Universalis Plot Threads

[matthijs]

We tried out Universalis at this year's HolmCon (hopefully the first of many). The sessions were fun, but sprawling and unfinished. Later, I talked a bit about how I wanted some sort of mechanism for keeping stories together, specifically an incentive for players to build on each others' plots and end them in a satisfying way. Here's a rough and basic idea.

The Plot Thread is a component defined as "an unresolved conflict". It costs one coin to create, and must be given an appropriate name. Each Component named in the Plot Thread costs a coin.

Each time a Plot Thread is introduced into a scene (for one coin), it gains a point of Weight.

When a Plot Thread is resolved, the player resolving it gets its Weight in coins.

However, it's fully possible to Challenge the resolution of a plot thread - for example if it's premature, silly or whatever.

EXAMPLE:

The thread "Balthazar desires the throne" costs 3 points - one to create, and one each for the (existing) components Balthazar and the Throne. At some point, Balthazar is almost dying, but has a vision of the throne - I pay a coin to introduce the thread into the scene, and it gets a point of Weight. Later, another player narrates Balthazar looking in the window of the palace from the darkness outside, admiring the splendor of the throne - pay one coin to introduce, the thread now has Weight 2. Later, again, another player wants to resolve the thread. Pays a coin to introduce it, narrates how Balthazar poisons the old king and finally gets the throne. If nobody challenges, the player gets 2 coins for resolving. (Somebody else might want to resolve by destroying the throne and the entire kingdom, or having Balthazar realize he's unfit to rule).

Not sure how this fits in with the philosophy behind Universalis' currency.

[CPXB]

I'm not sure I like the precise implementation but I think the idea is pretty damn good.

The problem I have with the implementation is that, first, why bother increasing the plot thread's weight?  The odds of you getting any return on it are, ultimately, not very good -- a skilled gambler would say, "Let other people increase it's weight and I'll swoop in and make bank."  Which is a cynical way of thinking about it, but I played in one game where I'm sure one of the players would think exactly that way.

The second and perhaps more subtle problem is . . . if a plot point becomes quite weighty, when it is resolved whoever resolved it might gain a huge amount of currency all at one time, allowing an effective "takeover" of the game.  While it is broadly my experience that players who bother to play Universalis don't hoard their coins, it's something to be aware of.

[matthijs]

What I'm after is some sort of reward for following up a thread, and a fairly substantial reward for actually resolving it. I want players to build dramatic tension by using threads, and I want them to be resolved during play. There might well be better mechanisms for this... suggestions?

[Mike Holmes]

Without adjusting the rules at all, people do this all the time by just introducing Traits like "Destiny to Marry Emma." The reward for including these is the free coins that one gets for linking back to these. So it happens quite naturally in play that I've seen.

That said, what you've proposed, Matthijs, sounds very much like the story arc gimmicks that I remember having been posted on the Universalis site (which seems to be down right now, so I can't link to them).

These almost did make it into the book, BTW. One of the reasons that they didn't is because often times this seemed to channel players from an early time. That is, you'd know where the game was going, and the revelations that happened in the end weren't as fun.

Again, my experience matches Ralph's that people do drive to conclusions on stories and so that there is no big need for something like this. I would agree that all sorts of potential plot threads to get dropped along the way - Universalis stories are very "hairy" this way, with little threads hanging off all over that never get resolved. I'd argue that your system won't help that, however. It'll just make it more likely that certain threads do get closed. Which won't stop people from more or less accidentally opening up more.

So I think you may never have a solution to the dangling plot thread problem. To overcome that, you'd have to have some tenet set up that said that before the story could end that all of the threads had to be woven back together or something. The problem of which is that sometimes there's just no interesting way to do this, and still tell the story that comes to mind.

Anyhow, as with any gimmick, I say try it out and see if it works for you. If it does, let us know how it did. I certainly don't think that such a gimmick can ruin your game or anything. What I'd be really interested to see is how much the rule gets used, and for what.

Mike

[CPXB]

The first of my problems could be fixed through having the plot thread increase in weight without anyone spending any coins on it.  Perhaps each scene it is addressed it gains weight by 1 or 2 coins.  I'd also cut down starting a plot point to 1 coin.  

That this does it make it easy for anyone to start a plot thread.  They won't care about losing 1 coin, tho' they might hesitate if they have to spend 3 or 5 or more to do it.  It'll also make them more likely to create complex plot threads.

And by having the plot thread gain weight automatically, it means that one person won't invest a ton of coins in it to have a person who didn't invest anything snatch them all up with a clever resolution.