Story Control

There are two ways of looking at story control:

Narrative authority: Who gets to say what happens?
Pacing and shaping: How do we build a coherent story rather than just a series of episodes (if we don’t go to “there’s one person who gets to say what happens”)?

Both of these can be approached by managing in-game resources or currencies, as well as by other means.

Narrative Authority

This can be “bought” by bidding for scenes with tokens, and/or by spending tokens to introduce new elements.

There should be a reward system which regenerates tokens for people who come up with “cool stuff” which is incorporated enthusiastically into the fiction.

Pacing and Shaping

In the case of the special-situation scenarios, such as quests, tokens can represent “plot tokens” - collect enough of them and you can send off for the ending.

Another way to look at this is that you are working away at the key problem, gradually eroding it.

For example, in a quest, each time you win a conflict you can collect some plot tokens which convert into items (etc.) useful for your quest. When you have a predefined number (i.e. when the pool you are drawing them from is emptied) you have all the elements you need to complete the quest, and you should play a scene in which you do so.

In a scenario where you are gradually overcoming opposition, such as a rescue, escape or penetrating security, the GM (assuming for the sake of argument that there is one, or some mechanism substituting for one) gets the pool of points and can use them to create obstacles for you. As you overcome the obstacles you come closer to your goal. As a complication you can have situations in which the pool of opposition points increases as well.

Guarding is the opposite of penetrating security or a rescue; you have the points, your opposition wears them down.