Unfortunately, Lyz dropped out of the game. She didn't actually tell me this, but passed along the information through another player, hehe. Because I haven't spoken to her – and don't intend to about this – I got the impression that she left because the game demanded too much from her in the sense of framing scenes and guiding the plot.

In any event, Josh was having issues with the rules gimmick she introduced the last session (“When starting a scene, the framing player states the purpose or intent of the scene”) so he spent his coin and took it away.

To address the issue of issues in Universalis being decided on “one flip of a coin” -- how the winner narrates the victory and the loser the loss without a back and forth ebb and flow – I introduced this rules gimmick: “Extended complication rule. By spending a coin, a person can make a complication 'extended.' This means that rather than resolving the complication with one roll of the dice, the dice pools are divided and each is rolled separately. The person who makes the complication extended gets to decide how many splits in the complication. The dice in each side's pool are then divided as evenly as possible. Smallest sub-pools on either side go first. Each side then rolls their sub-pool. The winner of each sub-contest narrates the victory, the loser narrates their defeat. Edges accumulate on the sub-pools, making edge dice more common (after all, you have multiple shots to get an edge die).” I hope that's clear; if not, I'll elaborate. (As a side note, tonight's session was short because we did a lot of talking before the game; we're actually going to game again on Friday or Saturday to make up for it; we didn't get to test the rule!)

We also decided that the game will end in roughly five sessions. In the fall one of the regular players in my group gets back and we think it'd be rough introducing her to Universalis after so many sessions.

In any event, we only had two scenes. The first scene was with Iron Arm Wu. We was abasing himself before his master. The master was abrading him for having fought Jian Ngan several times and neither defeating Jian nor having the good taste to die. Then an ambitious Fire Lotus gangster, Eagle Claw Ling, entered and asked to take Wu's place. Wu, upset that this upstart dared to do this, challenged her to a fight, of course. The master agreed; Wu was his favorite student, but he had recently failed and brought shame on the gang. Ling needed to prove herself. He said that whoever won would be allowed to possess the ultimate secrets of the clan.

They repaired to the dueling room. Other Fire Lotus fighters came to watch the battle. Ling and Wu did battle. (Ling was a new character and had five dice in the complication compared to Wu's eleven; I felt there was no serious need for an extended challenge. As a result of Wu's bad luck, the first roll was a tie and Ling got the edge. In the second roll, well, Wu got about twice as many successes as Ling.) The duel started. Wu threw a flurry of blows that the upstart Ling parried; then Wu drove in for the kill with his Hammer Fist technique, but Ling not only blocked the attack but parried with a wheel kick to Wu's midsection! This infuriated Wu, who seemed to attack with his Iron Arm, but using his Deceptive Cotton Mouth Technique scratched her face with his poisoned nails, and then did a fire wheel kick to her head, stunning her and knocking her out of the ring. She slunk away in defeat. The other students dispersed.

The ancient master spoke to Wu. He said that Wu's kung-fu had reached spiritual proportions. Why, then, had he not defeated the Scarlet Savage Tiger fighter, or at least retained his honor by dying? Wu responded that Jian was strong, and he his own reasons. Wu roared, “You dare keep secrets from me?” Jian responded that he was a loyal member of the Fire Lotus Clan, and he was no mere acoylte, but a gang boss who was more than capable of executing his own plans. This answer appeased the master. After all, said he, the Clan did not need mindless automations, but fighters with spirit! Then the master gave an ancient scroll to Wu to learn, and when Wu was ready the final test would be prepared. End of scene.

The next scene opened up in a government office, with a petty old bureaucrat creating unnecessary paperwork. Bill, a government gunslinger, came in with reports of trouble in the west. “Kung-fu freaks stirring up trouble.” The old bureaucrat said that was Caroline's department, and bid Bill to take a bunch of paperwork over to Caroline and also talk to her about it. Bill got a clerk to grab the paperwork – after all, he's a gunslinger and above that – and went over to Caroline's office . . . which was right down the way. Caroline administered her territory from town, it seems.

Inside . . . well, I'm going to let Caroline's office component card speak for itself:

Caroline's Office
Plush
Lace curtains
Teddy bear collection in glass case
Secretaries with group quality (3)
Intercom pipe

Caroline's Inner Sanctum
Bookshelves
Harlequin romance novels
Desk
.50 caliber Desert Eagle with roses etched on barrel

I think we're going to move the gun to Caroline's card ere long, hehe. It seems Adrienne was on another roll.

Caroline and Bill talked in a brilliant conversation I don't have a transcript of. Caroline is very bureaucratic, filling out paperwork in preference to going and getting things done in the field, and that was conveyed very well, IMO. Caroline denied there could be any trouble with the kung-fu groups; in her reports, clearly, things were well. The witnesses? Travelers lie. She dismissed them. However, when she learned there were mutants involved she perked. Eventually, she relented and is allowing herself to go. Which concluded that scene.

The scenes were good, but the game was too short. We'll fix that soonly. :)

Also, for those who are interested, a PDF of all my game notes -- including all the tenets and rules gimmicks as well as components that have more than one trait -- can be found at:

http://home.gwi.net/~altraxler/game_notes.pdf

Cool Gimmick. And that's a great format for recording your game, too.

I love how the traits of Caroline's office and sanctum give a really clear view of not only what they look like, but their owner's personality. Explains her denial. :-)

Mike

I hope it's a cool gimmick. I was trying to think of a way to reproduce an ebb and flow of conflict (specifically, kung-fu battles but it would work equally well for any climactic scene) that wouldn't be odiously complex. However, it has yet to be used in action. Hopefully this weekend we'll see it in action.

But Caroline is, so far, great. I agree that the personality of the character has been very well established by the personal space of the character, in a very clever way. Adrienne thought it was cool you liked how she did it. :D