Rough Guide
Rough Guide is a game in which a performer acts as a tour guide leading the audience or other players through an imaginary location, improvising history, landmarks, and local customs based on audience suggestions. The guide must maintain an authoritative tone while inventing increasingly elaborate details. The game rewards confident world-building and deadpan delivery.
Worth Reading
See all books →
Theater Games for Rehearsal
Viola Spolin

Playing Along
37 Group Learning Activities Borrowed from Improvisational Theater
Izzy Gesell

Drama Games and Improvs
Games for the Classroom and Beyond
Justine Jones; Mary Ann Kelley

The Playbook
Improv Games for Performers
William Hall

Improvisation for the Theater
A Handbook of Teaching and Directing Techniques
Viola Spolin

Impro for Storytellers
Keith Johnstone
Related Games
Tour Guide
Tour Guide is a character game in which a single performer leads the group through an imaginary location, improvising elaborate facts, history, and anecdotes about each stop as the tour progresses. The guide must maintain confident, authoritative delivery while inventing every detail in the moment. The game rewards deadpan commitment, world-building specificity, and the ability to sustain a comic persona under the pressure of continuous invention.
Take a Tour
Take a Tour is a game in which performers guide the audience through an imaginary location, improvising the details of the space as they narrate. The location accumulates specificity through the guide's descriptions and the reactions of the visitors being led through it.
Story Conductor
Story Conductor is a game in which a designated conductor points to different performers to continue a collaborative story, controlling who speaks and for how long. The conductor can switch between tellers rapidly or let one player build momentum. The game trains narrative listening and the ability to pick up a story thread at any point.
How to Reference This Page
The Improv Archive. (2026). Rough Guide. Retrieved September 28, 2026, from https://improvarchive.org/games/rough-guide
The Improv Archive. "Rough Guide." The Improv Archive, 2026. https://improvarchive.org/games/rough-guide.
The Improv Archive. "Rough Guide." The Improv Archive, 2026, https://improvarchive.org/games/rough-guide. Accessed September 28, 2026.
The Improv Archive is a systemically maintained repository. The archive itself acts as the corporate author.