Primeval

[Mike Holmes]

Well, Ron doesn't want updates to the Profile thread, so I'll just have to start a new one about the Primeval game I played last night. :smile:

Very cool. I'm not the world's most narrative player or GM, but I had a great time. I'd echo just about eveything that I've heard others say about the game. It truely captured the epic nature of the material using what are essentially simple, but powerful mechanics. The narrations ranged from good to spectacular.

The peak moment of the night had to be when Dave, playing the Hyperborean Berserker, had his character chop off his own arm and use it as a replacement for his sword in attacking a titanic scorpion-shaped war machine from the realm of Nod. His reasoning? Well, he was only being challenged by mere mortals, you see, and he felt that doing so was the only way to make the fight more of a challenge for him. Classic!

Anyhow, I hope they get the game out relatively soon, so everyone can enjoy it.

Mike

[unodiablo]

Hey Mike,

What are you talking about? The Oracle clearly said that never happened. :smile:

I had a great time too. Even tho I didn't win the 'smash the big scorpion machine driven by the kenhites' contest.

Universalis was a blast too! I'm looking forward to reading that as well. (Glad I'm not responsible for co-writing that one...)

Sean

[333Chronzon]

Thanks guys,

I'm very glad you had fun last night, it was great having you by :smile:

I really enjoyed "Universalis" and I hope to see/play some more of it soon.

Scott B.

[Matt Snyder]

Hey guys, sounds like you had a blast playing Primeval. While I haven't played it myself, I got to see a little of it in action at GenCon. Great stuff.

What's Universalis? I'd love to learn a little more about that ...

[333Chronzon]

On 2001-11-05 16:16, chimera wrote:
Hey guys, sounds like you had a blast playing Primeval. While I haven't played it myself, I got to see a little of it in action at GenCon. Great stuff.

What's Universalis? I'd love to learn a little more about that ...

Mike H. is working on it with another person who's name I don't recall :sad:

It's kind of complicated to explain, but actually pretty simple in play.  It's a 'communal world/story building' game (hope that does justice to it).  You start with a pool of points and use those points basically to build whatever elements of the world or story you would like to - constricted by the 'social contract' the players agree to before hand and other complications I know nothing about :smile:

Rather then did a hole of misinformation for you, I'll let Mike describe it further.  It was quite fun.

Scott B.

[Mike Holmes]

Universalis is a game by Ralph Mazza (AKA Valamir) and myself. It is a generic stroytelling engine sorta thingie. Actually, it's just bizarre enough that we're having trouble classifying it right now. Many have claimed that it's not even an RPG. Maybe, maybe not. But people seem to like it.

Its in playtesting right now, but quite a few Forge members have played it by now. I'm hoping that Blake Hutchins will be trying it at some point in his x-games series, for example.

Anyhow, here's what we've let out of the bag so far. It's GM-full, by which we mean that all players are all GMs all the time. And it can literally be used for any story.

For example (this is the "Actual Play" forum), last night's Sci-fi Western Ghost-Town, with real ghosts on Terraformed Mars, in which we encountered a small green Martian (first contact; never before seen by man) who had just woke up from a 2000 year nap because Tom's character, a ghost, had stolen the gold that powered his stasis machine. This was shortly before we all got into a shoot-out (my character was the Mars Federation Marshal!) with a local gang of hoverbike riding hoodlums who may have arrived to find the gold, or possibly to hijack the liquor shipment from Earth (we haven't gotten that out of 'em yet). Anyhow, we were shot up pretty good, but managed to take out most of the gang with the notable exception of their sharp-shooting leader who esaped back to Red Gulch. I'd like to say that it was my Marshal's Federal issue Death Ray that got the bad guys, but in the end it was town drunk played by Sean (Unodiablo) Wipfli, wielding his Atomic Shotgun that really did the trick.

And this is sorta typical of the lengths to which you can take the game if you want. There have been a few much more bizarre playtests. As well as some very sane ones. I'm looking forward to more reports from our group running a vampire game with it.

Oh, yeah, no pre-game prep, whatsoever. You can do this in Universalis, but it's entirely unneccessary. And since everybody is a GM you can play with whoever shows up, no trying to figure out when everybody can get together.

Anyhow, enough tooting my horn. The game should hopefully be available fairly soon, but who knows. I'd hate to make a specific promise and then not keep it. We will, of course, be letting people here at the Forge know exactly when and where it will be available.

Mike

[ This Message was edited by: Mike Holmes on 2001-11-05 16:48 ]

[Blake Hutchins]

In fact, I'm reading Universalis now, and will be proposing to the X-Games group that we put it on the list instead of Everway.  Very interesting stuff there.

Best,

Blake

[Matt Snyder]

Sounds very interesting indeed, Mike. I'll go for any game that might actually replace Everway on the billing. That's a tall order! When you say it will be available soon, how do you mean? Will it be for sale? Free download? I'd love to take a look sometime.

[Valamir]

Hey guys...I go AWOL for a while and you start talking about Universalis, no fair.

FYI:  I am now officially in Peoria Illinois...I know there's a bunch of folks from the list out in the general vicinity of Chicago and nearby midwest environs so we'll have to hook up with some gaming at some point.

Universalis is pretty much as described above.  You can start play with absolutely nothing more than paper pencil and a supply of coins...no prep, no setting, no idea of even what sort of game you're going to play.  Most sessions begin with something along the lines of
"Today we're going to do a murder mystery"
"Ok, it will be set in London during the gaslight era"
"Nah...thats been done a million times lets set it in Warsaw during the early war years..."

Everything in the game from setting details to NPCs even to PCs and the actions performed by them is created in the same manner using the player's supply of Coins to regulate how much story power each player has available.  Dice come into play when one player Originates (game term) a Complication (another game term)which can be an obstacle, outside threat or some other challenge.  Players then must spend their Coins to activate the various elements they've created such based on what would be useful to the Complication.  Traits like "+2 Straight Shooter" or a gun with "Large Calibre +3" would be appropriate to Activate during a gun fight for instance.  This results in a pool of dice which competes against the Complications pool of dice.  The number of successes yielding the "winning" party that much Story Power to narrate the outcome of the Complication or Create new Traits.  For example a gun fight might result in the creation of a "Wounded +4" Trait assigned to one of the participants, an episode of Hacking might result in creating a new Component (game term) of "Sensitive Corporate Information" givin a value of +3.

Among the many motivations for Originating Complications is that it is a key way of earning more Coins for yourself.  This is handled through one of my favorite (but occassionally disliked) mechanics of the game, which is basically a quick vote of the other players.  There is a Pot of Coins that can be potentially won by the Originator, and the result of the vote will determine how many of them he gets.  If the other players thought the Complication was in appropriate, frivolous, just plain stupid or some other reason...the Originators work will go for naught.  If they really liked it he'll gain a nice bounty.

Play continues around the table with each player moving the story and adding to the world in any manner he wishes and has the Coins to pay for.

We are at the stage where there is little more Mike and I can do with the game.  We desperately need people willing to play (preferably without the input of a game designer) AND (and this is the key) willing to give us some real constructive feedback as to what worked and what didn't.

If this has piqued your interest let Mike or me know (probably Mike since I don't have my PC available yet) and we can get you a playtesters copy.

As for publishing...we don't have a formal plan yet, don't know whether it will be downloadable for free or fee or printed in hardcopy or what...but we're currenty exploring options.