Some more questions: Challenge and Complication

[Caynreth]

I'm very excited about my first Uiversalis session. Still I have two questions about the rules:

1) Is it possible to challenge a player during his scene framing? Or is he immune to every kind of interruption during scene framing?

2) Do I have to spend all coins earned in a complication for describing it? Or can I keep some and use for something else?

[Mike Holmes]

I'm very excited about my first Uiversalis session. Still I have two questions about the rules:

1) Is it possible to challenge a player during his scene framing? Or is he immune to every kind of interruption during scene framing?

Challenges are not, technically speaking, Interruptions. They don't change the turn order, for instance. It's a separate thing. So, yes, you can Challenge framing. Challenges are fairly sacrosanct - really there shouldn't be anything ever that you can't Challenge. Think of Challenges as being at a level above other play (indeed, they're just a formalization of Social negotiation).

2) Do I have to spend all coins earned in a complication for describing it? Or can I keep some and use for something else?

You can spend as much or little as you like. Some players don't like this, and the Bob McNamee Gimmick is that you have to spend at least half of Coins gained in a Complication on it's outcome.

It would probably be a bad idea to force players to spend all of their Coins on resolutions. Complications are meant to be profitable, and the player should have some leeway in determining just how much game effect the outcome has. If not, then what you get are players scrambling to think of ways to spend their Coins, and often doing a bad job.

Personally, I think leaving it up to the player is fine. After all, if you think they haven't spent enough, then you can Challenge, right? :-)

Mike

[Caynreth]

Challenges are fairly sacrosanct - really there shouldn't be anything ever that you can't Challenge. Think of Challenges as being at a level above other play (indeed, they're just a formalization of Social negotiation).

...

After all, if you think they haven't spent enough, then you can Challenge, right? :-)

Wow, that makes me once again think about how much I'm still thinking in 'we need rules to prevent system-abuse'-terms.
Instead of: We need to find out what we want to do during play and negotiate it.

Thanks for insight :)

Cay

[Valamir]

Heh.  You now can well imagine how many pages of Universalis I discovered I could completely scrap once I came to that same realization.

[Mike Holmes]

Uh, that would be about 80, IIRC. The game got cut in half once we started trusting the players. :-)

Mike

[Bob McNamee]

That's amazing!

I, for one, am glad you went the way you did!