This week, I ran a Universalis game for a couple of high school students as part of my job. I'm working for a summer program that serves upperclassmen or just-graduated high school students, and part of my duties is running one evening activity a week. I've chosen RPGs as my "workshop" topics, and ran a couple of D&D sessions earlier in the summer. I'm a little tired of dungeon crawls, however, and have recently had good experiences with Universalis (see game writeups by CPXB). So, I decided to try it this week.

Only two students signed up, but the three of us had a blast with it--so much so that they want to continue the same story next week, although I'd originally intended it as a one-shot. What pleased and surprised me the most was how much the other players were willing to take initiative and contribute. Out of twenty initial Tenets, I contributed 6, Player 1 made 8, and player 2 made 6. We had time for two Scenes, both of which were started by the other players--both with pretty high initial bids, more than five coins.

They had some hesitation with rules and the (I suspect normal) issue of "do I need to pay for this?"--but still, they mostly steered where the game went. Although I spent many of my coins, it was usually to fill in details for the broad strokes they'd already made.

Anyway, I just wanted to register that satisfaction. In contrast to my earlier D&D sessions, I found it much easier to get the players to take initiative in the collaborative free-for-all atmosphere of Universalis (and this despite the fact that I was a staff member, and thus by default "in charge"). Good fun.


-Adrienne

Excellent.

Yes, absolutely the question of what to pay for is always asked. The "problem" is the abstract answer which comes down to "whatever it seems to make sense to pay for" and/or "whatever you want to be able to have a game mechanical effect with." It's just something that has to be experienced. Fortunately in ever game I've seen it just works itself out over the course of a scene or so.

Do your duties include instruction? What I'm wondering is if you might be using the game at all as an instructional tool. From one POV, I think it's unavoidable actually - players transmit their values to each other automatically via play. But did you do this consciously at all?

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote:
Do your duties include instruction? What I'm wondering is if you might be using the game at all as an instructional tool. From one POV, I think it's unavoidable actually - players transmit their values to each other automatically via play. But did you do this consciously at all?