Chain Stories is a game, devised independently by large numbers of bored students, schoolchildren and office-workers with a lot of time on their hands, but an inability to go anywhere interesting.

The rules (if that is what they can be called) consist of one person writing a word, sentence, paragraph or more in the style of a story and then passing the piece of paper (or email, in the case of the office-worker) onto the next person, who continues the story. This continues, cycling through the participants, until the story reaches its natural conclusion, or until everyone runs out of ideas.

For this to work, everyone must agree on a few basic guidelines, but there are a number of versions available.

Variations

• Free For All - Write whatever you like, but beware: this can get confusing.

• No Offence - Inclusion of persons present is not allowed, as some people can get rather upset if you use their name for a serial killer.

• Squeaky Clean - No rude words or sexual references. Suitable for family viewing.

• Constant Characters - Characters may only be removed by the participant who created that character. This stops people removing your character before they've had a chance to do anything interesting, but remember that too many characters battling for attention never looks good.

• Control Freak - Characters and locations may only be changed by the player who initiated the story. This leads to a more structured story, but it's dull and can lead to rebellion among the ranks.

A similar, but shorter version of the game is called 'Consequences', in which there are set topics that must be written about.

This is not really a party game, but a game when you have a lot of spare time on your hands and nothing to fill it with. If you wear out your imaginations on this one and still have time, why not have a look at Party Games, Identity Games or Improvisational Games.

So have fun, everyone, but remember to send h2g2 a cut of the royalties when you get published.