Challenge during Resolution of Complication?

[Brassel]

We just played our first universal story, and boy, we had some fun!
There'll be a sequel soon, I'm sure. We found the rules to be very
well understandable and also playable straight away, but there was a single
question, we could not resolve reading the rules:

It was in the showdown of our Hong-Kong-Kung-Fu-Spectacle that
went with all players spending all of their remaining coins (by silent
approval). Resolving the final complication it turned out that the
"bad guys" won the final fight. (It was no Hollywood-production
you see?) I was just narrating my winning coins, giving one of the
"good" main guys a bloody finnish. (Well what would you do, if someone
goes for you on a motorbike, with an iron bar held like a tournament lance?
Of course you slash off his head as soon as he is off that bike.  (Provided
you got enough coins left.)) But one of the other players
did not like my plan, he wanted the guy to live. So there was the question:
Could he have interrupted me with the coins from resolving the complication?
The rules say that there is the order of the winner narrating first and the looser
having to go by what the winner decided. Could he have challenged me?
Even if he got no coins but those he got from the complication?

After some negotiation we decided that I should give a slightly less
"unreversable" death than beheading so that he could easily be
resurrected in the sequel, but the question I think remains.

Please enlighten me!

Bernd

[Valamir]

I think you're right that the rules don't define this very explicitly.

During development we tried a number of different approaches.  At one point we played that Challenges were not possible because the winner won, and what he won was the right to say anything he wanted sans interference.  However, we decided that this undermines one of the core balancing features of the game and allows player a great deal more power than was the intention.  In fact, if this rule was in place, I suspect that certain groups would start resolving EVERYTHING as a Complication solely for the Challenge immunity it would represent.

On another occassion we experimented with allowing only the non participating players to Challenge, with the idea that a player who lost...lost and shouldn't be allowed to circumvent his loss by making a Challenge out of it.  In fact, in one earlier version of the rules there was an explicit list of what Coins from Complications could and couldn't be spent on and Challenges were specifically forbidden.

Since there is no spot in the rules that addresses this issue directly, we'll have to piece together a ruling from the various text that is there.

On Page 67 in the Section on Using the Coins we have the statement that the Coins earned can be used "in any and all ways already described in the rules"  It then goes on to list several specific ways.  Unfortuneately for the clarity of this question, "Challenges" didn't make the list.  But it should count as an "any and all ways"

On Page 24 in the Section on Challenges we find the statement that "Anything a player says or does in a game can be Challenged".  That would include anything the winner of a Complication says or does too.


So ultimately, I think you played it out 100% perfectly.  You made a statement, your statement was Challenged, you and the other party entered into a Negotiation resulting in you adjusting your statement to something satisfactory to all involved, and the game progressed.

A spot on interpretation I'd say.

[Mike Holmes]

Yep, perfect.

Challenges are almost impossible to restrict. I mean, you talked about it, which pretty much constitutes an informal Challenge anyhow. This happens all the time in any game. Universalis just has an explicit way of handling it, and rules for what happen if the participants do not agree - bidding. As such they shouldn't be restricted ever, IMO. In fact, I think that Universalis goes a step further to say that Challenges are a tool that the player can, and should, use proactively. Note, not abusively (which is pointless anyhow, because of the structure), just in a positive fashion.

On another note, it says that you can't Interrupt a player who's framing a scene. But you can Challenge him, IMO. Again, the "restriction" is over-ridden by the fact that you have to be allowed to potentially Challenge anything or have players seek inassailability in those places (as Ralph points out).

Mike

[Brassel]

Thank you very much for the detailed Answers! But too much the praise:

So ultimately, I think you played it out 100% perfectly. You made a statement, your statement was Challenged, you and the other party entered into a Negotiation resulting in you adjusting your statement to something satisfactory to all involved, and the game progressed.

We really interpreted the rules the way you wrote earlier:

At one point we played that Challenges were not possible because the winner won, and what he won was the right to say anything he wanted sans interference.

And I only gave in to negotiation because of my inborn niceness, not because of the rules-interpretation. But it makes sense what you say, that this is dangerous to the game balance, esp. as you can narrate ANYTHING with the winning coins which has remotely to do  with the complication, if I understood it right.
So as Mike says, challenge should be always possible,

As such they shouldn't be restricted ever, IMO.

in order to keep this game ballance, which is a really nice feature of Universalis. (And only one of them.) And indeed challenges happen anyway all the time, and it is really good to have a way to deal with them.
But am I right that like a player framing a scene the winner of a complication should be immune to interruption?
Aside from this single rules question, let me repeat that we found Universalis very clear and the rules very playable. Thank you for this game!

[Valamir]

But am I right that like a player framing a scene the winner of a complication should be immune to interruption?

Yes, the winner of a scene is immune to interruption.  The ability to spend all of the Coins they won to establish the result of the Complication without being interrupted (but still being subject to Challenge) is what they won.

If there are more than two players involved in the Complication than all winners go first in order of Coins won (high to low), then all losers go in order of Coins won (high to low).  Ties in Coins won being broken by turn order.