Side-scrolling Anthropomorphic Limbo Universalis!

[lumpley]

Last night was the time of anthropomorphic animals competing in the world limbo championship, side-scrolling video game style.  It was tons of fun.  I'm going to zoom in on the hitchy bits, but keep "tons of fun" foremost in your mind.  We're playing again soon.

Hitchy bit: we wanted a fast game - it was approaching bedtime for the offspring - so we started with 10 pennies each is all.  Also we could only scare up d6s, not d10s as the game calls for, so we went ahead with 1-3 as successes.  It worked out ... okay.  There was a definite shortage of coins.

Hitchy bit: we didn't know the rules too well, and enthusiasm overbore turn-taking.  Consequently, one of us had to step in as mini-GM, calling for and approving traits and managing conflict resolution.  Which was fine, but if we'd been on top of the turns it'd've been more genuinely collaborative.

Hitchy bit: since there were few enough coins, thus few enough traits, we gave ourselves dice for Tenets when it seemed good.  Like when Meg's otter ran out the crumbling bridge and jumped over the bottomless pit to get the diamond of extra-good-limbo, she got a die for our "side-scrolling" Tenet.  Otherwise it woulda been always 2-3 dice vs. 2-3 dice.

My plan: get as many of us as will to read the rules, and play again with the turn-taking structure the game text describes.  (Note, for Lumpity Principly purposes, that we didn't have chaos, we had a less structured but still fully functional social process.)  Also we use d10s.

PART TWO:

Then we played the first ever playtest of my as-yet unpublic Robin Hood game.  It was a smashing success up until the endgame, from my point of view, but some of the others found it distractingly non-immersive.  

I'll say more and link to the rules when I've got them online.

-Vincent

[Valamir]

Last night was the time of anthropomorphic animals competing in the world limbo championship, side-scrolling video game style.  It was tons of fun.  I'm going to zoom in on the hitchy bits, but keep "tons of fun" foremost in your mind.  We're playing again soon.

Heh...that sounds deliciously bizarre.  Why am I not surprised :-)

Hitchy bit: we wanted a fast game - it was approaching bedtime for the offspring - so we started with 10 pennies each is all.  Also we could only scare up d6s, not d10s as the game calls for, so we went ahead with 1-3 as successes.  It worked out ... okay.  There was a definite shortage of coins.

Hmmm.  There's a big difference between starting with 10 Coins and starting with 25, but I'm not sure game length/speed is one of them.  I think you may have twisted a dial whose setting didn't really impact what you wanted it to.

When using d6s use odd results as successes instead of 1-3.  That way each successful die will average 3 Coins (1+3+5 = 9.  9/3=3) just like when using d10s (1+2+3+4+5=15.  15/5=3).  Theres a variant on the site that has more details on this.

Hitchy bit: we didn't know the rules too well, and enthusiasm overbore turn-taking.  Consequently, one of us had to step in as mini-GM, calling for and approving traits and managing conflict resolution.  Which was fine, but if we'd been on top of the turns it'd've been more genuinely collaborative.

Yeah.  Universalis has a very strictly defined set of "who gets to say what / when" rules to manage the chaos factor.  It isn't always 100% necessary to follow them (sometimes its obvious that something is just "right" even if it violates the strict turn order)...but it is always a good idea for someone at the table to be very familiar with how its *supposed* to work.

That said, IME, the player who knows the rules best generally does slip into a abbreviated GM-esque role...wearing the "rule interpreter" hat...at least until the other players get to the same level of familiarity.

There's a "how to get started" essay on the web site where I write down the method I use to introduce the game to new players.  Might be helpful.

Hitchy bit: since there were few enough coins, thus few enough traits, we  gave ourselves dice for Tenets when it seemed good.  Like when Meg's otter ran out the crumbling bridge and jumped over the bottomless pit to get the diamond of extra-good-limbo, she got a die for our "side-scrolling" Tenet.  Otherwise it woulda been always 2-3 dice vs. 2-3 dice.

Not a hitchy bit at all.  Makes perfect sense.  A tenet really is the same thing as a Trait, only its a Trait ascribed to the metaplay level rather than to an in game Component.  If it makes sense to draw upon it for dice I see no problem with that.

Technically, a rule lawery approach might be to require spending a Coin to specifically allow Tenets to be used in that way since IIRC the rules don't explicitly discuss it, but I don't see a problem either way really.

[lumpley]

There's a big difference between starting with 10 Coins and starting with 25, but I'm not sure game length/speed is one of them. I think you may have twisted a dial whose setting didn't really impact what you wanted it to.

Zoink.  That's really obvious, now that you've said it to me.

Excellent on the d6 advice, I'll go check out the site now.  Thanks!

-Vincent

[Mike Holmes]

I played a quick game at GenCon with Mike Miller et al, in which we started out with only 10 Coins. But I also stipulated up front that, for a change of pace, that it would be a "no-set-up-phase" game, wherin things would be introduced only through narrative flow. What starting with only 10 Coins does, in this case, is to demand that players get right into Complications. Which works well for this style of game.

This is really the only effect that twisting the knob on number of Coins to start has. Basically, it only affects how much you can do before the first Complication has to occur (or very short scenes end). Twisting the Refreshment knob changes the pace of the game. Low (or no) refreshment means that scenes have to be Complication packed. Lot's of refreshment means that things can be quite laid back with lots of exposition between Complications. The standard rate (5) is meant to provide an average pace.

Mike

[lumpley]

I'll continue here rather than in a new thread.

Last night was a Universalis game about three children and their two dogs who got lost in their grandmother's topiary maze.  When the sun set, the maze became changed and magical.  They got separated but found one another again, they resisted the lure of talking statues, and finally they enlisted the aid of firefly-fairies and a little black bat to find their way back home.

It was me, Meg, our 6yo Sebastian and our 3yo Elliot.  We passed a plastic toy lion to show whose turn it was, which went very well, we started with 20 coins each, and we counted odds as successes, per suggestion.  It went as smooth as anything and was more fun even than the limbo thing.  (Meg says a thousand times more fun; maybe I dug the side-scrolling more than she did.)

The hitchy bits this time are just observations, none of them were actual hitches.

Hitchy bit: Sebastian, 6, didn't quite get when to spend coins and when to just talk.  He got into a rhythm, where instead of connecting the coins to concrete things or traits, he'd just go "huh, I've been talking for a while, better spend a coin."  Mostly we didn't interrupt him, and with complication payoffs he never ran out of coins, so it was no biggie.  He'll get it.

Hitchy bit: He also didn't ever introduce complications, which was fine, and not surprising given his temperment and the story.  I planted the seed of "hey, next time let's play Universalis Junkyard Wars," and I bet he introduces complications then, oh yes.

Other than those, Sebastian was a full collaborator.  The beauty of the game, and what makes me want to play it especially with my kids, is that every contribution he made got picked up and treated as valuable by the other players.  It's a fine thing.

Surprisingly cool bit:  Elliot, 3, was utterly transfixed.  He had coins in front of him and occasionally suggested things -- a mouse, a statue -- but otherwise wasn't really playing.  But he was fully engaged.  All through brushing teeth and getting PJs on he talked about the story, and said many times he wished we had a book of it.

Mike, I'm going to post about this to the kids' RPG Yahoo group, but I'll have to give them a lot more context, so I'm still thinking.

-Vincent

[Mike Holmes]

For some reason that all just makes me smile like a big idiot. Cool.

As far as the pacing on spending Coins, heck, that's how I play sometimes. Guess I'm just a six-year old at heart. Like I said, some of the concepts aren't easy to grasp, so I'm not surprised. Adults take some time to latch on at times. OTOH, play without Complications is completely possible within the rules (and doesn't imply a lack of Conflict at all).

If I can help with the context on the kids rpg list, let me know.

Mike