[UA] Translation problems

[Adrian Long]

Culturally, "A Few of My Favorite Things" relies heavily on ideas that
relate to the USA.  Outside of that it takes some tweaking...  When I
dropped it into my UA campaign I used a modified version (nicknamed "A Few
of My Favo(u)rite Things") and tweaked it to represent the growing
americanisation of the UK.  I'd already hinted at this conflict in my
campaign with a conflict between two "True King" avatars in London...  The
King of the Cabs (an extremely nationalistic and racist true king of the
Black Cab network in London) versus The King of the Tours (a UK obsessed
american ex-tourist now running the open topped tour busses, representing
Britain as a tourist attraction for the USA).

It confused the hell out of my players, but it did a good job of setting up
the conflict between those True Kings, and lead to me making them a much
larger plot element than previously planned.

Drop in a few representations of your local culture, put them in conflict
with the american ones, and you have social commentary on the
americanisation of your country.  It might not always work, but I think it's
a reasonable way of taking that scenario and making it work outside of the
USA.

--
Adrian, etc...
http://www.livejournal.com/users/eggwhite/
http://www.subliminal.demon.co.uk/eggbox/


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mattias Östklint" <mattias.ostklint at husqvarna.se>
To: <ua at lists.unknown-armies.com>
Sent: Wednesday, March 31, 2004 8:07 AM
Subject: [UA] Translation problems


>
>
>
>
>
> >>  it is culturally and linguistically utterly untranslatable to swedish
>
> >Ok, I have to ask.  What makes it so untranslatable (if it's actually
> >possible to describe)?
>
> First off, the "running gag" (Change: coins and transformation) is tricky
> to translate. This would be possible to work around, but tricky. That's
> linguistics.
>
> Second off, the "subconcsious culture" (Car, Coin, Gun, Flag) doesn't kick
> in.
>
> Coin is no problem.
>
> Car. We have a public transportation system worth the name, sidewalks
> pretty much everywhere, cities are eminently bikeable, you can get a
> drivers licence at 18, we don't have sex in our cars. I'm 33, have a
> licence but no car, live 10 km from work (bus and bike both take 20
> minutes), live in a smallish town and have never had sex in a car. Cars
> aren't holy here.
>
> Gun. Contrary to what you might expect, there are quite a lot of guns per
> capita here, but almost all of them are for hunting. Home protection means
> getting a better lock or possibly an alarm, not a pump-action shotgun.
> Military service is pretty mandatory, so almost all men learn how to fire
> and operate an assault rifle, but most of them never fire a gun again. Me,
> I didn't do military service and have never fired a gun, I've held a rifle
> maybe twice and nobody I know even own a pistol (that I know of).
> Semi-automatic 30 round capacity Tech-whatever are... SciFi, stuff from
> movies. Guns aren't holy here.
>
> Flag. In europe in general, patriotism is right up there with nazism and
> fascism, words mostly used to describe people with extreme-right leanings
> and very short hair. The flag as a symbol has little meaning, and not all
> of what it means is positive. IKEA is a stronger symbol for sweden than
the
> flag. Flags aren't holy here.
>
> word
>
> Mattias
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> UA mailing list
> UA at lists.unknown-armies.com
> http://lists.unknown-armies.com/mailman/listinfo/ua


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