Gaming in another system's Setting

[Aaron Smith]

Just an idea I had, idly leafing through my copy of Univeralis. Has anyone thought of, or done, a Univeralis game in an already established setting? A soap opera done in Exalted's Creation for instance? Or an action adventure story done in the Forgotten Realms?

What do people think of such an idea, and how reasonable would it be for many? A lot of the appeal to building a setting is that the players are invested in it, and sometimes players aren't so invested in a random pre packaged setting that comes with another system.

[komradebob]

I haven't tried it, but I've certainly wanted to. I thought something very similar when I first heard of Uni. I think it would be very good for big complex settings (like the oWoD). Those kinds of settings often have so much to them, that a group really could benefit by getting together and deciding pre-game/campaign, what elements interest/annoy the group as a whole.

[Mike Holmes]

This has to be about the second or third most talked about topic with Universalis. In fact, it was a design goal of mine and Ralph's that the game be playable in this fashion, the idea being that you make a Tenet up front like "What's commonly known about Middle Earth is fact for this game." And it seems like it should work intuitively.

That said, and despite all of the talk about the subject, it's actually somewhat rarely attempted. I'm not sure precisely why. We had a recent conversion of a tri-stat game in the forum. But far more games simply make up the setting from the start. Far more often with tennets like "The setting will be Middle-Earth-ish." I'm not sure what this means.

All I can say is that I encourage you to give it a shot, and let us know how it goes. I will say this, however. One such "conversion" the players tried to convert the mechanics of the original game into Universalis mechanics (happened to be D&D). I can only recommend not doing this at all. Because other RPGs simply don't function like Universalis, and you'll end up breaking it if you do, almost certainly.

There's a fine line that's going to be hard to see at times. Like in Exalted, are charms a mechanic or are they something crucial to the setting? Actually I don't know the Exalted rules well enopug to know if this is a problematic example or not. But my point is that if you try to force things like this into the game, it can be a place where problems occur, especially if you create funky gimmicks to do so.

But, that caveat aside, I'd say go for it.

Mike

[Sovem]

I hope it's ok for me to post on this thread. It's several months old, but it's still on the front page so I felt kind of wierd making a new thread to ask a question tangenital to this one...please forgive me if I have mistepped.


Anyway, I wanted to ask, if a group decides to use Universalis to play an existing setting, how much prep work should go into preparing that setting, or should everyone just leap into the game? Let me put it another way... if some people wanted to play something like, say, Vampire, they will probably, at some point, need a Master Component "Vampires". Does someone need to create that Master C with their own coins when it first comes up? Or should everyone agree on a list of Traits for the Master C "Vampires" before play begins, no one spending any coins on it because it's such an integral part of the game?

[Valamir]

You can do it either way.

The trade offs are that if you define it before play begins it will a) take longer to prep, and b) make actual play somewhat harder* but you'll wind up playing in a setting that mirrors your source setting as closely as you want it to.

If you define it during play its much quicker and easier but you'll wind up playing in a setting that is more "inspired by" the source setting than "is identical to" the source setting.

Which is better, depends on your goals.


*why I say its harder during play is because the amount of Coins spent on something during play is an emergent property from how important you find a particular component to be...during play...as opposed to how important you think it will be before play.  In my experience things that get defined before play will tend to look like the example Components in the book...lots of Traits creating a fairly complete summary of the Component's capabilities.  Things defined in play will be much sketchier with only those things defined that are important to the Component right then.  This can cause a disconnect in the economy.

[Zatt]

Sorry to revive old threads, but this interested me.

My friend and I are going to use Universalis to give more back story and 'fluff' to our Warhammer 40,000 campaign. Obviously a lot of the story will be told between the battles that take place on the tabletop, and not just in the battles themselves.

After we begin, I'll let you all know how it goes. It should work well, since we both know the background of the universe pretty well, and we've already established a semi-detailed background for the system we're fighting for.

[Valamir]

I think that's a fantastic idea.  Do indeed let me know how it goes, I don't know of anyone who's used it as a campaign generator for a minis wargame.

One thing you'll want to decide in advance is how much you care about reflecting WH40K canon.  If you care alot, then the best way to proceed (i.e. quickest and least prep intensive) would be to propose a Tenet like "Everything in SourceBook X is Fact for this game".  Then you can use the sourcebook to back your challenges without spending hours reinventing everything in uni.

If you care less about adhereing to canon than I'd stick to using the tenets to establish the situation as it exists prior to the campaign beginning (including any canonical timeline that you want to say has or hasn't happened yet) and then let the campaign develop free form from there...in ways that may ultimately not reflect canon at all.

Ralph

[Darren Hill]

Ralph, that looks like a great tenet for anyone thinking of using Uni for published settings.

[Mike Holmes]

Huh. I play WH40K. Going to play this weekend, in fact...

Huh.

Mike

[Zatt]

One thing you'll want to decide in advance is how much you care about reflecting WH40K canon.  If you care alot, then the best way to proceed (i.e. quickest and least prep intensive) would be to propose a Tenet like "Everything in SourceBook X is Fact for this game".  Then you can use the sourcebook to back your challenges without spending hours reinventing everything in uni.

Now, that's some sound advice! Thank you. You've already solved one of my dilemmas, which was how to best reflect the setting through tenants.

I think that this game will be interesting, since we both wanted to start a story-based campaign from the start. We're both into the 'fluff' of the universe and are devoted to making an excellent story while staying in canon. Before Universalis, we were just giving each other reasons for why the next battle will be fought, and documenting it.

My friend was the one who said, "We should combine this with a role-playing game, so that we can make this into an actual cohesive story line, and develop some of the major characters."

I said, "Great idea!" Then, I ordered Universalis.

[Mike Holmes]

Synchonicity.

I've been playing Dawn of War/Winter Assault (WH40K Warcraft, practically speaking) recently. And as I'm following the story line in the cut scenes, I'm thinking to myself, "Self, you should figure out a good way to play this sort of thing out. There's some potentially interesting themes in here. But how to do it?"

True story. :-)

Mike

[Zatt]

But how to do it?"

You helped to write the game system that will allow us to do exactly that! My friend and I have a wiki dedicated to our WH40k campaign, which we'll begin posting our Universalis sessions on as well.

http://voltaniscampaign.schtuff.com/

[Mike Holmes]

Yeah, ironic, eh?

Thanks for the link, I'll be checking that out. And do let us know here how it goes and what you discover about best practices.

Mike

[Zatt]

Will do. The game will be on hiatus until after the holiday season has passed. It's just not a good time to game with everything going on.

[Robotech_Master]

And likewise, you can game in any book or TV show or movie's setting, even if it doesn't have a RPG of its own associated with it.