Universalis - what does it do best?

[Tony Irwin]

Below I've typed out some paragraphs from Robert McKee's book "Story". By this point in the book he's already defined story conflicts in terms of inner conflict (with the mind, body, self, and emotions), personal conflict (with family, lovers, and friends), and extra-personal conflict (with the physical environment, social institutions, and individuals in society). Here he discusses which medium is more suited to which type of conflict.

In the twentieth century we have three media for telling story: prose (novel, novella, short story), theatre (legit, musical, opera, mime, ballet), and screen (film and television). Each medium tells complex stories by bringing characters into simultaneous conflict on all three levels of life; however, each has a distinctive power and innate beauty at one of these levels.

The unique strength and wonder of the novel is the dramatization of inner conflict. This is what prose does best, far better than play or film. Whether in the first- or third-person, the novelist slips inside thought and feeling with subtlety, density, and poetic imagery to project onto the reader's imagination the turmoil and passions of inner conflict. In the novel extra-personal conflict is delineated through description, word pictures of characters struggling with society or environment, while personal conflict is shaped through dialogue.

The unique command and grace of the theatre is the dramatization of personal conflict. This is what the theatre does best, far better than novel or film. A great play is almost pure dialogue, perhaps 80 percent is for the ear, only 20 percent for the eye. Non-verbal communication - gestures, looks, lovemaking, fighting - is important, but, by and large, personal conflicts evolve for better or worse through talk. What's more, the playwright has a license screenwriters do not - he may write dialogue in a way no human being has ever spoken. He may write, not just poetic dialogue, but, like Shakespeare, T.S. Eliot, and Christopher Frye, use poetry itself as dialogue, lifting the expressivity of personal conflict to incredible heights. In addition, he has the live voice of the actor to add nuances of shading and pause that take it even higher.

The unique power and splendour of the cinema is the dramatization of extra-personal conflict, huge and vivd images of human beings wrapped inside their society and environment, striving with life. This is what film does best, better than play or novel. If we were to take a single frame from BLADE RUNNER and ask the wolrd's finest prose stylist to create the verbal equivalent of that composition, he would fill page after page with words and never capture its essence. And that is only one of thousands of complex images flowing through the experience of an audience.

So my question is - to which type of conflict is Universalis best suited?

[Bob McNamee]

Tough question.

It depends on the goals of that game of Uni...

Here's my opinion. (It also holds true for RPG in general.)

I'd say type 2, the theatre style.

Since much or most of RPG play revolves around dialog between characters, that seems to be the best fit for RPGs in general.

I can easily envision a Uni game that focuses on internal states of characters though (type 1:literature). It would require more focus from the players on following both the external and internal states of the characters.

Type 3: Movie mode is probably less attainable through the verbal mode of RPGs and Universalis.

Although, it can lean that way a bit too, we did many things in the first Universalis Wiki game that blurs into Movie mode. Like making any internet source of information on the setting constitute a Fact for the game.
This led us to posting links to photos of the harbor and islands of the setting (such as http://ca.ckwinfo.net/newbed/nash/)

Anyway interesting question, I'd be interested in seeing what others think.

Bob McNamee

[Mike Holmes]

Gotta go with Bob on this one. Actually given the usual lack of props, I'd call it somewhere between one and two. If theatre is 80% dialog, then RPGs are 90% or more, often being completely narrative like a novel.

But, really, it's the fourth, unrecognized medium.

Mike

[Tony Irwin]

Great answers, but I should have clarified my question really.

What type of story conflicts do you think Universalis is best at telling?

i) Stories of inner conflict - focusing on the mind, body, self and emotions

ii) Stories of personal conflict - focusing on relationships with family, lovers, and friends.

iii) Stories of extrapersonal conflict - focusing on the physical environment, social institutions, and individuals in society.

Robert McKee backs up his claims with examples. He explains what are the features of film, that make it especially good for telling stories of extrapersonal conflict.

So what are the features of Universalis that make it especially good for telling stories on one of these three levels?

For example - The group trait and master components means that you can create legions of antagonists really easily (and cheaply). You can very quickly escalate a conflict to the extrapersonal level. It starts out as  one man versus his vampire brother, but becomes one man versus an army of vampires, or one man versus vampirism itself. The game supports you building large extrapersonal contructs - you can spend a ton of coins just deciding what vampires can do, or what tanks can do, or what are the rules for zepplins, or how does the mind-altering drug work, and then it's extremely easy to bring those constructs into conflicts with your protagonists.

[Christopher Weeks]

I would be interested also, in what gimick-sets might promote one kind of conflict over the others so that the Universalis engine can adapt to.

Chris

[Tony Irwin]

I think as a rule, every game I've played in so far has been dominated by extra-personal conflict. Even when we start with a small circle of relationships, we quickly start creating large scale enemies out of institutions and the physical environment. It's exciting, cinematic, and somehow all our games seem to end up that way. I think that although Universalis supports all three levels of conflict, I think that it does extrapersonal conflict really well - mainly due to the group trait rule and the master component rule as I said above.

I was trying to think how you could do a story that focus on inner conflict, with the mind, body, self and emotions. Somehow it seemed that Universalis just isn't set up for it. The problem is that when you get into Complications, the system kind of presupposes that the antagonising forces are physical entities already present in the scene. That's when it dawned on me that the Obstacle rules are brilliant for this kind of conflict. With an Obstacle you just make up an opposing force on the spot, it doesn't need to be a component already present, so you can easily create obstacles from a character's own mind, body, self and emotions.

Tony: I'll pay a coin for an event - Jar Jar shouts "Mesa Jar Jar Binks!"

George Lucas: I'll pay a coin for an obstacle - I'll say that Jar Jar's innate sense of self-worth and dignity holds him back.

Suddenly with have a compelling inner conflict, Jar Jar's own self has become an obstacle to his own actions.

Interesting eh? I hope to try it in this weekend's game, creating as many inner conflicts as possible.

[Valamir]

There's also no rule saying you can't give a Component conflicting Traits and then activate 1 Trait for one side of the Complication and another for the other side...

Like say John Travolta in Grease at the pep rally ptting the Trait  "In Love with Sandy" against "Be all Cool and Shit"

One player looking for a romantic interlude activates the Name Trait "Danny Zucko" and puts it in the Sandy pool.  Another player activates "Leader of the T-Birds" in favor of the Cool pool justified by explaining how the T-birds provide his audience for being cool.  He then activates the Name Traits for the T-Birds and throws them into the Cool pool indicating them egging him on.

Internal conflict, the cool pool wins, Danny acts like a smart ass, and the cool pool player spends the bonus Coins creating Traits like "Heartbrokenx2" while the Sandy player uses the losing bonus points to give Dany "Feels like a Heel x4"


...at least I don't think that section is worded such to preclude doing this...

...well, if it is, it would be an easy gimmick to write regardless.

[Christopher Weeks]

Tony: I'll pay a coin for an event - Jar Jar shouts "Mesa Jar Jar Binks!"

George Lucas: I'll pay a coin for an obstacle - I'll say that Jar Jar's innate sense of self-worth and dignity holds him back.

Suddenly with have a compelling inner conflict, Jar Jar's own self has become an obstacle to his own actions.

Interesting eh? I hope to try it in this weekend's game, creating as many inner conflicts as possible.

I see how you can mechanically do this, but I'm not really getting how it would play.  To what end would you invoke Jar Jar's self-as-obstacle traits through complication?  I mean, what is helped?  And who's on the two sides of the complication?  If you're up to contriving an example complication as it might really happen, I'd be glad to read it.

Chris

[Mike Holmes]

To what end would you invoke Jar Jar's self-as-obstacle traits through complication?  I mean, what is helped?

The story is helped.

Complications aren't about benefiting something in the game. They're just about getting Coins. Once you get past the sim idea that complications are at all about real competing things, it's very simple.

Further, think about this. All components are made up of infinite numbers of sub-components. If I want to, I can create Jar-Jar's Superego as an entirely different component from Jar-Jar. Nothing prevents this from happening, and, indeed, there's no way that you can actually define what make something a "whole" thing. If I make a human, he's composed of organs and those of cells, and those of molecules, those of atoms, those of subatomic particles, those of quarks, those of, well, somthing that I'd define as being component to quarks.

Since this is true, you can take control of any "sub-component" at any time in theory. Oh, they'll be challenged as irrellevant if they are. But given an honest explanation, I think that Jar-Jar could be seen to have more than one "side" internally. And then it's just a matter of playing things out. Remember, that traits can be used on either side of a conflict no matter which side the owner is on. That is, if Bob is Injured, then I can reasonably activate those Traits to add to my pool to cause him further harm in a fight.

I'm really seeing not a lot of difference. Its just a matter of perception.

In any case, my entire design for Synthesis is all about enabliong exactly this sort of conflict. I based in on Universalis sorta, and then thought what if the most important conflicts were internal? Synthesis is the result. So, obviously I think that these are pretty important sorts of conflicts to have.

Mike