Minimilist Trait use

[Valamir]

Split from Universalis Drinking Game

Second follow up question:
Has anyone run into problems in games due to minimalist play style issues for some things with rather more expanded descriptions for others?

Example:
Bob creates a mercenary soldier that he wants to be a major character later. Going minimalist, Bob figures that the role Mercenary soldier probably will adequately describe the character's employment background. Any time something comes up that might have some relation to that employment background, he figures he'll be able to get a die roll. He then proceeds to use coins to define more , say, social aspects of the character.

Jim, OTOH, introduces TRogs, a race of vicious bad guys, and spends several coins to flesh out the deadliness of these fellows and creates a master component to do so. This is especially necessary, because the other players in the game have no idea what Jim is imagining Trogs to be like.

In game, Bob's mercenary has a fight with a trog. Bob's mercenary has only one die to use for being a mercenary. The trog has several, because Jim has defined multiple combat related traits for MC:Trog. Bob's merc will probably get whipped up on.

The problem: Jim never really intended Trogs to be vastly better combatants than an experienced mercenary soldier. Really, he just wanted to define Trogs as something different than say, orcs or Klingons.

Has anyone dealt with this issue successfully? I own a copy of Uni, buit haven't played it yet, but this was one of the problems I foresee coming up.

Thanks for any advice,
Robert

Everyone please jump in on this one.

Heres my take.

Jim is perfectly able to define the Trogs however he wants using pure color if his primary purpose is just to describe them and he gets no dice.

So he calls them "brutal slavering reptiles".  That just becomes part of the shared understanding of "what it means to be a Trog" in exactly the same way as the players have a shared understanding of "what it means to be a mercenary".  You don't need a half dozen Traits on what a mercenary is.  You don't need a half dozen Traits on what a Trog is.

Disputes are settled through Negotiation and Challenge, just as if Bob tried to use his Mercenary Trait to negotiate with the king because "mercenaries negotiate for contracts all the time" and I disagreed saying "mercenary officers might negotiate, but you're not an officer, you're just a grunt"  Trog is no different, just imaginary.


On the other hand if Jim WANTED all of those dice to go smack down Bob's mercenary with there are a few ways it could be handled.

Bob et.al. might decide they don't care, they'll pick some other mercenary soldier to be a major character later.

Bob et.al. might decide to Interrupt Jim and take the opportunity to buff up the soldier in response (a Trait Cold War of sorts)

Bob et.al. might negotiate with Jim (Challenge if necessary) that they don't want the game to get too involved with lots of extraneous traits (i.e. they want to keep in minimalist).  If that's the general consensus of the group they should be able to bid Jim down.  This is even easier if they previously established "Minimalist Traits" as a Tenet of the game.

That would be my approach.


Anyone experience this situation in play?  Please share how it worked out in your game

[Bob McNamee]

If a combat related Complication occurs between Bob the Mercenary and a Trog.

Well as the two characters stack up at the start of the Complication...Bob  is going to lose.

He'll be rolling 2 dice...one for name, one for Trait...against what? 6 some odd  dice for Trog ...say  ?MasterComponent-Vicous, Reptile, bloodthirsty, claws, poison, fast.

Ok...so as is... 2 dice on 6 dice.
We've had many rolls where for some reason the low dice guy wins... so its not for sure.

Here's the big thing.
If the playing Controlling Bob doesn't like how this Complication is going to look, there's nothing stopping him from adding traits to Bob at the time of the Complication.
"Ok, Bob the Mercenary also has Axeman, Tough-as-Nails, wears Chainmail, and Fights Dirty."
[edited in : As Ralph stated above...the Trait Cold War]

Now its 6 dice on 6 dice.
Don't forget that the traits you get from a Master Component don't add to the Importance of the character when it comes time to eliminate them. So each barebones Trog is still only an importance 1 character,but has lots of traits to draw dice with, while Bob the Mercenary is a 2 importance character (6 after adding those traits I mentioned...and even more important if they player has added Social traits etc).

MasterComponent use is a great way to make Mooks.

Lots of MasterComponent use is a great way to use up all the spare dice you have around :)... or keep dice manufacturers in business :)

Oh , and there's nothing keeping Bob from using one of his Coins to drop that Trog during his narration...since they are cheap.

Regarding negotiations...to prevent some of this, if you're worried.
Make a Rules Gimmick during Tenet phase.
Rules Gimmick: No Master Components

That way each thing has to be created fully from scratch and what's important is what has had Coins spent on it. A Trog may be really important to the game if its a 6 Coin critter in a 3 Coin world...probably the "Big Bad Trog".

[edited in: Darn typos]

[komradebob]

I was thinking about a possible solution for this today at work. Here is my idea, perhaps worded badly:

Rules Gimmick: No master component can provide more than X dice in a complication.

I realize that MCs can be used for lots of different purposes, but I guess my trad RPG experience makes me think of them in terms of occupations/character classes or races/species.

Someone had mentioned that in describing Trogs, Jim could simply describe them (color), and let it go at that. In the future, when trogs appear, they could sort of be supposed to be capable of Trog-y stuff.

Is this something that you folks have done before? How has it worked out?

In terms of, say, introducing a "race" like the trogs, I personally think I'd rather see letting a player off with paying one coin to introduce the trogs with color added than accidently creating a MC of combatmonsters by paying for each trait of color.

Thanks,
Robert

[Valamir]

Someone had mentioned that in describing Trogs, Jim could simply describe them (color), and let it go at that. In the future, when trogs appear, they could sort of be supposed to be capable of Trog-y stuff.

Is this something that you folks have done before? How has it worked out?

Heh, that someone would be me...about 3 posts up :-)

Really its identical to any other Role Trait.

Think about it this way:

"Nascar Driver"

"Russian Diplomat"

"Wallstreet Broker"


Any of those are Role Traits.  Each one carries with it an entire plethora of skills and abilities and the like.  Most people around the table are going to have a basic impression of what each one of those is and what they can do.  They will use that general impression to judge what they might be able to get a die for in a Complication using the Trait.  They will use that impression to judge whether the die someone else just called for is valid or should be Challenged.

This is no different than:

"Elf"

"Dwarf"

"Orc"

Each of these convey a general impression to everyone at the table.  Is everyone going to have exactly the same image of what an Elf can do?  Of course not.  But they'll be in the ball park, and the rest can be handled with negotiations and Traits bought later.

Now

"Trog"

What's different about Trogs from any of the above?
Absolutely nothing, except that the players around the table have a general impression of what the above are and have never heard of a Trog before.

So, you describe what a Trog is using color.

Now everyone has a general impression of what a Trog is just like everything else.

Situation solved, yes?

[Bob McNamee]

Ralph's method is best.

Keep it simple.

Master Components are cool, but can quickly run amok.

They are great for fleshing out an exisiting setting in Uni terms.
They are great for mooks.

They are good for all sorts of stuff, but they carry the risk of Coin inflation...or at least dice inflation.

By only buying what you find important in the game you can keep things down to a saner level of dice (for those who don't have huge amounts of d10s)

(There's a good mod on the Uni website for using d6's...for those like me who were Champions GM's and have lots of those d6s)

[Christopher Weeks]

I think you get and Ralph and Bob handled color, but I want to comment of the master component rule you suggest:

Rules Gimmick: No master component can provide more than X dice in a complication.

So, first of all, I think it's completely unnecessary.  And I think you'd find the same after playing two or three times.  But assuming you want to go ahead, I think you should word it as "No component can draw more than X dice from master components for a single complicatin."

Otherwise you might end up with something like:

Urg-ack[1] the Decorated[1] Trog[1] Militia[1]

Decorated:
 Master Component [1]
 Exceptionally competent [1]
 Connected [1]
 Cavern Graces [1]

Trog:
 Master Component [1]
 Cave vision [1]
 Gills [1]
 Tough [1]

Militia:
 Master Component [1]
 Armed to the teeth [1]
 Tough [1]
 Enjoys physical extremes [1]

in which Urg-ack can draw at least eight dice in a fight against humans in a n underground pool, but no more than three from any MC.

Chris