[UA] UA Bitterness (long and mean)

[Saul Peers]

I figure the best way to play UA is Character Driven Plots.  I love this 
idea, but I've never been able to get players who can grasp this concept.

Saul


>From: "Tom Lynch" <kal.jerico at lineone.net>
>Reply-To: ua at lists.uchicago.edu
>To: <ua at lists.uchicago.edu>
>Subject: Re: [UA] UA Bitterness (long and mean)
>Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 20:39:01 +0100
>
> > However, I do have a serious problem with the lack of structure.  
>There's
> > just no place to start when designing adventures.  When I first started
> > GMing, I liked creating my own worlds from scratch, with plots and
>cultures
> > completely of my own devising.  When I grew a bit longer in the tooth, I
> > found that I perfered pre-created game worlds, since several skilled 
>game
> > masters have already put the work into describing and characterizing the
> > towns, providing conveniant plot points and basically making it easier 
>to
> > keep the world whole.  UA is very "build it yourself", in many ways, and
> > while I've done that before it's not as easy as it once was.
>
>Hmm... My School Group, to borrow the acronym (actually Uni, but never
>mind...) has roughly the following policy for our term-long campaigns:
>Week 1: Offer games, split up into game groups, character gen, possibly 
>with
>brief guidelines (as well as being connected to the Occult Underground,
>you're all in the Mafia. I got a thanatomancer, a sniper, a Confessor, a
>Merchant, a Necessary Servant... and a driver), possibly not. Group discuss
>backgrounds and bat around suggestions for how they may have met. GM 
>accepts
>one of these or decides to introduce the characters to each other
>in-campaign. GM then either runs for about a hour to get them properly into
>character before session end, or we hit the bar. GM analyses character
>sheets over following week and lets plot ideas percolate...
>
>Week 2: GM starts campaign proper, if he didn't last session, having had
>time to figure out how they all come in.
>
>Week 3, in certain games: Key NPC is killed. ( "They shot the plot!" is a
>common cry at Lancaster).
>
>Week 3-9, in the rest of the games: Campaign continues as normal.
>
>Week 4-9 in games where plot was shot: Campaign limps on as GM figures out
>how to stop, say, a Jedi killing Luke Skywalker because 'he looked at me
>funny' and because GM is a cretin.
>
>Week 10: Campaign is brought to something resembling closure. GM asks
>players if they want to continue outside Soc time in following terms.
>Discussion is had, often with a positive bent. Retire to bar, where most
>people cheerfully discuss events of term/upcoming games/whatever the hell 
>we
>feel like, while Jon (GM whose plot was shot on at least three separate
>occasions through the term) cries into his beer.
>
>The point of which, I guess, is... sometimes with UA you can have a very
>basic campaign structure (they're in the Mafia), but by getting chargen 
>done
>sufficiently before the first session, you know what to do (hit them with
>Golems to stop the adept grinning about his power, freak them out with
>hidden use of Personamancers and Urbanomancers through the campaign, and
>take advantage of the fact that none of your players know the background, 
>so
>you can use Carnals and Snowfallen or anything else you feel like safe in
>the knowledge that it'll surprise them.
>
>The other thing I recommend is playing with a mix of Cthulites and
>Cyberpunkers, so that half the group spots everything and the other half
>spots nothing. Then split them up and put the Cthulites in a position where
>lots of Notice rolls are required to cotton on to what's happening, while
>the Cyberpunkers can be made happy by introducing them to a TNI strike team
>or a psychotic Entropomancer with a number of large charges.
>
>Remember, a lot of modern occult players love their Cthulhu. They take
>Notice low so they don't lose Sanity, and the madness meters are close
>enough to San to the uninitiated that they assume the same is true for UA.
>Missed Notice rolls often got given just enough info to know something was
>out there.
>
>Watch movies like The Birds. That, apart from godawful Tippi Hedren, is how
>I play UA...
>
>Until I switch to John Carpenter's The Thing and catch them napping.
>***
>Tom
>Don't hit the keys so hard, it hurts.
>
>
>
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