# Universalis *Created:* 2024-10-07, *Modified:* 2026-10-18 ![[Universalis (cover).jpg|600]] There's a school of RPG design that treats the Game Master as an unnecessary middleman, and then there's the school that taxes the position out of existence. **Universalis: The Game of Unlimited Stories** belongs to the second: a group of players replaces the GM's authority with a relentless, token-based economy, where **Coins** purchase narrative control. You buy the genre, you buy the characters, you buy the plot twists — and, if you're feeling ambitious, you even buy the rules. It's cooperative storytelling in which every single element of the shared fiction is a commodity, and the whole thing runs on how much everyone wants it that way. ## Setting There is no setting, and that's the point. Universalis ships no world, no premise, and no obligation to any genre — the players invent it all on the spot, spending Coins to establish a genre, a place, characters, and events as they go. The story takes shape out of an agreement and a rivalry: every player is entitled to add to the fiction, and the game's engine exists to settle who gets to when opinions collide. The result is less a campaign with a map than an improvised story the table builds and defends in the same breath. ## Mechanics The heart of the system is the **Coin** as the currency of authorship. Anything a player wants to be true of the world — a genre, a character, a location, a plot development, even a house rule — costs Coins to buy. Once spent, that element is part of the shared fiction and everyone has to play along (unless they'd rather spend to fight it). When one player establishes a fact and another wants to override it, the disagreement becomes a **Complication** — which is a sanitized term for a player dispute. Both sides gather the relevant **Traits** they previously paid for to build a pool of **ten-sided dice**, and players can burn extra Coins to buy more dice if they feel particularly petty. Each side rolls, and the high roller takes the pot: the victor wins the argument, earns **Bonus Coins**, and secures the right to dictate exactly what happens next in the fiction. Everything established costs Coins, but the game sorts it into four distinct roles: **Components** — people, places, and things, the *nouns* of the story; **Traits** — features attached to Components, the *adjectives*; **Events** — Components doing things, the *verbs*; and **Tenets** — the rules of the game world itself. As RPG historian Stu Horvath puts it, *"Universalis* is a game that wants to flow past mechanical hiccups as quickly as possible and it is often preferable to handwave a solution that appeases all parties rather than looking up something in the book." ## Editions - **Universalis** (2001/2002) — the original, by **Ralph Mazza** & **Mike Holmes** (Ramshead Publishing): debuted at GenCon 2001, its small first print run sold out within months, with a second printing running until 2006. Not held. - **Universalis: Revised Edition** (2006) — Mazza's revision: not enormous in rules but a significant re-organization and presentation pass for clarity, folding in fan-tested **Rules Gimmicks** (formalized house-rule steps). The held copy is the book's **2011 PDF reintroduction** of this edition. *In the library.* ## References - [**Universalis** - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universalis) - [**Universalis** (2006) - Vintage RPG](https://www.vintagerpg.com/2018/12/universalis-2006/) - [RPGnet Review: **Universalis**](https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/10/10384.phtml) - [Universalis RPG Overview - Project Rho](https://www.projectrho.com/rpg/universalis.html) - [Buy **Universalis** at Indie Press Revolution](https://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Universalis-PDF.html)