OT [UA] All Humans are Liars

[Royal Minister of Stuff]

--- Nick Wedig <mrteapot at disinfo.net> wrote:
> >Including doing a really good job with the role of
> >Evil in "Time Bandits."  I've probably had too many
> >villains use the line "Robert. Come here. I'm going
> to
> >kill you, now."
> 
> I really want to run a Time Bandits game some day. 
> The PCs are all midgets trying to escape from God
> and steal treasure from various famous dead folks. 
> The GM avoids all the typical problems of time
> travel games, as he controls where and when the
> gates open and where they go, and paradoxes never
> are a problem.  

Time Bandits is a good template for a time travelling
game in that it gets around one of the two stickiest
problems in time-hopping (or world-hopping, for that
matter) campaigns.  There's no friggin' time machine
(or space ship.)

A supervehicle in any game tends to warp the game
around itself.  If you play Star Trek, for instance,
the players do everything of, by and for their version
of the Enterprise (even if it's a grabage scow.) You
play Doctor Who and those guys aren't coming out of
the TARDIS for at least thr first quarter of the story
and they'll end the last quarter in there, too.

I intended to run a UA story at a con called
"Astrospy" which featured World Hopping without
spaceships (and, at my wife's suggestion, without
"Gates," either to avoid a SG:ST1 feel.)  I kinda
screwed up and it turned into a waterfront hunt for a
rogue mechanomancer construct (which the players
dubbed "a golem") and a case of mistaken identity with
the Sleepers. But the intention was there.

Personally, I really like the idea of "walking" from
world to world (for me, in a Clarke's Law sci fi-ish
universe, worlds count as both eras and planets.  Rome
would be no different to a Sufficiently Advanced
traveller than some distant moon quarry.)

You don't define how the players arrived on the new
world clearly, you just give them the impression
they've been "dropped off."  Toge in three parts is a
bit like this, except the players aren't warned what's
going on.  Plus, I kind of get the feeling Tynes and
Stolze aren't so hot on Science Fantasy (which, alas,
I am.)  

I prefer to play up the technological side of
phenomena, attributing magical or mythical events to
space visitors, transdimensional disturbances and
reptoid DNA.  I like to blur the line between magic
spells and technological procedures, but in the other
direction from most of the game systems I like.

See, the other thing I always wanted to do was run a
Star Trek-like campaign where the aliens are all
Cthulhu Mythos servitors (this ties in with the elves
argument).  Instead of Vulcans and Andorians mankind
has come to grips with Ghouls and Deep Ones.  I think
it would add the feeling of trepidation and
uncertainty which ought to accompany dealings with
star visitors.  I've put it together in Toon, GURPs,
Call of Cthulhu, FUDGE and, now, UA, but no takers,
yet.
 
> ObUA: One of the themes in Time Bandits (that I'd do
> my best to work into the game) is that all the kid's
> heroes turn out to just be a bunch of losers like
> everyone else.  This kinda fits a UAish feel, with
> all the characters being somewhere between good and
> evil.

I've always felt that a "space" campaign of some sort
deserves a UA-ish feel.  The very best science fiction
explores normal human themes either by using
"futuristic" metaphors or by examining how changes to
technology and perception affect us individually and
as a group.



=====
-- Rp Bowman, Royal Minister of Stuff
The Electronic Nation of Yokeltania:
http://www.geocities.com/yokeltania/

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail
http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/

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