The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Powers, Richard. Playground. W. W. Norton & Company, 2024.

Richard Powers's novel Playground is set in various international locations and straddles multiple temporal eras. The novel is written from both the third-person point of view and the protagonist Todd Keane's first-person point of view. The novel uses the past and present tense and does not follow a linear plot structure. For the sake of clarity, the following summary relies upon the present tense and a more streamlined mode of explanation.

Todd Keane grows up in Illinois with his parents in Evanston Castle. His father pressures him to excel, teaching him an array of board games from a young age. Todd wants to please his father, but he also genuinely enjoys strategy games, reading, and figuring out how things work. For a brief time after reading Evie Beaulieu's Clearly It Is Ocean, he develops an interest in oceanography. A short time later, he falls in love with computers and sets his oceanic dreams aside.

Todd attends Saint Ignatius for high school. Here he meets Rafi Young. He and Rafi bond over their tumultuous home lives and their common interest in games and books. They soon start spending all of their time playing chess and Go together. After graduation, they decide to attend the University of Illinois. Meanwhile, Rafi struggles to balance his home and school lives. He still blames himself for his parents' divorce and his younger sister Sondy's death. He confides in Todd about these issues, hoping Todd will understand him better.

In college, Rafi falls in love with Ina Aroita. Todd is initially skeptical when Rafi announces he is going to marry Ina not long after meeting her. However, as soon as Todd meets Ina, he falls in love with her, too. The closer Rafi and Ina become, the more distant Todd feels from Rafi. To deal with his loneliness, Todd devotes himself to designing and launching an online forum called Playground. He then sells it to a venture capitalist group in Silicon Valley, where he moves after graduation to continue running the business.

Ina decides to leave the university town without Rafi when Rafi refuses to finish his thesis. He ends up staying in the town and pursuing more degrees over the coming years. He dies in this town, and Ina sends Todd the news via email. She also updates Todd on her life and explains that she is living on Makatea, an island in French Polynesia.

When Todd is in his fifties, he discovers that he has dementia. Terrified of losing his memories, he decides to feed his life story into his newest AI invention, Profunda. The computer then converts his memories in to a new story. In this story, Rafi and Ina stay together and start a family on Makatea. While living here, they try to protect the island when they learn that Silicon Valley executives want to start seasteading in the waters surrounding Makatea. They consult their mayor, queen, and the local oceanographer, Evie Beaulieu, about the issue while preparing to vote on it. Evie has devoted her life to oceanography and is also worried about the island's future. A short time later, Rafi discovers that Todd is behind the seasteading plans. Todd then travels to Makatea on his yacht from California. He, Todd, and Ina make amends after falling apart years prior. Meanwhile, Todd falls in love with the island and realizes that his work in the technology field has caused more harm than good. The islanders convince him to stop his seasteading plans to save their island.