First Read, First Impressions, First Questions

[Bailywolf]

I'm all over the place right now.  I'm going to riff for half an hour, then go to bed.  Please forgive the mess this post will certainly turn into.



I recieved v4.01 about an hour ago, and I've given it a once-over.  Not that carefuly, because my eyes are twitching from staring at a screen all day, and my printer is out of ink.

So, first impression:

Ah, what the hell do I do...

Followed by:

So, that's what the box looks like from out here...


Getting a hand on the 'no pc' thing is still stumping me.  As a player, I like to have an 'in game' identity that to some degree I own.  In Monopoly, I'm the car or I don't play.  In an RPG I like to stick with a character I enjoy.  Now, I have to admint... I'm not too keen on the idea of someone else pupeting my character for me.  

Give me a second read through on that last bit though; it just hasn't sunk in yet.



Why is there a seperation between coins and story power?  Why cash in coins (nice, tactile, physical things that can be pushed across a table, flung down in disgust, or flipped for randomizers) for abstract story points?  It would clarify the exchange rate enormously to list all costs in Coins and ditch the Story Power completely.  

Also, why use Dice when you have a 50/50 randomizer right there?  You flip the coins themselves.  

These layers of seperation from one of the game most charming aspects (the coins) are very distracting.  

It will also minimize the book keeping.  

Here is what I was thinking:  One little pile of coins represents those Invested (key term: Invested) in each specific Component.  If such components are successfuly Challanged and removed, some or all of those invested coins get swiped by the victor.  Otherwise, they Return a certain Profit (say, 1 coin proft for every 5 Invested) if they successfuly affect the World or engage in challange.

A possible example:

Player 1 created Jack Black, ace reported +3 (3 coins) who is Quick on his Feet +3(3 coins).  

Player 2 is eyeballing those four coins P1 has invested in Jack, and figures a Challange is in order while Jack is covering The Big Strike.  He creates and Invests Morgan Scot:  Professionaly Hit and Run Assassin +2 (2 coins)who drives a Souped Up GTO +2 (2 coins).  


Player 2 describes the challange with the roaring of the GTO coming out of nowhere, and flips his 4 coins (2 from the assassin, 2 from the car) getting 2 heads.

Player 1 accepts the challange (putting his coins at risk, but also opening the possibility of reaping a Return on his Investment in Jack).  He flips his Coins, getting 3 heads.  Victory!  He gets 1 free coin for his bank (1 coin for every five invested), and Jack successfuly leaps aside using his Quick on his Feet trait.  Now, if Jack wants to risk it, he can make a Challange against the hot-rod asassin... but his player 1 declines, not wanting to risk his Investment (or a character he has grown fond of).



I always like simplicity if possible.  With this example you can dith the two mediums of exchange for a single one, and the addition of another randomizer element when you have one built right in.  It also implies a measure of ownership for a player.  Player 1 creates Jack, and likes him.  He also has something invested in him.  When Jack is successful in challanges, when he changes the world through his actions, that investment will pay off.  If the player gets tired of him, he can Cash Out, withdrawing his Investment.  Other players can then Buy In on Jack, or let him become Color; nothing but backstory and backdrop.



What about a metagame level add-in for Gods.  Players arn't out-of-game hyper-entities... they are the Gods of the world they create.

First round, everyone contributes to the Fundamental Laws of the universe.

Second round, everyone describes the World in general terms.

Third round, everyone adds Civilization to the World

Fourth Round everyone contributes to the Focus region

Fifth Round Culture is described

Sixth Round Characters and Props are described and Invested.

Seventh Round Beer or Pee break.



Real Godlike Gaming









OK, I have got to get to bed.  I'm sorry this post came off so complainy... It wasn't meant to be so bitchy.  Conceptualy, I'm seriously digging your mojo here... but the numbers confused me.  Like always.  

Night night.

[Valamir]

I'm all over the place right now.  I'm going to riff for half an hour, then go to bed.  Please forgive the mess this post will certainly turn into.

Great! my first forum feedback.

So, first impression:

Ah, what the hell do I do...

Followed by:

So, that's what the box looks like from out here...

Would you believe the original game was a traditional fantasy RPG with nothing more than extended player directoral power over setting?

Getting a hand on the 'no pc' thing is still stumping me.  As a player, I like to have an 'in game' identity that to some degree I own.  In Monopoly, I'm the car or I don't play.  In an RPG I like to stick with a character I enjoy.  Now, I have to admint... I'm not too keen on the idea of someone else pupeting my character for me.  

Rest assured that the Add-ons section will include rules for reintroducing PCs into the game for those that desire such.  There are also rules for providing a degree of Ownership which grants players certain rights over the Components that they Create.

One of the things that eliminating these rules from the core rule set did was allow me to write the rules without having to deal with the disconnect between PCs and NPCs...My guy vs. Not My guy.  Also the presence of PCs provided an extra level of competition to the game as "self preservation" would sometimes take precedence.  This then led to ideas about "balance" and "could a player abuse this rule or that rule", etc.  By eliminating the distinction many of these traditional "issues" went away.  By deemphasising the value of one specific character, attention could be refocused on the story and entire cast (thats the idea anyway).

There still needs to be protagonists in the story, and while this is largely left to players to portray as they desire, the Advanced Concepts section will provide some ideas about using Importance to promote protagonism.

Why is there a seperation between coins and story power?  Why cash in coins (nice, tactile, physical things that can be pushed across a table, flung down in disgust, or flipped for randomizers) for abstract story points?  It would clarify the exchange rate enormously to list all costs in Coins and ditch the Story Power completely.  

The key here is Leverage.  In case you missed it, Leverage allows a player to get more Story Power than the normal amount for tying the action back to an appropriate character.  One of the functions is to preserve character niches.  I'll have the sniper shoot, the driver drive, and the mechanic fix things because that is a more efficient means of spending Coins.

If my sniper has "deadly shot +5" than I essentially get 5 Coins for the price of one by Activating that Trait.

Why didn't I simply word it that way and skip the Story Power?  Thats a possibility, and I do like the cleanness of it.  In fact, back in version 2 or so that's how it was done.  In practice, however, it got really confusing.

Also, there is a strange effect that with just 1 type of resource, it becomes possible to create cascading purchase/activations that turn 1 coin into MANY MANY coins by looping.  This is why you buy Traits with Storypower but to actually Create a Component you must have an Actual Coin.

Also, why use Dice when you have a 50/50 randomizer right there?  You flip the coins themselves.  

Two reasons

1) I really dislike coins as a randomizer (personal preference).  When playing games that call for them I generally use an even/odd roll on dice instead.

2) Game reason.  I found the Story Power generated by the actual numbers on the dice to be important to keeping Complications a cost effective way to spend Coins.  In other words if I have 6 Coins I can do 6 things with them.  Why would I ever involve myself in a complication where I'd have to flip the Coins and statistically only get to do 3 things?

Here is what I was thinking:  One little pile of coins represents those Invested (key term: Invested) in each specific Component.  If such components are successfuly Challanged and removed, some or all of those invested coins get swiped by the victor.  Otherwise, they Return a certain Profit (say, 1 coin proft for every 5 Invested) if they successfuly affect the World or engage in challange.

Actually the Add-ons touch on many of these ideas (though not in the same form).  If you bring in the concept of Ownership we have rules for Investment, Royalties, Hostile Takeovers, etc.

Most of these items have yet to be converted from V3.4 to V4 yet, but thats my next project.

What about a metagame level add-in for Gods.  Players arn't out-of-game hyper-entities... they are the Gods of the world they create.

One of our tossed about ideas for supplements are Genre Books.  Collections of how to portray key elements of certain genres in Universalis (like an example of using a Complication to frame a Western gunfight, or a court trial).

One of the first ones I hope to make is "Players as gods" ala Populous.

OK, I have got to get to bed.  I'm sorry this post came off so complainy... It wasn't meant to be so bitchy.  Conceptualy, I'm seriously digging your mojo here... but the numbers confused me.  Like always.  

Night night.

All good stuff.  Right now the game works.   That is, it works for us, and it works for groups when we're there to teach it.  What we don't know is if it works for people when we're not there.

If the rules don't make sense to you, I need to know.  They make perfect sense to me, 'cause I wrote 'em...but that doesn't mean diddly if players can't figure out how to play it.

[Mike Holmes]

Yeah, all sound sensible feedback, really. One thing that we've admittted is that Universalis has a big learning curve. For one reason, as you pointed out, it has so many departures that players of other RPGs don't have many touchpoints for reference. (BTW, this should remind us all of what it must be like for any non-gamer to try and interperet any RPG)

As Ralph pointed out, a lot of what you have suggested was in previous editions (PCs were only officially dropped in version 4). Other stuff we considered but chucked for mechanical reasons, whatever. If it makes you feel any better, I'm still debating the whole no PC thing myself.

OTOH, you can still just take a character as a pet and stake a claim around him. Ask the other players to leave him alone. There is no reason why players cannot agree to distributre duties in any fashion they like. The game just doesn't do so ahead of time. So, if you want each player to have one character that is more or less inviolate, and another player who handles only the non-protagonist characters...hey, that looks pretty familiar! The add-ons do these things with actual mechanics, a separate pool for character development for instance. (If you'd like to get ver 3.3 which has all the add-ins, 60 pages, let me know an I'll mail you a copy; otherwise I'm sure that Ralph will have them made up for 4.0 in short order)

As for the Coins/Story Power thing, consider this example. I can leverage One coin to create three with a level theree trait. Now I can leverage each to make nene, and so on. In that version you have to put in all sorts of statements like Coins generated from Leverage cannot be used to generate leverage. This happens a lot, and so Ralph invented Story Power I agree with you that it's slicker without Story Power, but potentially more complicated. What do other people think (might merit starting a new thread)?

As Ralph points out, the Complication mechanic (which has seen more incarnations than the Virgin Mary) is designed so that there is an incentive to gamble by participating in Complications. The average return is 1.5 per die rolled (equals an unleveraged coin spent) for the winner and .4 for the loser, FWIW. I understand your concerns, however. If we can find a way to remove distractions, as you put it, we will. Hmmm... BTW, from your example, what would have happened if Jack had not succeeded? Lost the Coins to the other player? There is a potential for abuse (Which the system would promote) in many circumstances that make it important to have some of the mechanics that we do. I can explain that in more detail if you like.

Not only have we discussed the Gods add-in, but I actually had a session that was requested by a player in which all we did was build a world history. Kinda like Aria (which has a lot of comparable concepts, really) except it was our RL history extended into the future. There have been a number of other weird applications that we and others have come up with.

Thanks,
Mike

[Bankuei]

I got ver. 4.01 a few days ago and got to go through it a couple of times, here's some of my thoughts:

1)  Since most of my designs have been leading the same direction before seeing Universalis(no pc's, spreading control to all players, etc), a lot of the ideas aren't difficult for me to grasp.  In many ways, this will make it a lot easier to explain to folks to get them to play.  In many other ways, it will make it harder to determine how well written the current draft is.

2) More examples, please!  I haven't had a terrible time with following the rules, but examples make things easier all the time.

3) Complication/Dice Pools could use some reworking in the way they're explained.  There's almost an entire page about Complications, before I even get to dice pools.  I was confused for a bit, since I didn't even think Universalis used dice at all... I wasn't sure what was going on until I got to the next page.

4) The example with the angry mob seems like it might cause some bog down in actual play.  Of course, I have to see it in action, but it seems that 3 or 4 sentences results in about 7 different transactions...seeing this on paper kinda makes me neverous about it in play.  Perhaps if you had 3 examples, one that's really simple, moderate, and finally complex, it'd be less daunting to the uninitiated.

It'll probably be a month or so before I get to try it out, but I look forward to seeing some of the add on's.

Chris

[Valamir]

1)  Since most of my designs have been leading the same direction before seeing Universalis(no pc's, spreading control to all players, etc), a lot of the ideas aren't difficult for me to grasp.  In many ways, this will make it a lot easier to explain to folks to get them to play.  In many other ways, it will make it harder to determine how well written the current draft is.

Heh, Mike and I were talking about that not long ago.  We were feeling kind of sad because we'd started this over a year ago but now it doesn't seem nearly as avant gard as it did then :-)

2) More examples, please!  I haven't had a terrible time with following the rules, but examples make things easier all the time.

Yes indeedy.  The problem is (as you pointed out below) that the examples I can come up with while in "rule writing mode" are not necessarily the way things are/should work in play.  So we are hoping to liberally (very liberally) sprinkle the final draft with examples but we want them to be actual examples from real play that worked well (keep that in mind when you (and anyone else) do get a chance to play...we want actual examples from your game to use in the rules).

Right now all of the actual play has either been stumbling learning experiences in demos, or games involving Mike or myself.  I would actually prefer to NOT have our biases on display in the game examples but rather real examples from real players who aren't us.  Because quite likely you'll find things to do that we never would have or uncover rough spots we'd never see.

3) Complication/Dice Pools could use some reworking in the way they're explained.  There's almost an entire page about Complications, before I even get to dice pools.  I was confused for a bit, since I didn't even think Universalis used dice at all... I wasn't sure what was going on until I got to the next page.

Thats entirely possible.  Version 4 was a completely new rewrite from V3 and hasn't been edited as thoroughly yet.  But could you be more specific?
My copy mentions dice pools and rolling dice in the very first sentence and later down the first page mentions using coins to add to those pools.

Since I obviousy know exactly what's supposed to be going on it makes perfect sense to me.  So please feel free to suggest how it could be arranged better for those who aren't inside my head :-)

4) The example with the angry mob seems like it might cause some bog down in actual play.  Of course, I have to see it in action, but it seems that 3 or 4 sentences results in about 7 different transactions...seeing this on paper kinda makes me neverous about it in play.  Perhaps if you had 3 examples, one that's really simple, moderate, and finally complex, it'd be less daunting to the uninitiated.

You have hit upon the single greatest problem Mike and I have had with the game.  This problem has existed since the first draft of version 1.  It is simply "exactly how much control/power does a single coin give"  There are many games out there that are now employing "players state facts" type rules.  But none of them so far have been really precise as to what this means.

Usually this is because the Fact is either supposed to be huge and all encompassing (like an MoV) or is limited and regulated by random rolls and GM intervention (like Donjon Krawl).  

In Universalis we wanted the definition of a Fact to be somewhat narrow but there is no GM in the game to rule on whether it is too broad or not.  So, our rules have struggled with makeing facts very limited in scope (to leave less room for subjective interpretation about what is a fact) while attempting to prevent the kind of game screeching halt you suspect might be happening in the above example.

By far most of the games we've played have been very successful in this, but it is my believe that is because the new players deferred to our judgement about what the scope of a fact should be and therefor we as game designers became something of de facto GMs in this regard.

The rule on Flavor for example (which Mike dislikes) is included specifically to address this issue.  

Right now Facts are very narrowly defined "Bob was nearly run down by a red car while crossing the street".  This literally involves 7 facts.
1) bob was present in the scene to begin with.
2) theres a street in this scene.
3) theres a car in this scene
4) the car is red
5) the car was driving down the street (as opposed to being parked)
6) bob was trying to cross the street
7) bob was nearly hit by the car

Clearly, breaking this simple sentence down into 7 facts to be bought and paid for seperately is more painful than fun.

So, Flavor is an attempt (albiet it a subjective one which is why Mike doesn't like it) to identify which of these facts are Significant (game term) enough to be paid for and which can be considered merely Flavor (game term).

This is the dillema, and one we are REALLY REALLY REALLY hoping some veteran Forgeites who have the experience and lingo at dealing with these sorts of concepts in a game can help us solve.  

I'd love to have a Fact be much simpler and broader, more of an "event" than a "fact".  The above sentence is basically just a single "event".  But the issue then becomes, with no GM how does the scope of whats possible with a single coin get regulated.

Here's hoping we hit upon a better solution.

[Bailywolf]

What about a single bulk cost for introding elements.  Say 1 unit for a complete element.

FACTS remain in potential in a description.  For example:

"Bob is run down by a red car driven by an unrecognizable masked figure."

One player spends his bean, and makes that statement.  For the single cost, this whole statement is made reality unless someone wishes to challange it.

A Challange can me made against any single FACT in the above statement, but unless challanged, it is considered just a "real" in the game as anything else.  

Say another player who has an affection for Bob decides the challange the statement on two facts:  

1) That bob has actualy been run down.
2) That the driver is actualy unregognizable.



Now, the person who composed the above statement can either concede the challange, and thus not waste any beans, or can "charge" the challanged facts with his story power, defending them.  

Say he does so, and looses the 'actualy run down' fact, but wins the 'unrecognizable' fact.  So now:

"Bob is ALMOST run down by a red car driven by an unrecognizable masked figure"




Make no distinction between 'color' and 'fact'.  Assume it is all fact unless challanged.  After a full turn, no challange is possible and the elements are not just FACT but WRIT.


So I can spend my one point, and create an Stormbringer level magical sword... but if I choose not to defend it in the first challange, it can be removed easily regardless of it's "in game" power level.  

For the same story power, create gods, space stations, worlds, species... but if you arn't willing to invest the beans to defend them, they won't survive challange.

[Bailywolf]

Further:

Assigning trait values for sort of ingame challange mechanics seems like a hold-over to traditional games.  You've avandoned player characters, GM's... why not blow away any kind of inherent, in-game resolution mechanic.

The resolution is based entirely on how a player decides to narate it.  Anyone who wishes to contribute (or challange) can plunk down some change and add or edit... but the challange doesn't reflect how fast Bob is vs how fast the car is or how skilled the masked driver is... but rather who has the strongest vision for the scene, and who is willing to back up their vision with cash.

I spend a coin and give the Hero stormbringer... another player thinks this clashes with his plans for the hero, so he introduces an encouter with a souless oger who lets himself be wounded so he can wrench the blade away.  I choose not to spend the coins to defend the sword (it was a total lark anyway), so the challange is successful and the single fact "The Hero wields Stormbringer" is removed.  The sword still exists... somewhere... as all the Facts representing its existence haven't been challanged, but it no longer bears on the character or the story.

Simply, whether Bob dodges the car is entirely dependent on how much a player wants Bob to dodge the car... the extra wrinkle of complexity added with the layer of in-game stating out (via trait ratings and dice pools etc) are really counter to your overreaching design theme.

Finish excising the old ways of gaming... and this will be both more pure and easier to grasp.  A game of shared (and occasionaly competitive) storytelling.

[Valamir]

Further:

Assigning trait values for sort of ingame challange mechanics seems like a hold-over to traditional games.  You've avandoned player characters, GM's... why not blow away any kind of inherent, in-game resolution mechanic.

I'm really grooving on your last post.  That idea is going straight into the pot to simmer around for a bit.  But this post loses me right from the beginning with the above quote.

What specifically are you recommending excising...the existance of purchasing Traits for World Components at all?  I'm not sure what you're suggesting here.

[Bankuei]

Quote:

3) Complication/Dice Pools could use some reworking in the way they're explained. There's almost an entire page about Complications, before I even get to dice pools. I was confused for a bit, since I didn't even think Universalis used dice at all... I wasn't sure what was going on until I got to the next page.


Thats entirely possible. Version 4 was a completely new rewrite from V3 and hasn't been edited as thoroughly yet. But could you be more specific?
My copy mentions dice pools and rolling dice in the very first sentence and later down the first page mentions using coins to add to those pools.

Since I obviousy know exactly what's supposed to be going on it makes perfect sense to me. So please feel free to suggest how it could be arranged better for those who aren't inside my head :-)

"Complications are resolved by accumulating dice in Dice Pools; and then rolling those dice with the winner of the roll receiving Story Power."-first mention of dice/dice pools

next page: "The Dice Pools: During the Complication there will be 2 Dice Pools, one represented by the complication and rolled by the originator and one representing the Target(s) and rolled by the player who added them(sic) most dice to the Target Pool."

I remember when reading the first quote, which is like 7 or 8 pages into the rules going,"Huh?"  I was doing fine until pools were mentioned without any definition of what they were about.  I read the entire page confused, until I got to the next page...

It was the fact that you are stating that you accumulate dice in dice pools(what's a dice pool?  We use dice in this game?  What determines how much dice go into a dice pool?  Is it based off traits? wtf?)  way before explaining that the dice pools are just a gambling mechanic to make it uncertain as to the success of the target to the complication.

Of course, this kinda contradicts the cover,"The game where suspense comes not from a random roll, but the actions of other players" :P

On another note(less nitpicky), involving your issues with defining a fact, for my Time and Tide game, I define a fact as being something that can only affect one character or item.  Frex, Mr. Pink is unharmed for the scene, Joey saves the girl, the Maltese Falcon is lost, etc.  

Notice that anything outside of the facts is alterable.  Mr. Pink could still be captured, lose all his stuff, whatever.  Joey and the girl might seem like 2 facts, but really the point is the girl gets saved.  Joey could end up being melted down into goo as far as the rest is concerned.   The Maltese Falcon could be sold, fall in the river, be stolen, etc.  

In my game the limitation is that you can only state 1 fact per scene, so you're limited in the amount of tracking you need to do with that.  In Universalis, though, it seems like there is a lot of "potential" facts.  Personally, I'm all about flavor/color(which was the idea behind T&T).  I would treat the western Example as such:

The angry mob is flavor/color UNLESS someone wants to make them a "character".  This means they could be scared off, disbanded, routed, gunned down, whatever, but they really don't matter(see Stormtroopers)

1+importance to gun down the sheriff.  The important thing is that he is gunned down, it doesn't matter why.  I wouldn't waste a coin in that he refuses to hand him over, that's irrelevant.  

1-Stringy Pete is dragged out into the street.  It doesn't matter if they break into the cell, or if one of the deputies is so intimidated that he lets them in to pull him out.  The point is Pete's in the street.

When would it matter that the mob marches on the jail house, breaks into the cell, or that the sheriff refuses?  If the mob or the jailhouse were specific objects with traits or facts that place them apart(the mob is in the square, spend 1 to have them go to the jailhouse), the cell is special("the cell where even the vermin do not go +3"), or if the sheriff is disinclined to stopping the mob("Street justice +2", "Spineless +3"), etc.

At least this is how I'm intending to run the game.  Is there any reason you guys decided to make the other "facts" noteworthy?  As you said, the corrollary logic of one statement can make a lot of other facts true.  "Jack is Jill's brother" implies that Jill is also Jack's sibling(gender aside), that Jack is male, etc.  The mob can't have pulled Pete out of the Jailhouse without being there, without having gotten into the cell, and the Sheriff wouldn't have been gunned down without some reason. The only reason I can see for stating facts(in gamist terms) is to potentially head off any challenges by giving yourself double story power for  challenges.

Chris

[Bailywolf]

I'm really grooving on your last post. That idea is going straight into the pot to simmer around for a bit. But this post loses me right from the beginning with the above quote.

What specifically are you recommending excising...the existance of purchasing Traits for World Components at all? I'm not sure what you're suggesting here.

Sorry, I'm using the wrong terminology... let me grab my copy o' Universalis here...

OK, what I meant to say, was why make distinction between the five  types of Component characterisitcs at all?  

Right now in my copy (v4.01) you have Traits, Flaws, Packages, Facts, and Importance.  Frankly, I see no need for any of these.  

In my above suggstion, I posit that all you need do is spend that coin and make a naritive statement.  Such statements can then be broken down for the purposes of Challange.  But there is no relative magnitude describing any of facts in the statement-

"Django opens the coffin and swings a machinegun onto the lid!"

How powerful a weapon is the machinegun?  How skilled a shooter is Django?  How much protection does hiding behind the coffin provide?  Simply- it doesn't matter.  Since this is a purely narritive game (in the sense that action is resolved simply by saying what happens), then these things don't matter.  What matters is how strongly a player wants to enforce his vision of these things.

In the above statement, there are numerous facts to challange.  Say I want Django to bring out a stick of dynimite instead of a machinegun.  I challange that fact only, spending 5 stroypower for 5 dice.  The player who has in fact seen the movie wants to recreate a favorite scene, so he spends 10 power to enforce his control over that statement.  

If Django then shoots/blows up some bandits, then the vision players have for that scene determins how it resolves, bot a challange between Django's fighting skills and the bandit's running away skills.




"Mad Mazrium built this maze as a lure to all the world's fools and filled it with immense treasures and horors"

This one is loaded.  If The Maze has been introduced in a previous statement, then this one gives it some history, indicates it is filled with treasure, filled with horrors, and designed to lure fools (with a strong implication that 'to their deaths' is just waiting to be said).  Unless challanged, this one covers quite a lot of ground.  

"The engines cycle up beyond their normal threshold, launching the ship well beyond it's persuers."

Here is a good example of a potentialy contentious statement.  It can easily resolve the curent chrisis (the ship is being persued).  One player wants the ship to get caught, the other wants it to get away.  The player who wants it to get caught can challange the above statement, or instead introduce some more facts in his next statement which make his desired path for the story more likely without actualy going head-to-head with the other player over a costly challange... by being sneaky and clever (and good enough with the descriptions to convince other players that your vision is cooler than theirs), it will be possible to get your desired path witout actualy 'calling bullshit' on a statement.  

The player who wants capture lets the above statement slide, but introduces a ringed planet surounded with strong magnetic fields which leach power from all systems.

[Valamir]

Hmmm, well.  Not sure I really want to go there actually Bailey.  Universalis was never intended to be a pure Narrativist game.  In fact, its origins were closer to pure gamism.  The root fundamental motivator for creating the game was to create a game that would allow a world to be created and populated by playing it (something like Aria without all the pain).  Traits etc are a fundamental factor of what I wanted the game to be.

What you suggest certainly sounds interesting to play, but Universalis would then basically be a campfire game where everyone goes around in a circle and adds something to the story.  Thats always fun, but not really what we were going for here.

[Valamir]

"I remember when reading the first quote, which is like 7 or 8 pages into the rules going,"Huh?"  I was doing fine until pools were mentioned without any definition of what they were about.  I read the entire page confused, until I got to the next page...

It was the fact that you are stating that you accumulate dice in dice pools(what's a dice pool?  We use dice in this game?  What determines how much dice go into a dice pool?  Is it based off traits? wtf?)  way before explaining that the dice pools are just a gambling mechanic to make it uncertain as to the success of the target to the complication.

Ah, you know, upon further rereading the section I may have violated my own layout goal.  V3 had been written entirely in what I'd call "Play Order"" i.e. starting with what rule would be encountered first in the game and following it through.  The problem was that until you knew what the individual rules were leading up to, they didn't make much sense presented that way.  In V4 I decided to organize by "Learn Order" meaning to use the same order in the rules as I would if I were sitting down to explain the game in person.  I think perhaps I didn't do that for the Complications section and should have lead off right with "Dice Pools" and THEN explained how to get them.

Of course, this kinda contradicts the cover,"The game where suspense comes not from a random roll, but the actions of other players" :P

Heh :-) Not really though.  The suspense created by the die roll is not one of "what happens" but one of "who decides what happens".  In the end its still how the player choses to spend the Story Power from the roll that matters.  I may know you won the roll with ALOT of SP, but until you decide how to spend it I still don't know what happens...do I live, do I die, does the bad guy get away...etc.

I define a fact as being something that can only affect one character or item.  Frex, Mr. Pink is unharmed for the scene, Joey saves the girl, the Maltese Falcon is lost, etc.  

I snipped the rest of the example for brevity.

What you describe is exactly how I envisioned the game rules being used.  You are using a very different metric for determining what is "Significant" vs what is only "Flavor" for you and your group than I have for my play (and my examples).  This in fact is 100% intended by the rules and a key reason why we say each play group has to set its own limit for how many Coins to hand out per session.  Your group will obviously require less story power to "do stuff" and can thus get away with lower Traits generating less leverage with your very broad definition of Flavor.  Mine required more Story Power and Traits tended to be higher in order to use Leverage because ours was much lower.

This is one of those choices that can be set in advance through the Social Contract or worked out in play by what gets Challenged and what doesn't.

Also this is one of those reasons I mentioned why I didn't include more examples because I didn't want MY style/preferences/etc to be "written in stone as official examples".   In fact, I'd love for you to cut and paste that Wild West example and then edit it down into bullet points of what YOU'D spend money on and how and why you'd justify the rest as Flavor.  Putting it side by side with my own as dual examples of how to "crank the Significance dial" I think would be great.


I do like your definition of a Fact being anything that effects a single character or item (or Component in Uni parlance).

Where do you draw the line for scope?

For example "Joey was killed trying to save the girl" vs "Joey fell off a towering pinnacle into a river of molten lava where his corpse was swept along down stream before being incinerated into vapor".

Are both of those single facts in T&T?  The second obviously says an awful lot more.

[Bankuei]

Heh :-) Not really though. The suspense created by the die roll is not one of "what happens" but one of "who decides what happens". In the end its still how the player choses to spend the Story Power from the roll that matters.

But actually the initial quote isn't referring to whether the dice determine what or who, it's still a different randomizer.  By no means am I asking you to eliminate it, I think its a cool mechanic(yaaay for Story Engine!).  

Ultimately Universalis is about WHO is narrator, that's what the mechanics are about, and that's what the game is about, so whether its determined by bidding, bluffing, or dice at any point, that is what is at stake.  An example of games solely based on other players actions-Chess, Go, Tictactoe, Jenga, Battleship.  There is no randomizer in those at all, other than what strategies the other players may take.  

On the other note of Joey and his ill fated rescue-The first example would require that you spend SP for his importance(provided he had some).  Naturally if he has an individual name, he probably has some level of importance to someone-enter challenge.  The part of him "trying to rescue the girl" failed, so its just flavor.   I could try anything, but if I fail, it doesn't have much story bearing, now does it?  Sort of like all the folks who try  to be rich, famous, acheive world peace, or what have you...

On the second example, Joey falling is a single fact, him dying from the lava would be a second one.  Anything else happening to his body doesn't matter to me.  If you are designing Universalis around the idea of Gamist reinforcement to a story, remember, if it doesn't affect someone's ability to do something, cost more or less sp, or create or close new avenues for things to cost more or less, it really doesn't have bearing.  

I fell down in D&D for 0 hp damage?  Then its flavor.  A mighty swing and super technique that misses?  That's flavor.  The battle rages back and forth, and our heroes watch from a distance, worried about their homeland?  That's flavor.  

On another note, I do recall that someone somewhere wrote that if you want to, it's very easy to break the rules/break Universalis.  There seems to be a lot of checks and balances in this game for that(challenges, fines, etc.)  Does this issue of facts vs. flavor happen to fall within that realm of potential problems?

Chris(hopefully will be playing this soon, now drumming up interest with friends)

[Mike Holmes]

Wow, I've missed some action here. Let's dive in.

First, as Ralph said, in play the amount that is covered by the expenditure of a coin has turned out to be pretty maleable. It's not so much that I dislike Flavor, as I feel that since it is subjective that players be allowed to just pick and choose when something is and when it is not. I don't give much guidance there, since any guideline that we've come up with seems very non-intuitive to me.

Given my style of play, the games that I have run have required expenditures only for relatively large amounts of information. Essentially, it ends up working like BW calls it. You state a bunch of stuff, pay one coin, and if nobody challenges it, you get away with it. The rate gets set in play, by the players participating.

This has a potential danger, however. The rate of exchange between doing things like buying traits and activating them in Complications is altered. This has not produced any problems in my play so far, but then I am the biased case. There may be a level at which players are allowed to do so much (or so little, conversely) that it causes play to slant towards particular sorts of activities versus others. This danger may never manifest, however, so I mention it only to point out the potential reason why we'd want to nail it down somehow.

OTOH, this is also a strength of Universalis. It never seems to break. Even when sombody pushes the limits of what a coin can buy, they are still reeled in elsewhere. A player allowed to create a lot with a coin is simply being rewarded for his good creations. Stuff not as good gets challenged.  (This usually results, BTW, in the offending player just coughing up a few more coins; rarely does this actually require a vote. As I pointed out recently, this causes a deterent effect, and soon the rate has been established de facto).

"Django opens the coffin and swings a machinegun onto the lid!"

Damn BW, you are going to be a great Universalis player.

As you point out in this example, these things only matter if they matter. This is how one should play in general. Only stat something out if you want to make it important, and when it is important. "Oh, did I mention it's a Really Big Machinegun?" Nothing has to be entirely stated at creation. Even better is when, later, that machinegun turns out to be the mystical machineun of Saint Rock. Or totally busted. Who knew?

Anyhow, the point is that you can play Universalis pretty fast and loose and it still works. Again, IME. Perhaps we should make this more apparent somehow in ver 4. For those with ver 3, there are a few statements in the section on Social Contract that hopefully make this more clear.

Thanks Chris and BW for the comments. I can't wait to see ho you guys play. BW, one option that may work for you is to start with a bunch of play assumptions. You could, for example, say that all the facts (not statistics) from D&D are in the game, and play in the Forgotten Realms. Or whatever your favorite campaign is (Vampire, perhaps?) This was an actual sufggestion in ver 3 that may not have made it to ver 4, can't remember. Anyhow, this may give more of a framework for your players to start with and make them less apprehensive. Try this in a world that you have kinda "used up" and see wha the players come up with.

Mike

[Andrew Martin]

Further:

Assigning trait values for sort of ingame challange mechanics seems like a hold-over to traditional games.  You've avandoned player characters, GM's... why not blow away any kind of inherent, in-game resolution mechanic.

The resolution is based entirely on how a player decides to narate it.  Anyone who wishes to contribute (or challange) can plunk down some change and add or edit... but the challange doesn't reflect how fast Bob is vs how fast the car is or how skilled the masked driver is... but rather who has the strongest vision for the scene, and who is willing to back up their vision with cash.

I spend a coin and give the Hero stormbringer... another player thinks this clashes with his plans for the hero, so he introduces an encouter with a souless oger who lets himself be wounded so he can wrench the blade away.  I choose not to spend the coins to defend the sword (it was a total lark anyway), so the challange is successful and the single fact "The Hero wields Stormbringer" is removed.  The sword still exists... somewhere... as all the Facts representing its existence haven't been challanged, but it no longer bears on the character or the story.

Simply, whether Bob dodges the car is entirely dependent on how much a player wants Bob to dodge the car... the extra wrinkle of complexity added with the layer of in-game stating out (via trait ratings and dice pools etc) are really counter to your overreaching design theme.

Finish excising the old ways of gaming... and this will be both more pure and easier to grasp.  A game of shared (and occasionaly competitive) storytelling.

After reading through Universalis 6.1 several times now, I'm agreeing with Bailywolf. This seems a better way of doing things in the game.

I'd also like to see a simple alternative to the high handling of tokens and then the rolling of dice which is like two long phases for each conflict. Basically, something like the person with the current turn is speaking and narrating various facts, as Bailywolf describes. If another player disagrees with the fact of Bob being hit by the car, then that player interrupts, and plunks down a bet, which has to be matched by the narrator. Others can also add to the bet, or suggest better alternatives. The narrating player has to match and better the bet to continue. The looser gets the money bet, while the winner gets their way (and looses the money). So if you go out of control and offend the sensibilities of the other players, you'll soon run out of story power.

Use of relevant attributes/skills/ 'vantages adds to the bet on one side or the other as appropriate. So if Bob has Quick Reflexes +5, bets to save Bob's life get +5 bonus, while the masked's assasin's Kill Bob Real Quick +2, gives +2 bonus to bets for taking Bob's life.