Code of Unaris - Actual Play

[GaryTP]

I started a livejournal that will deal with chat-related rpg play and web communication in general. I've posted an excerpt of chat play from Code of Unaris that we had this week. With Jonathan Walton and LordSmerf, I'm Plainsman. It gives you a feel for how the game plays. I'll update it every few days.

It can be found at:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/gamechat/

[TonyLB]

Did you plan, from the outset, that they'd do the following?

[*]Go to observatory[*]Be challenged by guards[*]Overcome guard resistance[*]Find frozen observatory[*]Examine[/list:u]

[GaryTP]

I have a one page write up of the adventure. I can't post it till they finish the adventure, here's what I can release.

My format goes as such. I'm building a database of the one-pages and want to be able to search by category.

The Summary: Four or five sentences encapsulating the whole adventure.

Location: Where it is taking place, city, buildings, etc.

Time: nuf said.

Scene 1: (In this case, in the streets with the guards. Three sentences.)

Scene 2: (Up the Stairs. Three sentences.)

Scene 3. (The Lab. Five sentences.)

Scene 4. (Censored.)

Typically, players can get through 4 small scenes in a two hour session. Play is fast. I note the details of the scene and the main conflict. The players then have something to work with.

To your first question: The guards were supposed to confront them and not let them into the observatory. The guards did not know them. The players hacked that. Still, the guards would not let them up, as they'd been told not to let anyone up, even good friends.

The stairs were dark, the light sources were taken away by the creature above. The players changed that by hacking, allowing a lantern to be nearby.

The lab was frozen from the start, as the ice demon had taken over the person running it. Even though they hacked the head of the observatory into a "janitor" the story still was able to progress. They had somewhere to deliver the package.

I'll post more when they get to a certain spot.

I didn't get the "examine" part of your post. Could you clarify? Thx.

Interesting note. When I ran this before, the players hacked the "package" they were supposed to bring to the head of the observatory to the "hostage". The story continued, but it added a twist that was especially fun for me, another human element into the situation. And later in the same game, the hostage fell and broke his neck. The players hacked "neck" to "toe" (or foot, forget which) and saved him.

Gary

[TonyLB]

When you say "the guards were supposed to confront them and not let them into the observatory", you're not really saying (I suspect) that the players are supposed to admit defeat and walk away, right?  Because Scene 2 in your plot is inside the observatory.  So you're expecting them to get there.

So... here's the thing.  You've designed this wonderful potential for players to radically change the game, in very objective ways that are easy to arbitrate.  But I'm not seeing the sort of results that I would (absent this post) have assumed from such a system.

For instance, they made the guy they were going to meet from a respected director into a loathed janitor.  And yet, they are still following exactly the same story track.  That seems very strange to me.  Why would they be headed toward the lab?  Why not the janitor's closet?  And if they're headed toward the janitor's closet, why are the guards at the front door even relevant?  They'll be taking the back staff entrance, and going into the basement, not the tower.  And then, since they're headed toward the basement, that's clearly got to be where the scary trouble is, because scary trouble can be located anywhere.

I suppose I'm trying to understand why you so deliberately didn't base the progress of the story around the ways that the players chose to take charge.  Is there a further level of play at work here that I'm missing?

[GaryTP]

Yes, the players were not to just walk away. They could have, if they'd wanted to. And I wouldn't have stopped them (there are many things to do in Solace). But they continued on into the Tower. The janitor was still in the building, and though they changed WHO they were going to visit, it didn't affect WHERE he was in the tower. (Janitors clean up everywhere). There is only one entrance to the observatory, no basement, etc.

The premise behind Unaris is not totally free-form, where the story is totally made up along the way, with no pre-planning. There are plenty of those types of games already available. Formless, Theatrix, etc. They're great for this.

Within Code of Unaris, the gamemaster provides a framework for the story to exist. The players then adjust what's inside the framework. There is still plenty for them to make up, adjust, hack, and so forth. A person is most creative under some restrictions. Unaris is about getting players to be creative with certain material (i.e. words) that the gamemaster provides. It is about adjustment and dealing with situations presented. It's not about GM Fiat. A gm has to deal with what the players change. But the underlying structure remain.

Any number of people will/can/should disagree with this. You should feel free to take hacking in any direction you wish as a game designer. Play styles differ for each gm. You could play chat by just changing words, but it would not longer be CoU. I would love to hear if you develop your own way to play. And I'd be willing to run you and your companions through the game so that you can get it first hand.

I do hope you try out a game.

Gary

[Jonathan Walton]

I think, Tony, that Gary designed the game to be run with fairly traditional expectations of GM control of plot, with player imput fairly limited in the way they can change "what the story is about."  Hacking then, changes the game in cosmetic ways and ways that effect character effectiveness, but not as often in ways that really change the nature of play or narrative.  There are lots of defenses built into the system to fend off what are often called "problem players," those that are playing to make themselves look cool and achieve their material goals, without any care for what their actions are doing to the story or the enjoyment of the other players, which makes me think that there's no real expectation that players would be able to handle the power of determining what the story is about.

For instance, if Gary started the session saying that we were supposed to "deliver a package to the observatory," and I hacked "observatory" to "girlfriend," then Gary, since he had already planned the session around the observatory, would figured out a way to get us there, instead of changing the game to be about my girlfriend's birthday party or whatever.

That said, the game would play very differently under a GM who preferred to give players a lot more agency in deciding what the game was about and what play would consist of.  I'm very much looking forward to running the game myself, with players who are used to having a bit more agency, and seeing how play turns out.

[Trevis Martin]

I just bought Unaris and am reading it.   Gary, I can't beleive I passed you up at Gencon.  

Anyhow, the above discussion made me wonder how it would be to have a certain amount of anti-hacks for the GM.  Maybe a number equal to the combined hack points of the players.  And make it so once a hack is rejected that word can't be hacked again.    Or perhaps the GM makes his own list of unhackables based on his plans before the adventure.

I'll play it with the standard rules and see how it fares. But my habit as GM is to give more agency to the players as Jonathan suggests above.

best,

Trevis

[GaryTP]

Trevis,

Thanks for picking it up.

Anti-hacks would certainly be a way around not putting restrictions on hacks to begin with. I just chose to have few critical things unhackable and just deal with what the players throw at me. Keeps me on my toes and they end up taking the story in the direction they want to go.

All the wonderful ideas I've gotten from the Forge on the game so far is making me want to write a variants PDF. I'll be interested to see Jonathans results when he runs it. As a player, he had me rolling with the humor of his hacks. Yet still, the game retains a tension and seriousness due to the speed at which it plays.

One thing Vaxalon asked me tonight that I thought I'd mention. He asked
[9:27:36 PM:] Vaxalon: True or false: In a well run game of Unaris, the PC's can't win without hacking.

I responded:
[9:28:02 PM:] Plainsman: vax, false, but close

I think that in any Unaris game that is run, a player should be able to win by the skin of his/her teeth just with their skills, and by taking clever actions. It should be hard for the player to win this way, but not impossible. This keeps the tension going and makes hacks extremely valuable, rather than just opportunities to turn the game their way.

One of the best suggestions I've heard is to limit the number of skills even more. I'm working on a lighter version of the game for free web distribution that will do just that. Things only get better over time, as more and more people find what works and what doesn't.

Gary

[GaryTP]

For instance, if Gary started the session saying that we were supposed to "deliver a package to the observatory," and I hacked "observatory" to "girlfriend," then Gary, since he had already planned the session around the observatory, would figured out a way to get us there, instead of changing the game to be about my girlfriend's birthday party or whatever.

You are correct. I would have his girlfriend meet him at the observatory, the place where they met when he was in wizard school. As a GM, I get to keep some structure to the mission while the characters can hack to make it their own. Sort of like moving into a house you bought and remodling. It's still the same house, but now your imprint is on it.

I developed Unaris as a bridge for people who like numbers structure, but also narrative play. The numbers always stay in the background of the chat dialog. I have all their characters up on my screen and just compare stats. It is a fast and easy way to adjudicate, while still letting the players hack the elements of the story.

Gary

[TonyLB]

I'm not sure "narrative play" is a term I've assimilated yet.  Can you clarify?  Or perhaps someone can refer me to a thread, if it's just one of the many things I've missed.

[Vaxalon]

I would just like to interject here, that this was a very enjoyable game to watch.  The pacing and tension level kept going up, and up, and up... I can't wait to see where this is going.

If I hadn't already bought my game for November, I'd buy Unaris in a minute.

Maybe Christmas.

[GaryTP]

I've update my livejournal with another chat session report and some notes.

Gary

http://www.livejournal.com/users/gamechat/

[GaryTP]

TonyLB

RE: Narrative play...As in "I developed Unaris as a bridge for people who like numbers structure, but also narrative play."

I'm not up on all the terms used on the Forge, there are just too many threads. But to me, what I was talking about with "narrative play" was the ability of players to influence the story (whether in part...or in whole). Unaris falls somewhere in the middle. I've found that certain people like the safety, structure, and balance that numbers (whether represented as scales, percentages, bell curves, etc.) add to play. They are people who take control of the situation by using math wisely. They know beforehand if they have a 15, 20, 45 or 64.345 percent chance of succeeding, and they make most of their play decisions based on this.

The other type of player is the narrative player, who's more interested in the story and how his/her character fits within it. They get into telling part of the story themselves, are intrigued by moral delimmas they face from time to time, and are constantly looking for opportunities to evolve both their character and the story they're participating in. I would think most people fall somewhere in between the two. And that's where'd I'd put Unaris.

BTW. If someone can point out some good threads for me to peruse on narrative terms TonyLB pointed out, I also would be thankful. Most of this I already had before I started hanging out at the Forge, but I've learned a lot from being here. And if you think I've gotten anything wrong, please point it out. I learn more from people's opinions and differences than anything.

Gary

[Ron Edwards]

Hiya,

If you're interested in the Forge terms for what you're talking about, then it's "Director Stance" and to some extent the nuances of "Narration." However, the actual technique of Hacking didn't have a name (and to my knowledge no one had quite articulated it properly) until you gave it one.

Best,
Ron

[Jonathan Walton]

Just thought I'd publically post a revelation I had while playing Unaris, something that wasn't apparent to me at all just reading the game text.  This is from a later PM that I sent Gary:

Unaris was fun. For one thing, I think you eased many of my concerns about the system. What doesn't come across in the text, I think, is that the system of comparing stats and stuff is really just a guideline for the GM's decision making. None of it ever appears out in the open during actual play. But having the system in the background allows the GM's decisions to be something besides just arbitrary judgment calls. It just provides some logic to the way the game works, which is cool. The only time any bits of system really appear in the open is when the players take damage.

Interesting. In most cases, the players wouldn't really need to know about comparisons or whatever. The GM just acts as the "computer" (taking the role of what a computer would do in computerized chat games like what Skotos does) and the players just need to know that having higher skills makes them more likely to succeed. But making sure that everyone knows the system and how decisions are being made is sort of reassuring, I suppose.

In case that wasn't clear to anyone else.