Universalis in the classroom

Hi Ralph & Mike,

I just finished a class session for my course "Evolutionary Biology at the Movies," in which I used a slimmed-down version of Universalis for the 20-person class to construct a story in ~50 minutes.

We relaxed the "interjection" rules such that anyone could contribute features and components as they saw fit; challenge bidding served as the brake on that. The game had three turns, the second two of which were hotly bid for. Play started with 15 coins; each turn gave everyone 5.

I hadn't brought dice, but the class had gotten so into it that by the first conflict scene, I decided we needed them anyway. I improvised coins with heads/tails, which meant that the coins gained were equal to the number of heads for each side. Less coins that way, but with so many players, it was better, I think.

The key to the exercise (and I've done this before in a more Consensual Storytelling context, just round-robin) was to see whether the principles in the class could be used to construct a story from the spine out. Combining this with the rules of Universalis was very successful, and everyone

I will admit that a great deal of coins were spent in the bids that led to the main character being (a) a ninja, (b) named Jerome, and (c) female ...

... but the fight with the scorpion-guy, the scene in the shower with him after he'd been defeated and transformed into a human, and the final scene in which Jerome is crippled, his brother is killed, and the queen (his wife) is killed, and in which however their baby is saved, all in the fire-and-acid environment of the stomach of the big bad guy ... well, it was all good.

As for the course material, we see nepotism, mate assessment, sibling rivalry, and similar, all tying into the ideas of indirect and direct investment in fitness potential. Worked great to make what actually turned out to be a pretty punchy story.

All the students participated (unlike in the past with the CS-method, in which at least half always said "pass").

Best,
Ron