New Gimmicks

[Alan]

Gimmick: No buying new traits during a Complication.  The ban covers all components, whether they're in play or not.  Once the dice are rolled and results tallied, the ban is lifted.

Comments: This moderates a tendency for surprise traits to appear when needed.  It encourages players to add traits in regular play and to think up justifications for dice bought for the Complication itself.  


Gimmick: No more named characters may be created.

Comment: I bought this gimmick halfway through a a game.  I thought we had enough major characters and wanted play to focus on them, instead of new, last-minute creations.  Strangely, limiting the ability to name characters did indeed limit the creation of new major characters.

I originally proposed something different, but Wil (Rafial) challenged it and suggested the named character restriction as a compromise.  Below is another idea I had for the same purpose:


Gimmick: No character may gain more than one new, neutral or advantageous trait per turn.

Comment:  This is intended for introduction after major character's have been introduced, to limit burgeoning casts.

[Mike Holmes]

Gimmick: No buying new traits during a Complication.  The ban covers all components, whether they're in play or not.  Once the dice are rolled and results tallied, the ban is lifted.

Comments: This moderates a tendency for surprise traits to appear when needed.  It encourages players to add traits in regular play and to think up justifications for dice bought for the Complication itself.  

This sounds corrective. One idea surrounding teh development of Complications was that they were really appropriate places for Traits to appear. Yes, in stories quite often you find out something about a character right in the middle of some complication. It's cool.

I can't imagine why you'd want to stop that. Was it creating some problem? Or were you trying to transition the game to a more Sim feel? Or were people just not creating anything outside of Complications?

Gimmick: No more named characters may be created.

Comment: I bought this gimmick halfway through a a game.  I thought we had enough major characters and wanted play to focus on them, instead of new, last-minute creations.  Strangely, limiting the ability to name characters did indeed limit the creation of new major characters.

Neat. Good story control.

You could just have said, "No major characters." But naming them is a very clear line. It would be odd, however, if someone decided at that point to create a "man with no name" sort of character in volation of the spirit of the Gimmick.

Gimmick: No character may gain more than one new, neutral or advantageous trait per turn.

Comment:  This is intended for introduction after major character's have been introduced, to limit burgeoning casts.

I like that. It means that stuff can't be introduced at greater than "story pace", which I'll define as the pace at which the story is being told.

Often in Universalis, people will glom a whole bunch of Traits on something at once, without narration. In some games it's very cool to require that Traits only be allowed to be introduced with sufficient narration to back them up. Thus, we only get the mechanical description at the same time as we get a narrative demonstration of the trait. Thus, you couldn't just give a character a shotgun. You'd have to narrate first, "As Billy walks down the dusty street, passersby can see the barrel of a shotgun protruding over his shoulder where he has it slung."

Cool stuff.

Mike

[Alan]

Gimmick: No buying new traits during a Complication.  

This sounds corrective. One idea surrounding teh development of Complications was that they were really appropriate places for Traits to appear. Yes, in stories quite often you find out something about a character right in the middle of some complication. It's cool.

I can't imagine why you'd want to stop that.

When we first started play, people would buy Marksmanx3 in the middle of a complication.  I'm okay with revelations in conflict, but this wasn't very creative.

An alternate gimmick for this purpose was:

No component may have multiple traits, except to represent numbers.

so instead of Marksmanx3, I'd hope to see Marksman, Eagle Eye, Combat Reflexes, or the like.

[Mike Holmes]

Ah, I get it. I like that alternate method. Cool.

Mike

[Valamir]

Alan initially sent this to me in an email.  In my reply I suggested the following:

For the first gimmick, I'd distinguish between a set-up scene and a climactic scene (fighting the level boss, so to speak).  I wouldn't restrict adding traits to characters in the middle of Complications during the set-up scenes but I can definitely see a cool effect from restricting it from climactic scenes (A climactic scene could simply be a Trait bought for the scene during Framing).

This would mean that you'd still have the opportunity for all of those cool "Betcha didn't know James spent 3 years as a ski instructor in Aspen, didja?" moments...during the set-up scenes where the Complications are there to establish the conflict.  But during the big Climactic "encounter" you'd better have all of your ducks in a row...no more pulling rabbits out of the hat.

This could actually be combined with a gimmick that said Traits could only be purchased during Complications to some effect.  You'd really have an old "side scroller" feel to the game then I think.


For the second gimmick, another gimmick along the same lines is to name 1 character as the "Main Protagonist".  No other character in the story can ever have an Importance higher than the "Main Protagonists" except for the "Main Antagonist".  A variant would allow each player to select 1 main character for an ensemble cast.  No other character can have an Importance higher than the highest Main Character.

[Mike Holmes]

I could see the "no climax scene Traits" gimmick I suppose, but still...

I am reminded of the last scene of Wizards (paraphrasing from memory):

"Here's a little trick momma never taught you!"

I think that Luke picks up a level or two of Master Jedi or Enlightenment or something in his final fight against Darth Vader. Not as a result, but in the middle. You know, when he turns off his light sabre. It's those levels, and not his lightsabre fighting or even his control of The Force that turn the tide in the end and get his father to come back to him.

How often do we see new levels of Determination emerge in Heroes during climaxes. Hell, Ripley of Alien fame must have ten levels by the time the last movie rolls around.

I'd just stick to Challenging hard to get the level of quality that's needed. Challenge away weak additions, but let the appropriate ones stand. That's what I'd do.

Still, I can understand the sentiment. Players should realize that they need to be building to a climax, and that means revealing along the way, not just waiting for the climax.

How about the Gimmick that was discussed previously? Where you can only add one Trait per Complication. That ought to keep quality high, no?

Mike

[Mike Holmes]

Following up on the previous post...

For the second gimmick, another gimmick along the same lines is to name 1 character as the "Main Protagonist".  No other character in the story can ever have an Importance higher than the "Main Protagonists" except for the "Main Antagonist".  A variant would allow each player to select 1 main character for an ensemble cast.  No other character can have an Importance higher than the highest Main Character.

I like that. Not too different from the PC rule we played with the other night that included the standard doubling of PC importance. Just drops the control rules.

Mike

[rafial]

As as player in the game where Alan tried the "no traits during complications" rule, I have to say I enjoyed the effect.

First, it kept dice pools small.  Although people still spent coins to improve their pools during complications, it was always temporary, instead of characters powering up to higher and higher levels.  This was especially nice for our chosen genre (20's adventure pulp serial) which doesn't generally feature massively superhuman characters.

Second, because buying dice for pools has to be justified, this led to much narration of cool tactics and evironmental effects that we hadn't had in the past.  For example, at one point I justified buying a die during a fight on the World Crime League Zepplin, by stating that the Zepplin hit some turbulence, causing a character to lose his footing.  Someone else siezed on that idea to buy another die stating that the turbulence shook a tray off a high shelf which hit another character on the head.  And so forth.

Third once I got used to the idea that characters needed to prepare for their showdowns ahead of time, it lead to some neat foreshadowing. For example at one point I narratated a character strapping on his six-gun, because I knew he was headed for trouble, and I wanted that extra die in any upcoming complications.

[Valamir]

Second, because buying dice for pools has to be justified, this led to much narration of cool tactics and evironmental effects that we hadn't had in the past.  For example, at one point I justified buying a die during a fight on the World Crime League Zepplin, by stating that the Zepplin hit some turbulence, causing a character to lose his footing.  Someone else siezed on that idea to buy another die stating that the turbulence shook a tray off a high shelf which hit another character on the head.  And so forth.

A wonderful technique.  I'd given an example or two of this in the rules, but I've only seen players really get into it play after they've had a bit of experience.

I will note just for clarity that adding traits to characters during a complication also has to be justified.  So its not enough to simply add "Combat God x3"  it has to be added in a manner justified like the above.  

Oce I got used to the idea that characters needed to prepare for their showdowns ahead of time, it lead to some neat foreshadowing. For example at one point I narratated a character strapping on his six-gun, because I knew he was headed for trouble, and I wanted that extra die in any upcoming complications.

An excellent adaptation to the presence of the gimmick.  

I'm extremely pleased to see gimmicks like this work.  This post illustrates 100% the entire purpose of the Rules Gimmick rule and leaving so much of the game open to customization.  If the game feels better to you with such a gimmick...then its a good one.  That's the only rule of gimmicks really.  Kudos.

[Bob McNamee]

Hey, that's a neat idea.
I've always been inclined to add Facts to everything because I didn't much see the point in spending the Coins just to have them vanish after a Complication ends.
Just spending Coins on 'influences' during the Complications keeps things neat and tidy on the old index card!
So now I can self-justify what's in the rules!
Thanks for the example!

[rafial]

I will note just for clarity that adding traits to characters during a complication also has to be justified.  So its not enough to simply add "Combat God x3"  it has to be added in a manner justified like the above.  

Could you give an example of what you mean here?  After all, if we haven't learned much about "Bob" other than that he is a "Nattily attired stranger", why shouldn't he be a "Combat God x3"?

Specifically, it seems trait creation is often "revealing a previously unseen aspect of the character" so it is much easier to rationalize stuff than coming up with justifications for situational dice, which need to be drawn from the current environment.

Switching focus, I've thought of two varients to the initial gimmick that might be interesting to explore.  One is to charge 2 coins to add traits during complications, thus allowing the "hidden side" of a character to emerge, if somebody really thinks it is justified, while still encouraging the use of "one shot" dice since they are now cheaper.  We actually saw something like this happen, where a character had a die purchased for them during a complication, stating that they were picking up a tommy gun that another character had dropped, and then when the complication was over, spending another coin to make the new gun "permanent".

The other idea is to say that characters above say, importance 6, can no longer add traits during complications.  This would allow newly introduced characters to "power up" but then require further character development to be done OOC (out of complication ;)

[Valamir]

Could you give an example of what you mean here?  After all, if we haven't learned much about "Bob" other than that he is a "Nattily attired stranger", why shouldn't he be a "Combat God x3"?

Well lets see.  In the Pregnant Pope game we had a number of these.  The bodyguard entered a sword fighting complication with the Cardinal.  During the Complication, Jake announced that the bodyguard was a "veteran of many wars" as a trait which was used to justify his skill with a sword and other toughness related things.  I (siding with the Cardinal) used that trait to justify assigning the body guard a trait of "lost 1 eye" during one of those wars.  Similarly when I determined in the midst of the fight that the Cardinal fought with a left handed dagger and that the dagger was poisoned (as Traits) I justified the first because the Cardinal was Italian and fought with the Florentine syle, and justified the poison as part of his established schemeing, win-at-all-costs nature.

You are correct that it is easier (to a point) to build on a character in this way than to manipulate the immediate environment, but what is built about the character in the middle of the complication should be just as sensible and reasonable as if it were built about the character outside of the complication.  If making Bob a "Combat God x3" wouldn't make sense normally in the course of who Bob is and what he's doing in the story, than it wouldn't make sense to try it in the middle of a Complication either.

Switching focus, I've thought of two varients to the initial gimmick that might be interesting to explore.  One is to charge 2 coins to add traits during complications, thus allowing the "hidden side" of a character to emerge, if somebody really thinks it is justified, while still encouraging the use of "one shot" dice since they are now cheaper.

That was actually a standard rule (at my insistance over Mike's repeated objections I recall) right up until the end.  You obviously went through very much the same logical thought process as I did when writing game.  It was finally dropped in the final version in preference to keeping the core rules as streamlined as possible and letting groups design their own crunchy bits through rules gimmicks as you have done.  Hooray!

[Mike Holmes]

I've been thinking on it, and I can't remember the rationale for going to one coin per Trait (as it was originally all Traits were two per, inside a complication or out). I know that I agreed with it in the end, but I'm trying to remember the reasoning.

One objection was that it introduced math, but multiplying times two for low numbers wasn't enough on it's own to get us to change our minds. Ralph, you were the proponent, what was it? As the opponent, of course I don't remember. :-)

That said, I think that Raf's suggestion for two in complications is the best I've seen yet. Gives incentive to Trait up outside of Conflicts, but still allows for Traits to be purchased in Complications if you like. Very cool. Hmmmm...

Mike "off to the Wiki to post a Gimmick" Holmes

[Shieldage]

Gimmick/Trait: [Named Player] can not control [Named Component].

Comments: Got this one from Dave on his first game, my second.  He created the Queen as part of the setting, decided it wouldn't be right for him to treat her as just another character and limited himself with this.  Eh, it'd probably best for only the [Named Player] to buy this otherwise it could get complicated fast.

[Bob McNamee]

an Anti Player Character Gimmick...
Cool, not sure I would ever use it myself, but I could see some folks I know saying...
"Bxxxx" cannot use the Ninja ever.

Bob McNamee