The Phone Moves

This is a collection of moves designed in the format of a tabletop roleplaying game (TTRPG), a kind of game where people come together to create a shared narrative mediated by rules and mechanics. If you’ve played House or a party game like Werewolf, it’s kinda like that.

These moves are specifically written in the format of a game Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA), where moves are used to create plot twists and progress the narrative. Like the moves here, they often (but not always) utilize two six-sided dice to introduce uncertainty. 

However, the moves here are also lyrical, in the sense that they’re created more as literary and artistic expressions, instead of being actual rules or mechanics meant to be used with any playable game. Except, of course, the great and mysterious game we call life itself.

These moves are inspired by the films of David Lynch. They were originally written as part of a “one PbtA move a day” exercise on social media, but I never kept up with it and they had since been forgotten until I was reminded of them by the FIX YOUR HEART OR DIE Jam.

The phone is a common plot device in his films, a proto telepresence technology that blurs the lines of time and space, making far things close and vice versa. When the phone moves, everybody pays attention lest something terrible and unfathomable is on the other side.