Post originally by Dan Davenport at 2004-06-11 10:50:27
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Great review. I now have a much better grasp of how this game works than I've gleaned from all other discussion about it.
I also appreciate you having addressed the issue of its status as a roleplaying game right off, and doing so in a fair-minded fashion.
I have to stick to my guns here, personally: This is not a roleplaying game, because you are not playing the role of a character; rather, you are writing what <u>happens</u> to a character. If the latter may be called a roleplaying game, then so is writing a novel. I'd categorize this as a cooperative storytelling game. (Although I do recall the author mentioning an option for direct control over individual characters.) It does, however, sound like an innovative and fun game, whatever you want to call it.
Post originally by CPXB at 2004-06-11 11:05:06
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I'm glad you found the review useful.
Yeah, there was some contention with my group as to whether Universalis was really an RPG at all. I admit its pretty far from what most gamers think of as "role-playing games" but from my point of view -- that of a person who primarily referees games instead of playing in them -- it felt very much like a role-playing game. A GM, after all, has to routinely play multiple characters and control plot elements. From a GM-ing point of view, I didn't do anything in Universalis that, really, I wouldn't do GMing another game. So, to me, it fit the classification of a role-playing game.
Nevertheless, I can see how other people might want to make the distinction between Universalis and traditional RPGs. I was definitely expressing my opinion about that one, hehe.
And, yes, on the Univeralis homepage they have some rules gimmicks for creating PCs. So if a group wanted to play it as a more traditional RPG with individual players having set PCs they could do that. Did I mention the game is really flexible? It is, hehe.
Post originally by Dan Davenport at 2004-06-11 11:33:50
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CPXB wrote:
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<b><i>Yeah, there was some contention with my group as to whether Universalis was really an RPG at all. I admit its pretty far from what most gamers think of as "role-playing games" but from my point of view -- that of a person who primarily referees games instead of playing in them -- it felt very much like a role-playing game. A GM, after all, has to routinely play multiple characters and control plot elements. From a GM-ing point of view, I didn't do anything in Universalis that, really, I wouldn't do GMing another game. So, to me, it fit the classification of a role-playing game.
Nevertheless, I can see how other people might want to make the distinction between Universalis and traditional RPGs. I was definitely expressing my opinion about that one, hehe.</i></b>
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You make a valid point.
My response would be that there's a reason the GM isn't called a "player": While he is certainly playing the game, he isn't assuming a specific role, unless you count "everything else" as a role. Now the latter's one way of looking at it, of course, but I think that only makes sense when juxtaposed against players assuming specific roles.
Why? Well, imagine if all of the players got up and left, leaving the GM by himself. Could he run a dialogue between two NPCs, or even determine the events of an NPC's entire adventure? Sure. However, I doubt that what he'd be doing at that point could be called "roleplaying". Instead, I'd call that improvisational storytelling.
Universalis game play sounds like a bunch of GMs doing the above as a group, with a resolution method to determine who has control of the story; hence, I'd call it some form of storytelling game, rather than a roleplaying game. (Barring the character control mechanic, that is.)
I fully realize that we're deep into semantics, of course. But I do think common understanding of terminology is important for communication. In this case, asking someone if he wants to play a roleplaying game and then presenting him with Universalis is bound to cause some confusion.
Post originally by tetsujin28 at 2004-06-11 11:38:00
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Dan Davenport wrote:
In this case, asking someone if he wants to play a roleplaying game and then presenting him with Universalis is bound to cause some confusion.
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Post originally by Adrienne at 2004-06-11 11:50:05
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I was one of the other players in this test, and I also enjoyed the game quite a bit. I thought of it wistfully while I was struggling to finish all my DMing notes for my weekly D&D game.
One other minor problem with the game that I didn't see mentioned in the review was the amount of record-keeping involved. Chris, who did most of it, was frequently scribbling Traits down in a rush while the rest of us were playing. Later in the session, I started keeping track of Components added by me, but it was a little awkward--if Chris took over a character I had created, should I hand him my whole notebook? One fix suggested for this (on the Universalis site or forum, I think) was to use index cards for each Component. Although we didn't actually try this, since it didn't occur to us at the time, I think it would probably work well.
Anyway, just something to be aware of if people read this review and think about trying it.
Post originally by Eero Tuovinen at 2004-06-11 12:12:27
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> I fully realize that we're deep into
> semantics, of course. But I do think
> common understanding of terminology is
> important for communication. In this
> case, asking someone if he wants to play
> a roleplaying game and then presenting
> him with Universalis is bound to cause
> some confusion.
For some reason this one has come up constantly lately for me, so I'll give you my understanding of the matter.
It's certainly completely irrelevant to rational communication whether we call storytelling games roleplaying or not; any single individual can either talk about "roleplaying games excepting storytelling games" or "roleplaying and storytelling games", whichever is the way the word is used in the future. Either way, the difference can be made and everyone can use the language.
However, IMO the decision here has cultural consequences. By limiting roleplaying to mean specifically games where players take a role we implicitly say that storytelling games are "other" in some fundamental way. Take RPGnet, as example: if roleplaying means only games where you play a role, storytelling games have a little smaller claim to bandwidth here, in par with board games and such. The simple act of defining the word has then made changes in the fundamentals of the conversation here.
Now, some people evidently think that this consequence of the idiom is a good thing. Lord knows, in Finland it's a main argument in all kinds of roleplaying debates that any inconvenient storytelling games, dungeon crawls and such are not actually roleplaying games at all, and thus can be disregarded in the discussion. Definitions have power, especially with such central words as roleplaying is. Whatever ends up included is what our community is about, in a sense.
Based on the above I for one have no intention whatsoever to relinquish the storytelling game's claim to the umbrella term of "roleplaying". The action is fundamentally similar, and the kind of game where character play is really central can rather be called character play, if one wants to differentiate between it and the multitude of other kinds of roleplaying games.
Post originally by Dan Davenport at 2004-06-11 12:40:35
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Eero Tuovinen wrote:
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<b><i>However, IMO the decision here has cultural consequences. By limiting roleplaying to mean specifically games where players take a role we implicitly say that storytelling games are "other" in some fundamental way. Take RPGnet, as example: if roleplaying means only games where you play a role, storytelling games have a little smaller claim to bandwidth here, in par with board games and such. The simple act of defining the word has then made changes in the fundamentals of the conversation here.
Now, some people evidently think that this consequence of the idiom is a good thing. Lord knows, in Finland it's a main argument in all kinds of roleplaying debates that any inconvenient storytelling games, dungeon crawls and such are not actually roleplaying games at all, and thus can be disregarded in the discussion. Definitions have power, especially with such central words as roleplaying is. Whatever ends up included is what our community is about, in a sense.
Based on the above I for one have no intention whatsoever to relinquish the storytelling game's claim to the umbrella term of "roleplaying". The action is fundamentally similar, and the kind of game where character play is really central can rather be called character play, if one wants to differentiate between it and the multitude of other kinds of roleplaying games.</i></b>
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I don't think that access to bandwidth is sufficient justification for keeping storytelling games under the roleplaying game umbrella. If it were, then CCG players might have a claim that their games are RPGs -- after all, you play the "role" of a wizard in M:tG.
I'm not arguing that the activities are unrelated, mind you, because I certainly agree that they are. But I do think a distinction between them is valuable for the sake of clarity. You don't ask someone if they want to see a play and then take them to a movie.
Let me ask you this: Would you call a game in which two guys tell a round-robin story, flipping a coin every 15 minutes to see who gets to continue telling the story, a roleplaying game?
Post originally by Mike Holmes at 2004-06-11 12:46:59
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I'd like to thank Christopher Bradley for the time he took to review the game, and for the kind words. I'm not an owner of the game (Ralph owns sole rights), but it's nice to hear that people enjoy my work.
To address certain concerns:
* There can be loads of record keeping, yes, given that things are constantly being generated in play. There are some things that can be done to ameliorate this however - see the Universalis Forum or the website for some ideas regarding this.
* I always start off demos of Universalis by saying, "Universalis is not a Role-Playing Game." I do this so that people will clear their mind of assumptions, which can indeed be very counterproductive to trying to get people to understand what the game is about.
So I have no problem if anyone wants to say that it's not a role-playing game. Storytelling Game works just fine, or whatever makes sense to you.
* That said, it does have many similarities to roleplaying games. First, it's not true that you don't ever "play characters." In fact, there are rules specifically for how to insert dialog into the game. In practice, playing Universalis often looks a lot like a RPG.
Other times it looks like something completely different.
Anyhow, I'm glad that you had such a good time playing. Sounds like you guys would be great to play with.
Post originally by Matt Snyder at 2004-06-11 13:32:33
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Yes, Dan, I would consider that a kind of role-playing game.
Why? Because I generally approach role-playing games as things in which more than one person cooperatively explore some imaginative space. I do not define role-playing games as "playing a role," and I especially do not define role-playing games as "playing a SINGLE role."
That's my take on it. You've got yours, and that's cool. What I don't want to see happen is games like Universalis, which clearly has MUCH in common with many other RPGs get cordoned off as "Nope, not here, thanks. That's something ELSE."
Is Universalis a Storytelling Game? Sure, I think it is. I approach Storytelling Games as something either under the RPG umbrella, or such a close cousin that distinction is nearly irrelevant (and certainly irrelevant in terms of getting people access to the games -- i.e. they're sold together, basically).
I also approach Storytelling Games as kick ass games! Love 'em.
But I do think common understanding of terminology is important for communication. In this case, asking someone if he wants to play a roleplaying game and then presenting him with Universalis is bound to cause some confusion.
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