Master-Components are coin generators

[Brassel]

Yesterday we had some high-fantasy-game with armies of creatures making war to each other. Everything worked out just fine, with one exception:
In a small skirmish (20 v. 20) we decided to just buy some of the creatures as sub components of earlier created masters. So one player just bought 3 of those buglike creatures and gave their Master-component the trait of "fighting better at home" (they were defending their leir). It turned out that for these four coins he got 15 dice for the complication. So, expecting 1.5 coins per die for the winner, he could expect around 23 coins for the 4 he spent. So (rolling luckily as well) after telling off about a thousand things about how great his victory got, he still could cash in quite a number of coins. This of course can get inflational.
The point is not that there was any kind of unfairness in the game, as the other players had every opportunity to do just the same. The problem is that such a complication generates much more coins than anybody could use to narrate its outcome.
Thinking about how to make a rule prohibiting coin-generation we could not come up with something that would not disturb the careful thought up ballance of complications. Is there an easy rule around to cover this problem?

[Christopher Weeks]

Is the problem that those players who cleverly generate conflict in the story end up with more ability to narrate more story?

Chris

[Tony Irwin]

Yesterday we had some high-fantasy-game with armies of creatures making war to each other. Everything worked out just fine, with one exception:
In a small skirmish (20 v. 20) we decided to just buy some of the creatures as sub components of earlier created masters. So one player just bought 3 of those buglike creatures and gave their Master-component the trait of "fighting better at home" (they were defending their leir). It turned out that for these four coins he got 15 dice for the complication. So, expecting 1.5 coins per die for the winner, he could expect around 23 coins for the 4 he spent. So (rolling luckily as well) after telling off about a thousand things about how great his victory got, he still could cash in quite a number of coins. This of course can get inflational.
The point is not that there was any kind of unfairness in the game, as the other players had every opportunity to do just the same. The problem is that such a complication generates much more coins than anybody could use to narrate its outcome.
Thinking about how to make a rule prohibiting coin-generation we could not come up with something that would not disturb the careful thought up ballance of complications. Is there an easy rule around to cover this problem?

Hey Brassel - sounds like great fun. I've had simillar games and thought it was a problem until we realised that all sub-components share the same weaknesses as the master component. So in your example you could just spend a coin to add a trait to the master component such as "Sunlight burns these monsters". Now every single monster automatically shares that weakness. You can use it to remove dice from your opponents pool, or you can use it to simply challenge anything your opponent tries to do with the monsters. Every time one of his monsters tries to activate a trait you just challenge saying "Nope, sunlight burns these monsters, they're too busy screaming to be aiming bows at anyone".

It might sound a bit munchkin to pull stuff like that, but actually it really pushes the game into a new gear. It forces people to rely on the doings of individual characters rather than cloning lots of master components. So next somebody brings in a spellcaster to magic up an eclipse (so that the monsters will be effective), and everybody else creates new imaginative obstacles to stop him doing that. By the time the conflict is resolved there are lots of little story threads to be taken care of. The battle is being fought on a dozen fronts instead of just one and resolving them all will quickly burn up the winner's coins.

[Brassel]

Is the problem that those players who cleverly generate conflict in the story end up with more ability to narrate more story?

No, not really. More like having a not-very-clever way to get much more coins than anybody should get from a simple complication.

So in your example you could just spend a coin to add a trait to the master component such as "Sunlight burns these monsters". Now every single monster automatically shares that weakness.

If I understand you right, you say that one has to defend differently for mass-attacks. One should not amount an own pile of dice to counter the attack but try to weaken the opponent.

I think this sounds like a possible solution to the problem., we will try this out.

Thanks for the answers!

[Tony Irwin]

If I understand you right, you say that one has to defend differently for mass-attacks. One should not amount an own pile of dice to counter the attack but try to weaken the opponent.

Well... I don't want to make it sound too tactical because it's not really built as a combat system, but for making good stories. If one or two players are thinking in terms of "Which of us will win this battle?" then it will create problems - Magic the Gathering or an Xbox is better designed for settling that kind of thing.

On the other hand if players are thinking in terms of "What cool stories will come out of this battle?" then Universalis really rocks. The Master Compnent rule lets you create loads of opponents (or allies) really quickly - pulling 3 cornered bug monsters out of no where makes for the start of an exciting story, everyone (including me, I wish I'd been there) wants to see what happens next. But then you can create more tension by creating some interesting relationships - Hero1's parents were eaten alive by bug monster1, these bug monsters are the pets of the Lord of the Forest, the Heros hear human screams from the bug monster lair. Ok those are lame ideas, but what happens is that people forget about winning the battle and start thinking of ways to get their favourite characters tied into the story that's unfolding. You can still win extra dice for all these things but they're much more likely to create a good story than "My guy has swordsmanx5" and "My monster has poison-fangx2"

Anyway good luck with the master-component thing. :-)

[Christopher Weeks]

Is the problem that those players who cleverly generate conflict in the story end up with more ability to narrate more story?

No, not really. More like having a not-very-clever way to get much more coins than anybody should get from a simple complication.

(Sorry for my early brief response, I had to run off to CPR training and shouldn't have hit submit.)  OK, so in your original note, you cite inflation and the generation of more coins than could be needed for narrating the outcome.  But you also note that it isn't unfair.  

First, what's the problem with inflation?  Normally it suggests that the currency is going to be able to buy you less, but that's not so here.  You can still buy one fact with one Coin.  You might call it inflation if people become willing to "factize" more and more mundane details, but I wonder if that's really a problem.

Generating more coins that resolution requires isn't a problem, either, as far as I can see it because whatever isn't used is dumped into Wealth and the game goes on.  The only worry I see is that if one person does this all the time, the others might feel required to do so to maintain parity of story power which might devolve the game into this specifc maneuver which isn't really all there's supposed to be.  But if that happens with your group, can't you just gimick a solution?  I don't think you want to prohibit Coin-generation, but maybe place some kind of diminishing returns cap.  Maybe "whenever you receive Coins for any reason, divide the number you're supposed to receive by n/10 (round up) where n is the number of Coins you already have" or something.  Does that address the problem, or am I missing it?

So in your example you could just spend a coin to add a trait to the master component such as "Sunlight burns these monsters". Now every single monster automatically shares that weakness.

If I understand you right, you say that one has to defend differently for mass-attacks. One should not amount an own pile of dice to counter the attack but try to weaken the opponent.

That's not the only approach, right?  You can call on traits of either side of the complication to aid your dice-pool.  So you can amass dice for your pool by calling on your opponent's weakness.  I think it's a matter of style preference and how it narrates best.

Chris

[Bob McNamee]

Keep in mind too that you can use Rules Gimmicks to adjust the game while you are playing.

We've used my Gimmick before.
Bob McNamee Complication Gimmick- Must spend at least half of Coins won in Complication resolving the complication.

At the bottom of this thread, about 'Dice Apocalypse' the last two entries are a good solution to high or low group Coins problems
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=4688

Enjoy!

[Bob McNamee]

Oh, and regarding the topic of Master Components...

Yep, they're Coin machines!
I'd remind all the players of this if it starts getting used by only one person.

In the Kroolian Jungle IRC game (indie-netgaming) one Coin will buy you a Minion of Zoggith (a Master Component)

Minions of Zoggith
   Master Component
   Half-man / Half-croc
   Bloodthirsty
   Not too bright
   Sonic Sickle
   Utterly Devoted to God and Temple
   Undead

They're great for filling up a quick and dirty battle... and they can be killed of for just a single Coin. Master Components are great for mooks, even powerful ones...(like the generic vampire from Buffy...powerful but dead meat)

One safety is to have several/many Master Components so that they can be drawn upon for both sides...

like
Amazon Warrior Babes (5)
   Master Component
   Thong Style Warrior Jungle Bikini Armor
   Spear Combat x3
   Ululating War Cry of Terror

and

Chameleos (5)
   Master Component
   Chameleon ability x2
   Distant relative of the Alligator People
   Affiliated with Lizandu

Challenging Master components that provide too much benefit is a good idea too, if you want to control inflation and make sure all those traits called upon for a Complication really apply to that Complication

One point you might want to stress is to encourage Players to take their large winnings, and bid for a new scene in a Location not used before, filling in the setting, and cutting to new character components, rivals, factions etc.

Mike did a great cut from the Jungle to a Scene revolving around "The Dragon Thane"---whatever that is...here comes a cool player in the back struggle for the Gems.

All that costs Coins...so spend them on lots of cool new story stuff.

[Valamir]

Fantastic Thread!

I think most of the points I'd make have been covered (thanks guys, you rock).

A summary of things to keep in mind for Master Components

1) Yes, they are Coin Generators.  There are several layers of Coin spending in Uni.  At first players generally stick to the 1 fact, 1 Coin method of buying dice for Complications.  This is not all that efficient.  They quickly learn that paying 1 Coin for a Trait that can then generate dice over and over again is much more efficient.  From there it becomes obvious that paying a single Coin to bring in an existing Component with a lot of useable Traits is REALLY efficient.  This is the way in which the game naturally encourages players to return to the same characters and Components providing a degree of focus on what's already there.

Using Master Components is the highest level of Coin efficiency

2) Don't forget the rules for making Components that represent entire groups on Page 36.  Instead of Creating 3 bugs for 1 Coin each and drawing seperately on each of their Traits, the Component could have been created as a single subComponent with the two additional Coins spent on "Multiple Bugs x2".  This cuts down the number of dice generated which is less efficient, but may be more appropriate if the bugs are simply mooks to be knocked down.  

It it is perfectly acceptable to use the Challenge mechanic to say "hey, why don't you use the Group rules for that".  If its really cool to them individually than fantastic.  But if every other player feels that the player is doing it simply crank the Coins and not for any other good reason...well a simple Negotiation demonstrating the other players willingness to put a stop to such tactics is usually enough.  Its VERY difficult for 1 player to overrule multiple others in a Challenge, and if necessary a group may always use a Rules Gimmick to say "Multiple examples of unnamed characters must be purchased using the group trait" which will give future Challenges even more weight.

Remember, a Challenge is not a failure in the game.  Since the game could be about anything and played at almost any scale of scope or power, there's a limit to the number of hard rules that can be made.  The kind of Component that would be abusive to one group in one genre might be perfectly ideal for another group or another genre.  The Rules Gimmicks and Challenge mechanics are there to allow each group to tweak the rules to more closely match their particular play style and desires or to define more clearly what is or isn't appropriate for a particular genre.


3) Inflation was an initial worry of mine.  But in play, I found the game to be fairly self correcting in this regard.  In a game where players have 5-10 Coins sitting in front of them, Challenges which go to bidding will generally be won by 2-3 Coins.  In a game where players have 40-50 Coins sitting in front of them, Challenges which go to bidding will generally be won by 15-20 Coins.  In other words, the Challenge mechanic scales up to soak up alot of the excess.

[Mike Holmes]

I've posted my feelings on this somewhere, but I can't find them. So I'll cover them again, briefly. Basically, my rule is:

If you don't intend for something to be an active agent itself, then don't buy it as a separate agent.

What I'd have done in this case is to buy a "Group of Bugs" and given it a Trait "Numbers of Bugs". Unless, that is, I really intended to expore bugs one, two, and three individually.

I personally feel that the Master componet rule is really for long-term stories in which you intend to introduce many Components over time all with some of the same characteristics. So, if you're playing a game that you want to be a bit like a long-term RPG campaign, then master components for your species and such make sense. You should only have to pay for the traits of a Dwarf once and then just say that a new character is a Dwarf, instead of redefining again later. What this does is lend long term consistency to things in play.

Short term, or for groups of things, I never use Master Components. Because they do generate way more Coins than you want. That sounds odd, but there's nothing more embarrassing that rolling 32 dice, and getting a pile of 57 Coins and having no idea what to do with them. If the conflict in question really isn't about a dozen elements clashing, but just a couple of groups, it ought to generate the same number of Coins as two characters fighting. To do that, use group traits.

Mike