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UA is seriously amazing. It's the best urban fantasy setting, hands down. NWod isn't fit to hold UA's nuts, and I say that as someone who loves nWoD. It's the best example I can think of mechanics underpinning and reinforcing a style of play, as opposed to flavor being imposed externally, which is usually the case.
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May 23, 2010 07:55
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Ir's pretty universal, I'd say. You could easily run UA in a medieval or futuristic setting if you wanted, given that skills are basically prose qualities and most of the low-level mechanics are similarly adaptable. The one thing that might be wonky are Adept powers, given that most of the schools of magic are very tied to a modern day setting. Off the top of my head, videomancy, pornomancy, narco-alchemy, and urbanomancy would be out for a pre-modern society, and mechanomancy and bibliomancy might be similarly challenged depending on how far back you went. Most of the schools would change flavor-wise, so like a plutomancer would get money from hording gold coins. It would be significantly harder for most adepts to gain charges, in any case. Avatars wouldn't be affected much, since they're universal archetypes by definition, and as such wouldn't be too out of place no matter what the setting. Ritual magic probably wouldn't be affected much either, since rituals are universally old and require you to do ridiculous poo poo anyway.
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May 23, 2010 09:59
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No, there's no limit on adept schools. Basically anything that you can be obsessed with can become an Adept school. What it is really is the power of your obsession forces reality to conform to your warped world view, enabling you to do stuff that would be impossible normally. There's a couple requirements, the power you get from your school has to have a paradox somewhere at its root, but that's sort of defined loosely. For example personomancers from the core book are obsessed with the truth of identity, but the very nature of their powers proves that identity is mutable and truth doesn't really exist. There's rules for creating new schools in the book, so if you wanted to home brew something it would just take a little planning and creativity. The game's website has a number of fan created schools, some better than others, so that gives you an idea of what you can do with the system. I guess urbanomancers wouldn't be exactly out in a pre-modern setting, but because cities tended to be a good deal smaller in many cases their utility would be more limited. I say getting charges would be harder for most schools because a lot of the ways Adepts get charges involve either other people or information, two things which are both easier to come by in a modern setting than they would be before the advent of mass communications and easy transportation. For example, Bibliomancers get charges by buying rare books, something that would require a much greater investment of time before the advent of Amazon.com. Personomancers would basically be unable to get a major charge, although they might have an easier time of getting significants because famous people would be known by name and general description rather than by sight. Cliomancers would be a lot more limited in the amount of charges they could harvest just because they'd have a harder time traveling to places of historical importance without modern transportation. By the same token, it'd be easier to get significant charges because there'd be less people fighting you for them. Baby Babbeh fucked around with this message at 11:38 on May 23, 2010 |
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May 23, 2010 11:33
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Most of the adept schools that are ancient have changed considerably over time, though, as peoples attitudes toward what make them tick change. So for example personomancers used to be much more caught up in the ritual wearing of masks to gain the powers that the personify, the old-school shamanistic tradition. Now they're far more interested in the social aspects of mask wearing, what Jung called the persona, the idea of tweaking other people's perceptions of one and gaining strength from that. It's pre-modern mystical beliefs versus post-modern. Magic as presented in UA is decidedly post modern, it's very ancient and basic beliefs warped by the pressures and anxieties of modern times. A lot of what makes it "wierd" is this conceptual tension. The danger in changing it to a medieval setting is you run the risk of playing a very different game. That said, I think you could possibly do a game set in the past, if you really played up the mythic elements of it. It also might work at points in time where there was significant cultural upheavals happening, since I think that's where a lot of the anxiety that makes UA great comes from. I can see a thematically similar game happening in the last days of Rome, maybe, or in libertine France. Pretty much any era of the Industrial Revolution might work too.
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May 24, 2010 01:11
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The best blast is the plutomancer blast. Nothing beats making someone kick their own rear end.
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May 24, 2010 03:22
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And let's not forget the utility of obsession skills. Since Adepts have to take their school as their obsession skill, they're really good at magic but lose out in situations where its not time to seal shut someones mouth or hit them in the face with a levitated brick. Someone with an obsession skill in sweet talk or something is probably going to be a lot more useful in most situations, and an obsessed martial artist is going to be just as much of a combat beast as your average adept.
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May 27, 2010 02:32
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Gr3y posted:Please tell me that a character with that as their obsession gets to help the party maintain their sanity at the cost of their own well being. Actually that would be an excellent basis for an adept school...
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May 27, 2010 03:39
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If you're wondering about the mechanics and the general feel of the book before you take the plunge, Atlas has this preview up on their site. It's the entire first and part of the second chapters, actually enough for character creation for a street level game. You don't get to see any of the cool poo poo like adepts and avatars, but it should be enough to convince you that UA is pretty much the best thing ever. Seriously. Buy it. You will not regret it.
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May 27, 2010 09:15
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You owe it to yourself to buy at least one of the adventure supplements, though. It's not strictly necessary, but they're really nothing short of amazing. It'll give you a good idea how UA should play, too. Even if you don't end up running a module straight from the book there's a lot of stuff you can steal for other adventures, like One Shots' infamous fortune cookie paper.
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Jun 9, 2010 08:50
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The only thing that might be a problem is how lethal combat usually is in UA. I'm not sure how "action-y" you want your game but the system tends toward a more gritty feel, where if you get into a gun fight somebody is going to get shot and somebody probably is going to die. There's a reason why the combat mechanics chapter starts with advice on how to resolve your differences without fighting.
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Jun 19, 2012 22:25
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Count Chocula posted:http://www.theonion.com/articles/ill-smoke-anything,10882/ - I feel like this is describing an Adept, but I can't find the paradox. I guess it would depend on the sort of powers you get by smoking everything. Smoking Hitler's mustache would definitely get you the most epic charge ever, though.
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Sep 3, 2012 08:21
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| # ¿ May 22, 2024 13:01 |
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The plot of How High makes a lot more sense when you realize Method Man and Redman are bongmancer adepts.
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Sep 3, 2012 10:04
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