Just finished playing my first (very short) game of Universalis. Really
just did the background design and one scene. Even just doing the
background design was a lot of fun because of the element of negotiation
using Wealth. The one scene was a little slow -- but only one of us
(me) had read the rules, and this was our first game, so that was fine.

I think I'm gonna want to reread some of the examples on the Universalis
web site now that I actually know the rules. One thing that seems vital
that is a little hard to get into is exactly what Complications are for
and how they work. They're clearly at or near the heart of the game,
but they have no exact parallel in any other RPG, and they aren't
described till the *last* chapter of the rulebook, when your eyes are
starting to glaze over if you've been reading it nonstop! (I'd have
moved Complications much nearer the beginning of the book, or at least
given much more extensive previews of what they're all about.)

In any case, I had much fun and the other two players seemed to too. I
love the little world we created and would like to revisit it sometime.
Kudos to Ralph, and to Mike!

Ed

For me it helped understanding Complications, after you have processed the other aspects of the game (Facts (traits, locations etc), Importance, and Challenges etc).

Complications are really the engine for pumping Wealth back into the game, and for keeping all the Players interested the whole time. Also, looking at the old playtest posts, Mike and Ralph were also trying to keep folks from "sitting back and waiting their turn". As a way of increasing suspense, and turning the tables.

As a wealth creator, in the second session of the Temple of Bast game
I instituted a Complication regarding healing the Seer using her traits of "old" and "poisoned" for 2 dice, against 3 or 4 dice (for healer, herbalist, and charm, if I remember right). they might even have had 5 dice (I forget now). The point is I fully expected to lose, but thought I would add a complication anyway just for suspense and a tiny bit of cash. At that time I only had 3-5 coins left so I figured spend 1 on a 2die Complication...I'll lose,but, I'll gain 2...net one up! Well, it didn't go that way! They rolled bad... maybe one success, I rolled a 4 and a 5! Two successes! I win! (9 Coins!). The narration ended up being that she was healed of her "Poisoned" state (1 coin) but is now in a "State of Trance" (1 coin)...

So one thowaway roll, and now I've got enough Coins for some real story power (both other players had high teens low twenties Wealth)...ended up using the to create the Master Component for the "Cats of the Wild Ways" later...

In the Monday Indie netgame we added lots of twists with Complications (Including bringing back people killed in the first scene as undead opponents...)

Excellant answer Bob.

To list for references some of the uses that we envisioned for Complications:

1) An idea starter. Sometimes you have a scene with a lot of potential but you don't have a clear idea what direction to take it, or how best to spice it up. One way of doing this is by Originating a Complication. The act of Drawing upon Traits (and which Traits get Drawn on) can provide alot of interesting details to the action when it comes time to resolve the Complication. Often whole new branching story ideas can come from how players responded to an otherwise innocuous Complication.

2) An alternative to Challenges. Complications can be used to guide a story another player is telling in a desired direction without resorting to Challenging that player or Interrupting them completely. Rather, a Complication can be used to introduce elements into a scene and force other players to react to those elements.

3) To introduce a certain degree of challenge or difficulty. Sometimes in the course of a narrative a player may be having the hero perform all kinds of high flying actions (or even not so high flying). At some point you may want to interject a very traditional concept of "hey lets make him roll to see if he succeeds at that). This is where the Obstacle Complication comes in. When another player is narrating an Event and you want to interject an element of uncertainty into the outcome you can Originate an Obstacle Challenge. The twist is that the roll doesn't determine success / failure of the Event directly. Rather it determines which player (or combination of players) gets to decide how the Event happens.

4) Another means of adding an element of suspense to the game. Which player wins will often make a big difference in the direction the story goes and this is determined with a dice mechanic that can add an element of unknown and surprise.

5) As a way of generating new Coins as Bob suggests above. The interesting detail of how this works is that it encourages you to base Complications off of elements that already exist in the story (which helps maintain consistancy). It does this because of the 2 ways of adding dice to the Complication. The more dice you roll, the more likely you are to get more Coins out. Also the Winner statistically should average 1.5 times the Coin output of the Loser and the more dice you roll, the more likely you are to win. One way to get more dice is to buy them at 1 Coin each. However, if you are paying dice for most of the Coins in your Pool your net profits will likely be slim (or even a loss if you wind up Losing the roll). So the best method is to get most of your dice from Traits that are already present in the scene. Someone else paid to put those Traits there (or you Introduce for 1 Coin a Component that has many useable Traits) and you capitalize on their presence.

If you can arrange a situation where you are rolling alot of dice for which you paid very little: a) you are likely to reap great profits allowing you to pocket the Coins in excess of those you use to bring the Complication to a satisfying resolution, and b) the Complication is likely to be consistant with the story being built from elements that already exist in the scene.

6) And, in point of fact, I find them to just be flat out fun.

Good to hear you're trying it out, Ed.

We make no bones about the fact that Universalis has a learning curve. The first session will be slow as you get used to the rules. But you'll find that they are, for the most part intuitive, and as such you'll find that play speeds up as you go. In fact, you'll find that you find more and more ways to manipulate the system as you go.

We find new ones here all the time.

Basically, Universallis is a skill that you improve with play. The better you get the more fun it becomes, and the more things you can do with it. Have fun learning, and always feel free to ask here if something seems problematic.

Mike

It was surprising to look at the logs for both the indie netgame and our Temple of Bast home game.

The difference in how much got done between the first and second sessions of both games was LARGE...in the same amount of time.

Right, Bob. As people catch on, I'm hoping that a larger and larger base of experienced players who are better able to teach others emerges. By next con season I'm hoping to be able to play games with groups composed entirely of experts, FtF. This should be a real blast.

Mike

And now I don't know when I'll be playing Uni again -- I can't find the rulebook.

I don't know if I lost it, or if one of my two one-year-olds decided it belonged in a cupboard somewhere, but it's been days since I saw it.

In the meantime, I've challenged a couple of friends who aren't local to "learn-the-rules-as-you-go play-by-mail Universalis," which is now "learn-the-rules-as-you-go play-by-mail Universalis-as-Ed-best-remembers-the-rules."

That's fun.

If nothing else, Universalis prevents two classic RPG enjoyment killers:

The GM who creates and insists on using a world that his players don't really like very much,

and..

The players who make characters the GM can't really stand and ruin his enjoyment of the game.

Now everyone's on equal footing, and everyone has to find compromises that people can live with. That is just cool.

OK, here, as promised, is a writeup of what happened in the first game,
fact by fact.... it was only a half hour, remember.

The First Universalis Game

This was a very short game, as I wedged it in after a regular
roleplaying game, assuring the players I just wanted to try it out and
it would only be about a half hour. So it was at least as much
background as play.

(everything in "" below is a Fact.)

The background began. I started with "post holocaust." Next were
added "weird science" and "no magic." (I believe the idea was to ward
off any Thundarrian 'Princess Ariels.') Next: "Interplanetary stuff"
-- that is, the solar system had been colonized, presumably before the
holocaust. The holocaust was a "weird ecological holocaust" which
caused "rampant mutation." People on Earth "scavenged for technology"
because nobody could produce it much anymore. The barbarian
Earthlings "traded at a huge disadvantage to offworlders," exchanging
vast resources for precious technology. While "there do exist
offworld mutants," "there is massive anti-mutant prejudice offplanet,"
because "Earth is quarantined against mutagens" -- that is, it is
believed, rightly or wrongly, that the mutations on Earth are somehow
contagious. "Psychic powers exist & are a symptom of mutation" so of
course an offworlder wouldn't admit tohaving them. And finally, this
game is going to be "about contact between barbarian earthlings and
civilized spacers."

Scene 1:
Location: "flagstaff, AZ," where there is a "spaceport," an area which
because of the desert is "relatively mutagen-free" and so offworlders
are willing to land and trade. Time: "winter."

We start making characters. One of the players begins with
"Mark Harris," a "cargo unloader" and "small-time trader," an
"earth-native non-mutant human" who "wants to get offplanet someday."

Also present is a "Professor of Earth history" who is "aged" and "new
to Earth."

And finally, "Fred," a "small-time trinket trader" who's a "smarmy,
offensive conman" and a "rival to Mark." He has "no VISIBLE
mutations."

Fred "pushes past Mark, who was going to unload the prof's gear, in
order to sell him junk and artifacts." This is a challenge, and I win
it for Fred. In this challenge he manages to "sell some crap to the
Prof," who's a little frightened and has poor sales resistance. That
crap includes "a piece of an unknown substance" which "looks like
jade" "on a pendant" and is, unfortunately, unknown to anyone present,
a "waste product from a nearby laboratory." Fred hops off, chuckling
gleefully to himself at such an easy score.

Mark approaches the bewildered professor, and offers to "hook him up
with a local hotel." Mark "has a lot of local contacts" and gets a
kickback from this hotel for recommending guests. Gratefully the aged
prof accepts....

And that's as far as we got.