[Universalis] A fantasy epic in 3 hours (or How I took the Gloves off)

[hix]

This happened back in January last year, on the first day of Kapcon (our local convention).

Five players – Ivan, who I'd never met before. Margee was a friend from just hanging out with people we both knew. Jon and Nasia I'd only played with for the first time earlier that day. I'm the guy introducing them to Universalis, a game where you figure out what it's about as you play it – each person paying Coins to create elements of the world, introducing new characters and create conflict.

Here's the key to what happened next: if you don't like what someone else has introduced, you can Challenge it. At first you just talk it out, try and negotiate a solution. If that doesn't work, you can start a bidding war & other players can support or oppose what's being challenged as well.

So, the game starts with the Tenet phase, where you go around the group, stating one fact each about what you want the game to be about. I went first and suggested something I like to throw in, just to sound out where everybody's at, "This game's set in the Real World."

Immediate challenge from Ivan. "Screw that," he says, "I don't come to cons to play real world stuff." He took the turn and introduced Black Wolf, a wizard. Basically, he was introducing the world of Ralph Bakshi's movie, 'Wizards'. And I was uncomfortable with that – I didn't want the game to slavishly recreate the plot of an existing fiction.

Straight up, I told him what I was feeling, and said that I was going to mess with it. So that's the first thing – I've never been that overt before, and certainly never taken such an oppositional role.

"That's fine," said Ivan. "That's what the game's for." So he got it.

First thing I did was trash a major component – the city of Montegaria – which shocked the hell out of me, and I wonder if it shocked the other players.

Cool stuff that came out as the game went on:
- Everyone was comfortable with challenges.
- We created a full on fantasy epic in 3 hours. And it was gripping – I went to the toilet at one stage (and 'cos of the way Uni works, the game kept going without me), and can remember actually running back to the game because I wanted to know what I missed
- The most important components turned out to be a Dead Baby and a Prophecy. Players were wresting control of the Prophecy, trying to get the right to write down what it said.

There was a real creative tension – and each player contributed a different thing. There was the competitiveness between Ivan and me. Margee kept making these amazing, subtle connections between the different characters; Nasia focused on relationships and introducing elements that were epic in scale & usually concerned with religion and the Prophecy.

And Jon ... Jon kept blowing my mind, because he'd shift the timeline around so much. First scene – city laid to waste, epic confrontation between the villain and sort-of-hero wizards, a princess fleeing for her life. Jon gets the second scene, and says, "... Three months earlier."

Once we'd finished that scene, we cut back to the present day, in the ruined city, and kicked off a three-way chase across the planet. The heroes take refuge in Crusk, a safe haven surrounded by force fields that the wizards can't enter. And then Jon wins the bid for the next scene, and says, "... 20 years later.".

That's about it. There was a final conflict, which I wanted to kick off straight away but everyone else felt that that would be too soon – so we manoeuvred components around, introduced traits, set up an eclipse. Not much actually changed, but everybody felt comfortable enough after about 20 minutes to get things started.

After that resolved, we were approaching the end of the session and everybody was getting a bit drained. Epilogues were being narrated for other characters, but we couldn't figure out what to do with the two wizards who'd kicked the whole game off. "They die," said Margee, which everyone was satisfied with.

Full disclosure: there was a little bit just at the end of the game I wasn't happy with. Black Wolf, the wizard-villain, was definitely Ivan's component, and used all the Coins I'd won in the final conflict to buy-off every one of its traits, effectively killing it. Of course, we were never going to play this game again, but it still felt a little bitter, or like a pissing contest. Maybe I wasn't used to that level of competition.

Anyway, to mollify myself, I bought a new trait for Black Wolf, that he was lauded as a saint in the future of this fantasy world – which actually seemed consistent with all the crap he'd pulled and carnage he'd committed. It actually had helped bring about a better world.

That's the key to why I enjoyed this so much: full-on competition without acrimony gave Universalis a *zing* I'd never experienced before, and the whole game was incredibly satisfying as a result. Not just its usual unpredictable self, but tense - and I felt utterly involved in wanting to get an outcome I'd be happy with.

So, I guess I'm not sure what my focus is for this thread: Conflict is good. There are some games out there that encourage it (like Capes, from what I can tell). How about this as a starting point - what are some ways of encouraging people to engage in conflict?

[Simon C]

Hey! It's cool to hear about Universalis, and it's cool to hear from another indie gamer with a New Zealand connection (if I read the link in your footer correctly).  It seems like I'm discovering all these amazing gaming communities only after I leave the country. 

I'm really interested in how the late stage of the game works out in Universalis.  I've heard a lot about the early game, building the components of the setting, but what about the later game, when a lot of the key factors are decided, and it becomes a much more traditional sort of game? How do really tightly focused scenes, say, a conflict between two characters, play out? Can you give a description of such a conflict?  This is a bit of a selfish question - I'm interested becasue I haven't played Universalis and I want to know how the system works in actual play.  Maybe we can tie this in to your question - how do the rules drive conflict? - what are the consequences of conflict between characters?

[Valamir]

This is me doing a happy dance.

I love gloves off Uni..."Hell no, and here's a bunch of Coins to tell you exactly how much I really don't like that..." :-)

[Yokiboy]

Hello Hix,

Great post, you really make me wish I owned Universalis! We have the need for some pick-up play coming up, and Universalis seems to do that galantly.

So, I guess I'm not sure what my focus is for this thread: Conflict is good. There are some games out there that encourage it (like Capes, from what I can tell). How about this as a starting point - what are some ways of encouraging people to engage in conflict?

In my experience, I think the best ways to get people to engage in conflict is by starting them out with games such as Dogs in the Vineyard and Polaris, where conflicts are explicitly between players, not characters. That is, if your character has a conflict with my character, but we both want your character to succeed as players, then that's not a conflict. However, if you want to do something with your character in the game that I object to, then we turn to the game's conflict resolution mechanic and let it sort things out for us.

For me it basically comes down to Vincent's words of wisdom; "Say 'Yes' or roll the dice."

We used to have trouble with players deliberately avoiding potential conflicts, but this was after years of dysfunctional roleplaying. Now, after an 8-session Dogs in the Vineyard campaign, some Primetime Adventures, The Riddle of Steel, InSpectres, and even Dead of Night, we all fully trust each other and everyone singles in on conflict at all times. It is just great!

TTFN,

Yoki

[TonyLB]

Another thing that helps conflict is to make sure everybody at the table understands that getting into a conflict with someone is a way to help them and to help yourself.

When it's seen as a zero-sum game (i.e. if you win the conflict then you disempower your opponent) or a negative sum game (the only way to win is not to play) then conflicts are only a means to an end, and a sub-optimal means at that.

When conflicts are positive-sum game (the group as a whole wins a little any time a conflict comes up) then finding things to meaningfully conflict about becomes more of an end in itself.

Does that make any sense?

[Yokiboy]

Does that make any sense?

Hell yes! You could almost hear the audible click, when that fact was understood by the players in my old gaming group, after a couple sessions of Dogs in the Vineyard. Now we fully trust each other, and everyone understands that when someone picks a conflict with you, it is actually a thumbs up that you're helping make the story better (sort of like Fan Mail in PTA).

TTFN,

Yoki