[UA] Campaign help - or sanity - needed

[Bret Allen]

If you've read Neil Gaiman's American Gods it might help. America's soul
is... well... subjective. Are we talking about the land, or the people? UA
seems geared towards the postmodern perceptions that humans build around
themselves, so the soul of American in UA can be anything from votes for
black people, to hotdogs, to pay-per-view to cash MONEY dawg (yo yo homie
etc).

Love the presidents idea however you decide to run with it. I know nothing
of American history, but could those pressies be linked to certain
archetypes? Maybe have it unfold that they were avatars, knowing or
otherwise, and now the players are too, knowing or otherwise.

Definately like playing up the president's personalities. "Bllaarrgg I am
not a crook!"

My spin I think would be that they ARE the soul of America, and so long as
they run around trying to save the country then they are doing fine- its the
second they stop striving to preserve the American dream that everything
will fall apart. So, do they carry on till death, or find a way to passs on
the mantle to some other schmos, or find a way to make America forever?
Sacrifice theme?

- American Dream = otherspace or something? 

-----Original Message-----
From: ua-bounces at lists.unknown-armies.com
[mailto:ua-bounces at lists.unknown-armies.com] On Behalf Of Russell Rayburn
Sent: 23 January 2008 22:38
To: The Unknown Armies RPG Mailing List
Subject: Re: [UA] Campaign help - or sanity - needed

On Jan 23, 2008 5:27 PM, Gareth Hanrahan <mytholder at gmail.com> wrote:
> THE PLAYERS: So, what're we playing?
> ME: Er, I dunno. I tried to get you to pick a game during the week, but...
> THE PLAYERS: Yeah, yeah. We didn't bother.
> ME: Well, I've got lots of roleplaying games.
> THE PLAYERS: Cool. What's this one?
> ME: Unknown Armies. It's modern day occult weirdness. Like Twin Peaks, or
a
> Tim Powers' book.
> THE PLAYERS: Right, we're playing that. What do we do?
> ME: Well, we need to come up with a campaign structure...
> THE PLAYERS: *thirty minutes of random weirdness, including criminals who
> work for the FBI by night and rob banks by day, or a collision of every
80s
> tv show ever, or a band of soldiers who are affected by a weird artefact
in
> Iraq so they appear Middle Eastern by night and white by day*
> ME: So...we're going for a gang of bank robbers who-
> THE PLAYERS: No! Better idea!
>
> The upshot of it all is that the PCs are all former American Presidents,
> raised from the dead by a mysterious cult in order to save the soul of the
> USA. We've got Washington, Kennedy, JFK, Nixon and the real George Bush Jr
> (the guy in the White House at the moment is an evil imposter).
>
> I have absolutely no idea where this came from, or where to go with it
yet.
> Ideas?

Nice.  Very postmodern ( i.e. weird for the sake of weird ).

So ok, what is the soul of the USA?  Is it embodied by a place, a
person, or a thing?  Some combination?

Who, or what, is threatening it?

Like Courtney said, are the really dead presidents, or do they just
think they are?  Either way, they'll act like they are... which could
be fun if people believe them ( ZOMG!!  ZOMBIE NIXON!!!! ).

-- 
I'm writing an unauthorized autobiography.

http://cthuloidgunnut.blogspot.com/
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