(UA) This Is The City (take 2)

[Markleford Friedman]

John Tynes writes:
> The groups are scattered across the country for geographical diversity, 
> and also as examples.

Was there a reason for it besides the diversity and example?  I've
already cited Mak Attax as a group that glommed onto the notion of
"ley lines", and the Sect of the Naked Goddess would most likely be in
Chicago because someone got a tip (true or not) that the NG grew up
there.  I imagine Cliomancers would gravitate towards the Eastern
seaboard (or even back to the Old World) simply because that's where
most 'history' came down so far.

> One of our goals with UA was to make the world feel as real as we could 
> make it. In the real world, a city brimming over with cabals scheming and 
> fighting would have corpses in the streets and magick on the nightly 
> news.

Not necessarily; a smart cabal cleans up its corpses.  Hell, the
smarter ones clean up *any* messes that might lead back to them!
I thought that this was one of your motivations for The Sleepers
and "Claws of the Tiger".

And speaking of "real world feel", I don't believe that magick
conflict would necessarily have to suddenly tip off the media.
Gunshots ring out through neighborhoods in cities every night, but
there's not necessarily a corpse to be found in the morning.  Every
fight doesn't have to end with a body; perhaps someone gets winged and
winds up in a hospital.  Or maybe he slinks back home to bleed to
death in his basement.  Or maybe nobody gets hit at all.

We can draw parallels to street gangs.  They operate every single
night, and it's always likely that they'll run into violent conflict,
but do we see them on the nightly news every day?  Oh, maybe as an
aside to the "real news", but nobody pays much attention.  In fact, if
you witness this sort of activity at night, you're generally better
off making a point of *not* paying attention and making sure that
everyone knows you're making a point of it.

And with magick as a weapon, you don't even have to have casualties
show up on the nightly news.  People can and do disappear in the real
world.  Car accidents happen.  Fires can break out in homes.  Strange
maladies can befall just about anyone.

Magick cabals can (and should) be so much more careful and subtle than
street gangs.  They can destroy businesses.  They can extort and
blackmail.  They can plant evidence to the police and frame and
slander.

Not all conflict has to be resolved with a gun or a Blast.

> The set-up in UA suggests an underground where things are going on 
> in various places, but there isn't a daily dose of intrigue.

I thought this was part and parcel to being an "underground", that
there's a "scene", a "buzz", a regular thing happening beneath the
nose of the general public.  There is interaction.  There is exchange
of commodity, even if it's just information or "vibe".

If there isn't a daily dose, how often is it?  If it's more than, say,
two weeks, do you still have a sub-culture-buzz happening?  Or after a
month?  Can you still call yourself an "underground", or are you just
an isolated bunch of obsessed wankers, no better than survivalists
waiting in their fallout shelters and muttering how everyone else will
"get theirs"?

> Look at the 
> gaming sub-culture. In any given city, there are a lot of little gaming 
> groups, but they have little interaction except at game stores.

Is this all of such little consequence?

All the little groups do add up.  They create nodes in a network.  If
I were to start a rumor in one group, the news would likely travel
fast enough to cover the city in the span of a few weeks.  Certainly,
having game stores as major nodes helps in that; you know how gamers
like to stand around and shoot the shit about "the industry"!

That counts as "interaction" to me.  I can get my daily dose of
"gaming intrigue" even in Columbus, Ohio (aka "Cowtown").  There are
plenty of gaming shops with late hours and open back rooms, there are
the student unions at OSU and other campuses.  We have a few LARP
groups that, independently, outnumber the Sect of the Naked Goddess.

There is interaction in spades.  The intersection between small groups
is often just one person, but that one person can convey plenty of
information on his own.  Ideas hop from group to group in this manner.

But although gamers are a sub-culture, they're not an underground, and
this is where the analogy fails me.  They make no effort to hide
themselves, as there's no consequence for them being "exposed".

> A few 
> times a year, there's a convention somewhere in the area where they all 
> come together.  That'd be the equivalent of the TNI coming to town, or 
> Dirk Allen showing up.

I'm not sure about that, because the press wouldn't be covering it;
again, this is where "underground" differs from "sub-culture".  In all
likelihood, if the TNI came to town, you wouldn't know it.  At least
not immediately; word would get around soon enough.  I have Origins
marked on my calendar, but Dirk doesn't like to be "pencilled in".

> In short, if your PCs are street-level, they're going to be focused on 
> their local area and what's going on there, which probably means there 
> isn't some big freaky thing going on every friday night at the disco.

Well, it doesn't have to be "big and freaky", but I would still
require that *something* happened in the area on a regular basis.
Otherwise, why the hell are you there in the first place?  Even
street-level characters have a reason for being where they are, or at
least a reason for not being where they aren't.

If there is no reason for your being there, then you're *not*
participating in the underground.  Plain and simple; you are an
observer and not a participant.  If you're not where the action is,
you're not in the game.

> If your PCs are global-level, they should accordingly have the
> resources to do things like travel around the country as needed;

I can respect that, but it somewhat cheapens the efforts of
local/street-level people.

> Now everyone may *want* to be global-level.

Luckily, not everyone does.

> But like the trailer-park 
> teenager who dreams of Hollywood stardom, wanting it don't make it so. As 
> Greg has pointed out, the reason why Alex Abel is making strides is 
> because he's got money, staff, and he pays the bills on time. That makes 
> him a player. If your players want to be _players_, their PC concept 
> should support that, or the campaign should be geared to make that 
> possible over time.

Here's where the cheapening comes out; you can be a "player" in your
trailer-park, just so long as you've picked the right trailer-park.
You could be generating charges like a bandit because of some local
property, or it just suits your avatar, but whatever the case you can
still amass enough personal power to wax Abel's butt.

When we think of gaining power by conventional means, it always
implies "growth" and "expansion".  In a magickal world, however, this
is not necessarily the case.  You can achieve the same results in
Podunk, Iowa.  You can look inwards instead of outwards.  You notice
subtle patterns instead of the obvious.  You can concentrate on one
thing, achieve singularity, and Ascend.

This is the power of street-level over global-level.

And this is why Abel will *fail*, in the end, and it almost seems that
you've designed him that way.  His obsession with tomes and talismans,
trinkets and artifacts, bring him no closer to Ascension.  Then again,
he seems more obsessed with power for power's sake rather than
following the path of an Avatar.  But from his passions, we see that he
fears death and wants to help the world.

The obvious solution to both of these is to join the Clergy, but maybe
he doesn't even know about it yet.  So I'm either to infer that he's
ignorant, in denial, just doesn't care, or a mix of those.  Maybe he
just thinks *conventionally*, applying business/acquisition methods
that won't allow him to beat everyone else.  I just know that his
talismans won't do a bit of good once #333 comes to be.

I don't know if you designed him to be such a tragic character (and an
obvious target for a big fall), but that's how I'm playing him.  Abel
would point to all his power and control and say he's doing damn fine,
but there's an old lady in a trailer-park in Podunk, rocking in her
chair, stroking a cat in her lap, smiling a secret smile.  ;)

> That's the idea, at any rate. A lot of modern-day RPGs seem to suggest 
> that there's something happening in their particular niche, 24-7.

But hey, 24/7 is what an "underground" is all about.  Just like your
French Resistance, Underground Railroad, organized crime, and Detroit
acid-raves, it never stops.  The wheels are always turning, and if
you're not ahead of them, you'll soon be under them.

> In the 
> real world, that's a fast track to exposure and arrest. If real-life 
> criminals amassed the body counts and destruction levels that criminals 
> in movies, on a routine basis, we'd be living under martial law.

There are many cities that surpass a murder-a-day rate.  I've lived in
DC and Youngstown, OH ("Murdertown, USA").  Shit happens, but the
public gets jaded.  It becomes another number, a statistic.

"In the real world," it never stops.  Sure, the bodies might not pile
up as if under a meat-grinder, but the action is there.  Meetings are
happening, deals are made, legs are broken, incriminating pictures are
taken, and whatever else you can imagine.  Forget street gangs; magick
cabals are the new Mafia.

Exposure and arrest aren't necessarily an issue, anyway.  Most law
enforcement agencies *know* when there's an underground op in their
neighborhood, but that doesn't necessarily give them the means by
which to track it down.  They might see the ripples, but not the big
splash.

Besides which, are you trying to tell me that every police department
and police station is on the level?  They can be bribed, threatened,
and controlled as easily as the next guy.  And if you have a pal that
can blank minds or even make someone disappear from history, is threat
of exposure going to have you pissing your pants, or merely have you
giggling as you phone your pal?

> Regardless, UA is your game, [...]

And that's a very cool thing.  I respect that philosophy.

Yeah, as I said before, a lot of my problem is more with presentation
than content (and the game logo, but you might recall that ;).  I'm
just tossing some ideas out for the sharks to chomp at.

Honestly, despite my bitching, I really like the game and am currently
making my own "remix" of it.  Seeing as how you went and published
just about the same game I'd been writing on my own for a year, if you
hadn't done it so damned well, I'd have nothing to complain about!  ;)

- m