into every story.

This would've been improved by an option to deliberately shun the fatass gnome. Really game, why not take a hint. I left him till last for a reason, I don't want to sit next to that.
It just adds injury to insult that the gnome also exposed me to second hand smoke before the game would let me leave the building. I'm so upset I'm literally shaking.

Ogre, where all the branching choices?!

Well as advertised this really is a collection of short stories from interesting characters at some inn/tavern thing. Really that's all I can say.

It does a decent job of creating the atmosphere of a tavern, and then one can choose to see which character might provide an interesting tale for them to listen to. Some stories more interesting than others, but surely a stylistic choice, I have to presume.

Yeah, I think that concludes my thoughts on this.