[UA] Re: Hotel of Renunciation

[Mike Dewar]

I take the point about the Sleepers not showing up a 200-strong hit squad,
but everyone seems to be missing the other leg of my argument about an
overall objective of "waking the Tiger" (which was the post that raised the
issue, suggesting that the goal of the Room should be to stir up the world
by "waking the Tiger" and the issue to which I'm responding). 

If the PCs want to expose magick, they can do it in a single session with a
sufficiently blatant mystical event. The trick would be to do it and
survive, which is why adepts generally don't (even if the idea appeals to
them). 

And if PC did something blatantly magickal on national TV, then yes, all 200
Sleepers would hit them as that is the most overt challenge to the Tiger
ever recorded. The PCs would quite possibly pull off the big reveal in the
first few sessions and then get mass-ganked by the Sleepers, and riots, and
TNI and everything else. 

Regardless, it's a very short game. 

As I've proposing as a side-line, if the Room focuses on individual magickal
enlightenment and Renouncing people into adepthood or other magick-friendly
skills, then waking the Tiger is NOT inevitable and the Sleepers won't all
come for them at once (though they may be flagged as a medium-level threat).


Also, on the muscle of the Sleepers - in Hush Hush, the Sleeper sourcebook,
it mentions the Sleepers coming down firmly on the Fellowship of Bad Traffic
and the Sternos (two gangs of irascimancers and annihlomancers) who started
a covert occult war. That's two gangs of very destructive magicians who the
Sleepers are mystically screwing with, and the cults don't know how to hit
back. 

I'd say it's devaluing the Sleepers if the PCs make a long-term campaign out
of pissing them off, and they still only send small groups after them. I can
see it maybe taking a while for the PCs to make it a Cabinet meeting
discussion and then badness ensues. 

Even if the objective wasn't "waking the Tiger" and was simply "war on the
Sleepers", the basic flow is: The PCs start their covert war. The Sleepers
notice them. The PCs manage to foil the first Sleeper team in their local
area who try to take them out. The PCs have some other successes, until they
are viewed as a major threat and the Sleepers come after them on a "crash
and burn". 

The other alternative, that in the long term, five PCs manage to smash the
entire network seems very unlikely. If it were that easy, someone would have
already done it.  

And if the Sleepers don't flatten the PCs and the PCs can't beat them, then
the main focus of the campaign becomes "fighting a war it is impossible to
win". Quite possibly a realistic objective, but one which tends to leave
players feeling a bit cheated. 

- Mike 

-----Original Message-----
From: Bira [mailto:u.alberton at gmail.com] 
Sent: 29 August 2006 04:15 PM
To: mike.dewar at crysp.co.za; The Unknown Armies RPG Mailing List
Subject: Re: [UA] Re: Hotel of Renunciation

On 8/28/06, Mike Dewar <mike.dewar at crysp.co.za> wrote:
>
>
> I don't know. Enlightened amateurs perhaps, but there are still
> approximately two hundred or so Sleeper agents worldwide. And if the PCs
> overriding objective is "expose magick", I'm sure the Sleepers will come
> down hard.

Would all two hundred of them track down the PCs? I think you could
make it a small party, with about the same number of Sleepers as there
are PCs. This makes it more of a cat-and-mouse game, since it's easier
for them to eventually find out who the Sleepers are and start
fighting them with their own tactics.

I haven't actually read the books, but from what I gather the Sleepers
are usually something you want to keep away from because they're an
added complication to whatever the heck your current occult agenda is.
If the entire game is built around fighting them, this becomes less of
a problem.

-- 
Bira
http://compexplicita.blogspot.com
http://sinfoniaferida.blogspot.com