Is there like, a mission statement from the game's creators as to why they created all of these weird magics? I have some theories, but I'd be curious to see what they have to say.
there are things in this world mortal dudes are not supposed to know about and contact with them will drive you insane
Yeah I gathered that. I meant more why than what. It is, from what has been posted in this thread, an eclectic assortment, some of which make sense following certain themes and some of which... require some more stretching.
I would guess it was the result of a brainstorming session where they threw around a bunch of ideas of things people typically get obsessed with (money, sex, nihilism, etc) and determined what they thought stuck.
also someone asked the question "how many prefixes can we attach to -mancy?"
+2
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StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
Hrm. I was hoping for much more of a method to their madness. Especially because, as it stands, the game has a lot of distinct qualities that don't appeal to me. I feel like maybe if I understood the reason for some of these things, it would ameliorate things.
Wait why are people giving Buttlord shit? UA sounds awesome.
Also I will totally consider buying those Dwarf Forge dungeon tiles after I give my bank account a quick once-over. The 2-set unpainted + free shit deal sounds handy and it'll give me something to use for dorm room DnD sessions.
I'm super excited for this other RPG related kickstarter, where the guy makes ambient sound backgrounds for use with different locales and settings. So you can play the noise for your medieval city, or steamworks, or spaceship bridge, or whatever. There's a rule against linking to kickstarters right? It's the Professional MP3 Background Loops for RPG's.
I love having background music or noise to help set the mood for a scene. I had already made playlists for different settings, but now I can use Inside The Internet or Futuristic City with my shadowrun game.
last time I tried to play a D&D campaign I missed a week and found out my friend took the opportunity to turn into a goat, eat the mayor of some town, vomit him up, and then have someone else cast some preservative spell to keep the corpse around in case they needed to revive a mayor for anything
is this how D&D normally goes? I was just some fat ass halfling minstrel who would go invisible and ignore every encounter I could
last time I tried to play a D&D campaign I missed a week and found out my friend took the opportunity to turn into a goat, eat the mayor of some town, vomit him up, and then have someone else cast some preservative spell to keep the corpse around in case they needed to revive a mayor for anything
is this how D&D normally goes? I was just some fat ass halfling minstrel who would go invisible and ignore every encounter I could
Sounds legit.
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Shortytouching the meatIntergalactic Cool CourtRegistered Userregular
I'm almost convinced that it's supposed to be "chiropractology"
and unlike legitimate fields of medicine, which can have hilarious names, chiropractors have to worry about marketing
and so they are worried that "chiropractology" it sounds like butt stuff in a freezer
Wait why are people giving Buttlord shit? UA sounds awesome.
Also I will totally consider buying those Dwarf Forge dungeon tiles after I give my bank account a quick once-over. The 2-set unpainted + free shit deal sounds handy and it'll give me something to use for dorm room DnD sessions.
Because the way he describes literally anything sounds like an X-Men comic written by Rob Liefeld.
last time I tried to play a D&D campaign I missed a week and found out my friend took the opportunity to turn into a goat, eat the mayor of some town, vomit him up, and then have someone else cast some preservative spell to keep the corpse around in case they needed to revive a mayor for anything
is this how D&D normally goes?
uhhhh....
I was just some fat ass halfling minstrel who would go invisible and ignore every encounter I could
Wait why are people giving Buttlord shit? UA sounds awesome.
Also I will totally consider buying those Dwarf Forge dungeon tiles after I give my bank account a quick once-over. The 2-set unpainted + free shit deal sounds handy and it'll give me something to use for dorm room DnD sessions.
Because the way he describes literally anything sounds like an X-Men comic written by Rob Liefeld.
except i wasn't doing my usual KICKIN RAD WOOO thing and pretty much every example i cited came out of the book
and even if i was i fail to see how "buttlord." is a rebuttal that contributes literally anything
Wait why are people giving Buttlord shit? UA sounds awesome.
Also I will totally consider buying those Dwarf Forge dungeon tiles after I give my bank account a quick once-over. The 2-set unpainted + free shit deal sounds handy and it'll give me something to use for dorm room DnD sessions.
Because the way he describes literally anything sounds like an X-Men comic written by Rob Liefeld.
I have a strange little ironic/nostalgic (I read a lot of hand-me-down Image as a kid) spot in my heart for Liefield. Oops.
Is there like, a mission statement from the game's creators as to why they created all of these weird magics? I have some theories, but I'd be curious to see what they have to say.
Unknown Armies is in part a response to, and subversion of, the way magic and magicians are treated in other games, chiefly Mage: The Ascension. UA invokes the specter of postmodernism fairly frequently, most prominently in how it deliberately eschews existing structured magical traditions and practices in favor of more personal, organic, esoteric, and occasionally ironic methods of working magic.
Magic in UA reminds me a bit of Sorceror, with the whole "you can do huge things, but it''l cost you" idea.
Each character is tied to a demon. That demon can do things, but it also needs things. The idea is that whatever it is that you want, you always could get it, it's more a matter of what it costs. I tried to run a pbp once, but people didn't really get it.
I hear Dogs in the Vineyard did the same thing, but it's more of a Western thing. Instead of magic you have guns. If you use them you'll probably win the conflict, but you're supposed to be sheriff-type dudes in pre-state Utah, so just killing everybody is a problem. I mean, youcould, it's just not as satisfying.
Have any of you guys tried the game "Fiasco" ? It's a colloborative storytelling thing that basically just generates plots to cohen brothers movies..
I want to play more of that
It's pretty fun, I enjoyed it. I should really get the book though, I feel like the people I played it with cared too much about which kind of dice they got to get an interesting ending, I'm not sure if that's really intentional or not.
Wait why are people giving Buttlord shit? UA sounds awesome.
Also I will totally consider buying those Dwarf Forge dungeon tiles after I give my bank account a quick once-over. The 2-set unpainted + free shit deal sounds handy and it'll give me something to use for dorm room DnD sessions.
Because the way he describes literally anything sounds like an X-Men comic written by Rob Liefeld.
It
It does?
I mean, for starters, there's no Pouchomancy.
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StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
Fiasco is pretty much my favorite roleplaying game, these days.
The guy who made it has done some other really cool stuff too, a bunch of which is available for free on his website. A lot of it is experimental, so it might not work quite right or need tweaking to be fully developed, but I recommend at very least reading through it.
the best ever use of super high powered magic was in Mage: Imperial Mysteries
basically regular magic is the vast majority of magic you will do, even at higher levels
The higher powered magic you can do is amazingly powerful. Like, you can create a spell that travels from person to person, removing their capacity for violence. But to do that, you need to get some amazingly powerful symbols in order to cast the spell. So you need to get hold of the first sword that was ever made, find out what the original word for peace developed in all human languages are, and so on, and then combine them all in a giant ritual which takes place in extradimensional realms in order to actually make your spell.
And you need to make those spells to ascend to the supernal, because to ascend you need to make the fallen world a reflection of yourself, so if you want to eradicate violence you actually can do that, and if that represents your soul, you need to do that in order to go to heaven (basically).
Now, the rules state that Imperial Mages cannot intervene with each other using Imperial magic because if there wasn't a magical cold war there would be a magical hot war and the universe would end, basically. However plenty of Archmagisters have ascended. How? By changing reality, retroactively, to reflect them. Over and over again. Reality is not a whole, but layers of existence retroactively altered by ascending Archmages, and thus is Atlantis not just in time and space, but in the very folds of existence.
it's
super fucking rad
and it means you can actually play Archmages, because as an Archmage, mostly you will still use regular magic in the same way that a powerful non-Archmage will, but with the aim of achieving your own destiny and acquiring the symbols you need to do so, all the whole keeping to the rules of the Imperial Magic Cold War.
Posts
I would guess it was the result of a brainstorming session where they threw around a bunch of ideas of things people typically get obsessed with (money, sex, nihilism, etc) and determined what they thought stuck.
GoFund The Portland Trans Pride March, or Show It To People, or Else!
leading straight back into "mancymancy"
Twitch (I stream most days of the week)
Twitter (mean leftist discourse)
turns out it's like eight or nine
Also I will totally consider buying those Dwarf Forge dungeon tiles after I give my bank account a quick once-over. The 2-set unpainted + free shit deal sounds handy and it'll give me something to use for dorm room DnD sessions.
because it's not like other words describing a medical field--it doesn't end in "-ology" or any other suitable ending for a noun
so when you say, "chiropractic is quackery" it just sounds awkward
I don't use that word anymore
instead, I call it "chiromancy"
"medicine"
Take your babies to get adjusted!!!
Motherfucking bone vampires or something.
I love having background music or noise to help set the mood for a scene. I had already made playlists for different settings, but now I can use Inside The Internet or Futuristic City with my shadowrun game.
is this how D&D normally goes? I was just some fat ass halfling minstrel who would go invisible and ignore every encounter I could
Sounds legit.
and unlike legitimate fields of medicine, which can have hilarious names, chiropractors have to worry about marketing
and so they are worried that "chiropractology" it sounds like butt stuff in a freezer
Yes. Marketing like:
Bring your babies in so we can apply pressure to it's spine, it'll fix all sorts of medical problems, trust us.
Because the way he describes literally anything sounds like an X-Men comic written by Rob Liefeld.
uhhhh....
this part yes
also known as
(Noun)mancy
Twitch (I stream most days of the week)
Twitter (mean leftist discourse)
except i wasn't doing my usual KICKIN RAD WOOO thing and pretty much every example i cited came out of the book
and even if i was i fail to see how "buttlord." is a rebuttal that contributes literally anything
so
I have a strange little ironic/nostalgic (I read a lot of hand-me-down Image as a kid) spot in my heart for Liefield. Oops.
Unknown Armies is in part a response to, and subversion of, the way magic and magicians are treated in other games, chiefly Mage: The Ascension. UA invokes the specter of postmodernism fairly frequently, most prominently in how it deliberately eschews existing structured magical traditions and practices in favor of more personal, organic, esoteric, and occasionally ironic methods of working magic.
Breastomancy as practiced in your local strip club (a.k.a. Thaumatitties)
And just to represent the flavor of maleness ...
Dickamancy or Encockment
it was pretty interesting, much more an exercise in collaborative storytelling than a mechanics game like D&D
Each character is tied to a demon. That demon can do things, but it also needs things. The idea is that whatever it is that you want, you always could get it, it's more a matter of what it costs. I tried to run a pbp once, but people didn't really get it.
I hear Dogs in the Vineyard did the same thing, but it's more of a Western thing. Instead of magic you have guns. If you use them you'll probably win the conflict, but you're supposed to be sheriff-type dudes in pre-state Utah, so just killing everybody is a problem. I mean, youcould, it's just not as satisfying.
Thaumaturgidity.
I want to play more of that
It's pretty fun, I enjoyed it. I should really get the book though, I feel like the people I played it with cared too much about which kind of dice they got to get an interesting ending, I'm not sure if that's really intentional or not.
It
It does?
I mean, for starters, there's no Pouchomancy.
The guy who made it has done some other really cool stuff too, a bunch of which is available for free on his website. A lot of it is experimental, so it might not work quite right or need tweaking to be fully developed, but I recommend at very least reading through it.
http://www.bullypulpitgames.com/games/
I highly recommend The Plant. It's a solitaire roleplaying game, so you have no excuse for not sitting down and playing it right now.
Mancy?
the best ever use of super high powered magic was in Mage: Imperial Mysteries
basically regular magic is the vast majority of magic you will do, even at higher levels
The higher powered magic you can do is amazingly powerful. Like, you can create a spell that travels from person to person, removing their capacity for violence. But to do that, you need to get some amazingly powerful symbols in order to cast the spell. So you need to get hold of the first sword that was ever made, find out what the original word for peace developed in all human languages are, and so on, and then combine them all in a giant ritual which takes place in extradimensional realms in order to actually make your spell.
And you need to make those spells to ascend to the supernal, because to ascend you need to make the fallen world a reflection of yourself, so if you want to eradicate violence you actually can do that, and if that represents your soul, you need to do that in order to go to heaven (basically).
Now, the rules state that Imperial Mages cannot intervene with each other using Imperial magic because if there wasn't a magical cold war there would be a magical hot war and the universe would end, basically. However plenty of Archmagisters have ascended. How? By changing reality, retroactively, to reflect them. Over and over again. Reality is not a whole, but layers of existence retroactively altered by ascending Archmages, and thus is Atlantis not just in time and space, but in the very folds of existence.
it's
super fucking rad
and it means you can actually play Archmages, because as an Archmage, mostly you will still use regular magic in the same way that a powerful non-Archmage will, but with the aim of achieving your own destiny and acquiring the symbols you need to do so, all the whole keeping to the rules of the Imperial Magic Cold War.
fuckin' geertz crops up everywhere
nah, you need a lawful weapon