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 Greg Stolze, holding his degree in Awesome Greg Stolze. A name you may have heard before. If not, shame on you; the guy's responsible for a poo poo load of cool RPGs. His most well-known RPGs: Unknown Armies, Reign, Nemesis, Wild Talents, and Godlike.  You did it! 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 poo poo 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. The System: I love this thing. I love it so drat much. Know how d% systems work? It's just like that. You roll d100 and compare that to a relevant stat, hoping to roll at or under the specific stat. I really can't worship the character generation enough. It's fast as hell; if you know what you're doing it'll only take about 25 minutes to make a character from scratch. You have four stats: Body, Speed, Mind, and Soul. Under each of these stats goes a relevant skill. Along with these, you have what are called "Stimuli". These allow you to invoke a specific stimulus (either "Fear", "Noble", or "Rage") to allow for skill check modifiers that fit your character's personality. For example, you can lash out at something that provokes your character's anger stimulus, and if the roll fails you can re-roll once a game. The sanity system in Unknown Armies is usually the one thing people take with them after a game. And for good reason; it, like the rest of the encompassing system, kicks rear end. You know how Call of Cthulhu has its measly little sanity rating? YAWN. Unknown Armies has five drat sanity bars, each representing a different form of psychological damage. There's Violence, Unnatural, Helplessness, Isolation, and Self. Rather than whittling down an allotted amount of sanity a la Call of Cthulhu, UA offers characters the chance to toughen themselves up to the madness around them, but not without consequence. Too many failed sanity checks and you turn into a high-strung mess, succeed too many checks and you become a calloused sociopath. Combat in the game is decidedly vicious. To give you an idea as to how brutal it is, this is the intro to the combat section:  Helpful Links: http://www.atlas-games.com/unknownarmies/index.php Contains a bevy of helpful downloads, including a .pdf preview that contains just about all of the rules a starting PC would need. http://ua.johntynes.com/ Collection of fan-made material of varying quality, still updated from time to time. Sad Mammal fucked around with this message at 01:18 on May 22, 2010 |
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May 21, 2010 08:12
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| # ¿ May 22, 2024 07:20 |
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Unknown Armies just got a new printing, so if you're thinking about getting a copy now's when you should probably do it.
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May 28, 2010 03:11
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Small news for UA (though not to anyone who's been to the fan-site): UA is getting three new PDF-only releases. No idea when they're going to be released, but they've been in development since October.
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Jun 16, 2010 02:58
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Dumbledore's a cutter, Hagrid's an alcoholic, and Harry steps in front of traffic.
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Jul 6, 2010 17:40
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CAPSLOCKGIRL posted:I was playing a nascent Legomancer (I was 15) Are you retroactively apologizing? 'Cause there's no reason a Legomancer isn't awesome.
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Jul 11, 2012 20:48
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Squidster posted:The Freak and St. Germain were both unbeatable, unkillable godbosses. Neither has stats, and they're cosmic constants in a game about shifting chaos. Isn't that most of the enemies in Call of Cthulhu, minus the stats?
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Jan 3, 2014 06:15
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You can still thwart a god. Sure it will most likely come at tremendous cost, but at least you got to stick your middle finger into the face of a deity.
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Jan 3, 2014 06:42
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| # ¿ May 22, 2024 07:20 |
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The Freak can be beaten, just not physically. Do something it didn't account for. It's that the ideas in The Freak's presentation are interesting that makes The Freak a good NPC, a line in the book saying it can't be beaten doesn't just automatically make it suck.
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Jan 3, 2014 07:23
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