Pantheon

[rafial]

At our Monday night "Indie RPGs" group, we tried the Narrative Cage Match rules from Pantheon.  The scenario we played was the undersea horror one, entitled "Grave and Watery."  I wound up keeping a transcript on my laptop, and since somebody recently asked for transcripts, I offer the link:

http://www.3roses.com/gaming/pantheon/gaw.html

I also included some impressions at the end, including a comparison between NCM and Universalis (my analysis favors Universalis).

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

I completely agree with your analysis. My experiences with Pantheon suggest that people tend to abandon the game's "win" focus, in order to concentrate on what's happening instead of on bidding statistics, but then for the story to sprawl apart rather than to drive toward a climax.

I have not yet, however, played the final game/scenario in the book, which I'd like to do one of these days. It has ... possibilities.

The major difference between the games is that Pantheon is about enjoying pastiche and Universalis is about constructing and resolving conflicts.

Best,
Ron

[Mike Holmes]

We did have the benefit of knowing about Pantheon. Universalis might not have been what it was if not for games like Pantheon showing us what was possible (along with other games like Primeval, Once Upon a Time, Baron Munchausen). So, what we created was something similar, but just more geared to the sort of play we wanted. As Ron points out.

It's like comparing the Beatles and Guns and Roses. Either could be your bag, but GNR wouldn't have existed as such without the Beatles.

Thanks for the coverage and the kind words. :-)

Mike

[rafial]

My experiences with Pantheon suggest that people tend to abandon the game's "win" focus, in order to concentrate on what's happening instead of on bidding statistics, but then for the story to sprawl apart rather than to drive toward a climax.

This completely jives with our experience.  The story just sort of wandered around for awhile, until we finally started killing characters because we felt we had to.

The big surprise however was how "uninvolved" I felt in the game.  Yes, things were happening, but there was no excitement.  I think most of the players were actually quite relieved when we decided to call end of play after three hours, as we were actually starting to get bored.

I think that part of that may be attributible to the fact that Pantheon might play better with a smaller number of players.  It certainly seemed like forever for your turn to come back around.  And several times I had to reread the last bit of transcript to the current player for them to remember what had been going on with their character.