Of course, I actually dislike Urban Brawl as it's written. I mean, games with guns and a motorcycle are cool, sure, but they wouldn't really be such a great spectacle, especially in the United States. In most spectator sports, there is a lot of movement and, well, spectacle: American football players flying through the air, rest-of-the-world football players maneuvering around one another, basketball players leaping and dunking, hockey players gliding all over the ice.

As it's written, Urban Brawl is a game where each team dashes for cover, and then has part of their team maneuver from cover to cover, until they can find and pin down the opponent. It's a game that would require heavy editing to be interesting. Don't just take my word for it, either. Do a search on YouTube for paintball tournaments. Almost all of them have some sort of energetic techno music over them to make them more interesting, and all of them have been time-compressed, with the boring parts removed. Even the face-shot montages are pretty dull.

Additionally, most Urban Brawl players in the fluff are described as athletic, which is unnecessary for urban warfare. The first special forces guy I met was healthy, sure, but shorter than me (which is saying something) and kinda scrawny; I wouldn't field him on an American football team. The other two I've met are big, sure, but not up to professional athlete standards, even when they were still serving. I mention these men on the assumption that the U.S. wants its Special Forces in top shape for their mission.

In most of my games, Urban Brawl is something different. Most sports were started in a neighborhood of some sort, just a few people passing the time with a new game they'd invented. So I came up with a game that could have started in the Barrens (pick your fave) among Ork and Troll children. They're poor, but they have room to play, so the game would involve a field (which could be a street, a couple of back yards, whatever), and not require any equipment, so no ball.

The rules would also be relatively simple as well. There are two teams, and they both start in a line in the middle of the field. The line of play (let's call it) has one team on either side of it, one of which is on offense, one on defense. The offensive team tries to get one player across the end line of the field (marked off by whatever is handy). Players who get knocked down are down for the rest of the play. If the team does not make it, the new line of play is set at the offensive player that got the farthest, and the offensive and defensive roles switch. If it makes it, it scores a point, and the other team starts its offensive turn at the center line. First to three wins, but a team has to win by two.

At some point, some clever marketing person who likes sports finds out about the game, and starts a league. With its urban origins, it's the perfect down-home game for the megaplexes. With its simple objective, it can be marketed to a wider fan base. With the great possibilities of each play (in that anybody could be the guy they're trying to push through to the end line), it's visually interesting. With its action-pause-action play style, it's perfect for commercials. And with it's win condition, the teams play against one another to the end, rather than just running out the clock, so the tension of the game keeps until the very end.

The league, of course, would have more specific rules. Number of players per side (I was thinking 12-15, myself), number of players on a team, rules for field dimensions, rules for how many people can be close to the line of play at the start of a play, a rule where each play is started by the referees, rules for safer tackling, rules for defining when a player is down, etc. (I've got some rules bopping around in my head, I should probably write them down at some point) . Plus, players would have to be a lot more athletic than their gun-toting alternate-dimension counterparts.