Amazonian Zombies on a Far Distant Desert Planet!

[Drew Stevens]

Alright, this game is really weird :)  I like it bunches.

We started with the tenets
1) The story would involve zombies.
2) Who are all amazonian.
3) And have vestal virgin priestess.
4) On a distant desert planet, like Dune.
5) With Star Wars technology, but no way to get off planet.
6) No Monty Python jokes (later expanded to all British humor)

We ended up with Norgoth, the sand whale, very confused ancient demi-god of the zombies (an imported / enslaved race, sent by very odd aliens as part of a bid to take over the galaxy), with the aid of Sean Ford (who had the Protagonist Halo, my favorite Trait of this game :) smashing the Zombie Weather Control Unit (refered to as ZWCU, pronouced the Zuwcoo), which had been keeping the planet a barren wasteland.

I'm still not quite clear on the path between points A and B.  I don't think it conformed to linear geometry.  Or non-Euclidian logic.  Or anything, really.

Just fear the sweet, sweet pungent scent of fresh zombie.

But ahem.  That isn't really the purpose of this post.  The purpose was the field a question which arose towards the end- that of Coin Farming.

When Norgoth was introduced, he was brought in as a massive six or seven trait critter, who almost entirely existed to create complications.  After only one such complication, win or lose, the creator has recouped their 'investment', while not neccesarily having really added much to the story.  And, while it didn't happen, the application of sub-components could render the same problem manifold worse- two zombies would have been rolling up to ten dice for a seven coin investment (zombies as a Master Component had five traits).

I dunno.  Have we misunderstood something on when/why complications occur?  I don't think coin farming was really meant to be used the way it was...

[Valamir]

Coins gained from Complications are a bit higher than I had initially envisioned, primarily because few games that I've played it involve as many Traits as I had initially envisioned.  This is obviously true of your game where you described Norgath as being a massive 6-7 trait creature.  In the roots of Universalis design, I was operating from the assumption that any decent supporting cast member would have 6-7 traits, the leads 13-15 and Norgath up from there.

Buying all those Traits costs alot of Coin, and eliminating Components that have that much Importance cost alot of Coin and so the Complication mechanic was designed to generate alot of Coins.

In practice supporting characters get 1-2 traits and main ones 4-5 so there are fewer Coins needed.  One could argue then that one should reduce the Coins generated in Complications (easily possible simply by switching to d6s using 1-3 instead of 1-5 for successes.).

However, in play I haven't seen the number of Coins generated in Complications become a problem.  Perhaps thats because the groups I've been with have not emphasised the potentially competitive nature of Complications as much as they have their cooperative conflict generating nature.

One thing that I have caught some groups doing is treating winning a complication as the right to just free narrate, like an MOV from the Pool.  In fact everything that is narrated as the result of a Complication must be paid for just like any other scene.  Individual actions and events, injuries, outcomes defined as new Traits etc. must all be payed for.  Usually if the outcome is significant a majority of the generated Coins are spent.  

Another aspect is the inflation controling nature of Challenges.  Challenges are won by bidding.  There is no fixed price for a Challenge.  So if something is important enough to spend 1/2 of one Coins on that's only 5 Coins if your total wealth is 10, but its 25 Coins if your total wealth is an inflated 50.  So challenges (and also turn bidding) can be an effective way to soak alot of surplus Coins out the game.

Anyone have any actual play experience where Complications generated so many more Coins that were needed that players wound up so wealthy that the value of Coins was deflated (in the sense that all players could afford to do everything they wanted without worrying about running out of money)?

[Drew Stevens]

Well...

The problem isn't so much one of 'coin inflation' as it is one of 'creating complications just to get more coins'.  As in, without really integrating the coin-getting from the complication into a deeper victory- just 'I'm low on coins, I'll create a seven+ dice complication and get refreshed by minimizing my narration and keeping most of my gain'.

The game definitly went on a kind of storytelling rollar coaster- we started kinda slow and bumpy (as no one really knew what we were doing, and most of us felt a bit silly), get progressivly more interesting as the first several components were introduced- and then dropped fairly rapidly towards the end, as several of the players (nearly broke) would interupt and take control of one large component to coin farm.

I suppose they could have been Challenged on their attempts to take control... eh.  It was more just a question by the end of the night, of wither coin farming was a bug or a feature that we hadn't implemented properly.

[Bob McNamee]

I guess the best advise is to be ready to Challenge poorly supported Complications.
You've already covered this above, but its something we all forget.
If its a weak little Coin-getter of a Complication with no real story impact, its ripe for a Challenge. If the Complicating Player isn't really doing it for story reasons, then they will be unlikely to back it up with Coins (since they are only trying to create them).

[Mike Holmes]

Right. There is no object of the game that says, "be the one with the most coins at the end". And nothing that says that since you get rewarded for Complications that you're under any less a compunction to produce good action. A person gets Coins from a Compication because he's being rewarded for putting significant tension into the story. If the person doesn't earn that, then it's up to the other players to ensure that he doesn't get paid.

People seem to have the impresson that Challenges are a last resort only to be used when people have gotten out of hand. But, really, they are a way for players to make clear to each other what they find interesting and compelling. If something is not compelling to you, then start in with the Challenges.

Just so you can see how much I mean this, the original rule for Complications during playtesting was that after the Complication was over, the person who started it got all the Coins spent during it, but only if the other players voted to allow it. Basically there was a Challenge at the end of every Complication. If you feel bad about calling these sorts of  challenges on an ad hoc basis, then perhaps you should put in a gimmick that calls for such a challenge after every complication (and is free to institute). A bit extreme, perhaps, but it will ensure that players only put in compelling Complications.

There are probably a number of other suggestions that people have to produce the same effect. Talk it over with the other players, and see what they think. It may be that a simple discussion is all it takes.

Mike

P.S. Damnit, what's up with zombies!! We shoulda labeled the game, Universalis: the unlimited Zombie story game. I thnk close to fifty percent of game reports include zombies, usually as Tenets. Wasupwidat?

[Drew Stevens]

Well, as to Zombies...

When you're first trying to explain Universalis, you need a premise that can quickly and easily grab a group's attention and get them focused on a genre, with it's unspoken conventions and what not- to let the group articulate both how they will and won't be conforming to those conventions.  And zombie movies are sorta deeply ingrained into our collective cultural brains.

In other words, it's easier at first.  Now, with a little bit of experience under my belt, I'd be more apt to push for something more modern horror/fantasy without zombies.  But, yeah. :)

As to that rules gimmick, I'm thinking I'll be implementing that. :)

[Valamir]

Challenges are excellent ways to stop Coin Farming.  Because they go right to the heart of what the player is attempting to accomplish...getting more Coins.

Consider.  Player A starts a Trivial Complication.  Player A is hoping that they can activate a bunch of traits, roll a bunch of dice and get a bunch of Coins to add to their wealth.

Player B Challenges Player A.  He's seen A do this before, the desired Complication is weak, and there is obvious Coin Farming going on (read: behavior the rest of the group doesn't like).  Now if Player B wins the Challenge, Player A can't do the Complication...period.  If players C and D side with player B then the three players can each throw in a couple of Coins and spread the cost around.  Player A will have to PAY a fair number of Coins in order to do the Complication...which may mean he winds up with a net loss on the deal.  Incentive for going ahead with the Complication is diminished.

Further the presence of Fines takes this another step.  If A is really abusive (in which case Universalis probably isn't for him anyway) he goes ahead with the Complication, the resolution of which is 1 Coin "nothing happens" and pockets the rest.  First, this can be Challenged (as Mike notes above) player B can say, "no I think those 12 Coins should be spent like this..." and if he wins the Coins get spent...period.  Further if Players B, C, and D are united in their dislike of this behavior...its Fine time.  Player A not only spent Coins to win a Challenge to do the Complication, but also didn't get to pocket any of the Coins from the Complication, and on top of that lost more Coins to the Fine.  Player A soon decides that either this game isn't for him, or that Coin Farming doesn't work quite as well as he thought it would.

Plus "Anti Coin Farming" language can be added as a Social Contract tenet.  This serves as a Fact.  During a Challenge against player A's Complication, if the other players are in agreement that this is a cheesy Coin Farming attempt which the rules specifically forbid, then their Coins are double for purposes of Challenging player A...making it even more expensive for A to attempt this tactic in the future.

I think the threat of this response to Coin Farming behavior, should be sufficient to squash any such behavior without having to resort to more drastic measures like we had originally had in place.

[Mike Holmes]

Coin Farming, heh. Reminds me of a term I've heard used with the Final Fantasy video games: Monster Ranching. refers to the stretches of the game wandering from point to point slaying monsters. They're the same thing, really. A senseless interruption of the game to aquire more of the currency that you need to proceed with the game. Fortunately one can play Universalis without Coin Farming (while it's impossible to do FF without slaying untold numbers of hapless creatures).

:-)

Mike

[Bob McNamee]

Don't forget too...
You can introduce a Rules Gimmick that says...
Rules Gimmick: 50%(or 75%, or whatever) of all Coins in a Complication must be spent during the Complication.

[Valamir]

Good point Bob.  That one hadn't occured to me.

The game doesn't really define what is abusive or just simply undesireable behavior.  Nor does it provide rules to prevent abuse.  But it does give ample opportunity for individual play groups to define what kind of behavior they find they don't like and many ways for them to collectively deal with it.

Hmmm, this thread could easily become the subject of another essay...

[Drew Stevens]

Another possible rules gimmick is that people can't end the scene with more than five coins (or whatever)- so hoarding becomes a mostly moot point when the scene ends.

[Mike Holmes]

Use em or lose em? Well, that prevents hoarding, yes, but it does not prevent Farming. I can still Farm, get coins, and then spend down before the end of the scene.

In general we decided to stay away from use em or lose em rules because that will cause people to create cruddy stuff when they have no ideas, but feel that the coins are being wasted if they don't make something. We decided that it's best to allow players to only create when they feel that they have someting to contribute. I personally like to hoard until everyone is down low, and take a lot of control and introduce something big all at once. Just a personal thing. Heck, if you want to, I like the idea of being a comlete spectator, and rarely if at all participating.

Audience Gimmick: player is rendered audience, and only gets a turn if he interrupts with a Coin.

A similar rule that we had, but chucked, is the idea that Passing costs a Coin (or, worse, one Coin for each successive turn that you passed). This leads to the same, "use it or lose it" mentality, however.

OTOH, I've always though that for those short on time that a Speed Universalis game could be created where you have only five seconds from the end of the last player's turn to create something or forfiet a Coin and pass (turns themselves would then be no longer than thirty seconds once begun). This would no doubt lead to some seriously bad stuff, but it might be interesting or hilarious as well.

Anyone daring enough to try Speed Universalis and let us know what happens?

Getting back to Drew's idea, however, a better hard limit is to give each player only one Complication per scene. That's not all that limiting, but prevents Farmng from becoming all that common. A player can Farm once a scene but then loses the ability to make a meanngful Complication. Makes him think twice about quality.

Mike

[Bob McNamee]

That last one's cool!
and much better than someone just creating crap in order to spend off that 50% of coins (which I hadn't considered).

[Tony Irwin]

Sounds like a cool game Drew. My only snippet to add is that I've also seen people use characters/components that were central to the story, in ways that were upsetting to others. Either because they were using them purely to win coins (and the coins weren't even being used to fund anything) or they were using them with disregard for the story logic that other players took for granted.

What we came up with was that traits should be viewed not just as "situational modifiers" either giving or removing a dice, but that clever selection of traits can be used to enforce story logic. For example:

I give Frankie the trait "loves Johnnie"

Now I get a dice when Frankie is protecting Johnnie or I can probably remove a dice from someone if they try to make Frankie attack Johnnie.

But what people forget is that any time someone uses one of these characters in a way that seems to defy that trait, I can challenge for it. I just say "Frankie loves Johnnie, so Frankie wouldn't do that". My coins are worth 2 for every 1 of theirs. People forget that I can challenge the complication before it ever gets as far as building dice pools.

A less subtle way to do it is with facts. You just declare a fact "Frankie loves Johnnie" or "Norgoth feels betrayed by the zombies" or even "Norgoth is slow to anger", and now you have the option to enforce some story logic when people want to introduce complications.

The thing about facts is that they're very obviously control mechanisms for your vision of the story. Soon as you introduce one, everyone (that I play with) starts thinking "How will this affect me and my interests". I'm going to share a really sneaky secret...

Bid ten coins to get to frame the scene. Use however coins u need to get some basic stuff in the scene. Then use the rest of those coins to create facts that complement and supplement each other. No one can take control and remove your facts until you've used up your winning bid or initiated an event. Another way to do this is after winning a complication and you get your uninterrupted opportunity to spend the coins you won.

Because your facts supplement each other if someone later says "Here's a coin to get rid of the Frankie loves Johnny fact" then you've got 3 other facts as a basis to challenge them doing that.
eg

Frankie loves Johnny
He was her man
She paid 100 hundred dollars for Johnny's new suit of clothes
She loves her man

All people can do is challenge your facts one by one as you introduce them (if you can even slip the first one by them then you've pretty much ensured you're in there to stay unless the whole table turns on you), or have a big vote to penalise you if they feel you're "at it" and fine you coins. (i've seen that happen)

Yeah people can, and will, still take control of these characters just to win coins but at least now you can pressure them to make sure that the complications are appropriate to what you envision for the characters and so aren't disruptive to the game.

Tony
She loved her man but he done her wrong

[Valamir]

Tony, I think I can safely say...you've truly got it.  

One of the hardest things to do when writing up the rules was to ditch the "I need to protect the game from abusive players" stuff, and the "I need to provide more motivation to do stuff" stuff.  As Mike noted above there were several things in the rules that lasted until very late in the revision process when I finally got the courage to say...screw it, I'm axing out all of this stuff and just rely on Challenges and Challenges bolstered by Facts.

Thankfully, it turns out that that is pretty much sufficient.

Special kudos to your sneaky secret.  Completely within the spirit of Framing the scene, and completely why in my essay I mention that having the right to frame scenes is a very influential position to be in.

Conversely, if you're looking for someone to throw a plot twist into the game, frame light.