[UA] Gaslight UA

[Stuart Anderson]

Gaston Phillips wrote:

> If you set a game in 'Gaslight' - what's that - 1890?  1920?  Well, either
> way - PostModernism is hard to do before 1980, and I'd say impossible before
> 1950.
> So, UA by Gaslight would be... just a very different game.  So different as
> to not really be Unknown Armies anymore.

    I frequently drop comments on the list that sort of reawaken this topic at
fairly regular intervals.  What you're saying about the post-modern tilt of UA is
very true.  And I agree that the game changes greatly from time period to time
period. But I would also offer that the two very best campaigns I ever ran were
set in the 70s and the 50s.  They managed to feel post-modern as hell, despite
their setting.  I think because the fact that we were playing UA was more
important than the time period. Like how The Crucible wasn't really about the
witch trials. Since Miller and the audience both knew what he was talking about
and why, he could've set it on Gilligan's Island if he'd wanted to.
    But, of course, plays and RPGs are two different beasts, and the GM and the
players have to come to the table more in agreement than the playwright and the
audience.  And I have really had a tougher time getting my guys to go gaslight in
UA than I have in other games, at least in part due to the things you mentioned.
But I think if the GM lets his approach to the story develop in his brain to a
point of piercing crystalline clarity, he can sell it to his players and it can
still be UA.  But you have to have that piece in place. What is it about the
Industrial Revolution that resonates with post-modern dehumanization?  What is it
about social Darwinism that resonates with the post-modern certainty that man will
be able to guide his own evolution?  What does The Island of Dr. Moreau have to do
with the Human Genome Project? If you can answer those questions, then you can say
post-modern stuff with a post-modern game in a Victorian time period, and it can
feel very tight and very real.  And if your group happens to be the kind that
likes to go gaslight for a while, they'll love it.
    You have to have that stuff together in your head, though.  Even more than for
other games.  UA is pretty demanding in that way.  That's part of why it's fun,
though, because it's tough.  That's why you have all these cats on the list
recommending all these tough books.  I have a Master's in English, and this list
is collectively the best-read group of people I've ever (sort of) met.  They like
to play to the challenge.
--Stu


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