New Gimmicks

[Shieldage]

Add to last post: I think its cool that Dave on his first game limited himself in a story driving way.  Not only did this increase her (The Queen's) Importance he was basically saying that she is the reason for this story and that he and his main characters are out to impress her.  He was playing both a 'good' Unnamed low level knight on her side and the 'bad' Count, the leader of the opposition (basically to see which side of his personality would... [insert appropiate possible outcome here]).  Transcript forthcoming.

Think about how Captain Janeway banned herself from altering the Irish guy's program (Star Trek) and why she did it.


Thanks, could be a can of worms if used in the wrong way (or maybe exactly the right way depending on your POV), but how about this:

I think this would also be great applied to the Main Antagonist, because with the regular Gimmicks one player (or a group) would play the Good PC and one player stuck with the Bad PC (or vice versa) to keep him from being abused by the 'wrong' player grabbing control and spoiling the flow of the story.  Er, rephrase: There really hasn't been any way the group could prevent one PC's player from controlling his opposite other than putting him under the complete control of another player, who's stuck with him for as long as the Gimmick lasts.  Simply putting this in place allows everybody who wants to act contrary to the Player of the Main Protagonist/Antagonist to use the same hero/villain.

[Mike Holmes]

I'm going to come out and say right now that, other than as a way of making a statement, negative Gimmicks, Tenets, Facts, whatever, are not good play, IMO.

That is, they work as a way of trying to say something else, but not to enforce what they are technically designed to enforce. Not that they don't work. Just that they never get used. That is, I can just ask the other players not to do a zombie game (instead of what I did as my first Tenet in the WIki game which was to, in a bad attempt at comedy, state that nobody could make Zombies a priority in the game). The difference is that with a negative Tenet or Fact in play, I'll get double to protect against some infraction, as opposed to only having my normal value in Coins. But that's not to say that I couldn't just have Challenged Zombies if/when they are proposed.

See, if nobody intended to do Zombies, then it was very much a waste of a Coin. Even if they did intend to do Zombies, and I had to Challenge, I'll bet it wouldn't have had to go to Bidding. And if it did have to go to bidding, then there's no reason to suspect that I wouldn't have won with a minimum bid anyhow. Bascially, the odds of that invested Coin becoming handy for it's ostensible purposes are slim and none.

Now, that all said, I also hoped that the Zombie statement would have an effect of trying to say that I wanted a game that didn't include cliche elements that I've seen in most Universlais games. And as such, a statement like that could be effective in theory. But as it happened, somebody ended up throwing in the Aliens, anyhow. Which makes my statement totally ineffective, because I can't even use it to do what it was intended to do, because it literally does not cover Aliens, only Zombies.

What I should have done was to be less comedic, and stated exactly what I meant, which was that I didn't want any campy elements. Or even better that I wanted a game with a serious tennor or something to that effect. Because positive statements give you much more range than negative ones of the sort we're discussing.

So, when considering making up such Tenets and Facts, etc, consider the effect that you're trying to achieve, and make a positive statemtent that gets you closer to your goal.

Thus, the idea of saying that player x will not play character y seems to miss the point. If I'm doing it to myself, it's totally pointless, as I can never be forced to play a character that I don't want to (baring some Gimmick to make that happen). If I'm doing it to another player, then woudn't it make more sense to just do the PC thing and put the control of the character in the hands of the player that knows best?

I'm really wary of the idea of doing this to the extent where an Us vs. Them situation arises in terms of sides. Universalis is not meant to withstand PVP competition in earnest. In my mind there's never a time where any player doesn't know "what's best" for any character; the amount of Coins they have is what says how well they "know best". The idea that players have biases with characters smacks of competition in the first place to me. That people are championing particular characters over others. The idea is not to fight over who gets to "Win", player or character. If you think that certain characters are protagonists, the only thing that you have to enforce that is your stack of Coins. Everybody elses' opinion counts just as well as yours.

Thus, don't be surprised when somebody tries to turn your protagonist into a villain. Either accept it as how the game works, or have Coins on hand to make sure you can Challenge it away.

Or better yet, make it a Tenet. The character Joe Bob is a Protagonist is a perfectly valid and positive way to reinforce that sort of idea. Fail to do so at your own risk. Do these things with positive statements wherever possible.

Mike

[Bob McNamee]

Hmm, I see what you're saying Mike.
But I still find my negative Tenet useful, given that I didn't have any great ideas about what I did want, but I did know that I didn't want a Pulpy feeling game.
By putting out the Coin it lets everybody know that, and, signals that I'd be willing to Challenge any introduction of Pulp style.

I thought your Tenet was fine, but I guess you didn't say what you meant.

I do agree if I knew what I wanted... like "A gritty street level crime drama"
Proposing  that positive Tenet would have been much better than a "No soap opera melodrama" negative Tenet.

[Valamir]

Mike is absolutely right that in Universalis you get alot more mileage out of positive statements than negative.

This holds true even with Traits.  For example you could have a character with Toughx2 as a Trait.  To reflect an illness one could spend 1 Coin to reduce the Tough Trait by one.  This is basically a negating statement.  *OR* one could use a positive statement like "Bob is weak from the fever".  In any Complication the net effect is the same  +1 die Tough vs +2 dice Tough, -1 die Weak.  BUT the additional information provided by the "weak with fever" trait provides a much better foundation to springboard from.

That's not to say that one gets zero mileage from a negative statement.  But chances are, with a little thought one can find a way to word the statement (Gimmick, Tenet, Trait, or otherwise) as a positive assertion instead.

But this is one of those things I love about Gimmicks.  They're rules that are brainstormed on the fly and which get immediate playtesting.  The ones that work (i.e. give the game a flavor that the participants enjoy better than without it), become Add-ons that that group will return to time and again.  The ones that didn't work, don't get used again.

[Mike Holmes]

I see what you're saying, Bob, and sure, if that's all you have to say, and it's really important, go for the negative statement. All I'm saying is that with consideration, as Ralph points out, you can often convert to a more powerful statment. And while nobody made any Tenets that challenged the "no pulp" Tenet, we really can't know for sure that somebody would have had you not put that out there. I certainly didn't intend pulp. Maybe nobody did. In which case the Coin really didn't serve a purpose (though it still may in play).

Still, I suppose from the "ounce of prevention" argument....

Mike

[Bob McNamee]

I agree with you, Mike. It may be a wasted Coin.
Compared to a positive Tenet which is never really wasted.
But it seemed important to say at the time.

It would have been less wasteful for me just to have posted a clear comment (instead of a formal Tenet) saying "I don't want Pulp style, and will Challenge it if added".
Then, save my Coin for something positive and relevant, or for a challenge, if necessary. Even the very broad Tenet "On Earth" was more useful than my negative Tenet. negative doesn't really help define what  the game IS about.
So basically I've  flipped on my stance on Tenets...Positive all the way...or Pass...or make pre-negotiation comments.

Funny how it comes down to communication...as do so many things in RPGs.