[UA] Bad Reactions to UA?

[Eric Brennan]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Stacy Stroud" <deadstop at gte.net>
To: <ua at lists.uchicago.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, December 05, 2000 4:49 PM
Subject: Re: [UA] Bad Reactions to UA?


> At 10:34 PM +0000 12/5/0, Nick Wedig wrote:
>
> >>There were no groups
> >>(with the exception of Mak Attax) who were setting out to be, well,
heroic.
> >
> >Team Salvation, in PoMoMa, is so much that it seems to bother folks.
>
> Yeah, them.
>
> Also, have these players seen the Reality Cops narrative structure
description?  I don't care much for the name (sounds more like terminology
that should be in Mage:tA), but the little exchange makes it clear that the
setup in question is quite clearly a set of magickal do-gooders.

    That's more what the game I'm planning will be like.  I wanted a down
and dirty gritty street game, maybe TNI, maybe just freelance nobodies,
maybe an occultified mob crew.  It didn't fly, of course.

> One thing about UA that I did find new and refreshing when I first
encountered it is that you don't really   >  have the over-arching factions
of games like Mage.

    I love that about UA.  I also love that it hasn't gotten pretentiously
street level, which Mage did with Orphan's Survival Guide and to a lesser
extent the new revised edition, or had to make its storyline take hard, 90
degree angle turns for whatever reason.
    What's odd is that the players (my players) who loved Mage were the ones
who were "ennh" on UA.

>  Rather than assigning absolute "good" and "bad" sides to the universe, UA
puts the focus more on what   > *you* and your little group choose to do,
and what you choose to stand for, and how far you're willing to >  go in
pursuit of that cause.  (Alex Abel's cause, by itself, is awfully bright and
shiny, but TNI is tarnished >  by the means he's willing to use.)  So go
ahead and create PCs who stand for what they consider good, >  and be ready
to decide just what you're willing to do for that good.

    Once I get the campaign started, it will all work out--until now, it's
been getting the campaign started that's the problem.  My ideal group would
be willing to pore over Ken Hite's Suppressed Transmission books or Tim
Powers and get a tenuous grasp on pop occult rules and weirdness.  It's just
getting them that motivated that's the problem, although I take my share of
blame for that.  UA, for whatever reason, has proven the hardest sell _ever_
to that group.
    Don't worry though--I'll get them.  And then I'll spring my current
brainchild, a street war between the Masons and the 5 Percenters...all over
mystic numerology...

--Eric



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