Hi all,

I'm curious about the numbers of tenets that games typically incorporate.

What got me to thinking about this is that there are58 basic tenets in TUA2 -- which seems like a lot. And there are more in each Shard (worlds that the game visits).

My face to face games have usually ended up around 25. TUA1 had 40.

Other experiences?

Chris

Keep in mind that some of the Uni Arena II tenets are attempts to smooth out the game play, after seeing how things run, and, some of the early Tenet would be better as Components or Traits of Components.

The "City of Hope"-related Tenets are a good example of these now. They are clearly Traits of the city, but at the time introduced the setting was in flux...

Anyway here are some examples, with perhaps more detail than you wanted...

My home game "The Temple of Bast" (which has been stalled for some time) Tenets, 5 total
Tenets
-Magic flows along Ley lines & collects in crystals
-low technology, pre-industrial
-cats are magic
- humans can bond with cats
- old Egypt setting


Here are the IRC "Kroolian Jungle" Tenets, 18 in all...

Tenets

-Paganini is in the mood for a Sword & Sorcery game a la Conan

-no elves

-future-setting S&S.

-Sorcery is based on advanced Genetics.

-The advanced Genetics have to *look* like sorcery, not science.

-Lots of mutated giant animals to ride/hunt/whatever...

-The adventures happen in exotic places that have names like "The Ivory Citadel" and "The Temple of Zoggoth."

-Little to no armor ever worn

-I say there's no high-tech *ranged* weapons... but there are high-tech melee weapons... laser swords, force-blades, stun batons, etc.

-Flensites, a strong Slaver Culture

-The action is set in an area known as the Kroolian Jungle.

-Currency is the cold hard stuff (gold, jewels, etc.), no paper money. (Banking guilds and letters of credit are okay I guess, as long as they stay in the medieval sense.)

-most slaves are getting the bad end of the stick, but some people sell themselves into slavery to get jobs in high positions...

-The jungle is rumored to be haunted by undead creatures

-Men aren't men...at least our men aren't...they're the results of a thousand years of evolution and the genetic manipulation (sorcery) of the ancients

-planetary travel occurs though portals, like in that time travel Star Trek

-Minimum of 3 players present to start a Session

-bookkeeper gets 5 Coins for upkeep of a session


----------------------
IRC "North South" Tenets Gimmicks 11 Total
SundayUni - NorthSouth Support File

Tenets

.US Civil War
.Lincoln is dead
.Grant has formed the secret service early
.Technology is at a higher level than originally
.The technology advances are due to the war having started early and having run for a long time.
.All the other states have joined the "union" or "confederacy" as we have now (including Alaska and Hawaii)
.Much of the country is a wasteland due to the stripping of resources necessary to conduct the war.
.Through that stripping certain corrupting elements have infected parts of the population - changing them - mutating them
.The stripping has also revealed artifacts from an ancient culture, but an apparently advanced one.
.Extensive weaponry was found and taken by both sides (most likely the previous "inhabitants" killed themselves)

Rules Gimmicks
Traits cost two Coins to buy in Complications.
----------------------------

"War in SF" Tenets and Gimmicks 7 total
Tenets
Rules Gimmick: Every scene must take place on the battlefield
.Modern warfare
.Setting is Urban
.Setting is San Francisco
.A separatist group has seized control of the city and enstated martial law
.Psychics - exist and are in use for something
. Insurgents have a low-yield nuclear device set up on a major fault line
-----------------------

Enjoy!

My home game "The Temple of Bast" (which has been stalled for some time) Tenets, 5 total

The last 5 of the 58 Tenets in the Universalis Arena II were proposed after play had started.

We had 10? people contributing to the Tenets at the start of the game. We had done a fair amount of pre-game discussion to make sure we were approaching the game with compatible concepts, but the exact form (style)of the game was left till Tenet phase.

This Tenet phase was very extensive (compared to the other games we've played) including Rules Gimmick and changes specific to the wiki format, such as multiple open scenes (and an active player-based limit on them).... Handling new player addition etc.

My quick scan of Tenets shows about 21 Tenets that clarify the Rules (and gimmicks) for wiki form...so there are only about 37 that deal with Play goals, Color, Setting, Characters ect

Each individual Shard (dimension/reality) that Hope travels to has its own Tenets, which only become valid when Hope arrives there.


Framework Tenets are here...
http://www.anvilwerks.com/index.php/TUA2/FrameworkTenets

Current Shard (just starting now) Tenets are here...
http://www.anvilwerks.com/index.php/TUA2/Comancharia

Just Finished Shard Tenets are here...
http://www.anvilwerks.com/index.php/TUA2/BeforeVesuvius

Having fun so far, and we will get back to Temple of Bast someday...

Ralph's note of 4 (or less) Tenets seems right on to me.

Temple of Bast was a 2 player game (with three players once): with 5 tenets...so 2.5 each

Kroollian Jungle with 5 players to start (and 7 total later) had 18 Tenets...so a little over 3 Tenets each. (3.6)

North South looks like 3 (or 4 players, hard to tell how many) at start. with 11 Tenets etc... so just over 3 (3.667)

War in SF was a 4 Player game with 7 Tenets/Gimmicks...so less than 2 each (1.75)

If you leave out the massive amounts of Rules related clarifications and gimmicks the Universali Arena II game (Hope) was 37 Tenets propose by either 9 or 10 active Players... which is right around 4 Tenets each (37/9= 4.1, 37/10= 3.7)

....even the total Starting Tenets (with Rules and Gimmicks) of 53 would only be about 5 Tenets each ... (53/9=5.888, 53/10=5.3)

Interesting numbers to me...
Ralph's right on (of course) concerning starting Tenets at 4 (or often less).

On the low end, I play a con version where I just skip the tenet phase entirely. Everything is instituted in play. Setting the first scene is crucial, therefore.

Mike

This actual play thread shows three players coming up with 23 tenets. That's a pretty high tenet/player ratio, it seems (but not compared to TUA).

Chris

This game had 20 tenets from four players, none of which were gimicks.

Ralph/Mike, is it kosher for me to keep adding references to this thread? I'm hoping that over time it'll be useful, or at least interesting.

Chris

Sounds good to me to continue here, but I'll leave it to Ralph.

Mike

In this thread, a continuation of the game three notes up shows the addition of a fourth player and fifteen additional tenets! They're up to 35 tenets and 3 gimicks between four players.

Chris

In our game "Jack Phillips and the Oceania City Shakedown" we have (at the moment) 4 players and 20 tenets

Christopher Weeks wrote: In this thread, a continuation of the game three notes up shows the addition of a fourth player and fifteen additional tenets! They're up to 35 tenets and 3 gimicks between four players.

In continuation from above, I also think that we're going to be accumulating more tenets as the game progresses as a method of dealing with plot and metaplot concerns. The reason we got so many additional tenets is because, the first session, we didn't really establish the antagonist. We've put in the social contract that after every game we are going to talk about the direction the game is going in and change the tenets if we think we need to kick it firmly in one direction or the other. So, in time, we might have a great number of tenets, indeed.

Interesting, Chris (CPBX). So, do you have a short tenet session before starting each normal session? Is it formal, by the rules, or informal?

Mike

Well, bear in mind that "each session" at this point goes up to a grand total of two sessions. That said, at the beginning of the second session of the current game, we did have a short, by-the-book tenet creation session. There, I just proposed some rules gimmicks to help smooth play out, real minor stuff.

However, during the course of the game -- which was slightly troubled -- at the end of the same session we also had a by-the-book tenet part, and that's where we added the fifteen new tenets to the game. Discussing things afterwards, we decided that at the end of each game session we would talk about the direction of the game. It wasn't stated but it was implied that if we felt we were at an impasse, we'd make more tenets to overcome the impasse.

I was really impressed. We were using tenets to create the barebones of a plot that we would then incorporate into play. Given that my group includes two people who are new to gaming, the authority with which they approached plotting the game I found refreshing. It was really cool.

Very cool. I think that it's interesting that you can't seem to get agreement in playing the scenes, but then that you can when the decisionmaking is divorced from the action.

Glad you've made an adjustment that works for you.

Mike

I've been a bad tenet-tracker. Hopefully this catches me up.

Stephen Hickey played, perhaps over several months, A Russian Fairytale: The Cat who could End the World. There appear to be 18 tenets and an unknown number of players. (What's the deal with the missing tenets, the number of players and the ten month gap, Hix?)

Seven weeks ago, Adrienne played a game with a couple of late teens as part of some kind of official summer program. Three players ended up with 20 tenets.

The South African Universalis contingent have played two sessions of They Only Come Out at Night with four players and eleven tentets. They're described here and here.

Nev played a game where he cut off the tenet phase after ten tenets with two other players.

Over here Tobias and two non-gamer females played with only five tenets.

Don and wife started a game with 31 tenets, but I'm not clear on whether they trimmed this number by converting some to Components as a result of Forge input.

Chris

Over [URL=http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=12553]here there is a game with four players and eleven Tenets. I think it's not fair to count players who come in after Tenet Phase unless there's more Tenet Phase goodness like new tenet phases each session or the like.

Hey Chris, according to my notes there were 16 tenets at the time we launched into scene play (and another 3 were added in the sessions after that). We had 5 players. 1 of them stopped contributing to the tenets at "12. In school you can learn to speak to animals,' because he felt we had enough to go on.

The game itself played out over 2 and a half months. As for that 10 month gap in the write-up: RL job commitments, some OOS/RSI (fine, now) ... and coming to grips with Actual Play reports.

We now return to your regularly scheduled discussion.