Disperate Age groups play 1st Universalis game

[Danny2050]

This is the outcome of actual play of  Universalis. I didn't keep a full transcript of who did what so there are only some highlights in that regard.

Players:
   Aged 40 something
      Craig
      Danny (me)
      Dianne
   Aged 10
      Ella
      Phaedra
Phaedra, Dianne and I had played once before. I was the only one who had deeply examined the rules.

Record keeping: I used a box of old business cards to record components, tenets etc.  Each player was supposed to be responsible for entering new traits on the cards of things they controlled. In the end this was done primarily by myself and Craig.

Control and presence in scene: Components that were not in a scene were kept near the person that last controlled them. The others were placed near the center of the table but a little toward the controlling player.

Establishment
- Dianne: A Mystery
- Danny: set in London
- Craig: in the 1800s
- Phaedra: Mood is "Foggy"
- Danny: No monsters or magical creatures (two 10 year old girls challenged this one but three 40 somethings supported it and it stayed) .
- Craig: A few hundred Japanese Woodcutters from Northern Honshu are in the city.
- Dianne: A gold shipment is expected to arrive at the docks soon.
- Ella: There is a time machine hidden in a local library not far from the docks.
- Ella: There is a gang of street kids that know the time machine is there but not where.
- Dianne: The game has to be finished by 9 pm (Ella and Phaedra's bed time) which gives us 2 hours.

Scene I

   Phaedra wins the bid with 8 coins.
- London dockyards. Lots of crates can be seen against the wall.
- Phaedra introduces a giant snake which is challenged under the "no monsters" rule. Resolved by negotiation to be a flame red, amphibious snake that is hungry and looking for food. It emerges from a crate.
- The evil Dr Fu Manchu emerges from the fog. He plans to take over the world. He is after the gold shipment (I didn't state that this was to fund the expansion of his evil empire).
- Dr Fu sees the snake and says "Ah! There you are my pretty one!"

Phaedra suggests an attack by the snake against Dr Fu. I challenge because I think Dr Fu's statement indicates he knows the snake. Phaedra quite rightly points out that that doesn't mean the snake likes him or cares about him. I agree.
Complication Start
- The snake attacks Dr Fu by spitting acid venom at him.
- Dr Fu (1 dice for proper name) is expecting the attack (as evidenced by his earlier comment) and has a mechanical arm with an anti venom shield on it to catch the snake with. (This was intended to be a possession but somehow became a cybernetic arm on Dr Fu. A gap occurred between intent and what was understood but the change was allowed to continue).
-Dr Fu was given the trait of "lightning reflexes".
Complication Resolution
1 success to complication
3 successes to Dr Fu
- Dr Fu caches the snake in his mechanical grip and examines a tattoo on its head.
- Having found the information he was after he tosses the snake down a hole.
- A minute later the snake re-emerges from the hole unharmed (The complication coin).
Complication End

End Scene

Scene II

   Ella won the bid with 5 coins.
- A beach nearby
- A bottle containing a message lies wedged between 2 rocks
- The encoded message contains information for Dr Fu Manchu regarding the gold shipment
- If Scotland Yard got hold of the note they would certainly crack the code and learn much about Dr Fu.
- The gang of street kids are combing the beach.
- 1st Event: The kids find the bottle.
- Dr Fu appears, trailing tendrills of fog and begins to walk menacingly toward the street kids.
- Unseen, the red snake trails Dr Fu.
- The street kids back away from Dr Fu.
- Phaedra takes control of the street kids and bottle to avoid a complication
- The snake darts passed Dr Fu.
- The kid holding the bottle flinches and drops it.
- The snake grabs the bottle with its tail and slithers rapidly off into the fog (Exit snake and bottle)
- Dr Fu runs after the snake (Exit Dr Fu)
   Dianne reminds us that there is only 10 minutes left before the end of the session.
   Ella controlls the only remaining component in the scene - the street kids.
- The street kids run off to the library, find the time machine and return to the beach 2 hours earlier to get the bottle.
- Several hundred wood cutters from  Northern Honshu are combing the beach nearby looking for the bottle. They spot the street kids heading for the bottle. (Craig finally worked out how to bring them into the story!)
- Suddenly an octopus grabs the bottle and takes it out to sea.
- The octopus is a trained and conditioned minion of the woodcutters.

End Scene
End Session

I expected more friction between the two age groups but things went surprisingly well. After the first complication everyone wanted to avoid them and so went about taking control of components often. Interestingly this meant that we all began to run low on coins. I expect this sort of thing will lead players to bring in complications to get some extra coins going. Its difficult to get the players to appreciate that they are not formally on any "side" during all this but they started to get the idea in the end.

It was fascinating to see the different elements of the story, which had been introduced by different players with different agendas, all start to merge together into a more coherent work as if by magic. Some elements were just created with no idea how they would work in the story. The adults pushed hardest to draw things together while the girls each seemed bent on persuing slightly separate stories that nevertheless seemed to merge by the end of scene 2.

I forgot to record everyone's final Wealth for next time so we will have to agree on a new starting wealth when we play next.

These are outstanding questions I compiled from the transcript. It would be usefull to present these questions to players in the next session to prompt answering them through game play:

- Where did the time machine come from? (Its importance is very low right now, it could easily be eliminated or someone could beef up its importance.)
- How smart is the snake? Is it a free agent or controlled like the octopus? Does that suggest a "controlled animal" theme?
- Who are the woodcutters? Are they for or against Fu? Do they have plans of their own for good or evil?
- Who put the bottle and codes on the beach?
- Who tattooed the snake?
- Having removed the bottle in the past, what happens in the future?
- Who are the individual characters amongst the street kids. What do they want? Why did they want to keep the bottle so much they would travel through time for it?

I think extracting a question list like this would be a very useful between session habit.

I can see this game becoming more exciting and enjoyable as the players become more familiar with the rules and we develop smoother systems of record keeping and play aids.
I want to start a separate "story" with just adult players to explore some more drama based possibilities.

[Valamir]

Neat.  Its interesting how a game slated to have no monsters or mysticism wound up with a bright red snake, a controlled octopus, a time machine, and a cybernetic arm...Cut off one avenue for fantastic elements and players will seek out a new one...

A list of questions like yours is a great idea for refreshing peoples minds as to where the current loose ends are between sessions.

Why do you think people started avoiding Complications?  Was the first Complication viewed negatively?

Please keep posting your transcripts like this.  There is a decided lack of complete multisession game examples on the website.

Ralph

[Danny2050]

Thanks Ralph,
its been a while since these posts and I have had a very busy year with only a bit of Universalis play, mostly as a background generator for an RPG campaign.

Why did folks shy away from complications? Two answers I think: 1) They were just enjoying the flow of the story and the 1st complication seemed to 'bump' the game flow and 2) they hadn't all come to grips with the complication rules yet. Ultimately things got going with complications in our later games.

I'm planning some renewed Universalis sessions in 2007. I'll try and post some multi-session transcripts then.