Universalis and the straight story

[nilsderondeau]

Hello all,

Finally have a copy of the game in question after an extended and very interesting correspondence with Mr. Holmes.  Have also been following the GCP wiki.

This seems the right forum to wonder whether Universalis is likely to be produce a straight story.  By a straight story I mean one completely distant from RPG tropes of violence, magic, and other kewl stuff.  Could one cook up TRISTRAM SHANDY, WUTHERING HEIGHTS, or TO THE LIGHTHOUSE in play?  (I can easily anticipate the laconic responses this question engenders, so perhaps we can simply assume such responses have already been made, okay?)

I feel emboldened to put the question as there seems to be some thought (in the Paranoia thread at least) about how to reach nongamer audiences.  I'm still sort of floored by the innovation--revolution--represented by Universalis.  I think we're going to be figuring out how to use it for quite some time.  I'm fascinated with the idea of using it as a writers' tool and love how tenets play to audience agenda.  Reading Universalis play is a little like reading accounts of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's famous Mexico City writers workshop wherein participants advanced conditions and produced poignant twists, subthemes, etc.  (Writers' workshops in the U.S. are much more pretentious, grim, and useless).

Have more to say, of course, but my want to say more is outweighed by my want to see what you all have to say.

Cheers,
N.

[Valamir]

Great question Nils.

I think Uni is perfect for such "non gamer" play.  Mechanically everything is rated exactly the same so whether your Traits are "flaming sword x2" and "Dragons Breath x5" or "Pouty glances x2" and "Air of Indifference x5" it all works the same.

I think the key to producing such play is two fold.  First, play a couple of games of Uni completely open without any expectation of getting to a story that is even marginally good literature.  In my experience it takes a few games for players to get their feet under them, figure out the flexibility of the system, and get comfortable with the the level of ownership and responsibility they have.  Early games have a tendency towards farce because its easier to generate low humor than high drama and less embarassing to "screw up".  Once players get over the fear of "screwing up" I've found them much more prone to generating good meaty stories.

Secondly its all in the initial genre Tenets.  Its perfectly acceptable to use "Like Wuthering Heights" as a Tenet.  It might also be a good idea to get everyone on the same page about which specific aspects of WH (or the other sources) you want to really highlight.  If everyone is equally committed to the source literature and playing a game based on it, it should work easy as pie.

What doesn't work as well is trying to go it alone.  Uni gives lots of tools for players to signal other players what they like and don't like but those tools generally don't function well (nor are they intended to) if used by one player to police others who aren't as committed. 

The key is all in that initial preparation phase.  Most Uni play tends to blow through that phase pretty quickly with just a bare skeleton of some ideas.  The rest is created in play and that tends to produce fairly genre mixed slightly kitchen sinky games.  The more time you spend outlining tenets in the beginning (especially well chosen ones, which may not always be the obvious ones) the more coherent a story you can get.

[nilsderondeau]

First, play a couple of games of Uni completely open without any expectation of getting to a story that is even marginally good literature

This is, of course, important when attempting to write acceptable literature.  Nothing compromises your efforts faster than "trying to be good."

Secondly its all in the initial genre Tenets.  Its perfectly acceptable to use "Like Wuthering Heights" as a Tenet.  It might also be a good idea to get everyone on the same page about which specific aspects of WH (or the other sources) you want to really highlight.  If everyone is equally committed to the source literature and playing a game based on it, it should work easy as pie.

This is why I'm so fascinated with what I've seen of UNI and FATE play: the efficiency with which they invoke genre tropes and then bend them.

The key is all in that initial preparation phase.  Most Uni play tends to blow through that phase pretty quickly with just a bare skeleton of some ideas.  The rest is created in play and that tends to produce fairly genre mixed slightly kitchen sinky games.  The more time you spend outlining tenets in the beginning (especially well chosen ones, which may not always be the obvious ones) the more coherent a story you can get.

So, what sort of tenets do imagine would provoke what I'm calling a straight story?

[Andrew Morris]

So, what sort of tenets do imagine would provoke what I'm calling a straight story?

Well, the most obvious one would be, "The story takes place in the real world, with no supernatural elements." You can add a bunch more, but Tenents aren't any more complicated than that. Like Ralph said, "Like Wuthering Heights" is a perfectly acceptable Tenent.

[Christopher Weeks]

What about stuff like: for every trait a character has that is not a 'personality' trait, that character must have two 'personality' traits?  Mike once suggested (I think) creating Character Components for the characters' subconcious, etc to set up internal complications.

[Valamir]

There's a variety of Tenets that could work.  I think the more specific and actionable, the better.

Something like "All true love affairs must end tragically", "Every character must have a romantic interest in another character as a Trait", "Every character who is married must have a trait that expresses disatisfaction with their spouse", "Every character must identify another character as their confident whom they'll tell everything to as a Trait".

Whatever subset of those stories you used as an example that you find most appealing, try to identify characteristics that will lead to similiar situations in the game.

Depending on what flavor of story you want to do (and I caution against kitchen sinking it) there are a variety of ways to introduce some good Gimmicks as well.  The one about having the characters subconcious (or conscience) as a seperate character could work very well...how perfect for a character like Hamlet...

[Tony Irwin]

Hi nilsderondeau,

Good luck with your first game - I look forward to hearing about it. Like Valamir said I think one of the most important things you can do is get some good tenets going right at the start of the game. Rather than just saying "No magic", try for something like "The game is set in Charles Dicken's London". A tenet like that automatically rules out guns and magic but it's also set out an ideal that people can create towards and helps inspire people to riff off of it. You're saying "let's have none of that, but lots of this," just with one coin.

Once you've put tenets into play it's going to be your responsibilty to enforce them through using the challenge mechanic and possibly even the fine mechanic. Say someone comes out with this...

Flora (1 coin)
She has a heart of gold (1 coin)
Her mother (1 coin) is dying of tuberculosis (1 coin)
She's a pick pocket (1 coin)
She uses sorcery to distract people while she robs them (1 coin)

You have to immediately challenge that kind of thing and say to your friend "I don't remember any sorcerors in the Dickens that I've read" and spend coins to force them to modify Flora. The Universalis system won't put magic or guns into the game - it's the players that put it in there and it's up to the other players to do anything to stop it.

So again, like Ralph said, who you play with is really important. Unless everybody wants a straight story (which first means getting everyone really clear on what you mean by a "straight story") then you won't get one. Also I suggest that every time you make a tenet or create a character or anything, take some time to talk to the group about why you've created it and what you hope to do with it - like "I thought she could be some comic relief," or "I thought she could be a love interest for the school teacher". I find with Universalis it can be exciting to plan twists and ironies to surprise everyone but when people get secretive about what they're doing it can cause unhappiness when someone takes control of their components and uses them in a different way.

Good luck!

Tony

[Valamir]

Also I suggest that every time you make a tenet or create a character or anything, take some time to talk to the group about why you've created it and what you hope to do with it - like "I thought she could be some comic relief," or "I thought she could be a love interest for the school teacher". I find with Universalis it can be exciting to plan twists and ironies to surprise everyone but when people get secretive about what they're doing it can cause unhappiness when someone takes control of their components and uses them in a different way.

I recommend doing that directly with Traits. 

"Comic Relief" is a perfectly valid Trait for Flora.  And quite useful in Complications as players will have to actually narrate something humorous in order to get the die...which reinforces that aspect of the character.

When Flora is created I wouldn't shy away from immediately adding "Has a romantic interest in Flora" as a Trait for the school teacher, or "believes school teacher has a thing for me" as a Trait for Flora.

As a rule, if there's anything you eventually hope to see arise in play, think about how to set up the Traits now so that other players will help get you there.

[Tony Irwin]

"Comic Relief" is a perfectly valid Trait for Flora.  And quite useful in Complications as players will have to actually narrate something humorous in order to get the die...which reinforces that aspect of the character.

Geez that's smart. A tenet is used to punish people for breaking it - but traits like that will reward people for bringing them into play. Will there be a second edition soon with a big "How to excel!" section at the back with all this in it?

nilsderondeau,

I was thinking about this and a good one I remember using was when we declared that a few of the characters would die before the end of the game. It meant that all the love affairs between them became very poignant as we all knew how tragically they were going to turn out in the end. I think I'd been to see Romeo & Juliet a few days before. Even something like "X is destined to be with Y" or "X is destined to betray Y" can be great as then it becomes a big focus in the game watching the characters fluctuate between moving away from or towards their destinies. I've had good fun with the betrayal one - playing something like that near the start (just after everyone's finished lovingly building up their nice characters and creating a happy world for them to live in) can really shock everyone and propel the game forward.

Tony

[Bob McNamee]

Geez that's smart. A tenet is used to punish people for breaking it - but traits like that will reward people for bringing them into play. Will there be a second edition soon with a big "How to excel!" section at the back with all this in it?

...
Tony

Keep in mind the Tenets can be called on for dice as well as traits. They aren't just for enforcing Challenges.

They are kind of like master component traits for the entire game sometimes.

Though, We don't usually allow calling on dice for Tenets that are so general they apply every time you turn around like perhaps "Dragon Lance fantasy" where the chars are modeled around book chars, in the book world... we don't allow a die for everything that happens there.
In the case of a Tenet like ..."All the dirty deeds happen at night".. we would allow a free die in support of any dastardly actions occuring at night.

Perhaps we should allow the Dragon Lance  style tenet for dice too...it does enforce the genre desired. We tend to try to keep dice levels down. There certainly wouldn't be anything wrong with it.


Bob McNamee

[nilsderondeau]

Tony,

Yes, I was thinking along the lines of such limiting tenets as well.  Something like "Peace Imperative": There can be only one scene of violence in the whole story; or, even, "Cormac McCarthy Grins Red": There must be one death in every scene.    I think one I would almost always insist on, regarless of genre--and especially in forum games--would be "Time is an Arrow": One scene follows another in time (no flashbacks).  I think another reason that the forum games bifurcate interestingly but fail to resolve is the lack of a tenet like "Wherever You Go, There You Are": Story is to take place in one location.

One of the things you learn as a writer is that limitations are extremely enabling.  I've make private little rules like these ever since I began to write.  At the same time I can see how laying down a lot of metafictional tenets such as the ones you mentioned and those above might cut against what I take to be the effervescent aspect of UNI play.  (What do you think?)  As far as actual play goes, I'm completely naive.

Cheers,
N.

[Valamir]

Keep in mind the Tenets can be called on for dice as well as traits. They aren't just for enforcing Challenges.

They are kind of like master component traits for the entire game sometimes.

Actually Bob, not by the rules.

But that would make a really keen gimmick.

[Bob McNamee]

Oops...well i guess we drift a bit sometimes :)

Thats what happens when you think you remember the rules without actually reading them once in a while :)

Bob

[komradebob]

Oops...well i guess we drift a bit sometimes :)

Thats what happens when you think you remember the rules without actually reading them once in a while :)

Apparently a syndrome to guys named Robert, since I've been doing the same thing without realizing it wasn't an actual rule...

[nilsderondeau]

So, would anybody be up for seeing how twisted a straight story can become?  PM me if any of the above stirs your interest and we'll set up a game.