Universalis Examples

[Valamir]

I've decided to take the opportunity of the next print run of Uni to do some major revisions to the text.  These revisions are looking to wind up much more dramatic than I iniitially had planned.  Game play will not be changing at all, but presentation and even chapter order will.

However all of the rearranging and the like will pretty much screw up the running example I have in the book about the Meadow People and the Slytheran.  The examples simply won't make sense in many cases if the chapter orders change because many of them build on the examples from prior chapters.

This leads me to ask the following question:  How important was that example to your understanding of how to play the game.  In some cases I used a single example of a segment of play to illustrate several game concepts going on at once (some that hadn't been introduced yet).  Was this method of presentation of the examples (and I'm only talking about the examples here) helpful or difficult to follow.

I'm concidering eliminating the running example altogether and replacing it with seperate unrelated examples that just illustrate a single concept from the immediate text.  If I do this however it will be difficult to present the examples in the current fashion of players around the table talking as if in a game.  So I need to know how valuable that presentation was to your ability to understand how to play.

[Stickman]

Personally I found the examples extremely usefull, and I really liked the manner in which they were coherent, so I think that's a good feature to keep. I wouldn't be too put out (I think) if all of the examples were in an appendix with good 'bookmarks' and instructions in text to refer to specific sections of the example (so I can read through the example as a whole, as well as dip in to see specific rules illustrated).

Uni's definately a game that is different enough to warrant a detailed example.

[Tobias]

The examples were quite useful. They're also what 'sells' the game to me - the rules I only really need to read to see whether I interpret the examples ('actual play') correctly.

The rules themselves are dry as dust.

[Jack Aidley]

I have to say I found the examples frequently over-complicated, and lacking in helpful information. The rules for Universalis aren't that complicated but the actual rule book left me pretty confused until I actually played the game when everything fell into place.

I think multiple, unrelated examples would be better for two reasons:

1. Firstly, I found the meadow example, well, twee and off-putting. Tiny guys on squirrels just didn't jazz with me. Using multiple examples should allow you to showcase the broad spectrum of genres that Universalis can comfortably deal with.

2. I felt the need to keep a story together got in the way of giving helpful examples. To my mind, ideally for each rule you'd have a) a simple example clearly laying out the basic concepts, b) one or more more complicated examples illustrating the possible ambiguities in the rules and how they are intended to be resolved.

If you are doing a new edition, one thing I would have found helpful is a condensed rules summary at the end of the book.

[Tobias]

Ah - good point on the multiple genres in multiple examples, though! That's something I was hoping to find as well. It may also help people who are having 'straight story' difficulties with Uni, to have some 'straight story' examples.

And miniature people on squirrels weren't a top choice in my head either, though it was 'different' enough to remember with amusement.

[Tony Irwin]

Seeing the way the players interacted during the examples was important for me because the game was just so "out there" that I couldn't imagine how it was played. I don't mean how the rules operate (which I think is very clearly described), but what are real people actually meant to be doing and saying during a game of this? For example back then I believed that any OOC dialogue was a disruption to play - that's how far away from Uni's play style I was.

Also seeing the way the players kept pushing forward the narrative with new scenes (through the linked examples) was good for me because it gave a feel for how you could join everything up. When I started playing we'd often come to a stop when it was time to bid for the next scene - none of us had been thinking in terms of "what could happen next". That's always been the GMs job. We'd often be four or five unrelated scenes into the game before we found a clever solution to bring stuff together.

Tony

[Christopher Weeks]

I found the running examples to be important.  I'd put in more examples if it were my book.  Maybe have grey boxes offset at the bottom of some pages with running example there, to highlight.  Also, you could keep it 'running' by having the same group play two or three different games, showing more of what Uni can do.

[Arturo G.]

I also find the way examples are presented very helpful. Knowing how the players interact and why is important. And I think the connected/coherent examples along the book helps.

On the other hand I also agree that different examples on a different settings will also be attractive to people.
For me, the meadow people example looked wry at first. But at the end I got into it. It's nice in the sense that it is so different than more typical settings, that it shows you can do what you want with Universalis.

Arturo

[Valamir]

Thanks everyone for the feedback.  As expected, the responses vary considerably.  Let me narrow down what the problem is I'm trying to overcome.

Currently the chapters in the book are arranged chronologically...that is in the order that you would experience them in play.  So first comes the Tenets phase, then comes the scene frameing and interruptions, then comes creating components, then comes using components in complications  because in any stock Uni game, that's the actual order of events...you're going to establish tenets before you start framing scenes, and your going to go through the bidding for scene process before you start createing components (typically).

This makes it very easy to have an ongoing play example through the book...because the example goes in chronological order (more or less) from setting up tenets to framing scenes using those tenets, to creating components for those scenes, to engaging those components in a complication...bing bing bing in a nice order that keeps the examples looking like an extended actual play write-up.

The problem is that this chronological presentation is less useful for learning the game from reading the book.  There is a fairly significant amount of references to concepts that haven't been discussed yet because even though you might actually play in order from tenets to scene framing to components, it helps to have some understanding of what the heck components are right from the start.  This is generally bad form in a rules set, but it was necessary to make the example work.

I'm now thinking of rearranging the chapters significantly.  Chapter 1 has already been 100% rewritten.  It was the best I could do 3 years ago but now with hundreds of hours of actual play a couple of thousand forum posts and a whole slew of other games which have since tackled describing similar issues I can do a much better job.  The new Chapter 1 basically starts with a conceptual overview of play from beginning to end (drawn from the getting started essay on the website) and I think it's much better.

From there, however, I was going to go straight into the chapter describing Components and Traits.  I describe Traits as the "building blocks" of the game but currently they're buried back in Chapter 4 yet frequently referenced earlier on.  I'm actually thinking of breaking this chapter in half and putting the basic Components, Traits, and Importance stuff up front and save the more advanced stuff (ownership, possessions, master components) for a later "advanced" chapter. 

If I do this, however, the chronological example of play becomes almost impossible


So, more refined questions:
1) would rearranging the chapters to put them in a conceptual importance order rather than a chronological order help folks learn to play from the book?  If so, what order makes the most sense to you?

2) would there be enough value to this to be worth sacrificing the on going play example and instead go to more independent snippet examples?

3) or would having a beginning to end overview of what Universalis play looks like right in Chapter 1 mitigate most of the egregiousness of making reference to rules found in later chapters found in the current chapter order (since those concepts will at least have been mentioned already) making it possible to keep the current chapter order and hense keep the chronological example?

[Arturo G.]

For me the order of the chapters was ok, except for the lack of that clearer overview of the game. I was having the feeling that I was constantly looking forward to something that will be explained in the next chapter or two. I was a little dissapointed by it while reading, but at the end all my expectations were fullfilled.

I think that your new chapter 1 will put in the readers mind what he needs to perfectly follow the text with the current structure. The forward references will be better understood.
IMO, the current structure has another advantage. It's also going from simpler to more complex things to understand by someone used to more classical RPGs. Understant the tenets-definition phase is easy, but a key to understand how setting/mood is fixed up, and it naturally leads to challenge. Well, you know better than me the reasons for the original structure.

Arturo

[Darren Hill]

I've just recently got the game, and it is confusing for me having to read references to lots of concepts before you know what they are. I think this reorganisation is a very good idea.

[matthijs]

Sounds like you're doing the right thing, to me. Both the new concept-based presentation, and the use of shorter examples (from multiple genres), would have helped me a lot the first time I read Universalis. As you know, it took me almost a year from I bought it until I played it, because I found the book hard to get through.

[Tobias]

I still like the chronological order. It's drawbacks would be nicely compensated by your new chapter 1.

Perhaps you could have both the 'running timeline' examples, and a few more seperate examples from other genre's.

(Ahhh, the idylls of costless pagecount).

Of course, given the possibilities of the internet, you could put added examples, matching to the book, on the internet, and provide brief references in the book to them. (Say, the storyline examples are all in the book, and in the end of a section you can say. 'See also examples #1 and #2 on the web-page'.)

[GreatWolf]

I do not have my copy of Universalis at hand, so I can't do a complete comparison.  Offhand, though, your suggestion seems good.  I think that the conceptual organization of the book makes much more sense.  I learned how to play directly from you, but the rulebook still confuses me.  I also like the idea of an "advanced" chapter.  There are a number of rules that (IMHO) clutter the design a bit.  I'm thinking of the following rules:

Fade to Black
Framing scenes out of chronological order
Possession rules

These all seem to make sense as Gimmicks, though.

In addition, there are some rules that should be a part of the base ruleset but can be confusing to explain to a new player.  I'm thinking specifically of Master Components here.

How's this for a chapter order?

Introduction and Overview
Traits and Components
Scenes
   --Framing
   --Playing
   --Ending
Complications
Example of Play
Advanced Rules

The "Example of Play" chapter would be one long example of play, spanning one or two scenes in order to illustrate the major rules of the game.  (This could be a trick to write, but it's easy to make suggestions!)  I'm thinking of something along the lines of the Nobilis example of play.  As you can see, it's a sizeable chapter, but it provides a large enough sample of play so that the reader can figure out how the rules are applied in actual play, as well as seeing what actual play "feels" like.  Once you've read this chapter, you know what Nobilis plays like.  This is probably what you should do for Universalis, in addition to having examples scattered throughout the text.

[daHob]

I think putting a long example of play (I'm thinking of the ones found in the Amber book) near the front of the book is a good idea. The basic gameplay of Universalis is pretty simple, but like many simple things is hard to explain. If you write the example cleverly, you can pull sections of it into the later text as specific examples of rules.

Hob