[unipool] Horizon, the Firefly spinoff

[Matt Wilson]

Yesterday was, after a mishap involving stolen wheels and a superbowl, out first full-length episode of "Horizon," the Firefly spinoff series.

John's Universalis-Pool rules fit the group perfectly, with a couple exceptions that John has already noted.

I like these rules a lot, which means that, well, an upcoming version of PTA might bear some resemblance. Except it'll be way cooler.

Anyway, there's a bit of a gray area as far as narrating facts and rolling for conflicts is concerned, when there is no specific assigned narrator. It took a bit of a group agreement of "can't define it but know what it is" to settle into it. In some ways it's "do I want to talk a little bit or a lot, and would I like to do some dice rollin' or not?" Rhyme not intended.

For story prep I came up with a situation on a planet and some names, with a lot of room to wing it. Basically I took the classic "herders vs. homesteaders" conflict, having recently seen Silverado on TV. Someone has just been killed, and the players can do whatever they want.

As it turns out, my "how do I intrigue the players" concern is completely unnecessary when dealing with the Universalis mindset. *Wham!* One of the players pays a coin to say that the dead man is her character's old romantic rival, which makes the widow his long-lost love. Holy mackerel. Why do I even write anything down before the game?

Another player at one point pays a coin to skip the whole conflict business and just say that her character is knocked unconscious and taken away somewhere. This leads to an awesome moment in play where a henchman shows up on a horse and tosses the character's bonnet down to two other characters, saying, "you shoulda kept your noses outta this. Now you better start cooperating if you want her unharmed."

Wyatt draws his gun and says "Where is she!" but it's clear to the goon that Wyatt won't just shoot a man who's not himself pointing a gun, so the goon laughs and starts to ride off, at which point Cyrus reaches over, draws Wyatt's other gun, and shoots the goon's horse, so that it falls over dead, crushing the goon. Cyrus then walks up and sticks the gun to the goon's forehead, says, "maybe you didn't hear my friend there. Where is she."

Someone posted a while back wondering about the "why we play" moments. That was one.

One more observation: the Uni-pool mix makes for an interesting gray area of character attachment. You always play the same character, but other players can occasionally step in and narrate what your character does. It prompted a couple "whoa" moments in play, but I can imagine other players really having a hard time with it.

[Valamir]

Nicely done.

It is amazing what players will do to their own characters that they'd never let a GM do to them.

I've been deficient at getting updates to the Uni site up recently.  But the Uni Pool concept is one that I'd love to throw up there if that's ok.

[John Harper]

One more observation: the Uni-pool mix makes for an interesting gray area of character attachment. You always play the same character, but other players can occasionally step in and narrate what your character does. It prompted a couple "whoa" moments in play, but I can imagine other players really having a hard time with it.

Yeah, it can be tricky. As Cyrus's player, I described the bit where Cyrus grabbed Wyatt's gun and shot the horse, then threatened the goon to find out where their friend was. This was part of the "free and clear" phase of the conflict. Once Cyrus had the gun on him, we figured it was time to resolve the outcome, so we rolled the dice.

Scott (playing Wyatt) won the dice roll, so he got to narrate how the scene resolved. Matt inserted a fact that the goon was mortally wounded (crushed pelvis). Scott then narrated how Cyrus threatened the goon, and how the goon spilled the beans ("She's at the old mill...").  Scott then took a chance. My character Cyrus has a colorful past. He has been in prison, and has killed people before. As a player, I still hadn't really decided if Cyrus had given up the gun or not. During his narration, Scott said that Cyrus shot the goon to put him out of his misery. This was quite a bomb to drop. Cyrus was a medic during the war. He could have tried to save the man. Instead, he put a bullet in his head. I was speechless. It was a great defining moment for the character.

There's a lesson here, too. There's nothing in "the rules" that says I get to overrule Scott and say "Cyrus wouldn't do that." But I can always move out to the "next box" in Ron's model: Social Contract. I can say to Scott, person to person, "Hey, don't say that. I don't think Cyrus would act like that." I didn't say that because I really liked what Scott narrated, even if it wasn't what I had planned. The concept of "my guy" just drifted away.

I thought of something James Marsters said about playing Spike. He said that his stuntman was Spike. And Joss was Spike. And Marti and Jane and Doug (the writers) were Spike too. "I play him on-screen, but we're all Spike. He wouldn't exist without all of us." That's the vibe I'm getting with these pseudo-PC, pseudo-Universalis rules. We each play a character, but we're not solely responsible for who that character is.

The fluidity of authority, authorship, and narrative control is something that I've come to like a lot in this style of roleplaying.

[John Harper]

Oh, and Ralph: Sure, you can post the UniPool to the site. Maybe you can provide a link to Matt's Primetime Adventures, which is where Matt's more developed version of the system will eventually find a home.

[Valamir]

There's a lesson here, too. There's nothing in "the rules" that says I get to overrule Scott and say "Cyrus wouldn't do that." But I can always move out to the "next box" in Ron's model: Social Contract. I can say to Scott, person to person, "Hey, don't say that. I don't think Cyrus would act like that." I didn't say that because I really liked what Scott narrated, even if it wasn't what I had planned. The concept of "my guy" just drifted away.

From the original Uni-pool post:

Like Universalis, you can challenge facts that are introduced and then have a bid-off in coins to see if the fact stays or goes.

Do you not allow this for facts introduced following a victorious die roll.  So since Scott won, his narration was sacrosanct?

[John Harper]

Ah. Ralph... you are correct. I do have the option of buying facts with coins, even when Scott narrates. Like "The goon doesn't die." Then Scott (or anyone) can pay to have the goon die. We can go back and forth like this if we want.

In this particular case, I was very low on coins and couldn't have outbid Scott anyway. I guess what I'm getting at is that there is no "sure thing" in the system that lets me negate another player's narration simply because they're talking about my PC. I can tweak and modify and suggest by spending coins. But there is no hard line that says "thou shalt not".

[Valamir]

Cool, I was just looking for clarification of what the final rules looked like.  It would not be an unreasonable rule for this variant to have the winner of the roll get a Pool style MOV which (if I remember the Pool accurately) cannot be over ruled.

I like (as you well know) the sharing of character actions among the players precisely because of the effect it has on defeating "my guy".  It takes that sort of introverted, most-of-what-makes-my-character-interesting-only-goes-on-inside-my-head attitude and replaces it with one where all of the players are concious of what makes everyone elses character interesting and encourages them to work collectively to expose those interesting features for the enjoyment of all.

That sort of attitude I think improves all RPG play, and games that make it explicit serve a useful role in helping said attitude to become habitual.

[Matt Wilson]

I like (as you well know) the sharing of character actions among the players precisely because of the effect it has on defeating "my guy". It takes that sort of introverted, most-of-what-makes-my-character-interesting-only-goes-on-inside-my-head attitude and replaces it with one where all of the players are concious of what makes everyone elses character interesting and encourages them to work collectively to expose those interesting features for the enjoyment of all.

Absolutely. If everyone has a vested interest in the character, there's no need for players to get all weird and secretive in the sense that "what GM knows = ways GM can fuck with my guy."

I've said it before and I'll say it again: more new RPG's need to be influenced by Universalis. I'm trying to do my part.

[Valamir]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: more new RPG's need to be influenced by Universalis. I'm trying to do my part.

Well, that makes me all warm and fuzzy and want to do Ron's little happy dance...so you have my permission to keep saying it ;-)