[UA] Help me pleeeeeease!

[Chad Eagleton]

--- Matt Norwood <rowan at media.mit.edu> wrote:
 
 
> 2. The under-powered nature of normal humans. This
> is a real difference 
> between the two worlds, and it means that Mage
 
 
> I have
> only played one UA 
> game, and my character was a mundane journalist; in
> spite of the great 
> GM and mature players, I sometime found my character
> overshadowed by the 
> magical effects being flung around me. 

Well, I can see how that would happen...but isn't that
something that the GM can easily fix and that you
yourself can help too? I think that's a danger you run
with any role-playing game (admittedly sometimes the
game line makes it worse, as with the Wolf's bloated
supernatual world).


> and while I 
> looked forward to developing the character and
> making the most of his 
> mundane abilities, the fact is that UA spends about
> 50 pages of the 
> rulebook on magic for every 10 pages spent on
> anything else.
>

But do those other things require the same amount of
pages?
 
 
> But where are the
> Lie or General 
> Athletics cherries? A game that has detailed rules
> for combat or magic 
> at the expense of everything else makes it much less
> appealing to play a 
> non-combatant or a non-magician. And even a mundane
> combatant can feel 
> left out of the party if he rolls his firearms skill
> every turn while 
> his companions are all whipping out different
> magical effects left and 
> right. UA can't fall back on lists of cyberware or
> futuristic equipment 
> like Shadowrun, but how about spicing up combat with
> a few choices like 
> laser sights, aiming for a turn, or different damage
> types? I understand 
> the impulse to keep the rules light and leave
> detailed descriptions of 
> effects up to the GM,  

That's a good point, I see what your saying. I haven't
so much really considered that angle yet with UA cause
I haven't played it the way I have other games. I've
always wished the role-playing games (the Wolf line
especially) would put more emphasis on playing
"mundanes". You know some sort of source book about
ways you can play someone who isn't flinging magical
effects or whatever and still have fun and keep it
interesting.

Though I can also see why they don't. I mean you
average gamer doesn't get excited by the idea of
playing someone without any special abilities. And
really, if your choice runs that way that's something
that you and the GM could pull off without the help of
a book. I mean, because really it's all about
preference and taste. How could anyone design a game
that appealed to all possible options of play without
it being a 1,000 page tome? Like my sig other isn't as
giddy about UA as myself. She played in my game and
had fun, but when I mentioned my excitement about the
Max Attak book she was like, "Why the fuck would you
want to play someone who works at McD's even if you
had magic."

> Again, this 
> can be overcome with a great GM and good players,
> but see my comment 
> above for what I think of that excuse.
>

I have to disagree with you there. I mean anyone can
make anything shitty no matter what it is or how well
it's explained. (Just take the new Superman script
from the Alias guy)
 
 
> but they end up with 
> pages and pages devoted to the use of a few skills
> (i.e. magic) and less 
> than a paragraph devoted to every other skill

See I look at that and I see something different. I've
never seen a need for a 28 page write up of a
contested lying session. Most of that stuff, in my
mind, could be role-played out without the necessity
for stare-down rules. To me that's the crutch of a
roll-player. I mean if you need that skill, make it
up. I like that my money when I purchase a UA book or
supplement just goes to useful stuff. I'm not paging
for 60 pages of bad glossy art, 150 pages of poorly
written gaming fiction, and another 400 pages of
detailed rules for psyching something out because the
player can't be bothered to describe it.

 


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