Tenet Phase Participation

[Mike Holmes]

Steve (AKA Hix) thought this might make a good thread topic, so here it is:

I have personally experienced cases where individual players have gone through tenet phases without adding anything substantial to the set of tenets, while other players have added things that they were excited about. In fact, I've been that player once or twice. And I've observed the same phenomenon in all of these cases - the player in question basically drops out of the game. Oh, they may participate nominally. But they don't have the energy that the players who put in "real" tenets do. They'll pass a lot, and they'll tend to only add a little color here, jump in on complications with secondary pools, etc. and never really instigate conflict. They may create characters, but these don't seem to end up going somewhere - even other players don't "get" the point of the characters.

It's not enough simply to agree tacitly to the other players tenets, either. Or even, I'm guessing, if the player modifies them via challenge. These indicate a superficial interest in playing what's being thought up, but not the kind of investment that you really want a player to have. RPGs and games like Universalis have a sort of "problem" in that the material that's produced is really only engaging if you are somehow invested in the material being produced. Audiences of RPGs (and worse, readers of transcripts of RPG play) note that they find such output to be rather boring. It takes a long time to produce action, and the process is so visible, generally, that it's not at all like watching TV or similar media. The only time these sorts of games are fun is when you're actively participating because you have invested in what's going on.

Universalis has a method to make such an investment explicitly. Instead of the general agreement that you have in most games simply to play the material that's provided, Universalis doesn't provide any material up front that the player might invest in. The players have to produce it themselves. And, again, tacitly accepting other's Tenets is not a sign of investment. It's a sign that the tenets are inoffensive at best. The only way to know that a player is really going to be engaged is if they get that bright look in their eyes as they toss a Coin in and say something like, "But the monkeys are intelligent!" That's the point at which you know that the participant has made the game, in part, theirs. And that they'll have a real personal interest in making it come out in an interesting fashion.

Interestingly, I find that if you skip the tenet phase entirely, this works too. Essentially everyone is agreeing to a big gimmick in which you all are agreeing to walk the tightrope without a net. Just being in on such a bold dare seems to engage people. And what happens then is that people understand that the tenets are really going to be established in the first few turns that each player takes as they happen in play. This dynamic can work well.

The point is that the tenet phase, even if omitted, must be an agreement forged amongst all the players about what will be fun to play. If any individual player is not an active part in coming up with the totality, they simply won't be as engaged as the players who have invested a bit of their creativity in determining what the game will be about.

So don't let a player fall by the wayside. If you see them floundering during the tenet phase, don't succumb to the temptation to close the phase and just "get on with it." And don't accept just any mailed in tenets, either. If a player doesn't seem to have an idea, they might be tempted to just toss something out there that comes to mind, but which they aren't really interested in, just to have completed a social obligation to appear to have invested. Make sure you get that bright-eyed look from them before you head into play. This might only be one tenet if it's important enough. But you'll know it when you see it.

Mike

[Andrew Morris]

Mike, I absolutely agree with you. In one game of Uni, I missed the tenet phase. When I sat back down at the table, the game had gone in a direction I would have spent heavily to counter or re-route. I really tried to get into the game, but I was battling a "lack of caring" the whole time. I hadn't identified missing the tenet phase as the cause, but looking back on it, it's pretty clear.

[matthijs]

Oh, yes! Applies to both Uni play and group-participation campaign planning. If they don't get the spark in the planning stage, chances are it'll never be lit.

[hix]

"That bright eyed look." Exactly!

What I've been finding over the last couple of games of Uni is that Tenets are like sub-plots. Their effect on the game comes and goes. So to get that bright eyed look during the game as well as the Tenet phase, I'm now looking for people to be engaged by 2 or 3 Tenets.

My theory (untested) is that doing this leads to a full-on gloves off game of Uni.

[They] may participate nominally. But they don't have the energy that the players who put in "real" tenets do. They'll pass a lot, and they'll tend to only add a little color here, jump in on complications with secondary pools, etc. and never really instigate conflict.

This is exactly how I felt about (and what I felt was happening in) large patches of the outlining of our Disney Family Movie script.

[Mike Holmes]

It's how I feel about the current Universalis Wiki game, which is why it's so forward in my head right now. I challenged one tenet that I really didn't like, but let it go upon clarification, when I should have stuck to my guns. It's made the game largely unplayable for me. Combined with me putting in no tenets of my own, I've been very hard pressed to participate.

I'm always telling people to go hard on challenges - and then I go and ignore my own advice. Dumb. And then to think that I would be interested in a game that I put no tenets in on...don't know what I was thinking there.

Mike

[hix]

Hmm, solutions:

1. Everyone knows each other so well, you can just ask if you're all 'into it' and expect honest answers.

2. At the end of the Tenet phase, you actually analyse the Tenets and make sure everyone's into it. Maybe a poll of how many people are excited by each Tenet. This is what I meant in my scriptwriting thread about cherrypicking the Tenets that work for the whole group and discarding the rest.

3. In a situation like Mike's describing, can you a) talk about the issue as a group mid-game and retrofit Tenets into the story or b) introduce a new element that not only engages you but gets everyone else's consent?

That seems pretty important to me: what do you do if a game's not working? But it could be off-topic.

[Mike Holmes]

Hmm. If the game's not working, then you should urge the player to throw in new tenets until they do have an investment.

I probably should do that with the UniWiki - but the anthropomorphism thing is so turning me off, that I'm not sure I have enough enthusiasm to even do that. I'll have to think about it. That's specific to my case, and probably not typical, however. I think in most cases that you probably can get people to up their tenet count if you catch their disenchantment early enough.

As for what to look for, again, I think it's just typical social feedback. I mean, it's not hard to tell when somebody is genuinely enthused. You might be wrong, but then that's when you apply the remedy. IME, attempts to talk about such things usually result in bad information. Players confirming their enthusiasm despite having none. Look for the genuine, unconrtolled responses.

Mike

[hix]

With on-line RPing, can you detect enthusiasm about the tenets just from what people wrote? If not, that'd mean there are some circumstances where frank and open discussion probably should happen.

A hypothetical RL example: I know what you mean about being able to see when players are into the Tenets. Let's say someone hasn't got that bright-eyed look. Mike, your advice in your first post was to not let them off the hook (that's the remedy you mentioned just above, right?).

I can't quite see how 'pressing them to contribute something that works for them' goes (as a social interaction) without addressing the fact that you don't think they're into the game.

[Trevis Martin]

Just a note there Mike, the Anthropomorphism tenet has been rescinded.  Has it flavored the story so much that you can't get into it now?  

I've been following this discussion with interest and I agree.  I'm wondering if everybody has 'bought in' which seems to be absolutely critical.  More critical, even than in RL.

You could pop in with some tenets of your own, the more investment we get the better off we are.

best

Trevis

[Mike Holmes]

It's the same old problem with investment that we discussed extensively in terms of scenes. The other players seem to have the anthropomorphism thing going strong, and seem to "get" it. It would be really...messy...to come in and alter that right now. I'd feel like I was hacking the story in some way.

I think that's the importance of the tenet phase, again. If you don't get in at that level (or immediately thereafter), then everything that gets created in the meanwhile becomes barrier to you ever becoming invested. The story moves on without you, and then you're not an invested member anymore.

All my fault, again; I knew that I was being lax in the tenet phase. I was concentrating too much on the rules at that point, and not putting in any effort to make the game what I wanted to see.

This, then, does relate to the problem with UniWiki and downtime. Again, I think that unless you're in on the tenet phase, that it's unlikely that you'll be inspired by the tenets that have been introduced. This is why we see few to no entrants after the game starts. And, again, once the story is on it's way, it's hard to become invested, since you have to buy into what are the implicit tenets of the play so far.

I think that I'm pretty ready to try WorldWiki. I really sense that this will work a bit better than UniWiki does. I think that UniWiki works, but only to the extent that it's a game with X players who are involved in the tenet phase, and those players are committed to playing on a regular basis. Possibly with turns or something. As designed, with the idea of being an open game, I think that it may just be terminally flawed.

Mike