[Universalis] As played by: Unsuspecting D&D players

[Big J Money]

An important question just materialized: is it okay to create characters in the Tenets phase?  Looking at Universalis from a Story Now perspective (which I have only begun to be able to do), this seems obligatory.

-- John M.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi John,

It so happens that Ralph is visiting at the moment, so I asked him. My own answer was "no," based on the examples and all the times I've played. However, he gave a more nuanced answer.

It was "six of one and half a dozen of the other." Either making a character is a good signal that the Tenets phase needs to be wrapped up, or it's pretty much the first thing someone does on the first turn of play.

Best, Ron

[Valamir]

Right.

To elaborate: its ok to create characters in the Tenet phase.  Its not alright to have them do anything.  If the name of a character is ever used in the same sentence as a verb...that's a clear sign that you need to stop tenets, bid for the first scene, and THEN use the verb.

So whether characters are created as one of the last parts of the Tenet phase, or right away in the first scene...doesn't really matter.  Typically when I've been in games where they've been created in the Tenet phase they've been Named and/or given a Role but the rest of the Traits (usually) have waited for the actual play.

[Arturo G.]

I remember we were once using a similar approach by chance.

One of the players introduced a tenet like: "There will be a character named Galileo who will be an astronomer". He was not creating the character, but somehow preparing the arena for doing it, making the character and his role somehow central for the rest of the game.
As it was a tenet it cost him only one coin at that moment, and the player who spent the coins to actually create the character during play was finally another one.

Is it more correct to make him spend the coins to create the character during the tenets phase?

[Valamir]

I've never seen that before, but its pretty neat. 

[dindenver]

John,
  It occurs to me that you and Bob have some kind of stored up conflict going on. I think the spirit of good narr gaming has not taken either of you by the collar and throttled you either.
  What I mean is, you are both trying to contribute to the story, but you keep blocking each other. A perfect example is the spy issue from last session.
  So, as I see it, you have a pretty boring scene, right? You have two sort of central characters that are rescued. but the central chars are meat/cattle, so they won't have any motivation to fight with each other or anyone really. And the other side of the scenes are the rescuers. Again, no real ripe, ready to explode source of conflict/story there either, right?
  So, Bob tried to liven it up by introducing a party that might turn over the apple cart of love and make for some story (spies). But you blocked him. Its that simple, you intentionally blocked his effort to make the story more interesting. And that's fine, except, it seems like a pattern and there doesn't seem like there is a lot else going on with other story lines as far as I can see...
  Now, to be fair, he blocked you right back, which means on some level he perceived this block as a personal effort on your part.
  You guys seem like friends and my guess is, this is not happening on a conscious, "let's block Bob" level, but its probably an artifact or instinct from another game/session popping up here.
The point is, you need to do one of two things:
1) Stop blocking Bob (don't stop the transmission, but add traits or whatever to the guys receiving it),
2) Block Bob with the Awesome. Make your twist on what he is doing more interesting then the original idea (The transmission gets redirected to the PA system and now the Spy is super public and peeps will be upset that they rescued a traitor).

  I will admit, I am new to narr gaming and I haven't had a ton of success in this regard, but, its been rattling around in my head and finally snapped into place. So, I hope this helps and I hope you guys have a great game!

[Big J Money]

I think the spirit of good narr gaming has not taken either of you by the collar and throttled you either.  What I mean is, you are both trying to contribute to the story, but you keep blocking each other. A perfect example is the spy issue from last session.

Heh, your first sentence was definitely something going on with me.  I appreciate you elaborating and explaining.

So, as I see it, you have a pretty boring scene, right? You have two sort of central characters that are rescued. but the central chars are meat/cattle, so they won't have any motivation to fight with each other or anyone really. And the other side of the scenes are the rescuers. Again, no real ripe, ready to explode source of conflict/story there either, right?
  So, Bob tried to liven it up by introducing a party that might turn over the apple cart of love and make for some story (spies).

You've summed up the situation just great.  I think his making the character the spy was a great move.  When we talked about it later, we definitely thought this was the most engaging play of the night.

But you blocked him. Its that simple, you intentionally blocked his effort to make the story more interesting. And that's fine, except, it seems like a pattern and there doesn't seem like there is a lot else going on with other story lines as far as I can see [...] (don't stop the transmission, but add traits or whatever to the guys receiving it),
[/quit]

I think you may have misread from my post.  When his character sent out the transmission, it was not blocked.  It was intercepted.  Not intercepted in the sense that it didn't get to where he wanted it to get; intercepted in the sense that a third party was also receiving the transmission.  I was simply playing off this event as a chance to add something I had been thinking about.  This was done through the addition of a story-event, not a substitution.  Does this make sense?  Oddly enough, I think you might have missed that our final scene was one where we fleshed out the traits of the people who he had sent the transmission to.  We did not play the scene, but left it on sort of a cliff-hanger for us.

2) Block Bob with the Awesome. Make your twist on what he is doing more interesting then the original idea (The transmission gets redirected to the PA system and now the Spy is super public and peeps will be upset that they rescued a traitor).

This sounds like good advice.  If someone is going to block someone to progress their story, make it interesting and exciting.  I had definitely blocked Bob once earlier that night without realizing until later.  This was the scene where I made Fizz not able to participate in the action.  Like I said then, I had no idea why I had this stupid automatic reaction; I wasn't really paying attention.

-- John M.