As a spatially- and temporally-distributed storytelling form, ARGs deploy narrative across a wide range of expressive media, including physical spaces and artifacts, websites, game worlds, books and graphic novels, music, television and movies, online video, rumors, cell phone content and live performances. This presentation is a primer for non-specialist audiences on the subject of Alternate Reality Games. Includes brief survey of prior art, diagrams illustrating the nature of networked fictions, and references to key scholars/innovators.