(UA) This Is The City (take 2)

[Markleford Friedman]

Tim Dedopulos writes:
> The points about the major groups and schools not really being that
> competing is fair enough as it goes, but it misses one rather crucial
> point... they're there as examples, not as the only members of the
> underground.

Well, they can certainly be *taken* as examples, just as with the
schools of magick.  However, due to the recent proposal of various
"splatbooks", they're turning out to be very VERY detailed examples! :)

This lends me to believe that they're intended to be used as a little
more than that, no?  As such, I'm proposing an idea that might make
all the original material work with little hassle.  The alternative,
which you and many others have suggested, is to merely dispose of it,
which I'd rather not do.

> I've always thought of it in terms of a business sector - as
> opportunities arise to fit into a slot in the market, they will be taken.
> You'll rapidly get to saturation point in any geographic location.

That's why I intentionally limited the location, so as to force
Darwinism on the mix: specialize, adapt, evolve, or get squished or
starve.

And yes, eventually some groups would leave the city, either hungry for more
resources or because they got beaten down and need to start over, but this
just leads them to another city, which is not all that different than the
first...

> Surely it's more fun to come up with your own rich local subculture
> packed with touchy lunatics than to just be stuck with Field Offices for
> the groups in the book...

Well, ideally you'd have a mix of the listed groups with your own
creations, which could add some commonality between campaigns: each GM
would have their own "city" (especially if we stuck to fictional locations),
but the "Field Offices" for the larger listed groups could provide a link
between them.

And yes it's more fun, *and* efficient, to come up with your own
subculture.  Which is why I'm wary of upcoming splatbooks: we have to
decide whether we want them at all and communicate this with the
publisher.

> As for going elsewhere - well, where you going to go? Everywhere is going
> to have it's local supremos... and you won't know who they are, or what
> they can do, or what they're after. The boonies are no better; god alone
> knows who's lurking in the Catskills. At least at home, you have a chance
> of getting to know who you're up against, and your friends and contacts
> are handy too. You're packed in with your enemies all right -- because at
> least in your own pitch dark be-tigered room, you've worked out where the
> furniture is.

I love this metaphor, and it precisely describes why I despise
itinerant campaigns and player travel!  Thanks for the insight.

- m