STORYTELLER TACTICS REVIEW: ARCHETYPES
Pip Decks Archetypes Review — The System
How to use the expansion deck
∘ STORYTELLER TACTICS REVIEW: ARCHETYPES
∘ A new deal
∘ Now things get interesting
∘ Ok, so what are these Archetypes?
∘ Let’s drill down
∘ Standalone?
∘ How to get aboard
February 2024, a significant moment for Pip Decks with the release of expansion packs for their two original decks of presentation-related cards: Archetypes for Storyteller Tactics and Retros for Workshop Tactics.
https://pipdecks.com/britnipepper?redirect=%2Fproducts%2FRetros
I’ve been an enthusiastic user of the Storyteller Tactics cards for a year now and so I put my name down to be one of the first users for the Archetypes expansion.
To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much beyond more of the same — which is very good indeed — but as I began to examine the cards I began to understand that this new pack was a real game-changer.
The box, cards, artwork and text are up to the same high standard as the original. In fact, the new cards match the old ones precisely in format and may be added in seamlessly. They fit in beautifully and if you are the sort of user who pushes them around on a table to craft a story or presentation, it all works very well.
Storyteller Tactics is — as the name suggests — all about the nuts and bolts of telling a story. Pick a structure, select a style, tailor for your function and so on. It is a system. At its simplest, simply follow one of the recipe cards and basically “fill in the blanks” with your own material.
A few more cards in each category — another couple of recipes, two more story structures, and so on — would have been a useful and welcome expansion but as I laid my new cards down on the table surface I realised that Pip Decks had not played it safe this hand.
A new deal
To begin with, three cards — Good & Evil, Man in a Hole, and Movie Time — are reprints of the existing Storyteller Tactics cards.
Not quite exact. They have been modified to remove references to other Storyteller Tactics cards on the front, and to qualify them on the back, along with subtle changes to the format.
This helps to give the expansion deck a stand-alone quality. Clearly Pip Decks does not require buyers to own the original deck, and instead an Archetypes buyer could treat the original Storyteller Tactics as an optional expansion.
The Good & Evil card is particularly suited to this deck. Conflict is what drives a story, what keeps us reading. It doesn’t necessarily have to be about good and evil in a black-and-white struggle; as the card points out, a conflict between two good aims can be even more interesting.
Man in a Hole is a classic story structure. Things are okay, things get real bad, the character has to struggle out and triumph. As Kurt Vonnegut said, people love this story.
Movie Time is about how to tell your story in a memorable fashion. Make your audience play a movie in their heads as they read or listen to your story. Load it up with images, action, sensations that play in their minds.
Taken together, these three cards are a powerful set of tactics to craft a story that people will love and remember.
It’s not the whole set of tactics from the original deck but it is a start and it is a set that will work well.
Now things get interesting
There are three brand-new cards called Archetype Recipes. These have a different format than the Recipe cards in Storyteller Tactics, where five cards are gathered together — a Structure, a Style, a Function, an Explore, and a Character card, say — and used to provide a skeleton for the storyteller to add the meat of the tale.
Instead, these recipe cards supply a series of fill-in-the-blanks statements. It’s bare-bones but it works:
- The Way Ahead. The protagonist (user or customer, in a business sense) needs to change from one role to another, or change their behaviour in a certain way.
- Raise the Stakes. It’s all about conflict here. Two characters struggle. The stakes are high, only one can win, make sure it’s your guy.
- Build Your Brand. Your brand needs to be coherent, consistent, credible. Here are the roles you see your customers, audience, staff, and so on playing, and how they act in character.
Ok, so what are these Archetypes?
Glad you asked! Great question!
There is one Character card from the original deck and twelve Archetype cards. These are the heart of this expansion deck.
First, the Hero & Guide card. This is from the Storyteller Tactics deck, more or less unchanged, and is clearly the starting point for the expansion pack.
Here is a golden piece of storytelling advice. Your user, audience, listener, or customer is the Hero of the story and you, the storyteller, are the Guide. It’s all about the user, putting them in the spotlight, making them the star of the show, giving them all the good lines.
You just point them in the right direction and they go do all the exciting stuff.
On the back of the card, six roles are identified. For example, The Warrior, who values putting things right, says, “fight the good fight”, and gives weapons and tactics. These are the roles you, as the storyteller and Expert Guide, might play.
Think about (say) Star Wars. Luke Skywalker is the hero, a simple country boy who goes on an epic journey and achieves a glorious triumph. He has guides and helpers, companions and assistants but it’s really his story.
He also has opponents, villains, obstacles, and challenges.
Throw all these into the mix, get the timing right and you have a million-dollar story.
The twelve Archetype cards are the heart of this twenty-card deck. Along with Hero & Guide and a single card explaining the system.
Here’s the list of Archetypes, in no particular order:
- The Rebel
- The Ruler
- The Magician — I love this card with its unique shiny graphics!
- The Sage
- The Warrior
- The Artist
- The Explorer
- The Jester
- The Lover
- The Companion
- The Caregiver
- The Innocent
Recognise any of these roles in your favourite stories?
Let’s drill down
The beauty and true value of the Archetypes cards is that they are not rigid. They can have a dark side. The Sage can also be The Ideologue or The Idiot.
The Sage can be full of useless or harmful information. Know anybody like that?
Or they may be combined with other archetypes. Add The Explorer and you have The Mapmaker. A useful chap for a Hero to have around.
Each role is sketched out, given alternatives, and can be made multi-faceted.
You can build a sitcom out of these people.
You can craft specific characters for your brand.
And the best part is that all of these characters are known and understood by your audience. They are Archetypes straight out of Central Casting. We’ve met them before and we just have to stamp our own particular imprint on them to make them our own for the exact purpose of the story we’re telling.
Standalone?
The new Archetypes deck has immense power all by itself. You get a storytelling system that is straightforward, powerful, and flexible. These twenty cards can be combined and used by someone with even a modest imagination to build a story that will be compelling and memorable.
Use Man in a Hole for your structure. Hard to go wrong with that. We all have problems that need solving and if you are selling something, your product is the solution to a problem.
Find the characters you want to tell the story, remembering that with Hero & Guide, your listener is the hero, you are just the guide.
Use Movie Time to fill the story up with colour and feeling, sounds and smells so that your reader is right there in the action.
Build Your Brand to help get the details right and keep them that way in the next episode.
The Archetypes deck is an entry into storytelling for fun and profit. As with all the other Pip Decks products, they guarantee that you will get ten times return on investment or your money back. I, personally, am hanging onto my cards. They are my treasures.
I love the Storyteller Tactics deck for its nuances, for its completeness, for its breadth and depth. It is a library in a box. If you start with this expansion Archetypes deck and are any good at using its power, you will undoubtedly want more. Storyteller Tactics delivers, expanding your reach, giving you new tools.
Conversely, for those of us with the original deck, Archetypes is a welcome addition. Sure, a few cards are duplicated but we get the benefits of a refined model for telling our stories with characters who can be precisely tailored for their exact roles.
Above all, we can use Archetypes to make our audience feel positive about our message and remember it once they close the page or leave the room.
Thank you, Pip Decks, for providing this valuable addition. It’s gold!
How to get aboard
Use my discount code BRITNIPEPPER to get 15% off. I get a few dollars in return. The bold links above are affiliates, same deal. Or just go to the website, no strings attached, look around, discover the system for yourself.
My review series is free. I explore the cards, the systems, the tactics, link to independent reviews, and even show you how to get every word, every diagram, every dot point on every card for free, without paying a cent, with the blessing of the firm.
I believe in these cards. They are the wisdom of storytellers, passed on from ages past. The tactics work. They are a secret guide in the palm of your hand, and while they are expensive, they come with a money-back guarantee.
Britni
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