Collaborative improv story game

Keep one increasingly suspicious story straight.

Alibi Chain is a playful storytelling game where nobody sees the whole plan in advance. Each rotation adds a location, incident, decision maker, suspicious object, justification, or aftermath until the group reveals an explanation that is technically complete and deeply questionable.

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StorytellingAlibi Chain

Keep one increasingly suspicious story straight.

Players
3–24
Playtime
About 11 minutes
Energy
Lively
Skills
Improvisation, Continuity, Reading context

How to play

Alibi Chain in five steps.

  1. 1

    Choose Alibi Chain and have everyone join the room.

  2. 2

    Each player begins by naming where they were when the imaginary mess started.

  3. 3

    Rotating players explain what went wrong, who made the crucial decision, and what suspicious object appeared.

  4. 4

    Another player justifies why the object seemed completely reasonable at the time.

  5. 5

    Add the immediate aftermath, then reveal the complete alibis and react to contradictions.

Example round

A reasonable explanation for the aquarium forklift

The mess began in a hotel lobby, where an intern borrowed an aquarium forklift to rescue a cake. It made perfect sense because the elevator was “emotionally unavailable.” The penguins were not convinced.

Best for

Use it when the room needs…

  • Improv groups
  • Creative team building
  • Storytelling workshops
  • Groups that enjoy comic contradictions

Facilitator tips

Keep the chain moving.

  • Frame every scenario as fictional and harmless.
  • Ask players to preserve earlier details even while making the explanation worse.
  • Use the contradiction reaction to celebrate continuity breaks rather than criticize them.

Participation and accessibility

Players write from their own device and do not need to perform an improvised scene aloud. Keep fictional incidents harmless and avoid prompts based on real wrongdoing.

Keep playing