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> How to run UB?
Cynic project
post Jul 30 2005, 08:07 PM
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How would one run UB without the players knowing all the hooks and what is going wrong ebfore it goes down.I am going to be running a game and I don't know how much the players have read of thsoe books but I know that they know what ahppened to UB, who doesn't? But How would a Rm run UB without showing their hands to fast ont he plot of the UB? Maybe change th UB's name and sloagen's a bit?
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Angelone
post Jul 30 2005, 08:36 PM
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Mention it in scene descriptions. If they are going to a bar say a story about a philanthropist organization is on the news on the TV. Put up billboards and flyers, have NPCs mention what a great organization it is, etc.. By all means change the name but keep the history and what's really going down.
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Velocity
post Jul 30 2005, 09:49 PM
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I had the same problem you did: a player who was also a Shadowrun GM and knew all about the Universal brotherhood, Insect Totems, etc. The first thing I did was replace the 'Universal Brotherhood' with a group called 'Global Fellowship.' They were described in exactly the same terms: philanthropic, pseudo-religious, etc. My PCs thought that this was a thinly-disguised version of the UB, but they were wrong.

The Global Fellowship was supposed to sound like a poorly-concealed version of the UB. In fact, the Fellowship was exactly what it said it was. While the PCs wasted time and resources trying to get to the bottom of this perfectly innocent (though vaguely suspicious) group, the insect totems used a completely different vector for their invasion: UCAS6433.0023.F9, a generic numbered company registered in Seattle.

The company is an investment front, pooling venture capitalists' money into a majority stakeholder position in a number of similarly-themed companies: skills-training, employment-search help, motivational seminars, etc. Basically, for-profit job search-and-training facilities. Set up across the lower-income areas in Seattle (though not the barrens--too risky), these small businesses see a LOT of people come in and out of their facilities every day. They're all separate companies, run by different people with no explicit links to one another.. except that they all have the same majority backer: UCAS6433.0023.F9.

The PCs never saw it coming.
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Mortax
post Jul 31 2005, 02:46 AM
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Yes, unfortunatly, most of my players know who and what the UB is all about. Here are a couple of my tricks:

1. I've decided (don't know if it's cannon, but it works) not all UB chapters are infested with bugs. Hell, in my game MOST have only one or two bugs. Only the larger chapter houses have bugs. This way, they don't just blow up every UB building they come across.

2. Use bugs elsewhere. One time, I had them convinced they were looking for a coven of vampires in the hidden basement of a free clinic. I'm known to employ vampires often, so tricking them was easy. They never researched to find out it was UB funded. Hehehe, the nest of misquitos supprised them all.

3. I sortof pointed to this in the last one, make the UB's involvment hidden or make it seem incosequential.

Remember, the bugs are very alien in thought, but they fooled a lot of people for a long time. Hell, they pulled the same trick in the 4th world.
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golden-one
post Jul 31 2005, 03:27 AM
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remember the old addage.
QUOTE
the best place to hide a lie is between two truths
. firstly, do change the name. this is frankly just window dressing. secondly (and this is how i did it) actually have he UB exist, but be actual nice guys.. simply replace the "ub" with a very similar organisation... or as my players found out, have the bugs acting in a "management roll". the free clinics, the alms houses, and the "work camps" are indeed just that. places to get well, get some food+shelter, and a place to do an honest days work for an honest days pay. the firm that was employed to taxi joe and jane slob from one to the other however, wasnt exactly the "friendliest" organisation however. both it, and the "philanthropic" organisation co-ordinating the effort were actually bugs (roaches, if it matters). the bugs would take one or two people a week, or would arrange for a 5-7 man work party to "do some work on the other side of town for a few days".

where ever the team looked they'd either find evidence of bugs, butnever in numbers, or they'd find low level corruption.. (a guard taking kick backs, an admin skimming .. that kind of thing), or evidence of foul play, that usually went no where ( a missing person who turned up a few days later, and just turned out to have been on a bender for a while). it wasnt untill they went three or four rungs up the food chain untill they actualy found any actual "proof"..

(by which time they'd allready started a run into the home of one of the "masons", and were packing totaly the wrong gear for a bughunt (they were posing as servers at a "fund raiser". turns out te queen just wanted some socialite drones...
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Dogsoup
post Aug 3 2005, 02:57 PM
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I never ran UB, but I thought a lot about it, and decided to use a minor canon race-relations organization; MOM (Mothers of Metahumanity or something like that).
Fallout of this UB-variant would be further strained relations between metas in UCAS, which suited me just fine :-].
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