"Once upon a time there was a Wolf (played card), who lived on a Mountain (played card)."
"You can only play one card per sentence."
"I did. 'Once upon a time there was a Wolf, period! He lived on a Mountain, period!'"
That was the beginning of our first, and probably last, experience playing a card game called Once Upon A Time..., with Beth opening the game up laying down 4 or 5 cards in quick succession. I believe that the card game is supposed to encourage players to create elaborate stories which would allow other players to play interrupting cards and chime in with their own branch of the story. It sounds very interesting, but this execution was no where near as elegant. As Chris was explaining the game, I could already tell I was going to lose, since I lack the quick wit necessary to come up with a story in 5 seconds, but I had no idea that the winner would ruin the game so badly that Chris would never want to bring it out again.
The rules require that only one card be played per sentence, so Beth tried to follow along with that, telling a story that was reminiscent of a Dick and Jane story book. It was terrible. Thankfully, Chris was able to interrupt and bring richness to the story. I interrupted a couple times, but not enough to add much, just a couple character cards based on what the other two had said. I could barely come up with a sentence to go along with each of the cards I played. Within no time, Beth had reclaimed the story and wrapped it up with her ending. Chris sat in disbelief that anyone could ruin the spirit of the game so badly.
Now that we've set the bar so low for Chris and Once Upon A Time..., I can only hope that some day he will find the right group to have an enjoyable game. It really seems like it could be fun, but for me, I'd still much rather watch from the sidelines.
