[UA] Bad Reactions to UA?

[Eric Brennan]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Chad Underkoffler" <chadu at yahoo.com>

> Has anyone on the list introduced UA to a player who doesn't
> like it, and what has their experience of it like?
>

    A good portion of my group has a strong, uh, lukewarmness toward UA, for
a variety of reasons.  Little of it is system based.  The odd thing is that
they liked the adventures I ran from One-Shots, but the idea of a campaign
of UA leaves many of them cold.  (The obvious answer is that it's something
wrong with my running, but they have the same problems with other systems,
run by others, for the same reasons.)  Luckily, my group is divided into
two: the full Saturday night crew, and the Thursday night crew who can deal
a little better with UA.
    Their problems break down to:
    1) "I play RPGs to feel good and have a good time--the setting isn't
heroic enough."--Gamer X in my group.
    2) The setting is downright immoral or amoral, which bothers at least
two gamers.  (A similar complaint was aired about Vampire...members of my
group just don't feel like mucking with a slow degeneration into Beasthood
when they could save a kid, I suppose.)
    3) Players are unskilled goons.  (Tynes and Stolze both have said to
just double skill points, which works much better.)
    4)  There's no "attractive" magic style--all of them have such clear
disadvantages that they're not worth playing.
    5) I (the GM) go nuts when it comes to running UA, and maybe introduce
too much at once.  (That one's my fault.)

    The odd thing is, I've introduced groups/concepts from UA as NPC groups
and bad guys in other games (notably Conspiracy X) and they loved them--as
bad guys.  Even the really positive folks in UA leave many of my gamers
cold.
    Also odd is the fact that the complaints about the rules are nonexistent
in my game.  I have hardcore D&D fans, hardcore Rolemaster fans, and
hardcore GURPS fans, and for the most part they're mellow about rules--they
figure that it comes down to what the GM feels comfortable enough with to
run a great game.

> What experiences have you all had with people who didn't like
> UA? Can we think of ways to either:
> 1. Re-introduce UA more positive to these folks, or
> 2. Make settings/tone/rule changes to make UA more positive to
> these folks.

    My answer (which I'm waiting to try out, eventually--right now Star Wars
from Wizards has grabbed the Thursday nighters) is to run a game that
involves _no_ prior knowledge of the OU, double the skill points, and begin
the campaign with the PCs as "occult investigators" in a CoC mode, running a
conspiracy website for cash.  They don't really believe any of it.  Then,
they'll slowly be exposed to the weirdness of the OU and the UAiverse.

--Eric


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