[UA] Bad Reactions to UA? (longish)

[Rick Neal]

>> 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.)
> 
> I find this very, very interesting.  What, exactly, do they feel is
> STOPPING them from being moral?

Can't speak for everyone (not yet, anyway...), but I feel the same sort of
interest as Greg on this point. I have noticed the phenomenon within my own
game, which is a fairly gritty street-level kind of thing, and I've been
baffled, as I see the setting as showing vast potential for the kind of
down-to-earth heroism and goodness which other game settings can only dream
of. Here are some of the conclusions I've come to:

1)  Obsessions. All the characters are obsessed with _something_, and if
this isn't chosen carefully or thoughtfully at the time of character
creation, it's very easy to wind up with an obsession that is far more
selfish in play than you ever thought it would be. The connotations of
obsession in modern western society seem to be very negative ones, and deal
with an UNHEALTHY pre-occupation with something. That leads to a tendency
for self-destruction and antisocial behaviours on the part of the characters
based solely on their obsessions.

2)  Stimuli. There are two stimuli which can be easily classed as negative,
dealing with emotions that are not in vogue for "heroic" play, and only one
that is easily classed as positive. I don't know what everyone else has seen
in character creation, but, without exception, all of my players had far
more trouble choosing a Noble Stimulus than the Fear Stimulus or Rage
Stimulus. That's something I found very interesting, but I fear that it may
say more about my friends than it does about the game system or setting.

3)  Madness Meters. These sometimes produce an interesting perception of
dichotomy in the players: they can either wig out or go cold. They have very
little option for staying on an even keel, having to rely on psychological
care to repair the mental damage done. This option may not always be
available to the characters, because of the nature of the characters
themselves. If there isn't a psychologist that is ready to believe in the
occult activities and dangers that the characters confront, the characters
often feel that there is no one that is safe to go to. Also, certain
character types, like Entropomancers or avatars of The Masterless Man, might
be unwilling to seek help like this in general.

4)  The presentation of the GMCs. Most of them, and the cabals they serve,
are portrayed as extremely ruthless, even the ones trying to do good. GMCs
in the game are used by the players as cues for behaviour to a large extent,
and these present behaviours that are, with only a few exceptions, decidedly
amoral, if not immoral.

Combine these factors, and you arrive at one of the axioms that I use when
talking about the game to those interested in playing it:

In UA, you play someone who is, in some way, broken.

Now, having gone on at length about how the game may be seen as discouraging
moral behaviour for the characters, I'm going to throw down the big but.

BUT...

The fact that heroism and even simple morality may not be encouraged by the
setting or the system is not sufficient cause for the characters to be
immoral, amoral, non-heroic, or downright villainous. At least, in my mind.
The very rarity and difficulty of doing something truly pure and good in the
world makes any such accomplishment of monumental worth. It's easy for the
paladin to be a hero, but how about the tattoo artist Epideromancer? A
cleric of St. Cuthbert may be sure in his faith and stand as a bastion
against villainy with the power of his god, but the parish priest in New
York who sees the neighbourhood kids drifting into gangs and drugs risks
much to take any sort of stand. And what's the Boozehound gonna do to change
the world?

Remember, that's one of the game's tag lines: What will you risk to change
the world?

Anyway, this comes to the second axiom that I use:

Normal people will have more impact, collectively, on the world than the
Occult Underground. The numbers are on their side, and the Statosphere is
all about consensus belief.

To drag this back to the original topic, I would like to relate a little
story about the playtest that I conducted a couple of weeks back for the
scenario I had just finished writing.

One of the players was new to UA. I game with her in a couple of other
games, but she hasn't really wanted to join the UA game. She consented to
play in the playtest because she was curious about the stuff I was writing.
My friend who ran the game for me threw in a wonderful contact for her
reporter character: a convicted mass murderer Thanatomancer. This nasty
fellow agreed to sell some information to the reporter, the price being a
favourable article to present to his parole board. She refused.

When I talked to the player later, she said that she found the game
disturbing because, due to the obsession of the reporter, she was planning
on going back later and agreeing to the terms, and it bothered her to play
someone that would do that.

This from the woman who played the most frightening Malkavian I have ever
witnessed.

I think that the intense focus on the inner life of the characters, as
produced by the obsession, stimuli, madness meters, and the weighting of the
system, coupled with the very believable portrayal of the rest of the world
causes some people to feel that there is not enough distance between these
game characters and the real world. The imagination buffer is not thick
enough. This can make playing UA really disconcerting for some, and make the
game seem darker than I personally think it is.

That's my speculations on the issue, anyway. I welcome comments and
questions.

Rick Neal

Old fool on the radio
Says War is Peace, and Peace is War
Lies, lies, lies I say
Dead is dead is dead

Oyster Band, Gaol Song


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