Code of Unaris is a chat roleplaying game made for the short-sentenced environment of chat, and for people who can't find the time to get together to game in person.

It's Diceless. Type what you wish to do, use the appropriate skill, and if your skill number is higher than the difficulty number of the task, you succeed. (Note: there are no abilities like strength or intelligence, just skills.)

It has a gamemaster. This is not software. Just a set of rules and a complex fantasy setting the you can adventure in through any chat interface.

You gain bonuses to your skill by using the right tool, having a superior tactical advantage, or by good roleplay.

You can also spend (story hack) points to change (edit) words that the gamemaster types. This is the best part of the game (check out the earlier posts to this blog for play examples.)

The play is fun, fast, and sometime humorous, as each player tries to outdo the other with creative hacking.

What is the "code" in Code of Unaris? The code refers to an ancient algorithm that a programmer uses to open a wormhole into Earth's past. Unaris is the name for Earth's moon, about a billion years ago.

What type of character can you play? Magisters, Plains Marshals (lawmen), Knights Unari, Warlocks, Smugglers, Talesingers, Mathematicians, Kingsmen, and Engineers. There are sixteen starting character templates.

Is there spell casting? Yes, there are magical spells. But there is also mathematics and engineering, two skills that allow mathematicians and engineers to harness (or break) the laws of physics.

How does combat work? For melee combat, you compare your Fight skill to your opponent's Fight skill. The higher one wins the round. The difference in the two Fight skills is the amount of damage that gets through to the loser. So a Fight of 9 vs a Fight of 5 would result in the player with the Fight of 5 taking 4 life points in damage.

There is no initiative phase. Actions take place at the speed they're typed.

What is the Sunset Kingdoms? The Third Age of Unaris. Think Rome meets the Renaissance. A time of prosperity, high magic, mathematics, architecture, and creativity and culture.

What is the Alfar Tower? The Fourth Age of Unaris. From the players' perspective, 5,000 years after the end of the Third Age. A dark age, when the people of Unaris eek out an existence in the cold, stone walls of the Tower, endlessly searching for resources so they can hold on a little longer.

So I can play a character in two different ages? Yes, you can either play a character in a single age, or you can time travel with the same character to the past (or future.) You could also play a character in the Third Age, and then play his or her descendant in the dark Fourth Age. If you're playing in the Third Age, the Warlock has not yet been released from his prison. If you're playing in the Fourth Age, the Warlock is on the surface of Unaris with his frozen legions, laying siege to the Alfar Tower in hopes of destroying mankind.

Who is the Winter Warlock? He was once a god known as Hypnos, Lord of Dreams, one of seven on the world of Unaris. He was corrupted and slew one of his peers, then assumed the mantle of the Winter Warlock and marched on the peoples of Unaris. The other gods managed to imprison him beneath a frozen mountain. During the Third Age, he is released from his prison by his followers, and will transform the world into an ice-covered land. Another god, the Lord Alfar, convinces the remaining Immortals to sacrifice themselves and build the Alfar Tower, a huge monolith embedded in the crust of Unaris, an ark of sorts, that will allow the survivors of the Third Age to live on into the Fourth. As our history goes, the Warlock is eventually defeated, and the people of the Tower escaped to populate our Earth. That WAS our history...

But now, the Warlock of the Third Age has noticed something. The wormhole that a modern-day programmer created has alerted him that all is not as it should be. He knows that his future self will not be able to end all life on Unaris. That the people of the Tower will escape to Earth. He cannot allow this to happen.

Players use chat programs to access the people who lived during the Third and Fourth Ages of Unaris. Grode, one of the programmers who helped craft the the wormhole, has contacted you. He realizes the Warlock knows he'll fail at destroying mankind and that he is working on a plan to insure he succeeds. As a player, you must adventure in the world and help slow down the minions of the Warlock, until such a time as you can ferret out just what the foe has in mind.

http://www.homestarrunner.com/dman3.html

You remember text games, don't you?

One of my favorite puzzle adventure games from some years ago. Very addictive.

Download it here:
http://www.gamehippo.com/download2/download2_667.shtml

Thought I'd post a couple of story notes that I had in my Unaris vault. They're speak to when the Finger of Nom crashed into the Northland, ending the Third Age of Unaris...

Gary


It started in my youth, when the sky started getting a bit hazy. Sometimes a fine dust would settle on our roof or porch or livestock. Oft times the watering troughs would develop a film on top and the food had a bit of an earthy tang to it. We thought nothing of it at the time. Just some dust blown in from across the Sunsea, we said.

In later years, as all our sunsets turned golden and the smaller stars started disappearing from the night sky, we realized that our world was slowly changing. Harvests were more plentiful than ever, but the winters were growing longer. It was often late spring before the ice on the river would crack, allowing the barges to once again make their way down from Persuasion. But we weren’t worried, for it was a glorious time. I was off in the capital finishing my apprenticeship at the craft hall and enjoying my last few days of freedom before life’s responsibilities took over.

It was on one of these nights that I first saw it. I’d decided to go out with the other workers to attend a one-man act down by the river. It was hot and muggy as most summer nights are in the central empire, but the sky was unusually clear that evening. That’s when I saw it, streaking north, the color of a smithy’s coals. A sound, strong and booming, shattered glass from a nearby inn, and a dozen drunken revelers jumped into the river, startled by the noise. But like everyone else, I soon turned my attention back to my wine and the performance on stage. Who knew?...

From the writings of Jacob Thatcher, wheelwright and survivor
-----

The winter hit Mott’s Grove overnight, destroying the entire harvest with its freezing blast. The outlying farms were not heard from again. Only those of us in town on errands and the local residents even made it through the first week, and only because we nearly burned the town down keeping the great bonfire going.

When Sage found us at the end of that first week, half-frozen and frost-bitten, and led us down into the caves that riddle the land below our valley, we were half out of our minds with grief. We’d lost nearly half the village, sixty-two lives, to the brutal winds and driving ice. All but a few of our animals had succumbed to the storm at this point so there was plenty of room in the cavern for what was left of us.

Weeks passed and the storm did not relent. We used up what little food we’d stored away and then started in on our surviving animals. Sage returned from scouting deeper into the tunnels to report an underground river and an old Underland trade route. As the temperature continued to drop within the upper caverns, we made the decision to relocate deeper into the planet. Little did we know that we’d never see the sun again.

From The Last Days of Thrush – A Compilation of Stories

The following was sent in by a fan. Let's call it James Bond meets News meets Code of Unaris.
It's a little dated now but still funny.

Spymaster: the wind and rain beat down upon your windshield - obscuring the road
Genisis: I keep to the center of the road as much as possible and crank up the radio. I ain't loosing him.
AlphaBev: Use the gps tracker in my laptop to find the Mandarin's location.
Spymaster: the glass in the passenger side window blows out as a bullet smacks into AlphaBev's head! Mark three wounds off. Must be a sniper in the woods.
Genisis: Let's hack head to laptop for 1 point.
AlphaBev: hack sniper to Cheney
Spymaster: snort

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/08/29/D8C9HR480.html

Sounds like a game plot device I'd use.

Being from Kansas I just have to promote...

http://www.venganza.org

Go, go, go Flying Spaghetti Monster.

(Link found on thedarkbear's livejournal.)

There is a great Podcast review of Code of Unaris up at the Havegameswilltravel website.
You can find it at:

http://havegameswilltravel.libsyn.com

There is also a chat transcript of their play session on the same site.

Though I've seen a ton of these, this particular transcript reminded me again (in a good way) of the importance of the following.

1. People have to be open to trying something new. I think this is one of the barriers to playing Code of Unaris. They might already play through chat with d20 or Storyteller so don't see the need to explore another way. But as I keep finding out, once players actually play the game in the context of chat it turns out to be an enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours.

2. There has to be a good social contract in place with the players involved. Hacking words can get abusive if some personal restraint isn't carried out by the individual players. If the players all agree beforehand how absurd or serious the session needs to be. There are some great moments within the transcript that call out this point. (Me personally, my best play sessions have been just on the humorous side of serious. Much like an epic adventure movie with some great one liners and moments of humor thrown in. A.K.A Indiana Jones, The Mummy, etc.)

I'm glad that Paul spends some time discussing the setting that is featured in Code of Unaris. Though I have several other projects that I'm into at the moment, it's a setting that keeps calling me back to work on it. So thank, Paul!

The gm has to be flexible in his or her interpretation of the rules

One of the best sites I've found around exploratory storytelling development...

http://grandtextauto.gatech.edu/

While much of it has to do with electronic game development, the articles on the site go deep into in-game storytelling. Here are few more links on the subject...

http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20050707/chandler_01.shtml
http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20050727/sutherland_01.shtml

Some discussion on the subject over at the 20by20 Room

http://www.20by20room.com/2005/08/diana_jones_sho.html