[Untitled] Reference and Questions

[Yokiboy]

Hello Keith,

One of my friends is very intrigued by Untitled the RPG, and I felt I had to wrap my head around the system before bringing it to the gaming table. I came up with this.

In doing this excercise I came up with a few questions. I know that you've previously stated that you don't particularly want to answer questions, but I haven't seen any Untitled actual play posts and think a few clarifications may be in order. If you agree, then please help me.

1) The rules say that by bringing in parts of the Maze into a conflict to benefit you "adds a card draw to that side," is that a draw equal to the number of cards originally drawn for the conflict, or do you mean a single card?

2) The player's mind fails in a conflict against more than one of The Others, is it only The Other which had the highest draw total who increases his Haze, all who beat the player's draw score, or just all of The Others?

3) What happens when the player's conflict card draw is equal to zero or less, does he get at least one card? Hate - Humanity, and Humanity - Hate could easily mean that both scores are zero, what then?

4) In conflicts versus the world, must one of The Others step up to play the role of the environment, otherwise which Haze score is used?

I also have a couple of playtest questions, given that I have yet to play the game.

5) How bad is it for the player to draw a "2", and face at least one of The Others with a Haze of "10"? Is it surmountable, should it be, is it more or less fun? What has your play experience shown?

6) When playing with less than eight players (which I always will be), I believe some attention must be paid to the selection of Aspects, so The Others have goals related to another character in play. A game where everyone plays unlinked Aspects cannot be nearly as much fun. Has this been your experience as well?

Lastly I'm still puzzling The Player's role, trying to sort out if we will play with The Player playing himself as in real life, playing you (Keith) as seen on the rapsheet, or another character all-together. The reason I'm pondering this is, that everything added to the Maze has to be important to the player, but if it's something improvised by one of The Others after drawing a Queen, who's to say that the player will give a lick? Or should he be motivated purely by the card draw bonus, and perhaps the chance to build hope (actually, this isn't bad, perhaps I just came across the solution).

Anyhow, cool game Keith, hope to play it before long.

If anyone else has play experience with Untitled, please answer my questions, I'd appreciate the help.

TTFN,

Yoki

[Keith Senkowski]

Hey Yoki,

The page you came up with for untitled is pretty fucking cool man.  I shall have to link to it from the untitled page...

1) The rules say that by bringing in parts of the Maze into a conflict to benefit you "adds a card draw to that side," is that a draw equal to the number of cards originally drawn for the conflict, or do you mean a single card?

I believe I meant a single card.

2) The player's mind fails in a conflict against more than one of The Others, is it only The Other which had the highest draw total who increases his Haze, all who beat the player's draw score, or just all of The Others?

Only the Other with the highest draw total.

3) What happens when the player's conflict card draw is equal to zero or less, does he get at least one card? Hate - Humanity, and Humanity - Hate could easily mean that both scores are zero, what then?

You always get at least one card to draw.

4) In conflicts versus the world, must one of The Others step up to play the role of the environment, otherwise which Haze score is used?

Yeah one of the Others needs to step up.  Nice pick up there.

I also have a couple of playtest questions, given that I have yet to play the game.

5) How bad is it for the player to draw a "2", and face at least one of The Others with a Haze of "10"? Is it surmountable, should it be, is it more or less fun? What has your play experience shown?

Well it ain't easy.  If you get the right Aspect draw (which doubles the total) against a shitty draw from the Other it can be pulled off.  But it is fucking hard and relies on a lot of luck.

6) When playing with less than eight players (which I always will be), I believe some attention must be paid to the selection of Aspects, so The Others have goals related to another character in play. A game where everyone plays unlinked Aspects cannot be nearly as much fun. Has this been your experience as well?

Yeah to get the most fun you need to make sure all the aspects are linked up.  If you get an odd man out, it is best to redraw for that sucka.  The key to the crazy shit is to have the Others fucking with and/or helping each other as well as the Playa...

Lastly I'm still puzzling The Player's role, trying to sort out if we will play with The Player playing himself as in real life, playing you (Keith) as seen on the rapsheet, or another character all-together. The reason I'm pondering this is, that everything added to the Maze has to be important to the player, but if it's something improvised by one of The Others after drawing a Queen, who's to say that the player will give a lick? Or should he be motivated purely by the card draw bonus, and perhaps the chance to build hope (actually, this isn't bad, perhaps I just came across the solution).

Whatever flips the playa's switch I say my man.  If playing himself does it (and can be fucking trippy as hell), then rawk on.  If playing me does it, awesome.  If playing himself being mistaken for me like Roger Thornhill, rawk on.  Whatever works to get him fired up about the game.

Glad ya dig this mother, my man.  Hope to hear some AP from ya (I don't get a lot of AP posts for anything I write, so it ain't surprising that I don't get any from this crazy ass game)...

Keith

[Yokiboy]

Lately I've been doing my AP posts in Swedish, given that we play in Swedish, and I feel the need to share some Story Now goodness with my fellow countrymen. I'll  do an exception once we get to Untitled though, now I feel ready to give this bad boy a good run for its money!

I think I'll watch Dark City, Memento, Cube and some other wacked out movies as prep.

Thanks for the help,

Yoki

[Yokiboy]

I updated both the page and the PDF with the answers from this thread. I also added a spiral background to the web page.

I have one final question. I know that the player selects the first scene, with the goal of gaining some Hope, after whatever conflict The Others surely will throw in his way. However, what do you normally go through as far as creating a setting, and situation? I will give the game another read through to see if it answers this for me.

It just seems like the game wouldn't really go anywhere unless the player is provided with some motiviation (kicker) to get him going. Sure he wants hope, but why? How much of the game should be shared with the player beforehand, is he already aware of the spiral? I don't want to just throw the game itself at the player prior to the first game - unless I take that role myself and have my usual players play The Others.

Anyway, I'm ranting, must get some sleep...

Later,

Yoki

[Keith Senkowski]

I dig the spiral on the page.  Very cool.

Hadn't really thought about the motivation.  I figured not going insane and committing suicide would be the motivation.  Dunno.  I guess the kicker in the text is the guy's search for his wife from his previous life that he remembers.  I think it is pretty much assumed he is aware of the spiral to some degree.

Either way, I guess a kicker is needed.  Probably should be in the text somewhere, a player designed Kicker before the creation on the spiral...

Keith