[UA] City Swap

[Dion Dowling]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Gaston Phillips" <gaston at math.sunysb.edu>
To: <ua at lists.uchicago.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, May 22, 2001 10:34 PM
Subject: [UA] City Swap


> A lot of people on this list seem to be ferners,and lots of people are
> offering UA writeups of foreign cities.  Which is interesting, 'cause I
> think UA is a particularly American game system.  In that it's rules and
> setting are interwoven, and the setting seems to need American
> hyper-realism.  Do those of you from Europe run games set in Europe?

Well, I'm playing in a campaign that's set in the US, but I was running one
that, whilst initally based in the US, was going to travel throughout the
world...and I didn't foresee any problems with that.

I personally don't think that UA is a particulary American game through.
When I wrote the background to my character, I based it in Australia,
although it was imported to America easily enough. As to the rules and
setting being interwoven, well, I don't think they're so tight to prohibit
any changes of locations.

The drives of the characters may be different in some places, but it would
work anywhere. For instance, the setting of UA in say Thatcherite England as
per "Minder" (idea from an earlier post) would have plutomancers, instead of
being stockbrokers, scrounging after extra dole checks, and avatars of the
Merchants dealing with job lots of second hand Hungarian washing machines...

> I dunno - someone on the list described America as being "Naively
> Postmodern."  Great turn of phrase, but that also, I think, means that UA
> would be really different if run in Europe.  I mean... okay.  You know in
> True Romance when Elvis appears to Christian Slater?  That's a UA moment,
> right there.  But how would that translate?  Johnny Halliday appearing to
a
> French kid?

Of course, it could always be Elvis (Damn that American cultural
imperialism...)
I'm reminded of the Jack Womack book "Elvissey", where the Cult of Elvis was
strongest in the UK because he never visited there...

> A substitution of the clean and efficient high speed rail system for the
> lure of the open highway?

Well, Australia (even though you're talking about Europe) fits the lure of
the open highway probably better than America. After all, we're the big,
empty continent. The only real difference is that Australia has never had
the really heavy emphasis on religion like some places--probably because you
could never mistake any of it for paradise--and floods and fires and
droughts tend to grind the urge to pray for stuff out of a people...

Dion


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