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Unknown Armies: Home is where the heart breaks(OOC and Recruitment)
Cosmic Sombrero
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
"Sometimes when you come to a fork in the road, the best thing to do is pick it up and eat your damn dinner." - Rich Dansky
Hello and welcome! I am going to be running a game of Unknown Armies for somewhere around four to six players. Odds are you haven't heard of this game, so here's a little background info stolen from some guy on the internet:
Just about everything you'd possibly need to create and play a character can be found for free on the Atlas Games site. Someone from another forum I frequent has slapped together an character creator, which might be helpful! Just unzip it anywhere and load index.html in your browser of choice.
Regarding character creation, here are a few rules and suggestions:
Standard 220 point build at the start.
No Sleepers, and preferably no Sleeper contacts/influences.
No TNI characters.
No Avatars of the Mystic Hermaphrodite unless you care to make an extremely compelling case for why you should be allowed to. This Avatar path is pretty open to exploitation.
No Pornomancers, because I can think of several things I'd rather do than write you erotic fanfiction.
As a warning to any Urbanomancers or other adepts who rely on a location or base of power, the start of the game will probably take you away from that.
It's fine if your character isn't awakened. In fact I'd probably prefer that, as the opening of the game will serve as a trigger event.
At the start of the game, you can be anywhere in the world, so long as you're driving somewhere, either by yourself or somehow with another player. Or whatever, I'm willing to find workarounds. Do you have a destination or not? Are you running away from something? Are you running to something? These are things to think about.
Oh, and I'm going to be opening with a premade scenario from the sourcebook before getting into some original ideas, so any familiarity with the "Bill in Three Persons" means I won't be able to take you, sorry!
Keep in mind when making your characters that combat is extremely deadly in this system. If you're going to pick up a gun, you better make sure you can use it.
Hello and welcome! I am going to be running a game of Unknown Armies for somewhere around four to six players. Odds are you haven't heard of this game, so here's a little background info stolen from some guy on the internet:
Sad Mammal wrote:The Setting: Hoo-boy, where to start? This is an urban-fantasy/post-modern horror setting where Barney Gumbel can use magic to kick the shit out of a trained soldier. If you're at all familiar with the works of Tim Powers you know the deal. If not, Peter Hindman aptly describes it as, "Quentin Tarrantino's Call of Cthulhu." You know the typical criminal underworld? Well imagine that, only the unsavory types now have the ability to do things like sculpt flesh to their will or make you blow your brains out literally with the power of money.
Just about everything you'd possibly need to create and play a character can be found for free on the Atlas Games site. Someone from another forum I frequent has slapped together an character creator, which might be helpful! Just unzip it anywhere and load index.html in your browser of choice.
Regarding character creation, here are a few rules and suggestions:
Standard 220 point build at the start.
No Sleepers, and preferably no Sleeper contacts/influences.
No TNI characters.
No Avatars of the Mystic Hermaphrodite unless you care to make an extremely compelling case for why you should be allowed to. This Avatar path is pretty open to exploitation.
No Pornomancers, because I can think of several things I'd rather do than write you erotic fanfiction.
As a warning to any Urbanomancers or other adepts who rely on a location or base of power, the start of the game will probably take you away from that.
It's fine if your character isn't awakened. In fact I'd probably prefer that, as the opening of the game will serve as a trigger event.
At the start of the game, you can be anywhere in the world, so long as you're driving somewhere, either by yourself or somehow with another player. Or whatever, I'm willing to find workarounds. Do you have a destination or not? Are you running away from something? Are you running to something? These are things to think about.
Oh, and I'm going to be opening with a premade scenario from the sourcebook before getting into some original ideas, so any familiarity with the "Bill in Three Persons" means I won't be able to take you, sorry!
Keep in mind when making your characters that combat is extremely deadly in this system. If you're going to pick up a gun, you better make sure you can use it.
Cosmic Sombrero on
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Taboos: The Sage is devoted to knowledge, and learning more about the world. Any Sage who turns away from information weakens her connection to the archetype, though being cautious does not qualify; if an ancient book is under armed guard, the Sage will devise a plan for accessing it, and she is not obliged to undertake a frontal assault to steal it.
Symbols: The book, the owl, and an aged face are all parts of the Sage, the last as more of a side-effect: the old tend to be more knowledgeable than the young, and there’s no substitute for a lifetime of seeking wisdom. Glasses are also common, as reading has always been thought to weaken one’s eyes.
Masks: Athena (Greek), Odin (Norse), Benjamin Franklin (American).
Suspected Avatars: Most great scientists have been Sages, whether cataloguing information, as with Darwin, or uncovering it, as with Einstein. Additionally, academia lends itself extremely well to the pursuit of the path, though many run into problems with the “publish or perish” mentality, favoring the appearance of seeking knowledge over the actuality.
Channels:
1%-50%: At this level, the Sage can extract any piece of data from a living person, even something not consciously accessible. The Sage must have physical contact with the subject, and more hidden knowledge requires the Sage to roll her Avatar skill, at the GM’s discretion. Anything buried deep enough to require advanced psychiatric work ordinarily will also impose a rank-5 Self check, as the participant has been probed deeply.
51%-70%: At this level, the Sage can access any information in a library (including online collections, though this does not extend to the entire Internet; the Congressional archive THOMAS or legal/academic magazine compilation JSTOR would qualify) simply by being there. A roll under her Avatar skill will allow a Sage to provide the required data within five minutes.
71%-90%: By now, the Sage is so in tune with the search for knowledge that a roll under her Avatar skill will tell her where to find out what she wants, though that’s no guarantee that she’ll be able to get there, and she’ll have to figure out how to extract the information herself.
91+%: At this level, the Sage can answer any yes or no question - once per person per day.
1) What sort of information would a Sage ever turn away from? Are you talking like, 'things man was not meant to know?' Because there's honestly not a whole heck of a lot of that in the universe.
2) Would you say this path is different enough from the Bibliophile to merit the distinction?
3) Your second tier of power seem a bit weak. Being able to save yourself a few hours in the library seems a bit... I dunno, lame?
4) Your third tier is pretty justifiable, but 'find what she wants' is very nebulous. Could this skill only be used to find information, or could you also use it to find an object you needed? On the forth tier, I like the concept, but what happens when someone asks you a paradox or some question to which no one has ever known the answer?
I don't have access to my books right now but tomorrow I'll grab my copy and compare your path to some of the other avatars. Feel free to build a character around the concept though.
I even ran a phalla themed around UA.
I will try to post a character concept tomorrow, after I get some sleep.
2. Definitely. Bibliomancy is about the physical books, but this is focused on knowledge in general.
3. You don't remember the scenes in Harry Potter when Harry, Ron, and Hermione spent weeks in the Hogwarts library unearthing arcane lore? :P
4. Only information - though that information might be how to find the object you want, or at least its location. As for the fourth, I'm not sure. Maybe questions must have a valid, comprehensible yes or no answer; "Can God make a rock so big he can't lift it?" and "Have you stopped beating your wife?" don't qualify. As for an unknown answer, well, I suppose the Sage might just have the power to divine knowledge from the universe itself, or is that too powerful?
Obsession: Knowledge - “I can figure out how the world works, deep down.”
Fear: (Helplessness) Blindness – It's very hard to read when you can't see, and reading is fundamental
Rage: Apathy – So many things in this world, and you don't care about any?
Noble: Children – Without them, there's no future.
Personality: Obi-Wan, or at least trying to be. She's still pretty young, but she knows a lot about the world, and she's willing to dispense advice when needed.
Body: 46-decent shape and looks
Speed: 32-slower than your average bear
Mind: 77-earned her doctorate
Soul: 65-a people person
Body:
General Athletics 30%: tosses around a frisbee occasionally
Struggle 30%: self-defense classes
Work without rest 16%: Plenty of 16-hour days in grad school
Speed:
Dodge 25%: office pranks
Driving 20%: campus parking
Initiative 16%
Office Maintenance 17%: squeezing into tight spaces to plug in the new copier and such
Mind:
Conceal 32%: when there's one copy of a book ten people need, gotta hide it for yourself
General Education 55%: mentioned that doctorate, right?
Notice 35%: getting to that book in the first place
Soul:
Charm 45%: professors are finicky
Lying 30%: “I left it at home, honest”
The Sage 20%: “Yeah, that's in MIT's library”
Daphne is driving to the beach for her first and last real stress-free vacation in years, as she just finished her doctorate in molecular biology and Berkeley placed her at Columbia in the fall.
Oh yeah? You should toss me a link sometime. I run mafia games on SA and I've been bouncing around ideas for an UA game. I'd love to see what you came up with.
Alright, your math checks out and I dig your concept. I presume you're not going to start with any hardened or failed notches since you've led a pretty quiet life so far? I'm going to ruminate a little more on your Avatar Path today and see if I can't bounce some ideas about it off you later so we can really flesh it out.
Couple other notes:
1) After three people sign up I'll give it a day or so and then start the game. Looks like we're not going to get a huge turnout, but I'm willing to kick this thread around for a while.
2) Just so I can make sure everyone is having a good time, what do you guys want out of this game? Do you want a big occult sandbox to play in, with occasional casual hints towards a larger story? Do you want to ascend to the status of Duke of Godwalker? Do you want to discover the establishment that runs things behind the scenes, and then tear it down? Just give me an idea.
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I bounced the idea off of one my friends and he gave me some feedback that I'm generally inclined to agree with:
I like the idea of your avatar challenging the established order, and I think it's fair to say that the Sage is a little bit off the beaten path of knowledge and research. I mean, it's fine that Darwin and Einstein are suspected Avatars of your path, even though they were more about putting new ideas forth rather than just cataloging information, I think it means you're channeling a different aspect of them than most would think. Is this interpretation okay by you?
Now we just need more players!
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