So, any other Unknown Armies fans here?
My partner has been running a UA game for our gaming group for a little while now - it's been great fun so far.
Has anyone else given the game a try? What did you think of it? :)
Mishi
I'm a fan but haven't had a chance to play it yet. The magic system is great, the combat system is the most unpleasant (in a realistic way) I've seen to date, and it really captures the feel of settings like Neverwhere and Constantine than other games in the genre (like, say, White Wolf's Mage). It's streetcore, grungy magic and madness.
I've had the core book for a while now, and I've always wanted to try running a game... I got to play several years back as a chaos mage. It was pretty awesome going to a nightclub challenging a patron to a game of russian roulette just to generate a significant charge. :)
The charge system for magic is one I would like to port to several other systems (including CthulhuTech) as it most accurately reflects the price magicians have to pay for their power, and its capricious nature.
Yay, more people - I was beginning to think it really must be a niche system.
I really like the way the magick works in the setting as well - I like the fact that adepts all have their own twisted world views to explain how they can do what they do. I'm just about to start playing an adept for the first time - a cliomancer who believes that reality is made up of people's perceptions - differences between people's perceptions of the world creates 'gaps' in reality that allows magick to wriggle through. It should be fun. :)
I also like the way the madness meters work in the system - how it's not just a loss of a certain amount of sanity, but each failed or hardened notch also represents an event that had a permanent effect on the character's mind. I think the meters could be ported really effectively to other systems as well.
The setting itself is also great. I don't think there's any other setting where there's a group dedicated to stuffing little bits of magick into Big Mac Meals. :D Unfortunately, a lot of the books outside the core books and the Mak Attax sourcebooks seem to be hard to get these days.
Which other books in the line would be considered excellent?
Asked my partner, and he has both Weep (scenarios) and Lawyers, Guns and Money (TNI sourcebook) - he says both are very good and well worth getting. He also says that while he hasn't read them, Hush Hush (Sleepers sourcebook) and One Shots are meant to be excellent also.
From reviews I've read myself, all of the supplements seem to be good though.
Our group has played through the 'Green Glass Grail' from the Weep book recently, which was excellent. The finale was definitely memorable. Not spoiling the plot, my character (avatar of the Tough Guy) nearly got killed by a shotgun blast from another party member, our Ordomancy adept got beaten up with a half-brick after refusing to defend himself and our Narco-Alchemist overdosed on his own drugs while hiding in the corner of the room... Good times. :D
We all survived for another day though, and proceeded to poke our noses into where they shouldn't belong again (after we'd all recovered).
Unfortunately, a lot of the books outside the core books and the Mak Attax sourcebooks seem to be hard to get these days.
Actually for 2nd Ed there isnt really anything other than the Core Book and the Mak Attax book and the To Go campaign book. The other stuff is actually for 1st edition and the best of it was folded into the 2nd Ed Core book. Still some good stuff in it.
One of the great aspects of UA is that there is a lot of fan made stuff out there. Go to: http://ua.johntynes.com/
Also if you are a fan you want to read this novel: http://www.cafepress.com/stolzesshop.19293257
I and one other person in our group really liked the setting and the game, the rest didn't. I had fun playing the one extended campaign we did, and running a very scary short campaign that freaked the PLAYERS out not just their characters.
The long running campaign we did was based on the novel Flicker. It was set in California in the late 60s and centered around a film club that got involved with some occult movie weirdness. I played an ex-CIA agent who had been run against some Soviet parapsychology experiments. He started the game with a few hardened notches and a little bit of Authentic Thaumaturgy.
Actually for 2nd Ed there isnt really anything other than the Core Book and the Mak Attax book and the To Go campaign book. The other stuff is actually for 1st edition and the best of it was folded into the 2nd Ed Core book. Still some good stuff in it
Ah, I didn't realise that. The older books still seem to be pretty useful though. :)
One of the great aspects of UA is that there is a lot of fan made stuff out there. Go to: http://ua.johntynes.com/
That site is fantastic for ideas :) I got shown it a little while back - it's fun looking through the various avatar and adept suggestions.
The campaign you had sounds like a lot of fun. We haven't been playing for a few weeks due to RL stuff, but we hopefully should get started again soon.
Reviving a bit of a sleeping/dead thread here, but I just wanted to add a recommendation for the 'To Go' campaign book for UA. I bought it for my partner's Christmas and he's been running us through it with a group of new characters. It's been fantastic so far - it's had all the weirdness, depth and just plain cool moments that I'd expect from the UA guys. It also involves a lot of the canon NPCs, which I like.(spoilered for NPC names, just in case).
(The book is certainly for a global level game rather than street). Thoroughly enjoyable so far, and I'm looking forward to finding out how everything's going to end for us. :)
(The book is certainly for a global level game rather than street).
On thinking about it, I think it's cosmic level rather than global, at least further in.