Universalis Arena 2- Last day in the Before Vesuvius Shard

[Bob McNamee]

Today, May 31, 2004 is the last day for the dimension shifting city of Hope in its first Shard Before Vesuvius...a greco-roman Shard complete with meddling gods.

Tomorrow it transitions to a new Shard...where? probably Commancharia but things could change with Coin expenditures bringing another Shard like the Marchlands to the Fore.

Playwise...
We are currently discussing techniques to speed along play in wiki.

I'm proposing a Rules Gimmick to allow one scene from previous Shards visited to remain open to follow the ongoing aftermath after Hope's departure.

We are always looking for more Players, we've got a good core of a half dozen or so active players, and a half dozen or so fairly quiet players.  But, we did get hit with semester ending time for some Players...and new babies and such

Perhaps they didn't quite get into this Shard...

Well, its on to a new Shard tomorrow, with a couple days of World Building phase to flesh out the Shard a bit...then onto to a new Shard again next month.

Universalis Arena II is at this address
http://www.anvilwerks.com/index.php/TUA2/HomePage

Enjoy, and welcome to new players!

Bob McNamee

PS: What are the impressions of Play from the other players so far.

[ScottM]

For me, the game so far is interesting and uneven.  There have been strong scenes, weak scenes, and several scenes that never drew me in.  A few times I've been frustrated with myself-- in Mysterious Shoppe, I swerved far from the scene that had been set up, because the reading delay and pause between contributions is much greater than face to face.

Part of the difficulties seem to be related to pacing and complications. In this game, we're doing a lot of scenes structured as buildup-> complication-> spend complication coins-> end scene.  Christopher Weeks tried to vary the format in In the Care of Geus, but the lack of build up and clear nature of resolution didn't allow for an open continuation to the scene.  Many scenes wandered about, establishing world, but never delivered a complication.

The game began on a strong note; Omen introduced the affairs of the gods, the failings of men, and introduced Naxos, a sneaky thief who shows up surprisingly often.  The number of players in a scene varied widely as well; I avoided Omen because there were already a half-dozen hands at the cook pot.  One of the very next scenes was an intimate conversation between two players and two characters Golem, with James (the only other player) contributing just one line.  Despite how few players were involved in the scene, the events of the scene were riffed on and further developed in many later scenes.

The crew's a good bunch to play with and Wiki is a good format. It plays (and feels) a bit different from face to face Uni, but it maintains the core of many interested people creating fun and surprising play together.  There's often surprises... I was amazed at Bob Mc Namee's end to the Mysterious Shoppe scene-- it felt perfect.

--Scott Martin

[Bob McNamee]

Heh, I was afraid I was cutting the Scene off prematurely.

I closed it like that mostly because we had introduced some interesting information in the scene, and wanted to see what ripples it would make.

We  knew  what trinket Naxos had, that Togaclad Man #2 was an Idimmu, and that Mr Caveat had most of a Relic important to the struggles flaring up.

Since I had put the Trait of "sympathetic to the underdog" on Mr. Caveat, I didn't want him to hand this item out to the Idimmu, and since he only seems like a man, it seemed appropriate for him to have an ability notice and leave.

Intended one day to get back to a scene with Naxos, or some other buyer, but didn't get time really.

I'm hoping the speedier Complications test will result in less time waiting to roll this month.

I think we may have avoided Complications sometimes because they stall out the game in wiki format the way we were running them. Time passes where we wonder if everyone has contributed to a Complication before rolling, or waiting to see who rolls... the new method we're going to test should simplify that.

Enjoying myself in the game!

[Christopher Weeks]

What are the impressions of Play from the other players so far.

Like Scott said, it's been mixed, but mostly good.  There have been a few times where I didn't get what was going on and I felt paralyzed or confused.  I've tried to be active across the scenes so that I could keep track of everything going on.  This has proved somewhat hard -- more than in TUA1 for some reason.  And I have to keep reminding myself that when I don't really understand the goal of the originator of an idea, I shouldn't worry too much about stepping on their toes because the ideas are supposed to evolve communally (Away Team and Idimmu are the best examples).

The interaction styles that we evolve to deal with players who check in several times per day and others who pop in once every few days is of particular interest to me.  I think the game would be better served by everyone being wired to it 24x7 but we do pretty well for working across so many time zones and lifestyles.

I think that we have pretty clearly failed to plan how Shard transition was going to happen in-story.  I'd like to see us, going into the future, require that the potential shards have tenets that describe docking and undocking behaviour.  And perhaps the issue of terrain trading should be detailed that way as well.

It is interesting to note how many of the detailed characters will simply be *gone* in just a few hours.  I'm wondering if a different response will evolve over the next few months -- like making more components universal.

I'd like to have a few more players.  If anyone out there is interested in playing but intimidated by learning the wiki, I will personally commit to helping you get up to speed.  PM me.  Such an interaction would also help us to build more user-friendly documentation.  I'm still surprised that more of the Indie-Netgaming crowd isn't interested, but maybe Uni just isn't broadly appreciated by them..?  Ralph, if you're willing, please do alert us next time a mailing is going out and we'll write up an advertising blurb to include!

Chris

[Valamir]

I'd like to have a few more players. If anyone out there is interested in playing but intimidated by learning the wiki, I will personally commit to helping you get up to speed. PM me.

If I wasn't spending nearly every moment I can spare on R&R I'd have tried harder to get in on this one.  After R&R goes to press I'll see about taking you up on this, because wiki currently just irritates the bejeezus out of me.

Ralph, if you're willing, please do alert us next time a mailing is going out and we'll write up an advertising blurb to include!

I'll be doing one when the R&R beta is ready to generate some interest and trawl for playtesters.  I'm targeting mid June for that, but then I also thought Beta would be ready in December, so do allow for some slippage ;-)

[C. Edwards]

I'm still surprised that more of the Indie-Netgaming crowd isn't interested, but maybe Uni just isn't broadly appreciated by them..?

For me, it has much more to do with a dislike of play-by-post games than any lack of appreciation for Uni. Playing without real-time interaction just doesn't do a whole lot for me. At least over IRC I get some of the "sitting at a table playing a game with friends" feel. I just don't find that in play-by-post games.

-Chris

[Christopher Weeks]

Chris, thanks for the comment.  I guess that makes sense.  Each type of play has distinct advantages and disadvantages and everyone is going to have a preference.  IRC's (and live games') scheduling difficulties make it disadvantageous for me, for the most part, but PBP is easy to do at five in the morning when I first get up or between chores at work.  And I have all the time in the world to craft responses if/when I need to.  But I can clearly see how people in different situations than mine would prefer the other.

Chris