Our first Tenet Phase and a request

[Don D.]

I am new to Universalis but am excited about playing.  I usually go for roleplaying games but find as I get older that I have less inclination to spend hours designing adventures and making up NPCs so Universalis sounds great... A game that requires NO PREPERATION!  Since I have only one other player at the moment (my wife) standard roleplaying games don't seem to work too well (most games being geared for multiple players).  Another point scored for Universalis. (By the way, have you noticed how many wives are playing this game with their husbands?  Pretty cool.)

Anyways...
My wife and I sat down the other night for  a trial game (really just a Tenet phase to see how it works since it was getting pretty late and we knew we wouldnt have enough time to begin playing the story out.)  We had a great time.  We are actually going to take these Tenets we came up with and reread them next time and go ahead and play the story.

This is what we came up with.  I would love those of you who are veteran players to let me know which of these sound like good tenets and which should have been left out.  Do you think we did too much?

1.Fairy Tale: In the vein of Never Ending Story
2.Involves magical book
3.Hero's are a solar powered race
4.Villain seeking to bring eternal darkness
5.Characters can talk to animals and creatures
6.The solar powered race are a plant/human hybrid (leaves, chlorophyl etc.)
7.Villain similar to Balrog (from the Darkness)
8.Villain's evil army is made up of Arachnid like creatures of all sorts
9.Only way to kill the arachnid creatures is for them to be exposed to sunlight
10.The plant race (called Florens) have magicians who use Sun magic/ Light magic
7. The magic book describes how to kill the Balrog Creature
8.Some Florens use Giant Saddled Birds called "Glandils" as mounts.
9. The magic book is what will enable villain to bring eternal darkness
10.The Balrog creature is called "Golrab".
11. Golrab killed all his own kind because they were against his quest to bring eternal darkness
12.Florens (Good guys) are ruled by a queen.
13.The queen wears a glowing dress of sunlight (armor)
14.There is a Knightly order called "Light riders" who ride Glandils
15. Florens also use Wolfhound type mounts and for beasts of burden.
16. Florens do not know the books location yet
17. The Birgus (wolfhounds) have a tendency toward viciousness if not trained properly.
18. War trained Birgus and riders form the Floren Cavalry.
19.Floren land mostly forested, with some meadows also.
20.Florens are born of trees (sprouting from the trees branches and falling to the ground as newly 'born' Florens)
21.There are various "houses" in Floren society (all members of a house fall from the same tree)
22.These trees are sacred and must be protected or the race will perish
23.There is 1 Royal Tree which the Queen and her family fall from
24.There are 5 'lesser' royal trees making 6 noble houses.
25.There are many commoner families- each under the protection of one of the noble families.
24. There is a Floren group of magicians known as the "wielders of light"
25.Golrab and his minions are from the mountains far north of the Floren Forest
26.When Florens grow old, they are planted by and become one with the family tree.
27.Golrab has a Giant Evil Bat force that attacks from the air
28."North Mts" are magically shadowed (No sun)
29. To the north of the "North Mts." are Human lands, who have been made subjects of Golrab
30. Some humans have fled to the Floren lands to fight Vs. Golrab
31. Dark Arachnid magicians can harness dark just as the Wielders of Light harness light. (This dark magic is powered by Golrab himself)

[Valamir]

Hey Don,

I am really jazzed by the number of couple playing, and also various uses and variants I've heard for playing with the kids as well.


There isn't really a hard and fast rule for tenets.  My only caution regarding Tenets is "don't begin to actually play the game, during the Tenets phase".  When you've got enough Tenets so that that world / situation starts to click and you can now visualize it in your mind...that's the point where you should jump head long into framing the first scene.

Basically, the moment that a really cool opening scene (that I typically liken to the opening sequence of a movie) pops into your head...you're ready to start playing.

That moment is going to be different for different groups.

For me, right around Tenet 5 I think I would have had enough of a handle to frame an initial scene.  The rest of the stuff is all fabulous, but all stuff that could have been introduced in an actual scene. Such as identifying the solar race as a plant hybrid at some point when a character is introduced into a scene and it becomes important.  I tend to try and think of these as establishing shots in a movie.  You know those little vignettes in the movie that have some relationship to the plot, but serve mostly to establish that the hero has lightning reflexes, or that the villain is a bigot, etc.

But note "could" is not the same as "should".  Think of the number of Tenets as a dial you can set to whatever level you want.

[Mike Holmes]

What you may find (and, to follow on what Ralph said, may not, too), is that you don't end up needing all of these Tenets. That is, some of them may not end up seeing any value during play. As Ralph said, if you needed them to get off and running, then it's all good. But if not, the extent to which these data will be useful will depend completely on your committment to incorporate them.

Personally, I tend to look back to the Tenet list a lot, and try to get them all into play - but that's just me. Others jump in and don't look back at all at those things, only looking to carry the plot forward as it seems to need it during the scenes that occur.

Think of it this way: what if Glorabs giant evil bat force never ends up attacking, or even being mentioned? This isn't a violation of the Tenet, because it's not saying that they don't exist - it's just saying that those things aren't at the location of the story when it happens. As opposed to tenet #1, which will directly inform your play throughout. This isn't to say that the bats were a bad idea, just that if they never get introduced, they're sort of a waste. At best they may contribute to an overall feel that might lead to some ideas.

The point is to reiterate what Ralph said. Often this sort of stuff is best introduced into a scene where you know you're going to get milage out of it.

That all said...I suppose one could play a fairytale out without scenes per se, just doing nothing but tenets. Some fairtales are told that way "There once were some solar powered heroes..."

Anyhow, I think that it's interesting that you did just a Tenet phase for your first session, and I'll be curious to see how letting them sink in affects your play. Perhaps doing this will allow you to internalilze all of them better, and have a really good vision of the world before starting next time. Could be a really good thing. Who knows. In any case let us know what happens. :-)

Mike

[Don D.]

OK, cool. So something like this may have been better...

1. Fairytale: Similar to Never ending story
2. Conflict between forces of Light and Darkness
3. A quest to retrieve something
4. Light/Sun Magic and Dark Magic
5. Nature Centered

How would this be? More to what you would play with?  Is the idea to keep the tenets as vague as possible so imagination won't be as limited during play?  That makes sense.  Do the games seem to be more fun with less tenets?

[Don D.]

If time were limited (like the other night) is it possible to just bid for scene 1 and run with whatever is created there?  Has anyone ever done that?  How did it play out?

[Valamir]

I find, that its best to make Tenets (and all game facts really) fairly specific.

For instance I applaud your "Fairy Tale" Tenet for including "Like a Neverending Story".  That is far more useful as a basis for future play than "Fairy Tale" alone, because fairy tales very so widely.

I find the Tenets as you described them initially to be more useful than the above.  The key to a good Tenet is to make it evocative.  The whole purpose of Tenets is give a good set of images and ideas that players can groove on and riff off of during play.  So the more evocative the better.

[Don D.]

Excellent, thank you very much.   This helps a lot (as well as will make the tenet phase go quicker).  So 10 minutes or so should be all that is required to get a story going... just enough time to get a short list of specific tenets down.   I'm always for simplifying and streamlining!

[Valamir]

Glad to help.

See also the How Many Tenets thread for other ideas and links to Tenet lists from other groups.

[CPXB]

Heya, Don,

I think your tenets are just fine.  You identified clearly whom the protagonists and antagonists, as well as enough of the presumptive plot that y'all can work towards it without floundering around (like my group did for a couple of game sessions before we go around to defining the bad guy, hehe).

As Ralph said, the real factor as to whether they are good tenets is how evocative the players feel about them.  In many ways I was impressed with your list of tenets; IME, people who are new to Universalis often sorta throw the kitchen sink into the game (my current game is very much an example of this, with wuxia kung-fu action, Westerns and mutants running around in a post-apocalpytic tundra).  It seems that y'all have a better idea of what you wanted to do from the get go -- probablyas a result of that good, strong and highly specific first tenet, I'm figuring.

But from where I sit, y'all are doing great.

[Bob McNamee]

Like they said above.

However many tenets you need to get started is fine...

Some of the Tenets are looking very much like components...which could be introduced in scenes.

Like

North Mt.s (name:Location)(importance 3)
*magically shadow
*south of human lands

So, at that point in Tenet making, it is a pretty good idea to start play.
We have added in specific world building phases into some internet play though. Where after Tenet setting you spend an amount of  Coins pre-building Components for use during Scene play.

So including that in Tenet setting is fine too. You just might find you want to reorganize your tenet list a bit after starting to reflect that some tenets are actually characters (the Bats), Locations, or Master components  (like the Floren race) etc.

This will let you start a scene in the North MT.s location for one coin, with all relevant traits in action.

Nice looking setting. Very evocative! Gets across what it is like, and where to go. Specific, like Ralph said, is better than too loose, its important for all the players to have a good sense of the 'genre'. Saves on Challenges later.

Anyway, whatever feels right on Tenet setting is good, same with the amounts of traits per character etc. every group sets this themselves. Some have characters with just a couple traits, and others have multiple Master Components each adding up to Large amount of Traits in play during Complications. It comes down to whatever is the comfortable leve for the group.

[edited for typos, and clarity]

[Don D.]

Thanks for all the great replies.  I can see that there is no "wrong" way of doing it.  It's sort of a whatever works for you.  I know we had a good time coming up with these tenets so I guess thats what counts.  Once we play the story out I'll post how it went.
Thanks again!

[Don D.]

"I am really jazzed by the number of couple playing, and also various uses and variants I've heard for playing with the kids as well."

Hey Valimar, are any of these variants for playing with the kids posted online?

[Don D.]

I tried to get  the Floren Tenet list organized for play and had some questions. This is what I came up with...

MASTER COMPONENT
FLOREN RACE
Solar Powered
Plant like (leaves, chlorophyl etc.)
Ruled by a queen
Can talk to animals
Born of Trees
When old, return to trees
Uses Birgins as beasts of burden
Do not yet know the Magical books location
IMPORTANCE=10

Then I Created a Subcomponent...
FLOREN MAGICIAN
Name:"Wielders of Light"
Spells: Harness sunlight
          Used for illumination and as weaponry (should have probably cost  2 coins but it wasn't challenged...)
IMPORTANCE=4

Did I do these right?

So lets say during play I introduce for 4 Coins  "generic Wielder of Light #1"  He would get all of the Floren Race traits and all of the Floren Magician traits, right? (but only an importance of 4?)  And then if I introduce LEAFA BARKARMOR (A Wielder of Light) he would cost 5 coins.  Is this correct?  What if I wanted to introduce a whole group of these wielders of light in a major battle?  Would I just pay 4 for the subcomponent and then pay, say, 3 for a GROUP X 3 trait for 7 total points?  I think I'm doing this right but want to make sure before going any further.

I got really stumped when I got to the parts of the tenet list about the different noble houses.  I didnt know where to put the fact that there are 6 noble houses -one of which is the queens royal house, and where do I put the fact that there are 'commoner' florens who fall from lesser trees?  Should all of this be listed under "Floren Race"?  Then if during play a certain royal house is defined, would that house be a subcomponent of 'Floren Race'?  What if there were a Wielder of Light who was from this royal house?  How would that work?

When I frame a Scene in a certain location then that location is controlled by me right?  No one could say "Leafa climbs a tree that stands in the middle of the clearing" if I framed the scene with the clearing as the location, is that right? (In other words, does someone have to 'take control' of the location to add a tree where one was not listed before if that location was controled by someone else?)

I am also having problems with how to get this stuff organized in an easily accessable manner.  I'm trying notecards but I think large sheets of paper would probably be better.  Its hard for me to keep all these cards straight and I havent even started playing yet.  How do you Universalis veterans organize your sheets to keep it all straight?
A scanned in example of an actual story note page would be extremely helpful.  Do you think this could be possible on the Universalis website?

I'm sorry about all the questions but I REALLY like this game and my mind started running a million miles an hour as I sat down to do this stuff and started getting a little overwhelmed with questions about how all this stuff fits together.

Thanks for all your help and if you haven't heard it before "this game rocks!" :)

Don D.

[Bob McNamee]

In the indie-netgaming Yahoo group Files area there are the support files for most of the games that we have played over IRC. They are in either, or sometimes both, TXT and DOC format.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/indie-netgaming/

I'm sure there are other posts here that discussed this issue, but I couldn't find it on a fast search. I'll look tomorrow when I'm awake.

edited in: At home I use index cards, in several colors.

[Bob McNamee]

Here' a thread that talks about things like index cards.

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=6862

and here's an example from the indie-netgaming Universalis IRC game "War in SF" (SF for San Francisco)

Locations
Golden Gate Bridge(1)
.    anti-aircraft missile system(1 coin) sitsin mid-span
.    command van(1 coin)

A Bombed Out building in the Tenderloin

A "refugee" camp set up near the bay  

Master Components

MC-SEAL TEAM - 1
.       Seal Leader - 1
.       Seal Troopers - 4

MC-SEAL LEADER - 1
.     Commands a squad of Army Troopers - 1

MC-SEAL TROOPER - 1
.     Elite Warrior - 2
.     Commanded by an Army Sergeant - free
.      Fighter - 1
.      Night Vision Goggles - 1
.       Sidearm - 1
.       MP5 - 1

MC- SEPERATIST SOLDIER -1
.         Fighter 1
.          AK-47 1
.          Grenades - 1
.          Psionic

MC-SEPERATIST MILITIA SQUAD - 1
.       Seperatist Soldiers - 10




Characters

Bridge -SEAL Team(1)---***  eliminated
.   Marksman (1),
.   Cool under fire x2 (2),
.   Climbing (1)


SEPERATIST SQUAD LEADER
.       Psionics x 2
.       Dizziness(1)
.       Migrane Headache(1)


Shmuiel Hartzberg (1)
.  role  Government Agent(1)

MacMahon
.  role        Lieutenant

baby

old homeless woman
.      strange talismans hanging at her hip
.      unconscious, blood trailing out her ear

man in black
.      black pickup