Questions and Comments

[Andrew Martin]

How does one create X-use items, like fuel, healing potions, firewood, lack of health (injury)? There seems to be five different methods in the rules, which are the example for creating the healing potion, the shotgun inflicting damage, the general one of traits "running out" of free coin, the example of the "Ammo +2 Trait" for a shotgun and the Impairment rules.

Why must component traits be paid for? If I create a horse for one coin, surely it can be used to ride on, gallop with, and used to chase bad guys with? Under the rules as written, these natural uses of a horse or other vehicle seem to be impossible.

Inherent traits that would logically be a natural part of creature, tool or place, seem to be unususable. For example, stating that a location is dark, would give benefit to hiding, yet be of no use against creatures seeing in the dark, or tools that permit sight in darkness. Neither of these effects seem to fall out of the description, nor can they be paid for either way, it seems.

My players are going to ask me this: why do I have to buy the use of my trait (to get free coins), when I've all ready got it? There seems to be no answer to this in the rules.

Also, why do traits run out? Do you have an answer for this? Logically, skills and attributes can be used all the time, repeatedly. I'd agree that human relationships do run out due to banking trust (7 Habits by Covey). I asked the same question in the Story Engine list and got no answer from the designers. I've got Story Engine and can recognise where the dice roll mechanic in Universalis came from (D6 odds & evens, D10 5- & 6+).

The rules really, really need more examples.

There's also problems with the layout of the rules. The full justification and too many extra space characters after each full stop destroy ease of reading, by introducing huge gaps between words and between sentences. Note that with proportional fonts, only one space is needed after punctuation. Your writer should go through and replace all two spaces with one space repeatedly, and use Left justification only.

There's way too many Capitalised Words of No Real Importance. This makes reading the rules way too slow. I have too keep looking up these capitalised words and then I find that they're not really meant to be capitalised as they're not important.

There's a number of miss-spelled words, words that aren't picked up by a spellchecker. I've fixed a number of these problems in my Open Office program, along with shrinking the number of pages down to 25. You're welcome to use this. Just ask.

Why is "coins", a lot of times written as "Wealth Coins"?

Why must D10s be used for Dice Pools, when it's clear that each dice is only used to generate a 50/50 yes/no answer? For myself and all my players, we each have far more D6 than D10. Also, I've found that with White Wolf games, which use a dice pool, there's no real consistency of results. Universalis dice pools would give the same results and so be disappointing to my players.

Trait levels seem to have a built in range, even though the rules state otherwise. For example: "Level 3 Strength might be equated by a group as being able to carry 50 pounds without difficulty." and "If the character is to be fairly young and inexperienced he should start with 15-25 Character Points." and "Blade Master +6" "Bulging Muscles +4", "Expert Swordsman +3" and the examples for Robin Hood.

These trait levels seem to roughly equate to White Wolf trait levels, of 1 - 5 for most attribute/skill levels.

Why are People and Things called World Components? Aren't they just components that can be used anywhere? Like on a sentient starship in a galaxy far, far away?

There seems to be no way to do "immersive roleplaying", which a number of my players do. The alternative mechanics I posted earlier would allow this.

"Rules Gimmicks" and "Addons" should be given the same name. The only difference is that the first is created "on the fly" as it were.

Currently, Universalis as it stands, is not suitable for myself or my play group. I will not be playtesting it as it stands. If it was a published rule set available for sale, I would not buy it. If it was free, I would not use it. If I was paid money to play it, I'd do something else. Sorry.

In my opinion, what Universalis needs, is:

[*]Simple mechanics and less complication;
[*]Better editing;
[*]More examples;
[*]Reduced handling time (get rid of a lot of coin handling);
[*]Traits that don't run out - like attributes and skills;
[*]Traits that do run out - like relationships and potions;
[*]Infinity+ value traits - A trait that always beats any other non-infinite trait;
[*]Infinity- value traits - A trait that always looses to any other non-infinite trait;
[*]Define the difference between 1 and 0! Sounds silly, but no trait is like 0 trait level. Often times, the trait should be one automatically.
[*]Just use the challenge mechanic to spend coins and eliminate the buying of traits, scene, components etc.
[*]Listen to and implement the recommendations of playtesters in earlier posts of this board. These recommendations were made for Versions 3 and 4, yet didn't seem to get into version 6.1 of Universalis.
[*]Acknowledge the game sources, which are Story Engine for the dice pools and scene resolution; and The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen (Hogshead Publishing) for the story telling and coin use for objections and wagers.
[/list:u]

Note that Infinity values are for handling gods and god-like abilities, such as a Storm god's absolute control over Lightning or the Perfect Aim of Bullseye, a supervillain.

[Valamir]

How does one create X-use items, like fuel, healing potions, firewood, lack of health (injury)? There seems to be five different methods in the rules, which are the example for creating the healing potion, the shotgun inflicting damage, the general one of traits "running out" of free coin, the example of the "Ammo +2 Trait" for a shotgun and the Impairment rules.

I'm not sure what you are trying to ask.  There are no core rules for creating X-use items at all.  That is the whole point of the Rules Gimmick example.  If you have a desire to introduce an X use item, figure out how you'd like it to work, and introduce it as a Rules Gimmick.  If you have no need for an X-use item, don't bother.

Why must component traits be paid for? If I create a horse for one coin, surely it can be used to ride on, gallop with, and used to chase bad guys with? Under the rules as written, these natural uses of a horse or other vehicle seem to be impossible.

All natural traits are part of the Component when its bought.  The example is quite explicit about this.  If you create the horse you may use it in any and all ways like a horse.  If you want to ride it, ride it.  If you want to pull a wagon with it, pull a wagon with it.  Its a horse.  It does everything a normal horse does.

The horse merely has no Traits to Draw free Coins from.  This means that the horse itself carries no real story weight other than as a throw away prop.  If you want to race your horse away from the badguys, do so.  It will cost Coins from your own Wealth.  If however, the horse has a Trait of "Blazing Speed +3", than when you want to race your horse away from the bad guys you can use the Free Coins provided by the horse instead of your own...essentially narrating this for free.  Why?  Because in the story world that horse has already been established as being fast.  Having a fast horse run very fast is a normal and expected thing, so it requires no additional story power to do so.  Having a not notably fast horse run very fast, isn't a normal or expected thing.  To get it to do so you must pay for the privelege.

Similiarly if you make a giant, a giant would be able to pick up a huge boulder, a man wouldn't be.  If you narrate a man picking up a huge boulder, you're likely to be Challenged, or have an Obstacle Complication initiated.  If you narrate a giant picking up that same boulder the grounds for such Challenge are less.  If you want to make it an important point to the story that this giant has enormous strength you buy it as a Trait.  You will get your investment back many times in Free Coins if you actually wind up using this strength as a major part of the story, so there should be no hesitation to buy it.

Clearly I need to make this more explicit in the final draft.  It is one of those items that is immediately obvious to me, because I've been working with this concept for over a year.  That it is not immediately obvious to everyone is a big part of the reason why I want others to look at it.

Inherent traits that would logically be a natural part of creature, tool or place, seem to be unususable. For example, stating that a location is dark, would give benefit to hiding, yet be of no use against creatures seeing in the dark, or tools that permit sight in darkness. Neither of these effects seem to fall out of the description, nor can they be paid for either way, it seems.

I don't follow what you are asking.  If there is someone using normal vision in a scene with the Trait "Dark", than you can use the Trait's Free Coins to narrate how he is stumbling around due to the darkness.  If the creature in question CAN see in the dark, than you can NOT use free Coins from the Trait "Dark" to do this.  The rules are very explicit in several places that all uses of Coins must be justified.  If you can't justify it, you can't use it.  

If a player is narrating activity in a location that has the Trait "Dark", but he ISN'T narrating the character having difficulty, you have only to Activate the Dark Trait to start a Complication in order to bring the Trait into effect.

Hmmm, we were planning on writing up a "tricks of the trade" type of essay to help reduce the learning curve.  Looks like this is a topic we'll have to cover.

My players are going to ask me this: why do I have to buy the use of my trait (to get free coins), when I've all ready got it? There seems to be no answer to this in the rules.

This I really don't understand.  What have you already got?  If you haven't bought the Trait, you've got nothing.

Also, why do traits run out? Do you have an answer for this? Logically, skills and attributes can be used all the time, repeatedly. I'd agree that human relationships do run out due to banking trust (7 Habits by Covey). I asked the same question in the Story Engine list and got no answer from the designers. I've got Story Engine and can recognise where the dice roll mechanic in Universalis came from (D6 odds & evens, D10 5- & 6+).

I think I'm begining to see a pattern.  You seem to think that there is supposed to be a Sim logic at work.  There is a Sim logic.  Yours.  The game itself provides absolutely no Simulative support.  That is explicit in many places.  The side bar on what Trait levels represent, the essay on how to introduce Simulative elements into the game if you desire to, the essay on what Coins represent.  I'm not sure how to answer it any better than that.

If Conan has a Strength +6 that value means absolutely nothing in the game as far as how much Conan can lift.  That value means that Conan's strength is going to have 6 Coins worth of impact per scene that Conan is in.  His Strength is a key story element.  If you need Conan to use MORE than 6 Coins worth of Strength related stuff in a scene...fine...start spending your own Coins to make it happen.

Coins represent the impact YOU the player has on the direction the story will go.  If you use Components that have influence over an area of the story you can have your impact for free.  This means if you want to lift the heavy gate so the characters can escape and you use Conan to do so, this cost can be free.  Conan is known to be strong, his strength is demonstrated again and again, lifting the gate is one more demonstration of his strength, you're not taking the story in any direction that isn't expected...therefor by using Conans Free Strength Coins it costs you nothing.   If you have the weak little princess lift the heavy gate...well, that isn't an expected thing.  Not only are you going to have to spend your own Coins to accomplish it (i.e. burn some of your story writing influence to do something new) but you are likely to be challenged, or have the wieght of the gate used as an Obstacle Complication.

The rules really, really need more examples.

Yes they do.  This has been discussed before.  I included only a few, because they would be examples that I came up with and I didn't want people to feel limited by my level of creativity.  Play the game.  Send me examples of what you did, scenes you created, complications you ran etc.  I'll use those as examples for the final edition.  That's been my plan from the beginning.  Real examples from actual play by people who aren't me are far more useful than what I could think up on my own.

Plus, it isn't obvious to me, which aspects of the game are obvious and which need more prompting.  I've been immersed in the game for a long time...its all second nature to me (aside from keeping the version changes straight).  Discussions like this, help me identify which areas need such attention and which really don't.

There's also problems with the layout of the rules. The full justification and too many extra space characters after each full stop destroy ease of reading, by introducing huge gaps between words and between sentences. Note that with proportional fonts, only one space is needed after punctuation. Your writer should go through and replace all two spaces with one space repeatedly, and use Left justification only.

I'm the writer.  I'm afraid I love full justification. Also I always have and always will put 2 spaces after a period, because thats the way Mrs. Irish-Hosler taught me in high school English class.  I like it that way.

There's way too many Capitalised Words of No Real Importance. This makes reading the rules way too slow. I have too keep looking up these capitalised words and then I find that they're not really meant to be capitalised as they're not important.

There are no words that are Capitalized that aren't explicit game terms.  I believe in capitalizing game terms because then it is obvious when a word uses a "game rule definition" and when it uses a normal english definition.  For example, I might use the word complicated in a sentence.  Uncapitalized the reader can be sure it means what the dictionary says it means.   On the other hand, Complicated, in a sentence means something specific to the game.  All of the capitalized words are important in this manner.

As for slowing down to look them up, if you don't know what they mean you'd have to look them up anyway capitalized or not.  Capitalized at least lets you know theres a special use for them.

That said, the final text will include a full glossary, and the online version at least will be fully hyperlinked.

There's a number of miss-spelled words, words that aren't picked up by a spellchecker. I've fixed a number of these problems in my Open Office program, along with shrinking the number of pages down to 25. You're welcome to use this. Just ask.

As this is a draft which has been edited by no one but me, that's not surprising.  After reading the same pages 30 times my eyes tend to see what my brain expects to see.

I am curious as to what you mean by shrinking the pages down to 25.  How did you do that?

Why is "coins", a lot of times written as "Wealth Coins"?

Wealth Coins is used to specificly refer to a use of Coins for which Free Coins (drawn from Traits or earned in a Complication) can not be used.  That Coin, MUST, come only from the players own Wealth.  This is explicitly stated in the glossary.   I'd be surprised if I didn't mention that somewhere in the rules as well, but off the top of my head I couldn't point to the spot.

Why must D10s be used for Dice Pools, when it's clear that each dice is only used to generate a 50/50 yes/no answer? For myself and all my players, we each have far more D6 than D10.

Because the second pass read of the dice uses the number rolled on the dice to determine how many Free Coins the Complication generates.  If I win the Complication with a roll of 2, 3, 8, 4 I get 9 Free Coins to spend (2+3+4).  If I used d6s instead, the Free Coins generated would be much less.

Also, I've found that with White Wolf games, which use a dice pool, there's no real consistency of results. Universalis dice pools would give the same results and so be disappointing to my players.

I don't follow you.  What do you mean by consistency?  Dice pools such as this one provide the most consistant results possible.  The more dice in the pool, the lower your standard deviation will be, and the more likely your actual number of successes will be at or very near to the expected number of successes.  This die pool produces a very normal bell curve which gets steeper as dice are added.

A linear curve on the other hand (straight roll of 1 dice) is totally random and inconsistant and results can be wildly high or wildly low.  Wildly high or low rolls with a dice pool are much less likely.

Can you be more specific about what you mean?

Trait levels seem to have a built in range, even though the rules state otherwise. For example: "Level 3 Strength might be equated by a group as being able to carry 50 pounds without difficulty." and "If the character is to be fairly young and inexperienced he should start with 15-25 Character Points." and "Blade Master +6" "Bulging Muscles +4", "Expert Swordsman +3" and the examples for Robin Hood.

These trait levels seem to roughly equate to White Wolf trait levels, of 1 - 5 for most attribute/skill levels.

The rules say there is no upper limit which there is not.  They also say that +3 is considered a basic professional level of quality.  So in that sense there is a built in range.  If you want to purchase the planet destroying ray for the Death Star you could make it +12 or +100 if you wanted to spend the Coins on it.

Also, the Strength example above is in the side bar explaining that there is NO such correlation in the core rules.  If a play group wants it, they can create it however they like.  If you're playing in a super hero campaign, you might decide that that +3 equals 16 tons rather than 50 pounds.  If your main characters are diminuative pixies it might be 10 ounces.

Why are People and Things called World Components? Aren't they just components that can be used anywhere? Like on a sentient starship in a galaxy far, far away?

Thats being a bit literal isn't it?  The setting of your game is the game world, whether that world is a planet, a space ship, or dimension X.  Hense World Component.

There seems to be no way to do "immersive roleplaying", which a number of my players do. The alternative mechanics I posted earlier would allow this.

I don't WANT them to do immersive roleplaying.  If they are unwilling to do anything but immersive roleplaying than Universalis isn't for them.  I will not be changeing any rules to make immersion possible.

In fact, one of the essays specifically says something to the effect of "while many games tell you to get inside your characters head and see the world through their eyes, Universalis cannot be played like that.  Universalis requires you to be a GM as well as a player".

In Universalis you don't have the luxury of worrying only about 1 character and letting the GM take care of everything else.  All players are GMs and all players must create the world, direct the plot, and control the full cast of characters.

"Rules Gimmicks" and "Addons" should be given the same name. The only difference is that the first is created "on the fly" as it were.

I find that to be a very significant difference.

Currently, Universalis as it stands, is not suitable for myself or my play group. I will not be playtesting it as it stands. If it was a published rule set available for sale, I would not buy it. If it was free, I would not use it. If I was paid money to play it, I'd do something else. Sorry.

Not a problem.  One of the essays is very clear that Universalis may not be for everyone.  Trying to make it suitable for everyone will ruin the whole point of the game.  As a rule, I generally recommend trying anything once just in case...I've tried LARPing, even though I was pretty sure I wouldn't like it (and was right...with the exception of the NSDMG).

But if you decide not to give it a try on the theory that trying something different can't hurt, you won't hurt my feelings.  Shall I remove you as a member of this forum?

In my opinion, what Universalis needs, is:

[*]Simple mechanics and less complication;

This game isn't meant to be Once Upon a Time.  Once Upon a Time has already been done.

[*]Better editing;
[*]More examples;

Its a draft.  A beta version playtest copy.  Of course it needs better editing and more examples.

[*]Reduced handling time (get rid of a lot of coin handling);

Since you have not played the game, you can have no idea what the handling time is or isn't.  Since its obviously an entirely different game than what you are used to, your past experience as a gamer really isn't that applicable.  Once one gets over the learning curve of a new way of playing, the handling time is quite low.

[*]Traits that don't run out - like attributes and skills;
[*]Traits that do run out - like relationships and potions;
[*]Infinity+ value traits - A trait that always beats any other non-infinite trait;
[*]Infinity- value traits - A trait that always looses to any other non-infinite trait;
[*]Define the difference between 1 and 0! Sounds silly, but no trait is like 0 trait level. Often times, the trait should be one automatically.

Hmm, its clear to me that you haven't grasped the point to Traits entirely.  The above are purely Sim concerns of which I am not interested in for this game (i.e. normally I AM interested in them.  For this game, I am not).  Traits are a measure of the impact that Trait should have on the story being told.  If you're telling a love story about the Incredible Hulk, you could define his Strength as a mere +1 (or not define it all) because it is not relevant to stroy being told.  You can still NARRATE the Hulk lifting a Train if you want, but it would be done using your own Coins.

Apparently I have not done a good enough job of explaining this.  Can someone help me out.  What should I do to make the nature of Traits more explicit.  Would adding a paragraph like the one immediately above to the description of Traits, do the trick?

[*]Just use the challenge mechanic to spend coins and eliminate the
buying of traits, scene, components etc.

It is unclear what you mean by this.  If I'm reading it right, your recommendation is to completely eliminate all rules to the game and play "pass the shell" with the ability to use Coins to veto stuff.  

As I said "Once Upon a Time" already did that.

[*]Listen to and implement the recommendations of playtesters in earlier posts of this board. These recommendations were made for Versions 3 and 4, yet didn't seem to get into version 6.1 of Universalis.

A HUGE number of changes were made in version 4, and version 5, and version 6 based on recommendations from playtesters and members of this forum.  

The whole concept of Scene Framing evolved as a way of addressing some of the issues that were raised here.  The simplification of Complications was based on recommendations made.  The elimination of a seperate measure of Story Power and Coins came about because I found a way to do it after it had been widely encouraged here.  The Voting mechanic was replaced because of recommendations made here and by others.

I find your above comment both horribly wrong and somewhat insulting.

I did not implement every single suggestion that's been thrown out, because in the end its Mike and my game, not a game designed by committee.  All suggestions and ideas are appreciated.  Not all will be taken.

[*]Acknowledge the game sources, which are Story Engine for the dice pools and scene resolution; and The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen (Hogshead Publishing) for the story telling and coin use for objections and wagers.

Rest assured there will be ample thanks given on the credits page.  Although, in point of fact, Munchausen is not an original source, as I had not heard of it nor owned it until well after Universalis was underway when someone suggested that it had similiar features.

Note that Infinity values are for handling gods and god-like abilities, such as a Storm god's absolute control over Lightning or the Perfect Aim of Bullseye, a supervillain.

And this is what players are for.  Complications and Challenges provide ample opporunity to do this.  All you have to do to have perfect control over lightning is narrate that control.  


Thanks for your comments.  Whether I agree with them or not, I do appreciate you taking the time to have read the rules, and post this message.

I will admit that some of your comments carry less weight with me than they would have if you'd actually played the game and were able to base your remarks on actual instances of play, but they are appreciated non the less.

[Andrew Martin]

Valamir wrote:
> There are no core rules for creating X-use items at all.

I think these rules need to be in Universalis, instead of the current five different ways of doing it.

> If you create the horse you may use it in any and all ways like a horse.

The horse and giant examples need to be included in the rules. These make setting a scene a lot easier. Thanks for providing them. Can the same be done with setting a scene? At the moment a simple description spends all my coins in the second turn, as below.

> > Inherent traits that would logically be a natural part of creature, tool or place, seem to be unususable.

> I don't follow what you are asking.

But what if the scene just has the description "it's dark"? Surely, you don't expect players to spend a coin for each thing in a scene? For example:
...it was a dark and stormy night, and down at the docks, when...
The above seems to have 1 fact for Dark, 1 fact for Stormy, 1 fact for night, and 1 for "down at the docks", and so cost the player 4 coins, in addition for paying 1 for the scene. And it's just a fragment of one sentence! It seems absurd. I'm sure I'm wrong, but it's what the rules seem to say.

> > My players are going to ask me this: why do I have to buy the use of my trait (to get free coins), when I've all ready got it? There seems to be no answer to this in the rules.

> This I really don't understand.  What have you already got?  If you haven't bought the Trait, you've got nothing.

Sorry. I should have written: Spending a coin to get free coins. My players will say to me, my character/component all ready has the trait, why do I have to spend a coin to get the free coins, and why do they run out?

> If you use Components that have influence over an area of the story you can have your impact for free.

That seems to be contradicted in the rules, which states that a trait must be activated with a coin to be used, and a component must have a coin spent on it to be present in a scene, and a fact must have a coin spent on it.

Activating Traits are the primary means of increasing the dice in a Dice Pool. Mechanically this involves spending 1 Wealth coin and then adding a number of dice to a Pool equal to the Level of the Trait being Activated. Alternatively, the Activation could instead reduce the number of dice that have already been added to an opponent's Pool.

> Play the game.  Send me examples of what you did, scenes you created, complications you ran etc.

At the moment, I can't even create the first scene of a game/story, without running out of coins immediately in the first sentence or two.

> I'm afraid I love full justification. Also I always have and always will put 2 spaces after a period, because thats the way Mrs. Irish-Hosler taught me in high school English class. I like it that way.

Taste's differ, but I'm sure she taught that way, because she was used to using a typewriter with a fixed width font and used 2 spaces after a period to simulate the effects a proportional font gives you automatically. Check out a good book that doesn't use blank lines to separate paragraphs, and you'll see what I mean.

> There are no words that are Capitalized that aren't explicit game terms.

I think normal words would be OK.

> I am curious as to what you mean by shrinking the pages down to 25.  How did you do that?

This way: 8 point font, two columns, eliminated tabs and excess spaces, eliminated excess lines between paragraphs. I did it this way, because the rules are so complicated. I needed to print a complete copy for every player (I've got 8 players 200 sheets) so they could read and understand the rules. I certainly can't explain them currently, as I don't understand them at all.

> > Why is "coins", a lot of times written as "Wealth Coins"?

> Wealth Coins is used to specificly refer to a use of Coins for which Free Coins (drawn from Traits or earned in a Complication) can not be used.  That Coin, MUST, come only from the players own Wealth.

Thanks for the explanation.

> > Why must D10s be used for Dice Pools, when it's clear that each dice is only used to generate a 50/50 yes/no answer?

> Because the second pass read of the dice uses the number rolled on the dice to determine how many Free Coins the Complication generates.  If I win the Complication with a roll of 2, 3, 8, 4 I get 9 Free Coins to spend (2+3+4).  If I used d6s instead, the Free Coins generated would be much less.

Thanks for the explanation. I didn't read this part closely enough. This just upped the handling time. :(

> What do you mean by consistency?

Basically, players can't predict the odds well enough and so they overcompensate. I've found through play testing that the better skilled the character is, the better roleplaying I get from players. Lately, I've been giving players the option of 100% success or failure, and it's dramatically improved player and character actions. So much so, that I'm deeply reluctant to use any system that has lesser chances of success or is too hard for a player to immediately know the odds.

> > Trait levels seem to have a built in range...

> The rules say there is no upper limit which there is not.  They also say that +3 is considered a basic professional level of quality.

So what's a perfect level of ability cost? Perfect abilities do exist in game worlds.

> > Why are People and Things called World Components?

> That's being a bit literal isn't it?  The setting of your game is the game world, whether that world is a planet, a space ship, or dimension X.  Hence World Component.

But they're obviously not world components. They're just components. There's no need to complicate things.

> > There seems to be no way to do "immersive roleplaying", which a number of my players do. The alternative mechanics I posted earlier would allow this.

> I don't WANT them to do immersive roleplaying.

> All players are GMs and all players must create the world, direct the plot, and control the full cast of characters.

But it's possible to have immersive roleplaying and create the world, direct the plot and control other characters. As a GM, I do this all the time. So do the GMs in my group. Other games make this possible as well. I can modify Universalis so it does allow this; see my earlier post. So why can't Universalis do this? :)

> > "Rules Gimmicks" and "Addons" should be given the same name. The only difference is that the first is created "on the fly" as it were.

> I find that to be a very significant difference.

It's no difference as far as I can tell. The only change is when the addon rule is made, which is an insignificant difference in my opinion.

> Shall I remove you as a member of this forum?

Probably for the best. I'd like to play the Universalis that Mike Holmes describes in other posts on the forums. His version seems very different from the rules he sent me. Perhaps he could record one of his game sessions and the Universalis rules be rewritten from that?

> > Simple mechanics and less complication;

> This game isn't meant to be Once Upon a Time.  Once Upon a Time has already been done.

Simplicity is always a worthy goal. It leads to subtle play. Needless complexity just wastes people's effort.

> > Reduced handling time (get rid of a lot of coin handling);

> Since you have not played the game, you can have no idea what the handling time is or isn't.

I can compare the number of steps required for each scene or use of a trait, and it's one coin for each element or trait level, which is a handling step. There's a minimum of two pools of D10 to be thrown for each challenge, and I know how long that takes from playing WW games! Then there's the added steps of summing dice that succeed for the winner. I can compare that to my own game system which resolves up to a dozen actions with the roll of just three dice, with no math what so ever, and has odds which are instantly calculated by the players with no math skill. My estimate is that Universalis mechanics, our games would be slowed down to around less than 1/10 of our group's normal speed, even when the entire group is intimately familiar with the mechanics.

> Would adding a paragraph like the one immediately above to the description of Traits, do the trick?

I think so. For completeness sake, I think those issues I talked about should be tackled, because they aren't addressed in the system.

> > Just use the challenge mechanic to spend coins and eliminate the
buying of traits, scene, components etc.

> If I'm reading it right, your recommendation is to completely eliminate all rules to the game and play "pass the shell" with the ability to use Coins to veto stuff.
> As I said "Once Upon a Time" already did that.

At the moment, the coins mechanic for buying things seems completely unnecessary. Why is it there? The challenge mechanic seems to do all that is necessary to prevent players being excessive. If a player overdecorates a scene, other players can challenge. If a player grabs too much power for a character, then other players can challenge again. If a player challenges for no reason or silly reasons, then other players can support. This simple mechanism does everything that all the complex rules for buying things do.

> > Listen to and implement the recommendations of playtesters in earlier posts of this board. These recommendations were made for Versions 3 and 4, yet didn't seem to get into version 6.1 of Universalis.

> I find your above comment both horribly wrong and somewhat insulting.

I didn't mean it to be insulting. Sorry. It's from reading the posts by Bailywolf and others where they've suggested similar things to me, and those suggestions seemed to be ignored. Things like formating and simple rules suggestions.

> I will admit that some of your comments carry less weight with me than they would have if you'd actually played the game and were able to base your remarks on actual instances of play, but they are appreciated non the less.

Unfortunately as the rules stand, without further explanation or simplification, they seem unplayable, nor can I see a way around this, except by dropping the purchasing rules for buying scene and scenery, components and facts, and instead using the challenge mechanism. But this would mean that I'm no longer playing by the Universalis rules...

[Ayrizale]

For what it's worth, from the perspective of another playtester, the rules that I've played have been quite usable.  I've only had the chance to play the Version 5 rules, thouhg I hope to have the chance to play the new version 6.1 rules this weekend.
The game is quite playable as it is written and I think that most of the handling time concerns you have are based on you putting too much emphasis on them.

In the example you used:

But what if the scene just has the description "it's dark"? Surely, you don't expect players to spend a coin for each thing in a scene? For example:
...it was a dark and stormy night, and down at the docks, when...
The above seems to have 1 fact for Dark, 1 fact for Stormy, 1 fact for night, and 1 for "down at the docks", and so cost the player 4 coins, in addition for paying 1 for the scene. And it's just a fragment of one sentence! It seems absurd. I'm sure I'm wrong, but it's what the rules seem to say.

In the game that I played, you would pay the one coin to frame the scene and then frame the scene.  The only things that you paid extra coins for were actions or events.  And even then it is usually only one coin for a given action or event unless you are trying to overcome another trait.

Universalis, as it is written, lends itself to either way of playing.  If you wan to keep it simple, then keep it simple.  Pay a coin, frame a scene, if something significant to the story happens in the scene, pay a coin.  On the other hand, if you want to break everything down and pay for each individual fact, then you can do that as well, but as you said, it will magnify the handling time immensely.

What the rules said to me (or maybe it was discussions on this forum) was that each group would find their own interpretation for what a Coin was worth, and how much story you could buy for a single coin.  The default seems to be that a single coin can buy quite a bit, and can be used to set numerous facts when framing a scene or when describing an action.

As you said, the thing to remember is the challenge rules.  If you spend your coin and say that it is "A Dark and Stormy night, down by the docks..." and no one challenges any of that, then they are fine with it and shouldn't complain about it later, since they had the chance to make changes to these facts when they were introduced.

Anyway, I hope you give it a try, I've found that the rules really do work fairly well as they are written.

Later,

Lael (Who is hoping to get to play a version 6.1 game this Sunday)

[Valamir]

Valamir wrote:
> There are no core rules for creating X-use items at all.

I think these rules need to be in Universalis, instead of the current five different ways of doing it.

Again, there are NOT five different ways of doing it now.  I read your list I can't tell what you are referring to.  There are ZERO ways of doing this in the Core Rules because for most purposes it isn't relevant.  There is 1 example of a way to do this with Rules Gimmicks if a group desires.  There is a second reference to this same example in the "Adding Simulative elements" essay suggesting the same logic applied in the healing potion example could be applied to shot gun ammo.  IF DESIRED.  

I have yet to play in a game where anyone CARED what the ammo considerations are for a firearm.  They ran out of ammo when some says "the gun runs out of ammo".  

If a shotgun has a Trait "16 guage +4" and no "useage rules" have been put in place, then the shotgun can be fired as many times as desired.   You get a sum total of 4 Free Coins from the shotgun regardless of whether it is fired once or a 1000 times.  The impact of that shotgun on the scene is 4 Coins worth of Impact....NOT 4 Coins every time its fired.  Again, not a Simulative mechanic.

But what if the scene just has the description "it's dark"? Surely, you don't expect players to spend a coin for each thing in a scene? For example:
...it was a dark and stormy night, and down at the docks, when...
The above seems to have 1 fact for Dark, 1 fact for Stormy, 1 fact for night, and 1 for "down at the docks", and so cost the player 4 coins, in addition for paying 1 for the scene. And it's just a fragment of one sentence! It seems absurd. I'm sure I'm wrong, but it's what the rules seem to say.

Lael has it exactly right.  Its up to you.  Here is the rule on whether or not you spend a Coin on "Its Dark"

1) If you want the ability to gain the added leverage in a Challenge involving whether or not it was dark, or you want to make sure that anyone else who refers to the scene in the future does so within what ever limitations it being dark would entail, then YES you do need to spend the Coin to make that darkness a Fact of the scene.

2) If you want the fact that a location is dark to be able to provide Free Coins in this and future scenes involving that location then YES you do need to spend the Coin to buy that darkness as a Trait for the Location.

3) If niether of the above are true and the location being dark is nothing more than background color...pure flavor text and descriptive detail, than NO you don't need to pay anything to say its dark.  But if someone else comes back and says "I saw you down on the docks doing XYZ" you cannot come back and say "No you didn't because it was too dark to see me".  If you want to be able to use the darkness in that manner it must be paid for.


Again, think in terms of story impact.  Other than saying "its dark", is that darkness going to have any effect on the story at all?  Is the fact that its dark important to the story in some way?  If so, then pay for it as a Fact or Trait.  If not, then don't.  If it wasn't at the time, but it becomes so later, then pay for it later.


Now regarding your fear of running out of Coins.  As some other threads that I started indicate, I don't know what the optimal level of Coins are.  There is a mechanic in place to Refresh Coins when they run out.  I don't know whether this Refreshment is too few Coins, too easy, or not.  Its a new mechanic that needs to be tested.

Players may need to start with more than 25 Coins at the beginning in order to afford the first round of Creation.    Refreshment may need to be altered to provide more Coins per Refreshment...or perhaps a flat amount to everyone rather than the declining rate it is currently.  Not sure.  I have my suspicions, but I don't want to bias the experiences of people who may be playing.  

> > My players are going to ask me this: why do I have to buy the use of my trait (to get free coins), when I've all ready got it? There seems to be no answer to this in the rules.

> This I really don't understand.  What have you already got?  If you haven't bought the Trait, you've got nothing.

Sorry. I should have written: Spending a coin to get free coins. My players will say to me, my character/component all ready has the trait, why do I have to spend a coin to get the free coins, and why do they run out?

You don't spend a Coin to get free Coins, I certainly hope there isn't a stray reference from some older version left about that.  Free Coins are Free, you Draw them from a Trait at no cost.  This is spelled out right on page one.

What you spend a Coin for is to Activate a Trait in order to add dice to a dice Pool.  There are several reasons for this.  One of which is to make sure that players who start Complications by using a Component's Trait as an obstacle care enough to spend a Coin.  If it isn't worth spending a Coin on, it isn't worth doing.

I'm not sure what your reluctance to spending Coins is.  I'm also not sure I really buy into your putting this off on your players in the form of "my players would...".  I think you may be selling your players short.  

Perhaps you're mentally linking Coins with other more traditional meta game mechanics like "Hero Points", where as a player you'll do anything in your power to NOT have to spend a Hero Point so you can save them for something more important.  Coins aren't like that at all.  You're SUPPOSED to spend Coins.  You're supposed to spend ALOT of Coins.  You're supposed to NOT be afraid of spending too many because you get MORE Coins.  Running low of Coins has no effect other than temporarily cedeing control of the story to some other player who has more than you.  Refreshment ensures this effect will be a temporary one (although again, the precise numbers may need to be tweaked to get the timing right).

And again the Trait is not "runnning out".  The Traits ability to have impact on a scene is running out.  You're writing a story, not simulating a slice of life.  If a character is supposed to be "Bossy and Demanding", there's a limit to how much Bossy and Demanding one should put in any given scene in a story.  That limit depends on the Trait's level.  Once you've reached that limit, the game is telling you "ok that's enough Bossy and Demanding for this scene, move on to something else, and do more Bossy and Demanding stuff later".  If you choose NOT to take the game's "advice" in this regard your free to ignore it, but now it will cost your own Coin to continue in this vein.

It good that you make these comments though, it gives me more material to include in one the game essays.  Apparently this needs more explaination.  I guess it depends on what sort of games one is used to playing.

> If you use Components that have influence over an area of the story you can have your impact for free.

That seems to be contradicted in the rules, which states that a trait must be activated with a coin to be used, and a component must have a coin spent on it to be present in a scene, and a fact must have a coin spent on it.

A Trait does NOT have to have a Coin spent on it to be used.  Please cite the page where you came up with this...because you've either read it completely wrong, or theres a stray left over from a long ago version that I failed to remove.

But again, what is your reluctance to spend Coins to introduce a character into a scene?  Are you really suggesting that you should be able to frame up any scene you want, include any Components in the scene that you want, and have them do whatever you want...for FREE?  There's already a game out there that lets you do that.  Its called telling ghost stories around the campfire.  

> Play the game.  Send me examples of what you did, scenes you created, complications you ran etc.

At the moment, I can't even create the first scene of a game/story, without running out of coins immediately in the first sentence or two.

You certainly have a penchant for hyberbole.  Suffice it to say that this game has been played....many times...and that has not occured.

Now, maybe starting out with 25 Coins is too few...maybe 50 would be better...could be.  But thats the sort of thing that is SUPPOSED to be determined in playtesting...which is what the current release of the game is for.  

> I am curious as to what you mean by shrinking the pages down to 25.  How did you do that?

This way: 8 point font, two columns, eliminated tabs and excess spaces, eliminated excess lines between paragraphs. I did it this way, because the rules are so complicated. I needed to print a complete copy for every player (I've got 8 players 200 sheets) so they could read and understand the rules. I certainly can't explain them currently, as I don't understand them at all.

I have to say, that I think you are working overtime to not understand them.  Most demos begin with about 5-10 minutes of explaination and proceed quite easily from there.  I am fully aware that that is because I (or Mike) is the one doing the demo.  Conveying what we know about how to play to people other than us is the purpose of the rule book (of any rule book).  

However, this game is far enough away from the traditional, that I don't fully have a grasp on what elements need greater detail and what elements can be summarized briefly in order for other people to grasp the game.  This is why the forum was set up to begin with.

> What do you mean by consistency?

Basically, players can't predict the odds well enough and so they overcompensate. I've found through play testing that the better skilled the character is, the better roleplaying I get from players. Lately, I've been giving players the option of 100% success or failure, and it's dramatically improved player and character actions. So much so, that I'm deeply reluctant to use any system that has lesser chances of success or is too hard for a player to immediately know the odds.

If you have 10 dice in your pool, the expectation is 5 Successes.  If you have 4 dice in your pool, the expectation is 2 successes.  You can't get easier to predict odds than that.  On average, each successful die should produce 3 Free Coins to the winner, and WILL produce 1 Free Coin to the loser.  So if you have 10 dice and 5 of them are successes you should get 15 Free Coins if you win, and 10 Free Coins if you lose.

Its VERY VERY predictable.

> > Trait levels seem to have a built in range...

> The rules say there is no upper limit which there is not.  They also say that +3 is considered a basic professional level of quality.

So what's a perfect level of ability cost? Perfect abilities do exist in game worlds.

"Perfect Abilities" are all in how you narrate them.

But it's possible to have immersive roleplaying and create the world, direct the plot and control other characters. As a GM, I do this all the time. So do the GMs in my group. Other games make this possible as well. I can modify Universalis so it does allow this; see my earlier post. So why can't Universalis do this? :)

I think we must have very different definitions of immersion.

At the moment, the coins mechanic for buying things seems completely unnecessary. Why is it there? The challenge mechanic seems to do all that is necessary to prevent players being excessive. If a player overdecorates a scene, other players can challenge. If a player grabs too much power for a character, then other players can challenge again. If a player challenges for no reason or silly reasons, then other players can support. This simple mechanism does everything that all the complex rules for buying things do.

At which point you're playing Pass the Shell, a game that's been around for a 1000 years.

Unfortunately as the rules stand, without further explanation or simplification, they seem unplayable, nor can I see a way around this, except by dropping the purchasing rules for buying scene and scenery, components and facts, and instead using the challenge mechanism. But this would mean that I'm no longer playing by the Universalis rules...

Well, I'm sorry you feel that way.  But the game has been played many times, so the rules are not unplayable.

[Ayrizale]

You don't spend a Coin to get free Coins, I certainly hope there isn't a stray reference from some older version left about that.  Free Coins are Free, you Draw them from a Trait at no cost.  This is spelled out right on page one.

Yikes, I must have missed that myself when reading the 6.1 rules.  I hope that was there in the Version 5 rules and I just transferred it over, otherwise, I imagined a rule somewhere that said that you needed to spend a coin to use the Free Coins from a trait.  Either that or I got the rules for using a trait and activating a trait mixed up.

Thanks,

Lael

[joe_llama]

Andrew,

What I'm about to say is meant in the nicest way possible. If this post insults or hurts you, I will do my best to repair the damage.

First of all, I did not read any of the replies given to this thread, just your original message. This was not done out of disrespect to Ralph or Lael. I skimmed through their answers and saw that most of their words addressed technical issues regarding the game mechanics.

I believe what bothers you about Universalis is on a more conceptual level. From what I read, it seems that you expect Universalis to work in a certain way, specifically in the way traditional RPG's work. You mention White Wolf and Story Engine - Universalis is so radically different from both that I have a hard time seeing them compared. Even more, I think Universalis is not a RPG at all. It's a game where role playing may take part but on a far lower level than world building and story telling. I don't even think Universalis could fall into any family of games. It's unique.

When you mention that certain things in Universalis behave diferrently than logic might predict, what do you mean by that? Is there a "true" way of designing games?  

Every game has its own internal logic. That's the whole idea with games - they have different logics, even RPG's and storytelling games. The logic of Universalis is about designing a structure to a story environment and controlling its changes through components with traits. I find myself perplexed when you ask "Why must component traits be paid for?" The answer is "because that's how the game works". Is that so wrong?

It's like asking Ralph: "Why does this game have no board?" It has no board because that's not how you play the game. It's like asking: "Why do they have a queen in chess?" These are the elements of the game. You don't like it, you don't have to play it. The reason Ralph and Mike need playtesters is to see whether problems arise during play and to see if the product delivers their design goal. They both know how to take criticism the right way but if those comments indicate that Universalis should be another game, then I would expect them to refuse that advice.

If someone was to tell you that your RPG doesn't look and behave like Poker, would you change it into Poker just to satisfy him?

On a side note, I do agree with you on one thing:

There's way too many Capitalised Words of No Real Importance.

Yeah man. Drop the Capitals. Do it for real this time.


With utmost respect,

Joe Llama

[Andrew Martin]

Describe the Events:   Costs 1 Coin per Event which includes any or all of the following elements:
1) a single effect, 2) a single Component performing the effect, 3) a single Component receiving the effect.

Effects include: actions performed, conversations held, emotions felt, ideas thought, environmental impacts, and anything else that can be thought of as an effect or an Event.

Therefore, according to the above rules (which I'm sure is wrong according to Lael's and Valamir's posts), the scene setting:
...it was a dark and stormy night down at the docks...
costs at least four coins for dark, stormy, night & "down at the docks" as these are all single effects and so are events. To introduce one character (a world component) costs another coin.  And have the character make a speech to no one, costs another coin. A total of seven coins, including buying the scene.

The player with the least Coins (which will always be the player who ran out of Coins first) will draw a number of Coins from the Bank equal to 2 times the number of players.  The player with the second least number of Coins (which will always be the player who ran out of Coins second and triggered the Refreshment) will get 2 Coins less than then this.

If a group of just three people were playing Universalis; the player that is first out of coins receive just two coins per player in the game. That's six coins. Neither can the next out player, as they only have 4 coins. Therefore a group of three or less is unable to play the game and create a scene, past the first round which would seem to consist of set up, as most scenes would consist of more than one character and more than one sentence of description.

Based on Lael's and Valamir's posts, Chapter 5 does not appear to match their reality.

I'd love to play the rules that Lael and Valamir are playing by. And I'm not being sarcastic!

[Andrew Martin]

Joe Llama wrote:
> What I'm about to say is meant in the nicest way possible. If this post insults or hurts you, I will do my best to repair the damage.

It's OK. No offence taken.

> From what I read, it seems that you expect Universalis to work in a certain way, specifically in the way traditional RPG's work.

Actually, I've been comparing it to Story Engine, The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen and my Zero System, which are all non-conventional games.

> When you mention that certain things in Universalis behave diferrently than logic might predict, what do you mean by that?

I mean by the logic of movies, books, and real life. Universalis 6.1 rules don't seem to allow players to manipulate game items as their characters could in a book, movie or real life. Valamir and Lael contradict this, so I must conclude that the rules are in error, and can easily lead people to this conclusion.

> Is there a "true" way of designing games?

There's no true way of designing games. But one can point out that simplicity is a desirable goal in all activities, whether game design, setting description, software engineering, carpentry, or architecture.

> I find myself perplexed when you ask "Why must component traits be paid for?"
> The answer is "because that's how the game works". Is that so wrong?

It is wrong when there's the disconnect between player activity and character or tool activity. If the current player is out of coins, and the component would naturally use those traits, the action in the scene seems to stop immediately, until the next player runs out of coins. This gives the equivalent in a movie to a scene of nothing but film markings flowing across the screen, or a book with pages missing, or real life people unaccountable freezing in their actions. Take, for example, the earlier post of a dark, stormy night, down at the docks, and one character is introduced, then the player runs out of coins. Nothing further happens. Doesn't that sound weird to you?

> If someone was to tell you that your RPG doesn't look and behave like Poker, would you change it into Poker just to satisfy him?

But I can point to real life, movies and books, and show them how it works like that. And when they say it doesn't and show how, I change it. There's copies of my ICQ transcripts on my site which show this process.

Thanks for the comments, Joe.

[Mike Holmes]

I'd love to play the rules that Lael and Valamir are playing by. And I'm not being sarcastic!

And that I play by. Which are the rules in the text. What we have here is a difference of interperetation of the rules.

For instance, Dark is not an event or an effect. Dark is a quality of the scene, so potentially a trait, though not necessarily so (a player would have to pay for it to officially make it a trait, something that is not required). That's how I read the rules, and that is how they were intended to be read.

We cannot ensure, no matter how hard we try that everyone will interperet the rules the same way, exactly. We can try to be as clear as possible. To that extent I think that Ralph has succeeded rather well in gettting these difficult concepts across. I say this because only one person so far out of about thirty that have read the text have understood how to play the game effectively shortly after reading the text. Two others required a few clarifications and they were off and running.

This is not to say that the text cannot be improved. It almost certainly can. And Ralph has pointed out that he is greatful for the feedback as it is what he needs to improve the text. But I'm afraid that it's not nearly as bad as you seem to think it is. As I said, so far only you have had a serious problem understanding it.

Also, while Simplicity is a desired quality, it is so only so far as it relates to Elegance in design. That is, simplicity is a bad thing if you loose something in the simplification. Elegance is simplifying such that you loose nothing. We feel that our game is rather elegant as it stands in achieving it's design goals. Of which total "transparency" is not one. Again, if that breaks the game for you, you'll find that you are in a minority in the RPG community.

You refer to your Zero system quite a lot as a Paragon of Simplicity. Which it is. However, you must realize that all you have done is codified a version of Interactive Fiction. If you do a search for this on the internet, you'll get a zillion hits. As Ralph points out, this is something that people do all the time, all over the world, and have done for thousands of years.

What RPGs represent is an imposition of structure on top of the story creation process. This has positives and negatives, and has been debated quite a lot between the Interactive Fiction people and the RPGers for a long time (and which is not a suitable topic here). It must suffice to say that what we're producing is in the RPG camp, if maybe only barely. We do not intend to create a coding of a purely Interactive Fiction methodology (which frankly are just ridiculously simple to create, and are almost all identical).

To this extent we have rules that may bother you. Might I suggest that you might find more support for the sort of activity you are advocating on one of the many sites that promote Interactive Fiction, Interactive Storytelling, etc (note it may be called something else these days, I don't keep up with it). They are numerous, and some are very well organized.

Mike

[Valamir]

Describe the Events:   Costs 1 Coin per Event which includes any or all of the following elements:
1) a single effect, 2) a single Component performing the effect, 3) a single Component receiving the effect.

Effects include: actions performed, conversations held, emotions felt, ideas thought, environmental impacts, and anything else that can be thought of as an effect or an Event.

Therefore, according to the above rules (which I'm sure is wrong according to Lael's and Valamir's posts), the scene setting:
...it was a dark and stormy night down at the docks...
costs at least four coins for dark, stormy, night & "down at the docks" as these are all single effects and so are events. To introduce one character (a world component) costs another coin.  And have the character make a speech to no one, costs another coin. A total of seven coins, including buying the scene.

You seem to have avoided reading the rest of the section from which you quote, which concludes with the following

"Not every statement spoken by the player must be paid for as an event.  The player is free (and indeed encouraged) to embellish his narrative with color and detail.  Note, however, that technically only those statements that are explicitly paid for carry the weight of Fact.  The act of paying for a statement or colorful description gives special significance that it otherwise wouldn't have.  In game terms, it has become a Fact."

In other words, what is "a dark stormy night"? Is it just color and detail, interesting embelishment?...then it costs NOTHING.  Does the fact that it is a "dark stormy night" have any real impact on the scene other than background?  If so than you can pay a Coin for it.

Here's the kicker that you're missing (as Mike points out, most people haven't had trouble picking up on this, but perhaps in the interest of being as widely accessable as possible I can make this clearer):  There is specifically ON PURPOSE no list of what does or does not constitute an Event or a Fact.  If you wanted to have "a dark stormy night" have story impact who say this costs 3 Coins?  I have PURPOSEFULLY not defined the scope of "an effect".

You say "It was a dark stormy night" and plunk down 1 Coin...who's going to say any different.  If the other players are satisfied with "a dark stormy night" being a single Fact of the scene then it is.  If the other players think you should pay for each piece seperately, than they can Challenge.  This is outlined in Chapter 2 in the Social Contract section of "Game Rule Priorities".   It is up to each play group to decide for them selves

How fast and loose vs. meticulous and detailed does the group as a whole desire to be with regards to games rules?  Some groups will fall into the fast and loose category.  They may get so absorbed with slinging around cool descriptions and clever plot twists that they forget to keep track of exactly how many Coins they're supposed to have spent.  Later, when they realize this, they might be satisfied to simply say "yeah, that would have been something like 6 Coins or thereabouts";.  Other groups will want to be far more meticulous in their accounting.  They will explicitly cost out every detail and if the player is a Coin short, expect him to cough up another one to make good.  Either method can make for an entertaining game, but all players should be on the same page as to what to expect.

The player with the least Coins (which will always be the player who ran out of Coins first) will draw a number of Coins from the Bank equal to 2 times the number of players.  The player with the second least number of Coins (which will always be the player who ran out of Coins second and triggered the Refreshment) will get 2 Coins less than then this.

If a group of just three people were playing Universalis; the player that is first out of coins receive just two coins per player in the game. That's six coins. Neither can the next out player, as they only have 4 coins. Therefore a group of three or less is unable to play the game and create a scene, past the first round which would seem to consist of set up, as most scenes would consist of more than one character and more than one sentence of description.

Based on Lael's and Valamir's posts, Chapter 5 does not appear to match their reality.

Once again the number of Coins that players start with and recieve from Refreshment is open for tweaking.  It may be that an insufficient amount are given out.  The Refreshment mechanics are new to version 6 and have not been tested yet.  That is the purpose of playtest rules.  Maybe 5 Coins per player would be better, maybe 20 Coins period would be better.  I don't know yet.  I'm hoping for some real play experience to indicate.

But to address your comment specifically.  "Refreshment occurs immediately when the second player runs completely out of Coins in his Wealth."  This is the second sentence of the Refreshment rules.  If the second person runs out of Coins...bang...that triggers Refreshment IMMEDIATELY, including in the middle of a scene.  So your worry that the scene would somehow become unplayable because people would run out of Coins is totally unfounded.

What IS a legitimate concern is whether Refreshment would have to occur multiple times during a scene to the point of being a distraction and thus the number of Coins paid out in a Refreshment should be higher.  When I set that number where it is, I was basing it on an assumption of 4 to 5 players plus ample use of Free Coins from Traits.

The idea behind having a larger initial pool of Coins (25 to start) vs lower Refreshment amounts is that the large initial pool would be used to create some core locations and Components so that later in the game there would ample Free Coins being generated.

You also need to recognize the completely non Traditional way Traits can be used.  For instance for 6 Coins you could purchase "Weather +3" as a Trait for the Docks location.  That means EVERY scene from there on out that you establish the Docks as a location you have three Free Coins to describe the weather.  This does not have any simulative bearing on the docks being more weather prone.  This is purely a story feature acknowledging that in this story the weather on the docks will be an important backdrop.  

Yes, I fully plan on including examples like this in the final version.  I've been hoping that other players would come up with ways they've used Traits in their game that I can use as examples.  I'm hesitant to provide all of the examples out of my own play and my own head because examples tend to be taken as "oh thats how we're supposed to do it", and I don't want that.  What I want are examples that have actually been used in play in ways I never would have thought of.  


One thing you would learn if you'd play the game is that the Free Coins from Traits will drive the scene forward as much or more than the Coins that come from your Wealth.  This is intentional and a design feature of the game.  By giving Conan +6 Strength you are declaring that Conan's strength is going to be an important aspect of the story, one that you will be returning to frequently for 6 Free Coins every time you involve his strength in the scene.  By giving Conan +1 Strength you are declaring that Conan's strength is going to be a less important aspect of the story.

Skillful use of Traits to generate Free Coins means you could narrate an entire scene using only just a couple Coins from your own Wealth.

I'd love to play the rules that Lael and Valamir are playing by. And I'm not being sarcastic!

Equally non sarcastic:  Lael has the same rules you do.

I want to make the rules clear, I want to get the point across as succinctly as possible.  There is only so much of that I can do by myself in terms of knowing which areas need more clarity and which aspects don't.  So you're comments are useful to me in that regard.

However, I do strongly get the sense that you read the rules through  expecting a game whose complexity level was on par with Zero System or Punk.  Since it isn't, you've reacted negatively to it and many of your comments are geared towards making Universalis more like Zero System.  I'm not really sure what the point of that is, since if that's what you're looking for, you already have it in your own game.  

It is wrong when there's the disconnect between player activity and character or tool activity. If the current player is out of coins, and the component would naturally use those traits, the action in the scene seems to stop immediately, until the next player runs out of coins. This gives the equivalent in a movie to a scene of nothing but film markings flowing across the screen, or a book with pages missing, or real life people unaccountable freezing in their actions. Take, for example, the earlier post of a dark, stormy night, down at the docks, and one character is introduced, then the player runs out of coins. Nothing further happens. Doesn't that sound weird to you?

I hope I've shown above that this is completely wrong.

Even if I have no Coins, I can continue to take my turn by Drawing Free Coins from the Traits present in the scene.  If I can't do that or don't want to do that, then my turn is over and the turn passes to the person on my left.  There is never any occassion where "Nothing further happens".

The player's turn continues until he chooses to end it or until it is Interrupted.  He may choose to end it  because he has nothing further to add or because he is unable or unwilling to spend additional Coins.  When he voluntarily ends his turn, play proceeds to the player to his left, who must immediately pay one Coin for his turn  (even if he does nothing but immediately end his turn).

I'm not sure how to make it more black and white than that.  At some point I have to rely on the player actually reading the rules.

[Valamir]

FYI

Andrew requested that he be removed from the forum today.  I have complied with his wishes.  He will not be replying any further to this thread.