Beginner Storyteller Guide

Trailer for the upcoming Dungeons and Kittens animated series, perfect for getting a feel for the world!

Glossary

Storyteller: The game leader: she describes the world, plays the extras and arbitrates the rules.

Player: Refers to anyone at the table, without presuming their actual gender.

Kitten: The avatar (character) played by the player in the game world.

Extra: Refers to the non-player characters (NPCs) and monsters encountered.

GM and Storyteller: the wiki uses Storyteller for the game leader throughout.

The world of Donjons & Chatons

Donjons & Chatons takes place on a planet where the humans, nicknamed the "Big-Bare-Butts", have mysteriously disappeared. Nature has reclaimed the ruined cities, but the humans left the animals a legacy: the gift of speech, of imagination and of invention.

There are now two kinds of creatures:

• Animals: they talk, walk, wear clothes and use tools.
• Beasts: they kept their wild nature, and serve as mounts or sources of food.

One absolute universal law governs their coexistence:

An animal that talks does not eat an animal that talks.

The setting blends animal fables, fantasy Middle Ages and post-apocalyptic remains. Cats practice Meowgic (from everyday enchantments to great schools of sorcery), while other animals tinker with human relics.

A few emblematic places to remember:

• Cat Tree City: the vertical capital of the Kingdom, where your floor defines your social rank, from the dungeons in the basement to Walter's apartments on the 100th floor.
• Corktown: a cosmopolitan and slightly grubby port city, a haunt of sailors and pirates.
• Bigwheel: a former amusement park turned into a haven of laughter by the raccoon Dualeaper.
• The Junkyard: a fortified dump held by the fearsome Yardogs.
• Crimsonfief: a legendary dungeon whose structure changes with every visit, said to hold the secrets of the world.

The context of the Exile

The Kingdom of Cats is ruled by King Walter, a fat, hot-tempered and unjust tyrant who reigns through fear and taxes. His main tool of control: the Exile of Kittens.

Regularly, Walter stages a rigged draw "a parody of a ceremony" to banish entire litters of young cats out of the Kingdom. Officially, it is an initiatory quest: they must bring back a legendary treasure to earn the right to return. In reality, it is collective punishment. The constant threat of seeing one's children exiled is enough to silence all opposition.

The instructions Walter gives are deliberately vague and misleading. Many exiles grow up in the wild world, giving up for good on the hope of returning. The Kittens set off with a small survival bag and their five important items.

Where to start?

If you are new to roleplaying, it is best to start your first game of Donjons & Chatons as a Storyteller with an existing official scenario.

That lets you get comfortable with the world and the system without having to focus on the scenario at first.

To start a "one-shot" or a campaign, I recommend either the starter set or the Grandma Scramble scenario from Book 1: Core Rulebook.

It can also be fun to play the departure from Cat Tree City with the announcement of the Kittens' selection, then let the group head toward whatever interests them, and guide them afterward toward the Locations of the world.

How to prepare your game well

Read and reread your game material.

A single read is not enough. The first pass gives you an overview. The next ones let you spot the rules useful for your scenario and truly take in the tone of the world.

A good habit: after your read, test a rules situation with a pre-generated sheet, it sticks far better than a simple reread.

Concretely, before your session:

• Reread the scenario, note each NPC's motivations
• Sketch a small outline of the flow (paper or mind map - Obsidian, Miro)
• Prepare an ambient music playlist, tabletopaudio.com is perfect for this, YouTube and Deezer also do the job
• Check in with your players a few days ahead to confirm the date

Opening your first scene

The golden rule: no lore monologue. Dive straight into a scene where the Kittens have to react. You will give out information about the world in answer to their questions, not before.

You have two natural entry points:

Option 1: The Exile Ceremony:

You play the moment the Kittens' names are announced publicly before the whole Kingdom. The families held back by the guards, the immediate injustice, the forced departure. It is an emotionally very strong opening, ideal for launching a mini-campaign.

Option 2: The first night (Grandma Scramble):

The Kittens are already on the road, exhausted, in the rain. They seek shelter with Grandma Scramble, an old cat known for taking in the banished. Arriving at her cabin surrounded by extravagant henhouses, they find a disturbing scene: door open, fire out, interior turned upside down, tufts of fur torn out. And a pair of pincers marked with a crescent moon. The adventure begins.

Running the table

Let the players fumble.

A wobbly stretch at the start of a game is normal, do not fight it. The more the Kittens ask questions and stir things up, the tighter the knots of the plot draw around them. The rule: always answer a question, even with a riddle or a half-clue. A player who asks questions is a player who is engaged.

For immersion,

Rely on short sensory details rather than long descriptions.

The smell of spices in an inn, the damp cold of a metal door, the rain on the tiles, that is enough. And do not hesitate to turn the questions back on the players:

"What does this path look like? Who are the inn's customers?" You share the invention, they make the world their own.

Finally, the game rests on mutual aid and empathy. Introduce a distressed NPC early, a desperate mother, an unfairly treated child. The Kittens naturally slip into a hero's stance, and the first real moral choice arrives on its own.

💡 A note on conflict: in D&K, we favor Fang Catfights (intimidation, cunning, bluff) over Claw Catfights (physical combat).

Build your scenes so that cunning and solidarity are often more effective than brute force, it is in the game's DNA.

Handling the unexpected

Your players are bound to surprise you, it is a sign the game is alive. The classic situations (an unprepared place, a mistake on your part, a group that refuses to follow the scenario) are covered in the Storyteller FAQ.