Unknown Armies thread

>>51592828
Saving a thread because UA.

I ran a little of it with my group, and the general consensus is that it's heavier, but not for nothing. The identity system worked out pretty well, with everyone able to create the character they were looking for. One thing I would have hoped for, inspired by one of my players having an "Old Man" identity, is a disadvantage type of identity, but I understand why that wouldn't be a high priority in development.

Abilities are bitchin', but since we didn't have a very long campaign, we didn't get to see very much shifting. I especially like the way they're all tied together for stress checks, even if it's a bit strange at times.

New adept schools are nifty, but I'm not the biggest fan of them. Fortunately, book 5 brings back some of my favorites and a few new ones that I like, like I Am Trashmancer. Avatars are still doing their thing, and the little rule "Theme Music" is a really neat addition, basically the Godwalkers' signatures but more widespread. Gutter magick is neat, and seems like the perfect thing for "does weird rituals but isn't limited by knowledge and tomes." Also, new rituals are about on par with the old ones, with a high degree of backwards compatibility.

Setting has its political points (the Ordo Corpulentis) and its weird points (the 03/03/03 Incident), but the global scale has always been my least favorite part, either go Cosmic and embrace your world-changing ideas or keep it Street level and deal with the more personal things that crop up when you have to keep your person and property perfectly pristine.

Do I get the charge now, or is there a delay? New to forumancy.

the experience/character growth seems a little wierd, with it's semi random nature. I don't really like not having control over how fast players gain experience points, and players not gaining points equally.

5th book really fixed a lot of my issues though, converting most of my old favourite adepts over. The change to rituals was a little wierd though.

I hate the 03/03/03 event though, I liked the Saint Germain as a concept

>>51594781
That's probably my least favorite of the fluff updates, but there are enough ways to fuck with it in the setting already. Hell, maybe the Man With Pencils Stuck In His Eyes was a legitimate thing, and the archetype he wanted to replace was the Comte, so he dodged that potential bullet by putting a dummy in the way, since once it hits 333 everything will return to how it was cosmologically anyways.

>>51592828
>>51594470
>>51594781
Unless the version I got is fake, or something, I'm not a fan of Book Five.
Half the rituals seem like they were written by people with little-to-no knowledge of the setting, at least one was written by someone who doesn't know shit about how character progression works(makes a reference to spending XP), and the 'updated' versions of the Adept schools/Avatar archetypes seem wildly different from the versions in 1st and 2nd edition(Cryptomancy lost the Eastern school, and is still pretty different from the Western school. All the Epideromancy effects cost only 1 charge, and they combined the 2 different ways of gaining a major charge into 1. Plutomancers have to gain ten times as much money for each level of charge. Pornomancy is less focused on the Naked Goddess, and they removed the big downside of *any* sex outside of a ritual/charge-gaining context being taboo. Urbanomancy gains a split school in its Taboo, but nothing else. The Healer went from a low-key Hippocratic medical type, to a straight-up magickal healbot that can fix anything. The Masterless Man feels like 2 archetypes that got merged into one. The MVP is less based on the crowd, and yet still keeps the 91%+ channel from 2e.)
I could understand Archetypes changing a bit, since it's all about the collective unconscious and all, but I don't really see how that explains the inconsistencies.

There's also at least one stat block written by someone who clearly skimmed Book One, since the guy has Motumancy, but his Obsession has nothing to do with it and it's not his Obsession skill. (Another one lists one skill as the Obsession skill, but stars another.)

>>51594920
It won't, though. That's a concrete point made by the books; Old Mother Apocalypse will remain Old Mother Apocalypse, and the Human Eternal will remain the Human Eternal.

>>51592828
I've been running it for about a month now, and I'm enjoying it.
Started my players off at the local level, and kept them from reading some bits of the books, so they'd actually be going in blind/as total newbies to the Underground. One of them's a self-taught Epideromancer(who hasn't used any of his charges yet), two are detectives, and one was a Personamancer, but missed the first 2 sessions so he re-rolled into the Epideromancer's uncle as an Authentic Thaumaturge. Also got an EMT Avatar of the Healer joining next week.

Currently, they're hunting down a murderer with blood-controlling powers. Actually a man possessed by a demon. One of them's also looking into a couple of Sleepers they bumped into. They met a woman who, through coercion, admitted to being part of a secret organization trying to keep magickal shit out of the public eye, and the player dug into Dirk A.'s autobiography after a quick google pointed him at it.

>>51595667
I'd send all that in, since they're taking feedback on it. It even explicitly mentions that if the rules don't work, that's one of the main things they're looking for. It does kinda suck in the short term, but at least it's easier to fix things that are in the system than port them in wholesale.

>>51595782
I'm not a backer. Didn't know about the Kickstarter until after it was over, and still don't have money to pay for the books anyways, sadly. I only got my hands on Book Five because, I guess, one of my players knows someone else who IS a backer.

>>51595815
The address is [email protected]. Explicitly:
If you spot rules issues, rules errors, or rules mistakes, by all means send that along.
If you spot a misspelled word, a weird punctuation mark, or weird grammar, please ignore it.

>>51595862
But that would require I either send them a legit email or put in the effort to come up with a new address to remain anonymous.

So how many people have tried running something Stranger Things-inspired in this? Twin Peaks? Other great spooky urban fantasy shows?

What are some of the most basic and essential occult texts I can read to better understand some of the occult references in Unknown Armies?

>>51601645
The bible, maybe?
Not of the references are in any way oblique. It's just that Greg Stolze is a creative mad man and UA is the epitome of his weird ideas.
Hell, "it doesn't work like anybody expected it to" is kind of one of the core ideas of the setting

>>51601645
Bump
Only thing I can think of would be Jung's stuff on the collective unconscious, since it plays a decently big role in the setting.