I grew up in a gaming family — no matter what was happening between us, when one of us pulled out a game of Uno or Frogger or, yes, even Monopoly, all of our differences receded as we focused on out-smarting each other. My grandmother usually ran the table — if you ever beat her in a game, you knew that you had done a rare and amazing thing, and her congratulations was the highest praise to my young ears. I learned so many things thanks to that time spent gaming with my family — not just how to grasp and use complex rules, but also how to interact with others. How to win well, lose well, and especially how to play well with others.

Now that I make games for a living, few things make me happier than hearing from families who game together. It’s one of the reasons we created No Thank You, Evil!, our creative storytelling family game for families. Unlike the games of my childhood, it’s cooperative, so players work together to overcome a challenge.

When we originally came up with the idea for No Thank You, Evil!, we were both excited and nervous. Excited because we were making something that we were passionate about and that we hoped families would play and enjoy. And nervous because we were trying to create something new, and we couldn’t know how it would be received until it was already out in the world.

Shortly after No Thank You, Evil! was released, it garnered the ENnie Award for Best Family Game 2016, which was incredibly rewarding. But, even better, all year long we heard praise from so many families who are playing and enjoying No Thank You, Evil! together.

Along with those stories came a request for more adventures. Kids quickly played through the initial scenarios and wanted more, but parents didn’t have the time to design new stories from scratch. We realized that a great way to provide more (mis)adventures was to offer an adventure-building deck that could be used over and over to create new adventures on the fly. Thus, the idea for Story, Please! An Adventure-building Deck was born.

The 100-card deck is stuffed full of evocative art and creative ideas, letting you quickly build hundreds of unique adventures for No Thank You, Evil! The cards are the same size as the cards in the original game, so it can be used in conjunction with Creature and Cypher Cards for even more options.

The deck includes:

20 Story Cards: These give you the basis for the adventure. Each card has an evocative piece of art, as well as three ideas to give the Guide a variety of suggestions to choose from. 20 Place Cards: Location ideas for the beginning, end, or mid-point of an adventure. Like Story Cards, Place Cards feature art on one side, and three written suggestions on the other. 20 People Cards: Characters who might help, hinder, or otherwise interact with the characters. Art on one side shows players what a character looks like, while Stats on the other make it easy for the Guide to keep track. 10 Twist Cards: Complications that the players might encounter along the way. 10 Stuff Cards: Objects and equipment that can be used as treasure, rewards, and goals. 10 Map Cards: Blank maps of buildings, spaceships, caverns, and more.  On the back are 10 interconnecting tiles that can be used to build a larger map for players to explore. 10 Handout Cards: Invitations, wanted posters, tickets, and old letters, which can be handed to players to start an adventure, or that could be discovered during a current adventure to kick off the next one.

In addition to making it fast and easy to build and run an adventure, the cards have an added bonus — by breaking adventures down into simple steps, the deck helps young players grasp the basic building blocks of a story, enabling them to start creating their own adventures and running their own games for the family.

Shanna Germain is the co-owner of Monte Cook Games, LLC. She started playing RPGs at a young age with Bunnies & Burrows. Her recent and upcoming products include No Thank You, Evil!, Torment: Tides of Numenera - An Explorer's Guide, The Poison Eater, Predation, and Story, Please!