Gimmick: No buying new traits during a Complication. The ban covers all components, whether they're in play or not. Once the dice are rolled and results tallied, the ban is lifted.

Comments: This moderates a tendency for surprise traits to appear when needed. It encourages players to add traits in regular play and to think up justifications for dice bought for the Complication itself.


Gimmick: No more named characters may be created.

Comment: I bought this gimmick halfway through a a game. I thought we had enough major characters and wanted play to focus on them, instead of new, last-minute creations. Strangely, limiting the ability to name characters did indeed limit the creation of new major characters.

I originally proposed something different, but Wil (Rafial) challenged it and suggested the named character restriction as a compromise. Below is another idea I had for the same purpose:


Gimmick: No character may gain more than one new, neutral or advantageous trait per turn.

Comment: This is intended for introduction after major character's have been introduced, to limit burgeoning casts.

Alan wrote: Gimmick: No buying new traits during a Complication. The ban covers all components, whether they're in play or not. Once the dice are rolled and results tallied, the ban is lifted.

Comments: This moderates a tendency for surprise traits to appear when needed. It encourages players to add traits in regular play and to think up justifications for dice bought for the Complication itself.

Gimmick: No more named characters may be created.

Comment: I bought this gimmick halfway through a a game. I thought we had enough major characters and wanted play to focus on them, instead of new, last-minute creations. Strangely, limiting the ability to name characters did indeed limit the creation of new major characters.

Gimmick: No character may gain more than one new, neutral or advantageous trait per turn.

Comment: This is intended for introduction after major character's have been introduced, to limit burgeoning casts.

Mike Holmes wrote:

Alan wrote: Gimmick: No buying new traits during a Complication.

This sounds corrective. One idea surrounding teh development of Complications was that they were really appropriate places for Traits to appear. Yes, in stories quite often you find out something about a character right in the middle of some complication. It's cool.

I can't imagine why you'd want to stop that.

Ah, I get it. I like that alternate method. Cool.

Mike

Alan initially sent this to me in an email. In my reply I suggested the following:

For the first gimmick, I'd distinguish between a set-up scene and a climactic scene (fighting the level boss, so to speak). I wouldn't restrict adding traits to characters in the middle of Complications during the set-up scenes but I can definitely see a cool effect from restricting it from climactic scenes (A climactic scene could simply be a Trait bought for the scene during Framing).

This would mean that you'd still have the opportunity for all of those cool "Betcha didn't know James spent 3 years as a ski instructor in Aspen, didja?" moments...during the set-up scenes where the Complications are there to establish the conflict. But during the big Climactic "encounter" you'd better have all of your ducks in a row...no more pulling rabbits out of the hat.

This could actually be combined with a gimmick that said Traits could only be purchased during Complications to some effect. You'd really have an old "side scroller" feel to the game then I think.


For the second gimmick, another gimmick along the same lines is to name 1 character as the "Main Protagonist". No other character in the story can ever have an Importance higher than the "Main Protagonists" except for the "Main Antagonist". A variant would allow each player to select 1 main character for an ensemble cast. No other character can have an Importance higher than the highest Main Character.

I could see the "no climax scene Traits" gimmick I suppose, but still...

I am reminded of the last scene of Wizards (paraphrasing from memory):

"Here's a little trick momma never taught you!"

I think that Luke picks up a level or two of Master Jedi or Enlightenment or something in his final fight against Darth Vader. Not as a result, but in the middle. You know, when he turns off his light sabre. It's those levels, and not his lightsabre fighting or even his control of The Force that turn the tide in the end and get his father to come back to him.

How often do we see new levels of Determination emerge in Heroes during climaxes. Hell, Ripley of Alien fame must have ten levels by the time the last movie rolls around.

I'd just stick to Challenging hard to get the level of quality that's needed. Challenge away weak additions, but let the appropriate ones stand. That's what I'd do.

Still, I can understand the sentiment. Players should realize that they need to be building to a climax, and that means revealing along the way, not just waiting for the climax.

How about the Gimmick that was discussed previously? Where you can only add one Trait per Complication. That ought to keep quality high, no?

Mike

Following up on the previous post...

Valamir wrote: For the second gimmick, another gimmick along the same lines is to name 1 character as the "Main Protagonist". No other character in the story can ever have an Importance higher than the "Main Protagonists" except for the "Main Antagonist". A variant would allow each player to select 1 main character for an ensemble cast. No other character can have an Importance higher than the highest Main Character.

As as player in the game where Alan tried the "no traits during complications" rule, I have to say I enjoyed the effect.

First, it kept dice pools small. Although people still spent coins to improve their pools during complications, it was always temporary, instead of characters powering up to higher and higher levels. This was especially nice for our chosen genre (20's adventure pulp serial) which doesn't generally feature massively superhuman characters.

Second, because buying dice for pools has to be justified, this led to much narration of cool tactics and evironmental effects that we hadn't had in the past. For example, at one point I justified buying a die during a fight on the World Crime League Zepplin, by stating that the Zepplin hit some turbulence, causing a character to lose his footing. Someone else siezed on that idea to buy another die stating that the turbulence shook a tray off a high shelf which hit another character on the head. And so forth.

Third once I got used to the idea that characters needed to prepare for their showdowns ahead of time, it lead to some neat foreshadowing. For example at one point I narratated a character strapping on his six-gun, because I knew he was headed for trouble, and I wanted that extra die in any upcoming complications.

rafial wrote:
Second, because buying dice for pools has to be justified, this led to much narration of cool tactics and evironmental effects that we hadn't had in the past. For example, at one point I justified buying a die during a fight on the World Crime League Zepplin, by stating that the Zepplin hit some turbulence, causing a character to lose his footing. Someone else siezed on that idea to buy another die stating that the turbulence shook a tray off a high shelf which hit another character on the head. And so forth.

Oce I got used to the idea that characters needed to prepare for their showdowns ahead of time, it lead to some neat foreshadowing. For example at one point I narratated a character strapping on his six-gun, because I knew he was headed for trouble, and I wanted that extra die in any upcoming complications.

Hey, that's a neat idea.
I've always been inclined to add Facts to everything because I didn't much see the point in spending the Coins just to have them vanish after a Complication ends.
Just spending Coins on 'influences' during the Complications keeps things neat and tidy on the old index card!
So now I can self-justify what's in the rules!
Thanks for the example!

Valamir wrote:
I will note just for clarity that adding traits to characters during a complication also has to be justified. So its not enough to simply add "Combat God x3" it has to be added in a manner justified like the above.

rafial wrote:
Could you give an example of what you mean here? After all, if we haven't learned much about "Bob" other than that he is a "Nattily attired stranger", why shouldn't he be a "Combat God x3"?

Switching focus, I've thought of two varients to the initial gimmick that might be interesting to explore. One is to charge 2 coins to add traits during complications, thus allowing the "hidden side" of a character to emerge, if somebody really thinks it is justified, while still encouraging the use of "one shot" dice since they are now cheaper.

I've been thinking on it, and I can't remember the rationale for going to one coin per Trait (as it was originally all Traits were two per, inside a complication or out). I know that I agreed with it in the end, but I'm trying to remember the reasoning.

One objection was that it introduced math, but multiplying times two for low numbers wasn't enough on it's own to get us to change our minds. Ralph, you were the proponent, what was it? As the opponent, of course I don't remember. :-)

That said, I think that Raf's suggestion for two in complications is the best I've seen yet. Gives incentive to Trait up outside of Conflicts, but still allows for Traits to be purchased in Complications if you like. Very cool. Hmmmm...

Mike "off to the Wiki to post a Gimmick" Holmes

Gimmick/Trait: [Named Player] can not control [Named Component].

Comments: Got this one from Dave on his first game, my second. He created the Queen as part of the setting, decided it wouldn't be right for him to treat her as just another character and limited himself with this. Eh, it'd probably best for only the [Named Player] to buy this otherwise it could get complicated fast.

an Anti Player Character Gimmick...
Cool, not sure I would ever use it myself, but I could see some folks I know saying...
"Bxxxx" cannot use the Ninja ever.

Bob McNamee

Add to last post: I think its cool that Dave on his first game limited himself in a story driving way. Not only did this increase her (The Queen's) Importance he was basically saying that she is the reason for this story and that he and his main characters are out to impress her. He was playing both a 'good' Unnamed low level knight on her side and the 'bad' Count, the leader of the opposition (basically to see which side of his personality would... [insert appropiate possible outcome here]). Transcript forthcoming.

Think about how Captain Janeway banned herself from altering the Irish guy's program (Star Trek) and why she did it.


Thanks, could be a can of worms if used in the wrong way (or maybe exactly the right way depending on your POV), but how about this:

I think this would also be great applied to the Main Antagonist, because with the regular Gimmicks one player (or a group) would play the Good PC and one player stuck with the Bad PC (or vice versa) to keep him from being abused by the 'wrong' player grabbing control and spoiling the flow of the story. Er, rephrase: There really hasn't been any way the group could prevent one PC's player from controlling his opposite other than putting him under the complete control of another player, who's stuck with him for as long as the Gimmick lasts. Simply putting this in place allows everybody who wants to act contrary to the Player of the Main Protagonist/Antagonist to use the same hero/villain.

I'm going to come out and say right now that, other than as a way of making a statement, negative Gimmicks, Tenets, Facts, whatever, are not good play, IMO.

That is, they work as a way of trying to say something else, but not to enforce what they are technically designed to enforce. Not that they don't work. Just that they never get used. That is, I can just ask the other players not to do a zombie game (instead of what I did as my first Tenet in the WIki game which was to, in a bad attempt at comedy, state that nobody could make Zombies a priority in the game). The difference is that with a negative Tenet or Fact in play, I'll get double to protect against some infraction, as opposed to only having my normal value in Coins. But that's not to say that I couldn't just have Challenged Zombies if/when they are proposed.

See, if nobody intended to do Zombies, then it was very much a waste of a Coin. Even if they did intend to do Zombies, and I had to Challenge, I'll bet it wouldn't have had to go to Bidding. And if it did have to go to bidding, then there's no reason to suspect that I wouldn't have won with a minimum bid anyhow. Bascially, the odds of that invested Coin becoming handy for it's ostensible purposes are slim and none.

Now, that all said, I also hoped that the Zombie statement would have an effect of trying to say that I wanted a game that didn't include cliche elements that I've seen in most Universlais games. And as such, a statement like that could be effective in theory. But as it happened, somebody ended up throwing in the Aliens, anyhow. Which makes my statement totally ineffective, because I can't even use it to do what it was intended to do, because it literally does not cover Aliens, only Zombies.

What I should have done was to be less comedic, and stated exactly what I meant, which was that I didn't want any campy elements. Or even better that I wanted a game with a serious tennor or something to that effect. Because positive statements give you much more range than negative ones of the sort we're discussing.

So, when considering making up such Tenets and Facts, etc, consider the effect that you're trying to achieve, and make a positive statemtent that gets you closer to your goal.

Thus, the idea of saying that player x will not play character y seems to miss the point. If I'm doing it to myself, it's totally pointless, as I can never be forced to play a character that I don't want to (baring some Gimmick to make that happen). If I'm doing it to another player, then woudn't it make more sense to just do the PC thing and put the control of the character in the hands of the player that knows best?

I'm really wary of the idea of doing this to the extent where an Us vs. Them situation arises in terms of sides. Universalis is not meant to withstand PVP competition in earnest. In my mind there's never a time where any player doesn't know "what's best" for any character; the amount of Coins they have is what says how well they "know best". The idea that players have biases with characters smacks of competition in the first place to me. That people are championing particular characters over others. The idea is not to fight over who gets to "Win", player or character. If you think that certain characters are protagonists, the only thing that you have to enforce that is your stack of Coins. Everybody elses' opinion counts just as well as yours.

Thus, don't be surprised when somebody tries to turn your protagonist into a villain. Either accept it as how the game works, or have Coins on hand to make sure you can Challenge it away.

Or better yet, make it a Tenet. The character Joe Bob is a Protagonist is a perfectly valid and positive way to reinforce that sort of idea. Fail to do so at your own risk. Do these things with positive statements wherever possible.

Mike

Hmm, I see what you're saying Mike.
But I still find my negative Tenet useful, given that I didn't have any great ideas about what I did want, but I did know that I didn't want a Pulpy feeling game.
By putting out the Coin it lets everybody know that, and, signals that I'd be willing to Challenge any introduction of Pulp style.

I thought your Tenet was fine, but I guess you didn't say what you meant.

I do agree if I knew what I wanted... like "A gritty street level crime drama"
Proposing that positive Tenet would have been much better than a "No soap opera melodrama" negative Tenet.

Mike is absolutely right that in Universalis you get alot more mileage out of positive statements than negative.

This holds true even with Traits. For example you could have a character with Toughx2 as a Trait. To reflect an illness one could spend 1 Coin to reduce the Tough Trait by one. This is basically a negating statement. *OR* one could use a positive statement like "Bob is weak from the fever". In any Complication the net effect is the same +1 die Tough vs +2 dice Tough, -1 die Weak. BUT the additional information provided by the "weak with fever" trait provides a much better foundation to springboard from.

That's not to say that one gets zero mileage from a negative statement. But chances are, with a little thought one can find a way to word the statement (Gimmick, Tenet, Trait, or otherwise) as a positive assertion instead.

But this is one of those things I love about Gimmicks. They're rules that are brainstormed on the fly and which get immediate playtesting. The ones that work (i.e. give the game a flavor that the participants enjoy better than without it), become Add-ons that that group will return to time and again. The ones that didn't work, don't get used again.

I see what you're saying, Bob, and sure, if that's all you have to say, and it's really important, go for the negative statement. All I'm saying is that with consideration, as Ralph points out, you can often convert to a more powerful statment. And while nobody made any Tenets that challenged the "no pulp" Tenet, we really can't know for sure that somebody would have had you not put that out there. I certainly didn't intend pulp. Maybe nobody did. In which case the Coin really didn't serve a purpose (though it still may in play).

Still, I suppose from the "ounce of prevention" argument....

Mike

I agree with you, Mike. It may be a wasted Coin.
Compared to a positive Tenet which is never really wasted.
But it seemed important to say at the time.

It would have been less wasteful for me just to have posted a clear comment (instead of a formal Tenet) saying "I don't want Pulp style, and will Challenge it if added".
Then, save my Coin for something positive and relevant, or for a challenge, if necessary. Even the very broad Tenet "On Earth" was more useful than my negative Tenet. negative doesn't really help define what the game IS about.
So basically I've flipped on my stance on Tenets...Positive all the way...or Pass...or make pre-negotiation comments.

Funny how it comes down to communication...as do so many things in RPGs.