[UA] Strange RL happenings...

[Stuart Anderson]

Daniel Solis wrote:

> Has anyone seen these "All your base are belong to us"
> things on the web and around your neighborhoods?
>
> It just seemed so bloody UAish in a twisted sorta way.

    I didn't see it right off. But I'm the guy who still
insists O Brother Where Art Thou is archtypically UA. My
first thought was: "I don't see the UA, but this is just the
right piece for the BESM demo I'm running."  And then I
thought: "Isn't curious sometimes how things just fall into
place?" And *then* it creeped me out. This could all be some
elaborate ploy to instigate my discovering a system behind
the garbled english, elaborating on it, and inadvertently
creating the Word virus we've all been so worried about. In
its final stages, the Word virus could infect the IC and
reboot the cosmos. "In the beginning was the Word, and the
Word was with God, and the Word was God" John 1:1.
    And then I thought a little less cosmically about how
disorienting it would be for things to go well for UA
characters. Their plans succeed, their relationships
improve, their goals draw closer. And through it, you drop
underhanded, minimized details about a gradual pattern of
change. I like grammar, so--very subtlely at first--all the
NPCs would begin to affect a problem with verb tense
agreement, or some other minor quirk. Then, proceeding
methodically, all NPCs would affect more and greater
alterations, at a pace where the PCs can, with effort,
continue to marginally understand the NPCs, even though
they're starting to sound worse than Clockwork Orange. Then
I would initiate another wave of change, and another. If the
characters become curious, their investigation is met with
convoluted luck which improves their lives, but draws them
no closer to understanding. In the end, they must realize
that only by destroying their own happiness can they once
again relate to their world. My players prefer to defeat
villains, so it might be a little exasperating to have a
gordian knot with themselves at the center. They would find
no evidence of being victims of a spell, or the IC, or the
Throckmorton device (O), or anything else.
    I'm thinking of the moment when I begin narrating game
exposition in the altered speech pattern, and won't stop. To
let them know they're running out of time. My group has been
gaming together for a while, and they're used to an
occasional challenge on this order. They know me well, and
this type of scenario is an expression of my perverse
beliefs. So I think I just talked myself into it. Any ideas
on making the premise more concrete?
--Stu


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