[UA] City Swop

[Ryan Fitch-Davis]

Or better yet... don't fall into the White Wolf trap.
Remember part of 'Occult Underground' is *undreground*.
Don't detail it. It's not visible except to those who are clued in.

One time I got roped into running a WoD LARP. Now, one of the things I 
knew would happen is that the players, collectively, have a better 
knowledge of the universe than the three of us running it (all of us 
hate the way LARPs are usually run, a sort of moose-turd-pie scenario 
there.) In choosing a setting we had to find someplace that we could 
deal with that wasn't on the 'radar' of any of the published suppliments 
to avoid that issue.

The 'mundane' history and flavor of most any city over 100 years old has 
enough strangeness in it to suggest all kinds of sinister things. Use 
that, then fill things in.

This has the odd advantage of making the information on the site useful 
to people who have not seen the truth and purity of Unknown Armies.

On the flipside of this topic, I'd be willing to do stuff on Los 
Angeles, Santa Cruz & Chico here in CA. All of these cities have a long 
and somewhat odd history (especially Santa Cruz...)

Greg Stolze wrote:

> on 2/16/01 9:30 AM, Dylan Craig at wytchfynder at hotmail.com wrote:
> 
> 
>> Ville wrote:
>> 
>> 
>>> I'm intending to run a campaign set in Los Angeles. Never thought I would do
>> 
>> it, being such an obvious choice for a > non-American, but 'ere I go, and
>> actually I'm quite pleased I did it.
>> 
>> Something that comes to mind: I'm not sure what the geographical dispersal of
>> list members here is, but it has often crossed my mind that given the spread
>> of
>> nationalities I've seen so far, what we have access to is a powerful resource
>> for global UA gaming. If my group goes to the Wahrheitstempel, I'd far rather
>> get another UA gamer's spin on Berlin than grab tourist info off the Net;
>> simultaneously, I think I could provide better info on Johannesburg (I see the
>> TOSG is supposed to have a foothold up there <grin>) from an occult horror POV
>> than, say, Fodors or Let's Go!
>> 
>> This being said, I'd be happy to supervise and host the results of a "city
>> swop"
>> on my personal site; what I am envisaging is a few paragraphs per city,
>> interesting UA-appropriate themes and locations (like the LA diner mentioned
>> by
>> Ryan), and a few URLs for more "touristy"/conventional info. Personally, I'd
>> like to see info on Berlin, Atlantic City, and Paris; I'm sure everyone has
>> three or four cities they'd like to use.
>> 
>> Any takers?
>> 
>> --
>> "I only smile in the dark / My only comfort is the night gone black"
>> Dylan Craig : Writer and Observer : Cape Town, South Africa
>> Contact Details: http://www.eyeballkid.co.za/contact.html
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> UA mailing list
>> UA at lists.uchicago.edu
>> http://lists.uchicago.edu/mailman/listinfo/ua
> 
> 
> There's been noise before about doing a city site for UA, and I'd love to
> see it happen.  In fact, I'll sweeten the pot: I've got a longish short
> story about the OU of NYC, and I'll let y'all post it if this thing starts
> to work.  
> 
> That said, I'd like to insert a caution: There's a tendency for individual
> writers to make their backyard the center of the occult universe.  (Gee,
> isn't Abel located in Seattle, Tynes' stomping ground?  And don't the Freak
> and the NG cult both rattle around near Chicago, my region?  Funny how that
> works...)  Justin Achilli put his thumb on this when he commented "Yeah, we
> have to include LARP stats for Sascha Vykos for those times that the most
> powerful member of the Sabbat decides to visit a meeting of fifteen Kindred
> in Beerchug, Texas."
> 
> So I'd just like to encourage people to take it really, really easy on the
> numbers and power of the adepts in a given area.  Look at the Council in
> "Hush Hush."  These guys are the Bad Motherfuckers(tm) of the Occult
> Underground, along with the Bad Man (in PoMo) and Eponymous from the main
> book.  Those guys should be your ceiling: If a character is more powerful or
> awe-inspiring than those folks, the chances of getting let into the canon
> officially are very slim.
> 
> How can one get around this?  There's several ways.
> 
> 1) Narrow powers.  If you have this brilliant idea that requires massive
> power, make sure that that's ALL the individual/location/artifact does.
> 
> 2) Limited interaction.  Powerful adepts are obsessive by nature.  Their
> priorities just ain't right.  There are presumably some just wicked powerful
> sorcerers out there who don't use their powers much because, shit, they've
> got what they want -- knowledge, wisdom, understanding, whatever.  They're
> not brainwashing the city 'cause, hey, what would they do with a CITY?
> They're not involved with OU politics 'cause they don't give a shit --
> unless you cross 'em.
> 
> 3) Other limitations.  Right now I'm writing up one of the legendary Legion
> of Doom -- Abel's all-star adept asskickers.  She's friggin' NASTY.  Given
> the right circumstances, she can kack just about everyone.  But the right
> circumstances are pretty narrow, and the price she's paid for her deadliness
> is that she's near death herself.
> 
> I'm worried that I'm sounding pedantic here, but with UA you really have to
> ask "Why hasn't everyone heard about this guy?"  If you don't have a good
> answer, the character is too powerful.
> 
> Should we figure out a "OU/Regular Population" ratio?  It would be nothing
> more than a rough guide, of course -- NYC is way on the low side of the
> scale, Louisiana is probably pretty high -- but it might provide some ground
> rules to keep people from explaining that Davenport Iowa is overrun with
> sorcerers...
> 
> -G.


_______________________________________________
UA mailing list
UA at lists.uchicago.edu
http://lists.uchicago.edu/mailman/listinfo/ua