How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Universalis

[Clinton R. Nixon]

I've got a confession to make - I've been dead scared of Universalis since I heard of it. First, it's universal. Second, there's no GM - and as radical as I get, that's something I've never tried. Third, there's a horse-load of resource management (it would seem), and I suck at that. I actually reneged on a promise to playtest it with my group that I've been feeling guilty about for nine or so months.

Monday night, I faced the beast head-on. A group of people that I'd played with zero to one times with before all got together and tried our hands at it. We ended up playing a sci-fi/horror game set on Mars that sounded like a damn fine action movie, to be honest.

Here's what I found out about the system:
a) The "scenario generation" part of the game rules. It's not called that, but it's the part where you go around the table establishing what the game is about, and rules gimmicks that you want in the game. Ours went something like this:

"It's going to be a sci-fi story."
"One that's set on Mars in the near future."
"And it's sci-fi/horror."
"It's at a mining camp."
"Everyone who does their own paperwork in a turn gets an extra Coin when we refresh."
"All the miners are criminals from Earth, sentenced to work on Mars."
"And a new warden's coming today."

With that, we had a great idea for a story, and a rules gimmick that got everyone to do their own paperwork.

b) The game itself is more suspenseful than most role-playing games. Most RPGs aren't suspenseful at all for the GM - he knows what's going to happen. Even in a heavily narrativist game, he has some ideas, and knows the agendas of his antagonists. Players can read this, by the way - people can be obvious. I've often known what was going to happen in a game because I knew what TV shows the GM watched, or movies he liked, or books he read. In Universalis, since everyone contributes, no one has an idea what might happen next. This kicks ass.

c) The resource management is easy. We had paper discs as Coins, and I stacked mine up in a column. When the column was tall, I added a lot to the story. When it was short, I sat back and watched.

d) Complications rule. The system pays you Coins to start conflict. I honestly cannot think of a better system to create story tension than this in RPGs today, and Ralph and Mike can quote me anywhere they want to.

I actually made a Rules Gimmick that Alan, the guy who thought of playing the game, had to post about it on the Forge. Since I jumped the gun, I'm going to post his short summary of the game from a local mailing list:

"Our story was set in a prison mining dome set on Mars, with characters like the mine boss, the new Warden, rebel miners and a spy infiltrating the rebels.  As it turned out, addictive gas from the mine was infecting people with an alien virus that produced zombies from the dead.  In the climax, an "Inquisitor" showed up from Earth with a battle fleet, ready to flatten the dome, while at the same time a gas leak exploded causing chaos on the surface.  The mine boss, doctor, and some miners escaped in the Warden's private ship, after recovering the ship's control nexus from the spy and zapping the exo-skeleton-enhanced Warden.  We had a lot of fun."

He also has more comments, which can be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SeattleGAMERS_ASSEMBLE/message/15908

Thanks, Ralph and Mike, for making such a great game.

[Valamir]

You have no idea how literally giddy reading this made me.

The damn thing works.   It actually freaking works...I can't even describe how cool that is.  Your session sounds exactly like how we envisioned the game being played.

I liked Alan's write up alot.  Any time someone's game gets described as "the hit of the evening" when that evening includes a game that rocks as hard as Inspectres is a hell of a compliment.

[rafial]

I was one of the players in the session mentioned, and I also have to admit I'm surprised by how much I liked Universalis.  Unlike Clinton, I was simply put off by the "cooperative storytelling" description.  Because, while I enjoy some narrative, I think I'm pretty much a Gamist at heart.  I like to know the rules, and I like to try and use them creatively.

I think Universalis worked for me because it provided enough rules structure to give me something to fiddle with.  Whenever I got a good idea, I'd be busily planning which characters and locations I'd need to snag, what new things I needed to create, and how much it was going to cost.  And the compilcations system is great, because as much fun as storytelling is, its just human nature to want to huck around a big honking handful of dice once in a while.

Universalis also answered another questions I had.  I've been reading through a number of the new breed RPGs that encourage handing narrative control over to the players, more or less, and Universalis is definately more.  "If I start playing these", I wondered, "will I be forever spoiled for traditional GM lead role-playing?"

Turns out I'm not.  While I enjoyed the "everyone's a gamemaster" aspect of Universalis, I also found that when you spend all your time thinking meta, its hard to invest the characters under your control with depth of personality.  In a GM lead session, you can concentrate on fleshing out your character, and leave somebody else to do the world building.

Both types of experiences are fun, I guess it's just a simple as this: "variety is the spice of life."

[Paganini]

Ware! Thread Jumpers!

Ralph, not only do I like Universalis, but it's currently my FAVORITE GAME. No offense, Clinton, Mike, but I like it even better than Donjon and Synthesis. (Since Mike's seen me play both of those games, he can tell you how much that means I like Universalis. :)

[Valamir]

Great!  Thanks for the props.

I'm in the middle of doing a big fat second print run for the game...so don't keep that sentiment to yourself, ok ;-)

[Mike Holmes]

The damn thing works.   It actually freaking works...I can't even describe how cool that is.  Your session sounds exactly like how we envisioned the game being played.

Ralph sounds like Sally Fields.   8-P

But I have to concur with the feeling. We've played it, and we know it works. And we've had others play it, and they have said it works. Still, every time we get a report like this, it's like it's never been played before. I think in part because there is this sense when playing that it's like performing without a net. We expect that at some point, somebody will fall. I may actually be relieved by the first report of disasterous play. But so far, so good.

So, thanks for all the kind words. Hear that everyone, the game is safe to play, the game is safe to play! No children or small animals were hurt in the production of Universalis (though Ralph got some weird typing callusses).

It's funny, because it's hard not to gush with enthusiasm right along with the people who post about the game. But a really weird thing about it is that we are still learing what it does, and can do, all the time. As such, we stand agog at times at what we've made, just as surprised as anyone else. It's like:

Mike: "Did you think that it would do that, Ralph?"
Ralph: "Well, I had an inkling, but what's really cool is xyz."
Mike: "Oh, yeah, hadn't thought about that, either."

As such, we're still partly spectators as well.

But let's not give all the credit to the game. I'm certain that the success described by Clinton and gang is as much a result of thier own ingenuity as the system. The quality of a Universalis game can't help but be affected by the level of cool creative input. So, here's to you guys.

Nathan, as long as Synthesis gets mentioned in the same sentence with the game that I worked upon together with Ralph, I'm suitably complimented. It still needs serious work to get anywhere near the level of effectiveness that Universalis has.

And the compilcations system is great, because as much fun as storytelling is, its just human nature to want to huck around a big honking handful of dice once in a while.

Ain't that the truth. I love my bucketsfull o dice. Every once in a while the circle of storytellers have to cease narrating, and look down at their divinatory cast of symbolic stones, consider their import, and then carry on. Fun, fun. ;-)

And, we've been pleasantly surprised to find out that desire to play Universalis does not diminish the desire to play any other RPGs, or vice versa. In fact, once I'm done with Universalis, I'm usually thinking right off of what other game I can play next. It sorta makes me hungry for other sorts of play. Without detrating from the feeling that I need to play more Universalis.

Thanks for noting these things.

Mike "Can't Stop Smilin'" Holmes