First Playtest, First thoughts

[Ayrizale]

Hi,

We got to play for a little while yesterday and I just wanted to pass along the general first impressions.

Overall it played very well.  My first concern on reading the rules was that the coins would get in the way and that didn't happen to the degree that I feared, so that is a good thing.  The first two or three times around the table we just added components to the setting for the story and created some base characters to start the game with.

Then we started framing basic intro scenes to place the characters in certain places.

This raised a question that I couldn't find an anwer for  I seem to recall reading somewhere in the rules that if a character is established in a certain location from a previous scene, then that character can be used in that location without paying a coin to include that component.  But when I went back to look for it, I couldn't find it.

After about two hours we had our first complication...

As others have said, this was the rough spot.  My only real problem with the Complication rules as they stand is that they seemed to lead to a kind of Feeding Frenzy.  I think that more coins where spent by the players during the Complication than were spent in all of the other setup leading up to it.  Is that kind of reaction normal from first time players?

I'm not sure when I'll get to try it out with the same group again.  I might be able to get a different group together that would be willing to give it a try, and if I do, then I'll certainly pas along anything that I notice there.

Later,

Lael

[Valamir]

I'm glad you had a chance to play.

Can you delve into some more specifics about your game.  A full transcript might be a bit much to ask, but some of the following details would be very helpful.

1) What Game Structure Items did you select in advance (Genre, Mood, Setting, Theme, etc)?

2) How effective was explicitly defining these items in advance at keeping the game on track without other mechanical enforcement.

3) What sort of Components got created and how elaborate did your players get in assigning Traits to them.

4) Did you see the same Components get reused over and over and if so, where they reused in a story appropriate manner or were they just used because it was cheaper than Creating new ones.

5) How many total Characters did your players Create, broken down my Main, Supporting Cast, and Extras if possible.

6) Can you provide an example of the Component that had the most impact in your game and what its Traits were and how they were used.

7) When Framing Scenes how easy was it to keep track of what COmponents were in the scene and what Traits had been Drawn from.

8) What was the first Complication and how did it occur.  Did it just seem natural that things had built to a critical point where it was time to throw dice, or was it forced just to give the rules a test drive.

9) Can you provide some specifics about the Complication and what was done so I can see why so many Coins were spent relatively (Note, I've seen Complications be quite impactful with only a handful of Coins spent total, and I've seen Complications drain nearly every one dry, so as long as the Coin dedicated to the Complication was somewhat proportional to its climactic impact the number of Coins spent could range anywhere).

10) Did you actually manage to tell a story during the session and was the world that got created compelling enough to want to revisit it and tell another story in the same setting?


BTW:  The Location rule in your version should be found in the Scene Framing chapter in the Introducing Components section.  It will be more explicitly stated in the version I'm working on now.

[Ayrizale]

I'm glad you had a chance to play.

Can you delve into some more specifics about your game.  A full transcript might be a bit much to ask, but some of the following details would be very helpful.

1) What Game Structure Items did you select in advance (Genre, Mood, Setting, Theme, etc)?

Items that were created before the first scene was framed:

Set on a Ringworld
With a very cold climate
Built by an ancient, highly advanced culture

Genre is an 1890s Victorian Steampunk setting

The Sun is dying
and a plague has wiped out half the population

The general goal of the story is to have it result in a Jules Verne like adventure into space to find a new home.

Doctor Alexander Cole (Mad Scientist +2)

Colonel Jeffrey Smythe (Fighting +1, Blimp Pilot +1, Charisma +1, (Dodge +1 added later))

Senator David Halliday (Charisma +1, Leadership +1, Language +1, Research +1)

Elizabeth Proctor (Navigator +1, Engineer +1)

Dr. Cole wants to kidnap Ms. Proctor (nothing was ever done with this one)

Dr. Cole is finishing up a space ship (Lift +1, Speed +1, (Guns +2 added lter))

Ms. Proctor believes that Dr. Cole caused the plague and hates him for it.


At this point the first scene was framed and we began placing the characters into their "starting positions".

2) How effective was explicitly defining these items in advance at keeping the game on track without other mechanical enforcement.

Things went fairly well.  As a general rule it was fairly easy to keep things on track, the scenes were kept in line with the theme for the most part and the locations that were created fit into the genre fairly well.  A mood was not established, so that cannot be judged.

3) What sort of Components got created and how elaborate did your players get in assigning Traits to them.

Besides the components that were created before the first scene, the following components were created as parts of scenes:

A life pod (Life Support +2)

Dr. Coles House (Cannons +1, Sturdy +1)

The Plague (Virulence +2, Mortality +5)

Eddings, Dr. Cole's Assistant (Mechnical Aptitude +1)

A Gentleman's Club (Men Only +3)

A mob of gentlemen (Rage +1, Accuracy +1)

4) Did you see the same Components get reused over and over and if so, where they reused in a story appropriate manner or were they just used because it was cheaper than Creating new ones.

Nearly all of the characters were reused in multiple scenes.  The Space ship and Edding were used in two scenes.

5) How many total Characters did your players Create, broken down my Main, Supporting Cast, and Extras if possible.

All of the characters are listed above, Col. Smythe, Dr. Cole, Sen. Halliday, Ms. Proctor, and Eddings.  The Angry mob might also count.  The main characters seemed to be Smythe and Cole, with Halliday and Proctor following closely.

6) Can you provide an example of the Component that had the most impact in your game and what its Traits were and how they were used.

Probably the Plague.  During the complication it was created and used to add its Mortality to the dice pool of the person that had started out in control of the scene (rather than the originator of the Complication).

7) When Framing Scenes how easy was it to keep track of what COmponents were in the scene and what Traits had been Drawn from.

The scenes that we framed were kept short and everyone was taking careful notes, so it was very easy for us to keep track of who and what was where.

8) What was the first Complication and how did it occur.  Did it just seem natural that things had built to a critical point where it was time to throw dice, or was it forced just to give the rules a test drive.

The first complication seemed fairly natural for what had happened, though there was certainly an element of "let's give these complication rules a try."

The first complication took place at Dr. Cole's house.  Col. Smythe had gone to the house ahead of the angry mob.  Eddigns, looking through the window, noticed both Smythe and the mob and was about to run and tell the Doctor.

The complication was that the mob had guns and started shooting.  Components that were changed or added during the complication:

Smythe was given Dodge +1 and a gun.

The house was given Cannons +1 and Strudy +1

The plague was brought into play in the form of Plague Balls for the cannons

The Angry mob was given Accuracy +1

9) Can you provide some specifics about the Complication and what was done so I can see why so many Coins were spent relatively (Note, I've seen Complications be quite impactful with only a handful of Coins spent total, and I've seen Complications drain nearly every one dry, so as long as the Coin dedicated to the Complication was somewhat proportional to its climactic impact the number of Coins spent could range anywhere).

The scene ended up going something like this:

Smythe showed up ahead of the angry mob.  Eddings noticed them both and about that same time, they started shooting.  Dr. Cole was alerted to their presence and came to the front door to grab smythe and pull him in.  Proctor stumbled and fell taking Halliday down with her.  Eddigns went to the roof to start loading and firing the plague balls into the mob.  Smythe and Cole headed for the spaceship while Proctor and Halliday made their way around the side of the house to the Lab entrance and foudn their way into the life pod.  Cole and Smythe made it to the ship and blasted off, leaving the plague to spread behind them.

The introduciton of the plague was a big one (15 coins) and then there were a large number of traits added and events that were caused.  It was very chaotic (as I suppose such a situation should have been) and towards the end it seemed that we were just adding components to more out of habit than out of any real consideration for thier actual story impact.  Almost as if when it can around to each of our turns we thought only "Oh, it's my turn therefore I *must* do or create something."

It was eventually brought to an end and the scene was then completed.  That's actually about where we stopped due to time constraints.

10) Did you actually manage to tell a story during the session and was the world that got created compelling enough to want to revisit it and tell another story in the same setting?

I'm not sure that you would say that we actually told a story, maybe just a prelude to a story, since we didn't really get to play for very long (maybe 2 hours).  But yes, the setting was interesting enough that we will probably continue it at some point (probably will not get back together with that group for another 3 weeks or so).  And it was commented several times that this would be a great way to create a setting and overall story which could then be replayed or exanded upon in a traditional role-playing game.

BTW:  The Location rule in your version should be found in the Scene Framing chapter in the Introducing Components section.  It will be more explicitly stated in the version I'm working on now.

Cool.  Thanks.  Before I play again, I'm going to go back over the rules with a highlighter and make sure that I know where the important (to me) parts are.

Will post more after the next chance I have to play.

Later,

Lael

[Mike Holmes]

Lael,

First, excellent report. Thanks so very much for all the detail. It should be helpful.

I must admit that I like hearing what people did in Universalis, as they tend to get crazy creative. I like what you guys made a lot. Sounds like gobs of fun to me.

I find it interesting that, when starting with no preconcieved setting, that people often go off into sci-fi. I wonder if that's a trend, or just a blip due to the relatively few playtests so far?

The Plague (Virulence +2, Mortality +5)

Harsh. Cool.

The scenes that we framed were kept short and everyone was taking careful notes, so it was very easy for us to keep track of who and what was where.

Hmmm. Good you mentioned that. Was that a hassle at all, or no? Notes have been an issue. Earlier games required a lot of record keeping.

The plague was brought into play in the form of Plague Balls for the cannons

Plague Balls. Sweet. :-)

Almost as if when it can around to each of our turns we thought only "Oh, it's my turn therefore I *must* do or create something."

I've seen that happen, too. It doesn't concern me too much, but we might mention something about judicious passing in the section on bettering your play. OTOH, these additions seem to give the story a life of their own. As people add stuff, it seems to spark creativity in others. So you never know where the game will end up.

It was eventually brought to an end and the scene was then completed.  That's actually about where we stopped due to time constraints.

I find that ending on a complication resolution is often very appropriate. I can see the heroes watching as the bad guy jets off into the sky. You just know they'll get him in the end. But not before Ms. Whatsername gets kidnapped and is rescued by the Colonel.

I'm not sure that you would say that we actually told a story, maybe just a prelude to a story, since we didn't really get to play for very long (maybe 2 hours).  But yes, the setting was interesting enough that we will probably continue it at some point (probably will not get back together with that group for another 3 weeks or so).  And it was commented several times that this would be a great way to create a setting and overall story which could then be replayed or exanded upon in a traditional role-playing game.

I'd say that counts as a part of a story. Sure its not resolved, yet. But you have set up a lot of the classic elements. Heroes, villains, conflict, setting. It's all there ready to go. I like how it sounds. I hope it played as good as it sounds.

Which leads me to my only other question. What particular probelms did you have? You've explained where it went more or less well, but what hitches did you run across. You mentioned some problem with complications. What was it specifically? Just learning how, or was it slow in execution, or too complex, hard to understand? What other problems?

If we only hear good stuff, we may mistakenly assume that the game does not need any fixing. Lay it on us. How would you change it?

Mike

[Ayrizale]

Lael,



First, excellent report. Thanks so very much for all the detail. It should be helpful.



I must admit that I like hearing what people did in Universalis, as they tend to get crazy creative. I like what you guys made a lot. Sounds like gobs of fun to me.



I find it interesting that, when starting with no preconcieved setting, that people often go off into sci-fi. I wonder if that's a trend, or just a blip due to the relatively few playtests so far?

I'd suspect that it is the particular group of playtesters that has cropped up.  My own personal preference will tend towards Fantasy, more often than not, though in this case I was the one that went with the Victorian Steam-Punk (though had not really planned for Jules Verne-like space travel when I said it.)

The scenes that we framed were kept short and everyone was taking careful notes, so it was very easy for us to keep track of who and what was where.

Hmmm. Good you mentioned that. Was that a hassle at all, or no? Notes have been an issue. Earlier games required a lot of record keeping.

We did not find the note-keeping to be a real hassle.  Once the complication started, I kept fewer notes as I was busy arbitrating the spending and dice pools, but at least one other person kept very careful notes of the entire exchange.

Almost as if when it can around to each of our turns we thought only "Oh, it's my turn therefore I *must* do or create something."

I've seen that happen, too. It doesn't concern me too much, but we might mention something about judicious passing in the section on bettering your play. OTOH, these additions seem to give the story a life of their own. As people add stuff, it seems to spark creativity in others. So you never know where the game will end up.

Some mention, or warning, of it would probably be helpful.  The problem that I saw with it was that when you get to that point people can slip into a state where they are not really being creative, but are rather throwing stuff in just to do something.  My concern with it is that if it becomes a trend (which since I have only had the one experience it probably will not), then scenes with Complications could become a sort of "Kitchen Sink" kind of scene.  One where everything is thrown in whether it fits and is appropriate or not.

I find that ending on a complication resolution is often very appropriate. I can see the heroes watching as the bad guy jets off into the sky. You just know they'll get him in the end. But not before Ms. Whatsername gets kidnapped and is rescued by the Colonel.

See that's the strange thing.  Right now all four of the major characters are in the space ship.  Two are in the ship proper and two are in the life pod.  The Colonel, who was intended as a Portagonist, seems to be working on the side of the Doctor, who's role (as in good guy who invents a cure for the plague or finds the new home, or bad guy who kidnaps people and created the plague in the first place) in the story is not really clear.  I'm interested to continue the story and see where it goes, because right now, things have turned out kinda strange.

I'd say that counts as a part of a story. Sure its not resolved, yet. But you have set up a lot of the classic elements. Heroes, villains, conflict, setting. It's all there ready to go. I like how it sounds. I hope it played as good as it sounds.

It played pretty well.  Considering that most of the players are more traditional RPG players and prefer to play the game from a specific character's point of view, I'd say that it played well.  At some point I'll need to get my hands on the PC add-on for the game and see how that affects the way that everyone plays and thinks about the game.

Which leads me to my only other question. What particular probelms did you have? You've explained where it went more or less well, but what hitches did you run across. You mentioned some problem with complications. What was it specifically? Just learning how, or was it slow in execution, or too complex, hard to understand? What other problems?



If we only hear good stuff, we may mistakenly assume that the game does not need any fixing. Lay it on us. How would you change it?

I'm not sure how I would recommend changing things.  It was somewhat complex, but not overly so.  I think that my main dissatisfaction with the way it played out was the tendency to "throw stuff in" just to be throwing stuff in.  Though that can probably be handled through the Social Contract and discussed prior to the session.  Maybe and agreement that a given Complication should not have a whole lot more in it than a normal scene.  It just seemed (to me) as if things were coming into the scene with little backing from the pre-established setting guidelines.  The cannons on the roof and the Plague Balls were a little over the top (pardon the pun).  This probably should have been resolved with a challenge (I assume you can challenge the creation of a component within a Complication).  But it did not occur to me to do it at the time.



One thing that I did have trouble with was that, as I understand it, on your turn in a Complication Round, you may create one Component.  If I read it correctly, then creating a component ends your turn, is this correct?  If so, then is there any way to specify who (between the Originator of the Complication and the original controller of the scene) can Activate it to add die to their pool?  Claifying that would be helpful.



At this time, I do not have much in the way of suggestions.  I'll think over the game some more and see if any suggestions bubble to the surface, but at this time, the only thing that really bothered me was the kind of Wild Spending Spree that happened during the Complication.  I'd like to see some kind of control on that kind of thing, but I don't see how you can do that easily without unduely restricting the creation of the story.  Again, this might be something that would have to be agreed upon by the players in each group as they need it.



One way that you might be able to do it would be to limit the amount of Coins that can be spent by players that were not a) In control of the scene or b) The Originator the Complication.  Maybe limit them to spending no more than the person that they are planning to help with thier new Component?  That way, the other players can wait until either player has spent enough that they can introduce their World-Killer Component into the scene, but if they wait too long, then the complication could end and they won't be able to add it.



I hope that made some sense.  I was just bouncing around the last three or four paragraphs adding in thoughts in an attempt to organize them, hopefully what came out wasn't a complete scramble.  Let me know if I can clarify anything that I just said and I'll do my best.



Later,



Lael

[Valamir]

We did not find the note-keeping to be a real hassle.  Once the complication started, I kept fewer notes as I was busy arbitrating the spending and dice pools, but at least one other person kept very careful notes of the entire exchange.

Are the notes in a format that could be sent to me?

Almost as if when it can around to each of our turns we thought only "Oh, it's my turn therefore I *must* do or create something."

Some mention, or warning, of it would probably be helpful.  The problem that I saw with it was that when you get to that point people can slip into a state where they are not really being creative, but are rather throwing stuff in just to do something.  My concern with it is that if it becomes a trend (which since I have only had the one experience it probably will not), then scenes with Complications could become a sort of "Kitchen Sink" kind of scene.  One where everything is thrown in whether it fits and is appropriate or not.

The changes that I'm working on should actually address this pretty well.  The primary method of changing turns is now someone paying a Coin to Interrupt because they want the next turn.  Play only proceeds clockwise when someone ends their turn because they are done and there is nobody whose Interrupted.  

I suspect this will keep play (even in Complications) bouncing between people who want to take a turn because they have something they want to do.

A limited amount of throwing stuff in is a good thing, however, as it ensures that new grist is being added to the story for future use.

See that's the strange thing.  Right now all four of the major characters are in the space ship.  Two are in the ship proper and two are in the life pod.  The Colonel, who was intended as a Portagonist, seems to be working on the side of the Doctor, who's role (as in good guy who invents a cure for the plague or finds the new home, or bad guy who kidnaps people and created the plague in the first place) in the story is not really clear.  I'm interested to continue the story and see where it goes, because right now, things have turned out kinda strange.

That is precisely what I think is one of the strongest features of the game.  You guys all created this story and yet none of you have any true idea of where its ultimately going to lead.  Even more impressively you created a character, and you don't yet know whether he's a villain or a hero.  That happens all the time in movies, but its hard to pull off in an RPG without players feeling they were deliberately decieved by the GM (as opposed to being decieved by the character).  You've pulled off what I consider to be a pretty advanced RPG technique in your first game of Universalis.

Mike and I did too.  In our very first ever playtest (also sci fi come to think of it) we were independent merchants on a tramp frieghter making a routine trading run.  The first big complication involved a drone ship pursueing us and forceing us to drop out of hyperspace.  We stopped the game at that point never knowing who sent the ship or what it was after, although we were both eager to keep playing to find out.

It played pretty well.  Considering that most of the players are more traditional RPG players and prefer to play the game from a specific character's point of view, I'd say that it played well.  At some point I'll need to get my hands on the PC add-on for the game and see how that affects the way that everyone plays and thinks about the game.

Fully updated rules for this will be available in the next version.

I'm not sure how I would recommend changing things.  It was somewhat complex, but not overly so.  I think that my main dissatisfaction with the way it played out was the tendency to "throw stuff in" just to be throwing stuff in.  Though that can probably be handled through the Social Contract and discussed prior to the session.  Maybe and agreement that a given Complication should not have a whole lot more in it than a normal scene.  It just seemed (to me) as if things were coming into the scene with little backing from the pre-established setting guidelines.  The cannons on the roof and the Plague Balls were a little over the top (pardon the pun).  This probably should have been resolved with a challenge (I assume you can challenge the creation of a component within a Complication).  But it did not occur to me to do it at the time.

If this was the source of your greatest dissatisfaction, I think you'll be pleased with the changes I've made to Complications.  They are now completely integrated into the course of the regular scene framing.  The current "stop the scene, run the Complication, return to the scene" play is no more.

I think this will make really simple quick complications more obvious.  In my games I'd create Complications that had no more than 2-6 dice per pool and involved maybe 1 or 2 Activations.  The giant size, take a half an hour to resolve 20 die Complications were limited to really important scenes.  For some reason (no doubt because of the way they're presented in the rules) most playertesters have hit on the giant Complication and never run any quick and dirties.  I think the new rules will make the quick and dirties more common.

One thing that I did have trouble with was that, as I understand it, on your turn in a Complication Round, you may create one Component.  If I read it correctly, then creating a component ends your turn, is this correct?  If so, then is there any way to specify who (between the Originator of the Complication and the original controller of the scene) can Activate it to add die to their pool?  Claifying that would be helpful.

Your interpretation is correct, it was intentionally left unspecified to add a little competitive spice to the process (you create a Trait describing the scene as dark, but I'm the one who activates it to give you a disadvantage.  Since you could only do one thing on your turn, choosing which thing to do for best advantage was an intentionally gamist device.

That said.  This whole sequence is eliminated and should largely be moot once the new version is released.

I'm very eager to have all of the folks who've played the current version give a stab at the new one.  The rules are in place, but I'm trying to lay them out a bit better now.  Plus, I've added back in a lot of the supporting concepts I had in V3 that I took out of V4 and 5.  This has increased the length of the document, but using some of words layout tools the file size should actually be smaller.

[Ayrizale]

We did not find the note-keeping to be a real hassle.  Once the complication started, I kept fewer notes as I was busy arbitrating the spending and dice pools, but at least one other person kept very careful notes of the entire exchange.

Are the notes in a format that could be sent to me?

Not at this time.  Currently they are just written notes, but I'll see if I can find the time to type them into Word and send them to you.

The changes that I'm working on should actually address this pretty well.  The primary method of changing turns is now someone paying a Coin to Interrupt because they want the next turn.  Play only proceeds clockwise when someone ends their turn because they are done and there is nobody whose Interrupted.  

I suspect this will keep play (even in Complications) bouncing between people who want to take a turn because they have something they want to do.

Cool.  I look forward to seeing them.

A limited amount of throwing stuff in is a good thing, however, as it ensures that new grist is being added to the story for future use.

Agreed.

That is precisely what I think is one of the strongest features of the game.  You guys all created this story and yet none of you have any true idea of where its ultimately going to lead.  Even more impressively you created a character, and you don't yet know whether he's a villain or a hero.  That happens all the time in movies, but its hard to pull off in an RPG without players feeling they were deliberately decieved by the GM (as opposed to being decieved by the character).  You've pulled off what I consider to be a pretty advanced RPG technique in your first game of Universalis.

Mike and I did too.  In our very first ever playtest (also sci fi come to think of it) we were independent merchants on a tramp frieghter making a routine trading run.  The first big complication involved a drone ship pursueing us and forceing us to drop out of hyperspace.  We stopped the game at that point never knowing who sent the ship or what it was after, although we were both eager to keep playing to find out.

That is one of the things that really has me interested to play some more.

If this was the source of your greatest dissatisfaction, I think you'll be pleased with the changes I've made to Complications.  They are now completely integrated into the course of the regular scene framing.  The current "stop the scene, run the Complication, return to the scene" play is no more.

I think this will make really simple quick complications more obvious.  In my games I'd create Complications that had no more than 2-6 dice per pool and involved maybe 1 or 2 Activations.  The giant size, take a half an hour to resolve 20 die Complications were limited to really important scenes.  For some reason (no doubt because of the way they're presented in the rules) most playertesters have hit on the giant Complication and never run any quick and dirties.  I think the new rules will make the quick and dirties more common.

Now I really can't wait to see the new rules.  :)

That said.  This whole sequence is eliminated and should largely be moot once the new version is released.

Very cool.  The main concern with the old sequence was that if the player to my right was in control of the scene and I interrupted with a Complication, then if only one Component with a useful trait was created, then the player to my right would always have first crack at it.  Admittidly, since he has to spend out of his own wealth and I have the Complication Pot to use, I could probably outspend him and eventually bring my dice pool up to his level, but it would take a while.

Later,

Lael

[Mike Holmes]

One thing that excites me about your response is the idea of the potential of getting a report on a continuing game. We've had lots about first sessions, but few about later sessions that continued the same story line. I'm going to be curious to see how the learning curve is affected. I suspect that play will improve over time as players get more used to the rules, and figure out how to employ them more constructively. Lots of other things as well.

Looking forward to it,
Mike