Hi, just curious - how appropriate would Universalis be, possibly simplified, as a tool for storytelling with children? Say, 7 years, and then junior high/high school age.

I haven't seen Universalis, but from my reading here and on the site, I understand you "buy" the director's chair for a particular issue if there is some contention. It occurs to me that this could conceivably be both a tool for spurring creativity and also a means to get a bunch of kids to interact socially. I know when I was a kid, I loved to daydream...

Anyway, thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated!

I think Universalis would be great for kids. I still haven't gotten a chance to play with my son, but we've talked about the rules. I think he's more or less up to it and he's a bright, but not gifted, mentally lazy nine year old. If I were presiding over a game with five of them, I would expect to spend a fair amount of time moderating rules discussions and the like. You'd have no problem with junior high kids.

I do think you'll find it difficult to simplify without losing important stuff.

Please do let us know what happens if you try, I have particular interest in gaming with kids.

Chris

Actually this has come up before. Vincent "Lumpley" Baker actually turned us on to the idea of Uni for kids (he spent a bunch of time trying to see if it would sell by hawking copies of the game to anyone with a child passing the Forge booth last year). In fact, Ralph and I are now in a Yahoo Group (Kids-RPGs) in which the ideas have been discussed extensively.

One radical, but simple change that you can make to simplify the game is to just drop Complications. The only way to change components, then, is to have control of them. This can require larger scene refresh amounts, but otherwise seems to work pretty well.

Mike