Play by post/email?

[Christopher Weeks]

Hi all,

Has anyone played Universalis by post or email?  If so, how did you handle laying out narration so that interruption could happen?  What other concerns does such a style of play have that would be specific to Universalis?

One issue is that it seems like the game is just going to be pretty different from face to face, to IRC, to email.  Is that so?  When trying to set up one of these styles does it even make sense to try to simulate the f2f experience or does it make more sense to just embrace and exploit the differences?

It seems that to make room for interruption, you'd have to either limit the amount of narration that can happen per player per unit time (when it's your turn, write one sentence per hour) or give the other players the ability to hop back to any point in the most recently narrated "paragraph" and interrupt, essentially annulling a chunk of what happened.  I see pros and cons to each approach.  The first runs the risk of losing player interest for the slow approach that requires many periods of attendance.  The second approach allows a fire and forget style, but if there was a lot of retroactive "early" interruption, I fear that players would get tired of having their stuff thoroughly trumped.

Other than this issue, I think play by post is a great medium for this game because it allows time for proper record-keeping and presentation.  You can have a thread for out of game BSing, a thread for in-game discussions, a thread for presenting and preserving tenets, a thread (or more) for component tracking, a thread for event narration per scene, and a thread that acts as an overall timeline, showing how the scenes are linked chronologically.

And does anyone have any ideas for handling player turnover?  Is it a problem if players come and go?  What is an appropriate coin-handling process when this happens?

I searched for earlier discussions on this and didn't turn anything up, but either I don't understand the forge search parameters or it's a pretty unsophisticated tool.  Hopefully I'm not just replicating earlier conversation.

Chris

[Mike Holmes]

I made three separate forays into the world of Play-by-Post with Universalis. I can't report any successes, unfortunatlely.

Now, that said, I should give you some details. All the games were using Wiki technology. Are you familiar? Apparently Wiki appeals to some people, but not at all to others. So I think that the format may have been part of the problem.

Further, PBEM or PBP are inherently problematic for all RPGs it seems to me. Since the social pressure of performing FTF isn't present, the problem becomes participation. Which seems to dwindle in most games over time. Simply, the slow speed of the development of the plot means that you have to have an iron determination to proceed. Which apparently few people have.

That's not to say that all such games are doomed. But it means that unless people are engaged right off, that it's likely to fail. The problem with applying this to Universalis is that, despite the fact that the players come up with the setting on their own, ensuring that it's something that's potentially engaging, it's up to the players to provide their own engagement. With a GM, that participant often has the responsibility for hooking players. In Universalis people assume that they will be like a player, entertained. Wheras the truth is that all players in Uni are GMs and responsible for their own and others entertainment.

So what happens is that players wait for their chance to jump in and play. And little happens, because players aren't GMing to the other players.

Anyhow, that's my take on the problems involved. What I find is that the players who come to the game with a GM attitude post a lot, and the "players" don't post at all. Which means that unless you have a lot of "GM" players, that it all loses it's impetus. On the ones we played it always ended up being Bob McNamee and I posting, with occasionall support from others. That's just not enough to keep the ball rolling.

I have this notion that if there were many people playing, say 20 or so to start, that it would have a sort of critical mass neccessary to proceed.

There are a lot of technical differences that had to be fixed with rule changes to make it all work. One of the rules that I put in place, and may have been problematic, was to eliminate turn order. Philosphically, if you weren't posting, you were passing. So posting was allowed by anyone at any time. I reasoned that this would be of benefit to the players. That is, they could participate as little or as much as the liked. Again, I reasoned that if we had turns, that mostly what this would do was make us all wait for players to post a Pass. Why should those who want to play have to wait. Anyhow, this eliminates the problem with Interruptions.

But I think the other thing it does is to let people off the hook. They never have to feel bad about passing (so to speak). And, further, if the game got out "ahead" of them, then I think that they felt no longer part of the action, and had no reason to participate.

So, if you went with a more traditional turn order, then I think that might potentially ameliorate some of this effect. But, again, I think you might just end up waiting for a lot of "pass" posts from people who can't be bothered to add at the moment. Why participate actively, when you can just jump in when you like. In a traditional game, the responsibility to respond in the name of a character prevents players from being able to dodge play in this way. Maybe you could put in some rule that forced players to respond in some fashion (actually Complications did do this in our game if a player took as little action as to come into Control of any Components; maybe all play could be Complications...).

As for how you'd do Interrupts, I have no idea. If you limit posts to X words, then you have to limit the timeframe as well, or the player just posts several in a row. If the limit is for the turn, then you're just rotating all the time, and Interrupts become pointless except for skipping players. In any case, making delays like this threatens to stretch the game out further than it already is. Which might be problematic.

I think that the "Hopping Back" idea is really problematic. If I've posted something, I'm probably already emotionally attached enough to it that it would be upsetting to see it get smashed for just one Coin. A Challenge should be required to make that happen, IMO.

No, I still think that, despite the failures, that eliminating the turn structure was a better way.

Other rules issues got worked out fairly simply. We came up with a simplified Complication rule that kept them from taking weeks to accomplish. Recordkeeping was standardized. In one game, anyone could start a scene at any time, even if other scenes were going on. I think that's a good way to do it, personally. It allows players to stretch out quite a bit. The only problems were in trying to maintain a consistent timeline. In the games that had only one scene, we did bid for scene. There was a 24 hour limit from the closing of the last scene to get your bid in. High bid submitted in that time got to frame the scene.


Tellya what. I'm interested enough in such projects that I'd help you set it up, point by point. The thing I'd need to know is what sort of goals you have for the project. In order to figure out what would work best. I have several points for what I'd think would work in terms of goals, if you're interested at all.

Because, despite the failures, I do hope that someone figures out how to do this. I agree that the pacing of post play is perfect for Universalis, and have this notion that it ought to work. Like all creators, however, it may just be that I am more excited about the prospect than 90% of the people out there. Which means that getting together a group large enough to support play of a decent length might be difficult.

There's always Bob, though, isn't there? :-)

Mike

[hix]

I tried to join two of the Wiki games, but as a relative newbie I felt intimidated by the technology and only figured it out as the games were winding (or wound) up.

I think any game needs instructions for:

* joining a game (especially if it's already in progress);
* any coding you need to know; and
* the social contract for when it's appropriate to contribute (turn order) [/list:u]The instructions need to be easy to find and as clear as possible. Make it easy for new players to join, to help compensate for player attrition.

Mike Holmes wrote:[/list:u][/size]

In one game, anyone could start a scene at any time, even if other scenes were going on.

Actually, I suspected this was one of the main reasons the "Alien Invasion on the Islands" game fell over.  Players created a lot of different characters and a lot of different story threads. While this works in F2F play, here it felt there was no main storyline everyone was contributing to - everyone pulled in a slightly different direction - and just as things started to cohere, interest in the game dipped.*

My suggestion would be try a tenet that says the first 3-5 scenes had to follow a single story - or single character. While that might sound restrictive, I wonder if that gives everyone a chance to get engaged and contribute as well as giving the story a clear focus.

BTW: I found Wiki was an excellent format for hosting an online game.

Steve

* A similar thing happened in the "Byzantine Dreams" game, where each new scene started a new sub-plot.

[Christopher Weeks]

Neat!  I'm glad to see that there is experience out there.  I am interested in putting such a game together if there enough interested parties.  You mention 20 as a minimum critical mass and it's interesting that I was thinking along similar lines.  In those previous three games, how many players started and how long did the games last?

I've never really worked with a wiki but I expect it's not rocket science.  Is there someplace that hosts cheap or free wiki-space or did you just run it on your own webspace/server?  What's better about Wiki than say rpol.net?  What would a custom chat/message tool for Universalis include?

I think the issue of letting the players "off the hook" by eliminating turn order is closely related to the benefits of the social pressure in a face to face game.  How can you maximize the likelihood of participation?  I think that any play by post game is bound for attrition and in my estimation, the two most important factors to keep this from killing the game are to build in a good way for new players to join and to assure that the game has a hook is for each player.  Would players be hooked by having a character component that is always under their control?  I keep trying to see the removal of turn order as a good thing, but it seems more negative than positive.  Can the positive effects be achieved some other way?

What if any new scene must include a component from a previous scene in the initial framing? Would that help drive a coherent storyline (as per Steve's complaint)?  Would it be overly limiting?  

ALong the lines of concurrent scenes, what if there were some limits, like n/4 scenes can be 'open' at any given time (where n is the number of players) and each player can only have one scene that they framed at a time?  Would that help to prevent dillution while still providing an engaging ongoing experience?  It's funny, on first reading that you set it up so that anyone could frame a scene at any time, I hated the idea.  By the time I got around to responding (just a few minutes later) it seemed like a great way of keeping the players engaged in an otherwise slow medium.  If there are multiple scenes going on, is the problem of slow progression as great a problem?

What effect would increasing the cost to interrupt have?  I thought of this in response to "Why participate actively, when you can just jump in when you like" but it's a bit confusing to me to maintain a turn order and have multiple scenes progressing.  But maybe you could maintain a master turn order and each scene could have it's own turn order that follows the same cycle, starting with the framing player and then just disappears when the scene closes.  It sounds complicated but if the net.tool that you were using to enable the game were designed for it, it wouldn't be too bad.

It sounds like Steve found Wiki less than intuitive.  What was done to provide documentation on the environment for the players?  I don't know if this was the case in this event, but it is sometimes hard for those familiar with a technology to remember how alien it is to those who are not.

Mike, you ask about goals for the project.  I'm not sure in what sense you mean that.  The first goal in my mind is to figure out a fun and workable solution that would bring Universalis in a new and better way to the internet audience.  My second goal is just to facilitate more fun play for me.  Or maybe I got the two reversed. :-)  What kind of goals did you have in mind?  I started to think about this more because I'm not likely to be able to make Monday nights on a very regular basis and I really want to see more of this game first hand.

With all the talk of what to change to make it workable, how appropriate is it to set up a game of universalis with a bunch of tenets/gimicks in place before the players get together?  It seems somehow philisophically impure.  

Chris

[Bob McNamee]

THere is indeed always Bob...

Still think it could work someway.

Uni Fiend,

[hix]

BTW: I enjoyed reading both the Wiki Universalis games. All my comments are based on wanting to make the next one better.

Focusing on a single storyline might be too dictatorial. I guess the goal is to use any strategy that sustains player interest until the story reaches a critical mass - that point where the players are invested in keeping it going.

. . . How appropriate is it to set up a game of Universalis with a bunch of tenets/gimicks in place before the players get together? It seems somehow philisophically impure.

Me? I'd be fine with the person starting the Wiki laying down the first tenet. Or having some house rules. They can always be gimmicked out.

Another possibility (for creating the most interest) is to start setting tenets for 2 or 3 Universalis games simultaneously and see which one grabs the most interest from players.

It did just occur to me that maybe some of the delay was from players wanting to put down something 'right' - you know, fully worked out, well written and cool - rather than put down something 'right now'. Maybe some strategies to get the game flowing faster could be:

* A single turn can encompass a maximum number of events (1-3)?
* Scenes are ended automatically if no one adds to them within a 48 hour period? That'd stop some of the hang time that I noticed in the "Alien Invasion" game - and might create short scenes with that mosaic effect.[/list:u] And yeah, I'm in for an online game too. Let's figure out some strategies for using Uni in this format.

Steve

[Christopher Weeks]

And also, who's interested in playing in such a game if we put one together?  If all four people who've posted to this thread are in, we're 1/5 of the way to 20.  Anyone else?

Chris

[Bob McNamee]

One other idea we kicked around at the time of the last Wiki Uni game was to have an occassional (say once every couple weeks or perhaps month) get together in an IRC channel to play the Wiki game setting live.

That way you get small doses of live 'story jump starting' as a group.

The logs from this play can be posted to the wiki pages to keep the game up to date for those who couldn't make it.

Edit: This is also a good way to handle the intial Tenets session since you can get live feedback, and Challenges from the participants

[Mike Holmes]

Neat!  I'm glad to see that there is experience out there.  I am interested in putting such a game together if there enough interested parties.  You mention 20 as a minimum critical mass and it's interesting that I was thinking along similar lines.  In those previous three games, how many players started and how long did the games last?

Not long, really. The first was the most successful, actually, lasting through several scenes that established a lot of potential story threads, that were starting to look to me like they would begin to gel. There were about a dozen people who signed up to participate, of whom only about 8 actually added anything.

The second never got to scenes (though there was some interesting world building), and my exhuberance to start it may have, in fact, damaged the first. That one started with about 6 players.

The third was constructed having looked at the problems of the first, and proceeded with the suggested adjustments that came out of the IRC kick-off meeting. But it sputtered out quickly, which may have been due to the fact that we started with only 6 players.

I've never really worked with a wiki but I expect it's not rocket science.

It's not rocket science, but some people seem to have conceptual problems with it. Also, it's slow for people on dialup to load lots of pages, which is a consideration. But I feel that the advantages outweigh the negatives for the sort of game that I'd like to see (details later).

Is there someplace that hosts cheap or free wiki-space or did you just run it on your own webspace/server?  

They were all run on machines owned by members of Indie Netgaming. I'm sure we can wrangle space on one if need be.

What's better about Wiki than say rpol.net?

It's hard to explain Wiki without seeing it. Here's one: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki

Go to it, play around, get the idea.

What would a custom chat/message tool for Universalis include?

A link to a Wiki? JK. But the only "problem" for chat is recordkeeping. Otherwise the simple dicebots that we use in IRC are the only tools that seem neccessary. I dunno, maybe an "interrupt" button?

Would players be hooked by having a character component that is always under their control?

Maybe. That's something that occured to us, but has never been tried. Essentially making players "proprietors" of certain things they make, such that they're obliged to play those Components. The potential problem is that if a player drops out, then that Component becomes effectively "uncontrolled", a situation that can't happen with players who actively put Components into scenes. Still, there are ways around that, and I think this is something to examine.

I keep trying to see the removal of turn order as a good thing, but it seems more negative than positive.  Can the positive effects be achieved some other way?

Like I keep trying to point out, removal of turn order doesn't really have any effect that normal play does not. That is, in normal turn play, a player can always pass. The difference with no turn order is that you don't have to wait for a player to pass to go, you can go whenever you like. The only "positive" for turn order would be the theoretical social pressure of FTF, but I sense that it doesn't have any potence in this format.

You could require people to post on their turn, but that's problematic in a lot of ways as well. You'd have to have a minimum posting requirements, frex.

The way to get the social pressure would be to have people mailing the non-participating players or something. Hmmm. For example, players could have to sponsor each other, such that you can't spend Coins unless you have sponsored players spending at some threshold rate. That way, if you want to post, you have to make sure that other players are posting. Would be an accounting nightmare, however. Maybe a secondary coinage to represent these transactions could be introduced. Still, it sounds like adding a lot of work which is a barrier to entry itself.

What if any new scene must include a component from a previous scene in the initial framing? Would that help drive a coherent storyline (as per Steve's complaint)?  Would it be overly limiting?  

I don't see it as helpful or limiting. That is, a player who wanted to start his own story line could just have a character from the last scene exit his scene, and then do what he wanted. In any case, my version would promote telling many different stories.

ALong the lines of concurrent scenes, what if there were some limits, like n/4 scenes can be 'open' at any given time (where n is the number of players) and each player can only have one scene that they framed at a time?  

This would limit players pariticipating widely, which is something that we want to avoid.

Would that help to prevent dillution while still providing an engaging ongoing experience?  It's funny, on first reading that you set it up so that anyone could frame a scene at any time, I hated the idea.  By the time I got around to responding (just a few minutes later) it seemed like a great way of keeping the players engaged in an otherwise slow medium.  If there are multiple scenes going on, is the problem of slow progression as great a problem?

My vision includes lots of players playing in different scenes. That way players would always have something changing and which they could jump into. Not interested in this scene? Then try that scene? This does dilute effort, but it increases interest, theoretically. I'm not of the opinion that the "story" going everywhere is a bad thing, if it's presented properly.

It sounds like Steve found Wiki less than intuitive.  What was done to provide documentation on the environment for the players?

Consider that I was mostly a newbie to it. Wiki is just weird in that some people take to it like fish to water, and others drown. I went out of my way to document how it worked (I wrote pages and pages), provide links to resources that explain it as well as possible, and made myself available for help. Didn't seem to matter for some. But no reason that we can't provide this much or better support for a future example, even if it only helps a few.

What kind of goals did you have in mind?

I'm so glad you asked. :-)

My personal vision for Universalis by Wiki is fairly different that normal play. To use Forge jargon, it's distinctly Simulationist in a lot of ways. Instead of the game being a "story" at all, what I'd prefer to see is a "world" evolve. This is why I'm not interested in scenes being "coherent" with the "storyline" or anything like that. What I'd instead like to see is loads of worldbuilding, and then having characters wandering about making their own personal "stories" in the created world. To whit, I proposed that instead of "scenes" that everything instead takes place in terms of "locations". These would remain "open" more or less constantly, being in use when players framed action occuring there.

Think MMORPG like Everquest, but you're making up the world as you play. Does that sound interesting?

I got the idea, interestingly, because my first use of a Wiki was in creating a world to play in. We never got to play, however, because there were no rules for building the world, and therefore when conflicts occured, they were handled in a non uniform way. The whole time I was thinking that if we had been using Universalis, that the problems that occured in making the world wouldn't have come up.

So, basically, I wanted to have that same experience with the Universalis framework. This is why I think it needs a lot of players. Because with lots of players I think the world will grow at a rate that will really make people want to explore it. In my mind, it's spectacular. I'd like to make it a reality.

With all the talk of what to change to make it workable, how appropriate is it to set up a game of universalis with a bunch of tenets/gimicks in place before the players get together?  It seems somehow philisophically impure.

Not at all. Given that players joining later would have to abide by the Tenets created, I see no problem with this. In fact, we propose that sort of thing in the book, IIRC, as an alternate way to play. To whit, I'd propose that we could even use an established setting, or something like that. One of the Tenets (Gimmick, actually) would be that any fact in any of the literature relating to that setting would be considered Facts for purposes of play.

I'm a bit torn on that, actually. If it's a compelling setting, then I think that provides draw. OTOH, I'd like to have a sparse setting such that there's plenty of room to world-build. But I definitely could see something like that.

Does that help? :-)

Mike

[Christopher Weeks]

I'm still digesting and considering and maybe I'll come back with more questions and comments, but until then, I opened http://universalis.swiki.net/1 as an experiment.  If anyone (Mike?) wants to take the time to see if http://www.swiki.net/ has the important features, that would be nifty.  

It appears that Wikis have been extended beyond the basic idea in some implementations including chatrooms, javascript, and other automation.  Were previous WikiUniversalises dependent on such things?  What about dice-rolling?

Chris

[Mike Holmes]

I'm still digesting and considering and maybe I'll come back with more questions and comments, but until then, I opened http://universalis.swiki.net/1 as an experiment.  If anyone (Mike?) wants to take the time to see if http://www.swiki.net/ has the important features, that would be nifty.

That's just fine. The Wiki that Travis had included a neat feature that sent changes to your email. With this one, you can get changes, but only (AFAICT) by editing the page, and clicking on the "email me" checkbox. Which is probably just fine, actually, maybe even better in some ways. Should work just fine, IMO. I like it's markup scheme - better than most.

So, what do you think? Really not very complex, but yet totally effective at making records. So I feel that it's perfect for Uni play (especially the sort that I'd like to see). Do you see how you'd link locations to each other by adjacency so that you'd end up with a world like the old classic text adventures? Are you a Wiki lover or hater? :-)

It appears that Wikis have been extended beyond the basic idea in some implementations including chatrooms, javascript, and other automation.  Were previous WikiUniversalises dependent on such things?  What about dice-rolling?

We used none of these sorts of features. The Real Time meetings were in the Indie Netagaming IRC rooms (you could have a page with details). Rolling was on the honor system. I'm not against other features, I'm just not sure I see the benefits. Dice would be cool, however.

Mike

[Christopher Weeks]

So, what do you think? Really not very complex, but yet totally effective at making records. So I feel that it's perfect for Uni play (especially the sort that I'd like to see). Do you see how you'd link locations to each other by adjacency so that you'd end up with a world like the old classic text adventures? Are you a Wiki lover or hater? :-)

It seems like a suitable tool.  Since you have a strong preference for this environment, and it seems like it'll work, I think it is fine.

The idea of linking locations, and preserving a timeline for each location, as the idea fits into the larger goal that you discussed above, makes sense.  And the generated topography is quite cool.  (I think that it would be nifty to require components to actually appear in locations adjacent to the last so that a trail was visible, but that's obviously pretty limiting.)

I think that I'm neither a lover or a hater.  It's a cool tool, but I find the method of architecting space a little cumbersome.  I still think that a custom tool might streamline the process of setup and play.

Anyway, I've added an "opening discussio" area to that Wiki (under the assumption that we might actually get something going using that space) and I'll cull through this and other posts for ideas on how we ought to set the game up.  If you (anyone) have any comments, you are of course, free to add stuff.

Chris

[Mike Holmes]

Interestingly I had a design that used Lotus Notes as the interface that did what a Wiki does, but much more efficiently (if we're thinking about the same issues). The problem is finding someone with a Domino Server to run it. :-)

If you want players, you'll have to advertise, of course.

Mike

[Christopher Weeks]

I just sent a note to indie-netgaming and popped over here to find your suggestion.  How/where else would you suggest?  This is probably a stretch, but does Ramshead Publishing keep a mailing list that is accessible?  What about a note on http://universalis.actionroll.com/ directing people to our game?  Is asking for players elsewhere on The Forge appropriate?  (Actual Play or Connections?)  Should I start a seperate thread in this group as a call for players or would that be wasteful?

People should start to feel free to enter stuff in the Opening Discussion page if you have comments.

Chris

[Valamir]

This is probably a stretch, but does Ramshead Publishing keep a mailing list that is accessible?

I keep a mailing list and periodically (every quarter or so) send out an email about Ramshead developments and such.  I'll be doing another in the next week or two (an update on Robots & Rapiers developments).

I'm happy to include information about an online Universalis game and solicit interested parties as long as there is a definite commitment to make it happen.

Give me a blurb that includes contact info / game location url / whatever, and I'll send it out with the update.