# Designing ## Essentials All exercises need to consider SME - **Story, Mechanics and Environment**. Use the Canvas in AXS to see these at a glance so you know they’re all considered together.

## Participatory Storytelling A character in a story overcomes challenges to discover themselves. In a crisis exercise, the player is the character – they must overcome challenges to believe in themselves and believe in the process (or reform it). Think in terms of distinctive events which are moments in the exercise: one event = one serial.

### Players need to do stuff Exercises are **participatory** – we need to remember that we need to get players **doing something**, not passively reading. A common mistake is to publish a lot of content and have players read too much. Use the diagram below to consider possible player activities as a means to achieve your training objectives.

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