tri-stat to Universalis and back

[Bill Burdick]

I experimented with transferring my tri-stat campaign to Universalis and it worked out swell.  The Universalis game took place in the future of the tri-stat campaign (campaign was modern and Uni game was in 2079 and one of the main characters was the son of the main tri-stat PC), but there were enough flash backs and time travelling that we ended up fleshing out decent amounts of PC history and game world background (the tri-stat setting is basically The Weekly World News, so time-travel is par).  The Uni players were me, my one player from tri-stat, and a player with no rpg experience and little unconventional gaming experience.  Some of the sessions were challenging, because I had to cope with extreme silliness from the nongamer but, except fot that, it went EXTREMEMLY well.

I developed an itch to role play again, so we're returning to tri-stat for a while.  I plan on bumping back to Uni periodically, because it really boosts the campaign and it gives the players a chance to have their say.  Given the chance to do it all over again, I would still choose to do the Uni game in the future.  It gives the players a chance to say that their character didn't die in the campaign, but so what?

To make the transition even smoother, I'm about to experiment with grafting FATE aspects (http://www.faterpg.com/) into tri-stat.  I'm sure this has been covered somewhere in these forums already, but FATE aspects are very Universalis-y.  I'm hoping that they will provide a direct point of translation when we switch systems.

-- Bill Burdick

[Bill Burdick]

Something which may be obvious: you can choose the past, present, or future (or a combo) when you transition from rpg-to-uni, but I think future (or all three) is the cat's meow, because it provides a great way for a GM to get ideas not only about the stories, but also about 'player requirements' -- it told me some things about what the players would be interested in seeing on the tri-stat side.

-- BIll

[Mike Holmes]

I find this fascinating, Bill, because as it happens, I had a session of HQ recently that "flashed-forward" if you will. What I'm wondering is how you back-translate the Facts established in Universalis play. I mean, what if the Tri-Stat system tells you that a character is supposed to die in Tri-Stat play? What happens then?

Mike

[Bill Burdick]

That didn't happen, so I have no comment at this time ;)

Seriously, since it's all in the same game world, I'd try to enforce things like death and only use a parallel realities cop-out (or some other way of harmonizing contradicing facts) as a last resort, but I'm more interested in keeping the game fun than accurate.  For translating facts that aren't as straightforward as something like death but that are more qualitative, like most Universalis traits, I was able to (I think) make a pretty good translation of FATE aspects into Tri-Stat.

Mike, I noticed some posts from you on the fate boards, so it seems like you're familiar with FATE.  Maybe you can give me some feedback on my Tri-Stat Aspect attribute: http://guardiansorder.com/boards/showthread.php?t=863.  I'm not positive about the costing.  It really seems on-par with Divine Relationship power-wise, which costs 1 character point, but you might argue that aspects are more versatile enough to warrant a cost of 2 CPs (or more?) instead of just 1.

BTW, in my web searching for FATE/tri-stat crossover info, I ran across a system which I think cannot be cited often enough: Sepulturatorah: http://www.story-games.com/forums/comments.php?DiscussionID=121&page=1.

Bill

[Mike Holmes]

Don't let the anti-intellectualism get ta ya, Bill. :-)

Just concentrate on your design.

As for the direct mix of Tri-Stat and FATE, I'm more than leery. If you know me from the FATE board, you may think me "that guy who wants to make FATE into Sepulturatorah" (BTW, Sepultura is the name of my favorite Brazilian speed metal band - oh, they know me so well). Meaning that I often push the Fred and Rob to get off the fence with FATE, and call it sim or nar. I think it works as a nar game, basically (or, at least, that Aspects are narrativism drivers). The point is, I think that playing both sim and nar games with each other works fine, if you keep the activities consciously separate. But as soon as you try to do something like mix the two with the same point pool, I think you're pretty much doomed.

It's like saying how many Euros does a soul cost? That's not to say you shouldn't use one or the other. But simply that, like your mortal accounting, and your account with God, you have to use different pools to keep track. I don't think God cares about the size of your bank account. And I don't think that there's an exchange rate between ability to cause damage, and ability to drive a story.

How's that for over-intellectualized?

Mike

[Bill Burdick]

You think about these things a LOT more than I do.  That's why I like to get feedback from you.

So if there is a big gap between simulationism and narrativism w.r.t. FATE mechanics (and game mechanics in general), what do you think of Tri-Stat and BESM?  Barring the fact that it does actually have a soul attribute that you pay for, it has these major narrative attributes like Dynamic Powers (Dynamic Sorcery) and Power Flux.  I haven't used them yet, but I was thinking that Aspect fits in pretty well and SEEMS like it ought to be similarly balanced with them (whether or not they are actually balanced in the first place).  So basically, I was just factoring it in without making any kind of judgement on the implications, kind of like how you can factor someone else's code without understanding it.  What do you think of these attributes?

Bill

[Bill Burdick]

And as a followup question, leeriness aside, do you think Aspect is consistent with Dynamic Powers and Power Flux?

Bill

[Mike Holmes]

You're mangling the dialectic a bit, Bill. I don't want to get too much into it, but "narrative" and "narrativism" are not related neccessarily. Basically the abilities you're pointing to give the player "director stance" power sorta. What I've refered to as "pseudo-in-game." They try to be unclear as to whether or not this is an ability of the character or the player.

In either case, however, it's not particularly supportive of narrativism. Some players will use it that way, but as many or more will not.

But the question is moot. Even if these powers are somehow equivalent, then the problem is that Tri-stat has made a mistake by including them as exchangeable with other abilities. Therin lies the trouble. As soon as you have a currency which can be traded for either in-game ability or metagame player power, you get problems. Basically one or the other won't work correctly.

Again, I don't want to get too into the theory details of this. If you don't believe me, go ahead and try it. It may happen that it works out fine for you, if your players can discern some coherent agenda in all of it. But I'm just trying to be proactive in warning you that it could all very easily go kaflooie.

Mike

[Bill Burdick]

Makes sense.  So do you think the single currency is the heart of the issue?  Seems to me that a simple cap on the amount of CPs you can spend on aspects might accomplish this.  Tying the cap to the total number of CPs you have, like 1/10 or 1/20 of your total CPs or something like that, would make it kind of similar to FATE (one aspect point for each 4 skill ranks).  This would eliminate the possibility of arbitrary trading between in-game and mategame abilities.

I have no doubt that one currency would work fine with my one current good-natured and flexible player.  This Tuesday might bring some interesting twists, however, because it looks like I'm getting a second player for the campaign.  I have no idea what this player is like or how wily he is.

Bill