[UA] City Swop

[Tim Toner]

----- Original Message -----
From: Greg Stolze <holycrow at mindspring.com>
To: <ua at lists.uchicago.edu>
Sent: Thursday, February 15, 2001 9:52 AM
Subject: Re: [UA] City Swop


> 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."

The only two "by Nights" that I developed enough to talk about were Chambana
(Champaign-Urbana, IL, where I went to college, total vampire population =
1) and Cincinnati (where I spent a _very_ long summer, total vampire
population = 0).  My rationale for both was fairly devious, and, of course
the PCs never thought twice as to why there might be no contenders.
Needless to say, the PCs were screwed, and the players quite pleased.

> 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.

I started to develop Shadows over Chambana (for Shadowrun) and I immediately
realized that UIUC would be ground zero for AI research.  So I immediately
started making a Matrix that was in many ways more fully realized than the
RealWorld all around it.  In this world of mine, Thomas Galen Ault (a good
friend with a great name) develops the first AI, as well as a systemic
process for creating more.  Each class from that point on has, as an
assignment, a challenge to make a new AI to perform some useful fucntion.
By this time, there's AIs running registration, the Gaming Area, the Health
Services, etc., each with its own unique personality (most of which were
cribbed from pop culture, which would have made the book sadly
unpublishable, but hey, these are _college_kids!_  Tell me they're not going
to call one SkyNet!)

After all that work, I realize, ho-damn.  I can't do all that.  If they're
as plentiful as all that, why haven't we heard about them?  Why hasn't UIUC
become the epicenter of life in the Matrix.  The best thing I could do was
to explain that the AIs, which require HUGE amounts of system resources,
can't leave the UIUC node without seriously downgrading who they were, which
would suck-and-a-half.  But within that node, they were God.  They could
look through you as if you weren't even there, and blast through any
defenses you might have.  So that's a good reason for deckers to stay the
hell away.

>
> 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...

I think there should be something in there that would allow us to 'weigh'
these cities, i.e. certain places or institutions which might skew the ratio
a tad.  For instance, not all colleges and universities are created equal.
If the campus is known for its 'tech-heavy' nature, I'd skew it down.  If it
had a lot of old fraternities, I'd skew it up.

>
> -G.
> --
> Hannibal is a character that my old writing teacher would have called
> "loved by it's author." He is so empowered by the person crafting him
> that he's granted near god-like abilities, and gets stripped the
> qualities we apply to actual human characters. These creations become more
> of a device than a personality and generally turn out not nearly as
> interesting as the author believes.
>
>
>
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