[UA] Upcoming Game

[Niall]

On 13/12/06, Chris Williams <lord_of_the_geeks at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> I'm considering starting the game off with the mentor getting shot and
> hospitalized in an exorcism-gone-wrong. It should let me start the game
> off
> with a bang (no pun intended, honestly) and give the characters an excuse
> to
> be in the same place at the same time, as the EMT would have to take the
> mentor-type to the hospital, there'd be police reports to file, and it
> might
> be worth reporting on. Also, I've got a couple plothooks planned for the
> hospital, and if they characters snoop around at all they might stumble
> across them.
>
> Mainly, I wanted to just try and generate some discussion, but thinking
> about it now, does that sound like a decent way to start the game? I've
> always heard that UA can be a tough game to get the PCs together in, and
> that it can be even tougher to keep them together. I usually don't have
> problems with the latter, but I have to admit that the former has never
> been
> my strong suit. Any advice?



That sounds a good place to begin - perhaps the hospital could be a theme
within the game? As a place of birth and death it would play an important
part in Terminus' dreams. I think the EMT would be the hardest character to
integrate if you go with the mentor being shot plan (which is a good one).
With the others the apprentice obviously has a reason to find out more, the
Chronicler could pick up the story, especially if she finds out the mentor
is a defrocked priest who does exorcisms (probably has an interesting or
unique story) while if the shooting is clearly wierd the cop would turn up,
although if he's on suspension he won't be the one filing the police
reports? But probably would have someone drop him a line - especially if the
mentor and the apprentice have a habit of turning up where crimes have been
committed by the mentally ill (posessed). However if the EMT likes to stick
to the background then he'll need a good reason for not just doing his job,
dropping off the mentor then going back to his rounds. I think its a very UA
character concept but it does need something more dynamic to drive the
character to interact with the others.

An idea might be that whatever the apprentice and mentor were involved in
attracted Tenebrae and the EMT gets to see them - suddenly the shadows
aren't so comforting anymore, especially if they start to follow him around.
Being fairly dream like beings and involved in eating corpses and other
things they could also be a good starting point for the campaign even if
they don't re-appear they come from nothing and go back to nothing and so
fit thematically. Also scary as hell. Possibly there was a rtual that went
wrong and the Tenebrae are unleashed in some form and for the goal of the
adventure the PC's need to reconstruct the ritual to banish them again

I think keeping characters together in UA is relatively easy - given that
the game encourages obsessed characters its a matter of finding a hook that
would drive them all to stick together. I think your idea is really good for
this as well. Once they get the idea that the city is dying/trying to kill
them/bejeezus crazy and they can't escape (I seem to remember this was part
of the idea?) then thats a pretty good motivator right there.

Niall



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