In honor of UA no longer being dead.
New edition:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/atlasgames/unknown-armies-third-edition-roleplaying-game
Old fan site:
http://ua.johntynes.com/
Question for the thread:
Out of all three editions what adept school is your favorite?
anyone has the backer preview draft?
>>46431226
I think somebody posted it in the previous 3rd edition thread:
>>46349665
Though I'm fairly certain you can get the new pdfs for a dollar if you back the kickstarter.
Thanks!
So guys, what adept schools have you made? Are they gonna be compatible with UA3?
There was an alternate rule on the fansite that replaced taboos with consequences. As long as you have a charge on you, violating a taboo doesn't hurt your charges, it hurts YOU. You get to keep your charges after violating your taboo, but sometimes not being able to get rid of them isn't always a good thing.
Here are some taboo consequences I thought of for the new schools:
>Viaturgy:
As long as you have a charge any vehicles you're a passenger in will suffer some form of malfunction or accident. The chance that the accident/malfunction will harm you and anyone else in the vehicle increases with the power of your charges. Some plane crashes are really just the result of really unlucky viaturges.
>Fulminaturgy:
Non-violent taboo: As long as you have a charge any weapons you fire will either be horribly inaccurate at low power, or just completely jam on you at high power.
Obsessive taboo: If your totem is ever lost and you do not find it with in the period of (24 minus your charge power) hours your totem will eventually disappear from you entirely, and will wind up in the hands of your worst enemy. If your totem gun is ever fired at you it becomes powerfully accurate.
>GNOMON:
As long as you have a charge you have a deeply ingrained connection to GNOMON. Disrupting your connection to GNOMON with strong, human, emotions can have harmful side effects and should be avoided to ensure your own integrity. Any rolls you make involving a strong emotion become more difficult to succeed in based on your charge power, as the disrupted link between you and GNOMON flood your already emotional mind with painful static.
>Cinemancy:
As long as you have a charge if you do not fulfill a potential movie cliche your situation will suffer from some form of cliche based backlash depending on your charge power. At its worst simple things like failing to slip on a banana peel and fall to the ground harmlessly could mean somebody you care about slipping on a peel in heavy traffic.
Can someone tell me why sould I play Unknown Armies and not WoD?
I'm reading the core book and it all sounds rather similar.
>>46432208
The core themes between the two are pretty different.
In World of Darkness your angst is from an external source: "I can do x, and therefore I will never be truly human"
In Unknown Armies your angst is internal: "Fuck my humanity, I wanna be able to do x!"
>>46432208
One is a supers game, the other a cultists game.
>>46431226
>>46420149
46411859
>>46411859
There.
>>46432208
It's much quicker and easier to play than WoD for starters. And since most people's idea of power fantasy isn't "crazy homeless guy" all of the Fishmalk idiots and angsty mall goths tend to pass over UA, so you won't have to deal with them.
Any news from the IRC anons?
I am really confused about starting relationships.
Book One says:
>Your Unknown Armies character starts out with two of the five most important relationships in her life statted out.
A few paragraphs later it says :
> You’re obligated to have one of these relationships with your group of PCs.
And then in an insert it says:
> Each PC has to have a relationship with another PC—at least one relationship.
So does that mean you get two statted relationships and they have to be one with the party and one with another PC? What about the other 3, do you pick then but you can't get a stat in them? If so, why the fuck didn't it say so in one place?
>>46434619
Never having read or played it, it still seems pretty clear: 2 starting relationships, one directly related to the group or its members, one free to pick.
Sanity seems pretty unchanged, only fine tuned.
Anybody read the rest?
Any new mechanics?
>>46436049
There seems to be something similar to the Bonds in new DG only they're fully statted NPCs. It also looks like certain skills are tied to the sanity meters in some way. I haven't looked into it too much but that's what I noticed when I was skimming through it.
>>46436190
>skills are tied to the sanity meters
Yes, madness can now affect your faculties.
>>46433643
Yeah, thread died last night so I decided to wait til morning. Hit me up atinfinitesaturday at gmail. That goes not just to you and the guys from the past thread, but from any other anon interested in practicing/playtesting UA through IRC and oneshots.
>>46437826
I've never played any rpg before anon, would reading the first book gamma book in its entirety would help me to join ya? So far, Im only here for the picture and funnies
Is the anon that bookmarked the first gamma book planning on doing the rest? It would be greatly appreciated.
>>46438195
Well, I'm hoping that the anon sessions will be bent towards practicing and getting a hang of the new rules, so sure, feel free to at least try it out and see how you like it! Just shoot me an email.
So far, it looks like the first book is all a player needs to enjoy and play the game.
>>46438195
As much as I'd like to have more people playing UA, this might not be the game to play if you've never played a tabletop game before. On top of the new edition being in beta and full of errors and bad formatting, Unknown Armies is all about your characters slowly losing their humanity and sanity over time as they reach for power they shouldn't have. 2nd and 1st edition had a reputation for being a bitch to GM, and while it seems 3rd edition is fixing this at the same time 3rd edition is really hard to read at the moment.
>>46439888
Ah, I hadn't noticed he said any rpg rather than this rpg.
Yeah, Unknown Armies is a bit intense for a first time.
So, one of the players in my group was at first infinitely hyped over this and then as soon as he saw a) the trigger warning stuff and b) the references to memes, he soured completely. Is he right and does that ruin UA, or is it in fitting with the previous editions? I don't really know much about it myself.
>>46440174
It's not as bad as it seems. One adept school has some painful memes for its spell names, and there is a trigger warning at the very first page, but outside of those two the rest is pretty much your standard Unknown Armies affair.
Though some bits of the Ordo Corpulentis is a bit jarring as it looks like some pretty clear political opinions from most likely Stolz being shoved into the book. The good thing about Unknown Armies though is that you can always re-purpose anything you don't like so it's not that big of a deal.
>>46437826
Sent
>>46440612
And received. I've gotten you and someone else, so if one or both of you are not the anons from last thread, hopefully they show up too.
>>46440174
I think trigger warnings in general are dumb unless in very specific situations but we're talking about a game about broken people where alcoholism and cutting yourself are viable means to power. If any RPG has a chance of making people the unfun kind of uncomfortable, it's UA. I think what was said in the page and a half trigger warning could have been accomplished by a simple "for mature readers only" clearly displayed on the front or back cover but I seriously doubt it is a sign that Stolze is suddenly trying to make his game "PC". And I was a little leery about the memes too but its not like it's the only thing going on in the setting now.
I think your friend is over reacting and he should read more of the book before he writes it off.
>>46440807
I am the other anon that emailed you and I'm one of the guys from the last thread.
And I'm another anon that just emailed you...
>page 9
It's like early /tg/ all over again...
>>46443019
We had enough replies in the last thread to last a year of regular UA threads.
>>46443240
Thankfully we don't have the usual random picture spam this time around.
>Look! This gas station seems creepy!
>Look! This fast food place is dirty!
>Wow! A CRT!
So out of the new avatar and adept options in 3e, what is everyone's first pick?
>>46447068
Viaturgy is my favorite with fulminaturgy's first taboo school coming in at a close second.
I can't stand fulminaturgy's second taboo though, because it's either not that much of a hindrance/becomes TOO much of a hindrance depending on where your game takes place. In Europe or Japan the second taboo would be incredibly hard to not break, but on a lot of states in the US you can pretty much CC anywhere. Yeah, you'll have a hard time not breaking it when it comes to locations with metal detectors, but at the same time unless your campaign takes place inside of court houses you can run around with a constant flow of charges.
>>46447294
Also I forgot to mention that Viaturgy's charge gathering methods are pretty boring despite how cool CAR MAGIC is, and on top of that significant charges have the potential to be way easier to get than minor charges which is completely backwards.
Default minor charge: Drive 100 miles (160km for metric users)
Default significant charge: Spend a full night in a location you haven't been to before
Unless you live in the middle of nowhere you can find places to stay for the night fairly easily so that means you could gain a significant charge every single day just for sleeping. For your minor charge you need to actively drive 100 miles, which you could do in a day, but it would take a good chunk of your time just driving around.
Viaturgy is meant to be both a symbol of freedom through mobility and a disregard for anything that ties you down. I think these charge gathering methods might represent it a bit better:
Minor charge: Sleep for 3-4 hours at least in a location you haven't been to before
Significant charge: Outperform an opponent using your skills behind the wheel by beating somebody to a mutually agreed on race, or by managing to lose somebody that's chasing or tailing you.
>>46447836
*in a location you haven't slept in before, not been to before
Woops
>>46447836
>which you could do in a day, but it would take a good chunk of your time just driving around
And spend constant gas money
>>46447836
If you were to enter, say, a NASCAR race and come in first, would that net you like fifty significant charges or just one?
>>46447930
One per opponent. Winning a NASCAR race is hard as fuck, too, so you've earned that maxed out charge bar. You have to outperform somebody without any magic, too, that's what makes it more of a significant charge.
>>46448021
Does the 'you can't get charges from magic' rule apply to other people's magic? If not you could collude with a bunch of other adepts to piggy-back each other. If so, could a rival spoil an attempt to charge off a big event by throwing in some mojo?
>>46448146
Damn that's a good question. How about:
If an adept goes to assist your charge attempt that adept isn't allowed to warn you beforehand, and you can't request any assistance from anyone, but if you're driving and magic starts flying around, taking advantage of it is just going with the flow. Your charge still counts.
>>46448256
That'll work, not that I was trying to be super legalistic about it. I guess the possibility of running into a cabal that's learned (or that thinks it has learned) to break the rules in either direction could still be pretty fun from a story perspective.
>>46440174
Apparently the previous editions were very specific to the late 90s/early 00s so references that may be dated in a few years is par for the course
Safe spaces must be a school's source.
I mean think about it, it's a passive aggressive control zone for SJWs and professional victims, functionally it's an oxymoron, and it is being used to punch people in the mouth with - all in the name of being better persons for society.
>>46436738
To be precise, becoming hardened in a particular shock gauge alters your skills. Failed notches don't.
Becoming hardened to Violence increases your Struggle, but damages your Connect.
Becoming hardened to the Unnatural increases your Secrets, but damages your Notice.
Becoming hardened to Helplessness increases your Dodge, but damages your Health.
Becoming hardened to Self increases your Lie, but damages your Knowledge.
Becoming hardened to Isolation increases your Pursuit, but damages your Status.
>>46453023
That sounds less like a school's source and more like a few avatars of the Mystic Hermaphrodite refuse to die down without a fight.
>>46453346
I don't know, man.
All that reborn victimhood lately, fundamentalists being cruelly suppressed by having to sell gay cake and stamp lesbo papers, war on Christmas and all that, now there's this myth of Latino waves of drug rape welfare anchors while Mexico net immigration is negative, farmers beg for more cheap laborers just to stay afloat, and Hispanic roots run deep throughout the Southern US...
It just doesn't scream Mystic Herm to me. I give you the campus safe spaces. But not the Koch party.
>>46454352
If anything The Eternal Victim could be a new archetype. By finding ways to make themselves the poor unfortunate target of everything and everyone they gain the power to make them bend to the Avatar's will.
>>46454713
I really don't know the lingo and can only take terms like archetype, avatar, school, and power at pretty much face value (for a gamer).
>>46455111
Quick-and-dirty.
Avatars channel a particular Archetype (of which there are more than 200) like the Mother, the Warrior, the True King or Necessary Servant. They swim with the current of the collective unconscious; when someone plays the role of the Warrior, they are slotting into a role that society makes sense of and getting power from that.
Adepts are a special kind of crazy that makes them magical. They take something that society agrees is important, but obsess over it in a way which is twisted; Plutomancers get money but don't spend it on anything, Biblioman cers collect books but don't even need to read them, one of the varieties of Fulminaturgy derive their power from carrying a gun, but never shooting it.
They get their power by swimming against the current of the collective unconscious and there is always a paradox at the heart of their crazy obsessive belief.
Anon running the Charles campaign here. Not much to report from yesterday's session, we mostly just got the ball rolling with Charles' death and meeting their in to the Underground, but I can give a run down of my basic idea for the campaign and maybe we can brainstorm some stuff.
>Campaign set in Chicago in 2010.
>PCs get the call from Charles, they meet at his place, he gives them a speech about the Underground and how trying to help people can get you in trouble, asks them to avenge him, you know the rest
>He set a box of mementos/clues on a table in his living room
>Full of fake drivers licenses, a weirdly ruined police badge, an envelope and $1000 cash
>The drivers licenses are for five different people, Charles included, and are from multiple states. Close examination reveals that they are well make fakes
>The police badge looks like at was melted, smooth grooves on the edges imply it was done by someone with very hot hands. Badge number and name are illegible but one PC, a former Chicago cop, was able to identify it as a CPD badge.
>The envelope contains an old polaroid picture of five people posing triumphantly near a highway road. Black smoke rises from a treeline in the distance. A sign for state route 30 can be seen in the background. All but two people, a middle aged man with long hair and Charles looking about 15-20 years younger, have skulls drawn over their faces. "Everything will be better in Chicago" is written on the back in pen. The return address on the envelope is to "Richard Casto". The rest of the address is faded and illegible.
>I know the Tom Waits reference is anachronistic
>The PCs eventually track down Richard, now much older and missing both legs, laying low in a South Chicago slum. He threatens the PCs with a shotgun because they did a very bad job of explaining things, making him think they were the ones who killed Charles
cont.
>>46455386
So avatars are normal every day cultists while adepts have left it all behind and only focus on one thing that makes no sense any more.
>>46454713
See, I'd expect the Victim or the Martyr to already be a standing Archetype. I'd put the "You are oppressing me by not letting me oppress you" kind of aggressive claiming of victimhood on the same level as the Heisenberg Messenger; somebody taking a run at a sitting Archetype to try and unseat and replace it.
The Victim is kind of fucked though, if that's what's going on; the nature of their Archetype makes them vulnerable to being screwed over by their own godwalker and if they try to fight back, they'd be practising the exact kind of aggressive victimhood that would empower the reinterpretation.
Logically, that would suggest the old Victim needs a Champion.
>>46455451
I had this in one of my games, with the victim being changed into the crying bully. They could make people take violence and self checks as long as the crying bully could find some advantage their victim had over them.
>>46455443
More or less.
Avatars can get pretty intense (and, in game terms, can have their avatar identity be their obsession), but it makes them one-dimensional, rather than shit-fuck-weird. The woman whose every word and action is informed by the lens of being the Mother, who always wears blue and is constantly pregnant, is still less likely to scare the norms than the guy who is cutting away his flesh piece by piece to refine himself into a purer, stronger version of him (adepts *must* have their magick as their obsession).
And you have some low-level Avatars who don't even know they are Avatars. They live their life and, because of who they are, find themselves attuned to the path of the Warrior or the Captain or the Masterless Man. Whereas all Adepts know what they are.
>>46455415
>PCs clear things up and Rich lets them in his house.
>He explains that he and Charles were part of a small time occult vigilante team that split up sometime in 2003 after a botched job got most of them killed. He is convinced that Charles' death was a murder, not a suicide.
>He's been loosely keeping up with the scene since the team was forced to split but he agrees to help the PCs get to the bottom of things and effectively drafts them into a new generation of his former team, offering them a job while he gets his old setup back in action
That's where we ended things but the job he's sending them on will be a non TNI version of "Fresh" from Lawyers, Guns and Money. My basic idea for the campaign will be the PCs tracking down what's left of the Cannibal Crew, basically a fucked up evil version of Mak Attax that Charles and Rich's team shut down years ago. My players seem into it. Hopefully it all pays off.
>Big Porn is trying to find the next transcendent porn scene for the digital era
>>46455669
This is a great start. I appreciate the twist on my original idea - it's still a mystery, but this feels far more proactive.
>>46438952
Bookmarkin' anon here, sure thing! I'm currently reading through Book 2, so I'll bookmark it when I'm finished!
>>46447068
I'm a huge fan of GNOMON. I fell in love with it when I read PERSONA MAVRA and the whole idea of a internet gestalt consciousness is exactly what I expected from UA3. Plus, giving it your personal information via questionnaires and links on some weird, esoteric website? Creepy but so compelling. I can really imagine the temptation to follow the rabbit hole deeper and deeper.
>>46461074
I think GNOMON being the first Adept school listed in the rulebook is weird - since it's so atypical - but it's indeed really cool.
It's interesting that it -gives- you charges to spend, rather than you just earning them. That might just be esoteric wording, or it might be the case - it's hard to tell. I wonder if people in-universe can tell the difference?
>>46460745
Thanks man, I'm glad you approve. Would you have anything against me eventually turning the prompt into a campaign outline and posting it on the UA site whenever it gets back in working order? I would credit you for the idea of course.
>>46461262
Not at all! You're clearly making it into your own thing! :)
Also, just finished Book 1, and I'm thinking about Motumancy. The 'parasitic' feel of Motumancy - that it hates groups and organization and structure, but so many of its abilities rely on those things to work - gave me an interesting idea for an alternative bent for a Motumancer. One that wants to attempt to tear down structures, test loyalties, and push people to their limits... all to -strengthen- them. A survival of the fittest, applied to society, to culture, to belief and ideology.
It seems very fitting with their charges, their taboo, and their abilities. It's almost entirely opposite to Motumancers in general, even though it uses all the same tools. (This variation push them to die, but want them to thrive - and regular Motumancers exploit them, but want them to die).
What do you guys think? Too much of a change to count as a Motumancer?
>>46447836
> For your minor charge you need to actively drive 100 miles, which you could do in a day
Is it 100 miles or 100 miles consecutively? Big difference, of course.
>>46447294
I think fulminaturgy is supposed to be a uniquely American phenomenon.
>>46461233
That's a good point, actually. Is GNOMON gaining charges itself, then passing them on like a new-age Mak Attak?
>>46461852
And can anyone use GNOMON, or only GNOMON Adepts?
>>46462252
If I was GMing, I'd say anyone could (as long as they had the GNOMON identity, of course). You need the website or the app to casts the spells so it's not you doing it, it's GNOMON.
>>46462405
Yeah. That's just so weird to me. GNOMON, the Freelancing Robo-Adept.
>>46462428
The best kind of weird. I hope they make a To Go style campaign about GNOMON's ultimate objective.
>>46437826
Just a reminder that any more anons who want to playtest the new edition of Unknown Armies via IRC are welcome. So far - besides me - we got two-ish players. A few more, and we'll maximize our merriment.
>>46463017
I'm itching. But IRC or voice doesn't do it for me.
I need an actual table.
>>46461716
Culturally speaking it's American, but you could technically play a fulminaturge in any country with the first taboo. Gaining charges would be vastly more risky, but at the same time the likelihood that you'll ever break your taboo would be pretty slim, as just pulling the gun out in a lot of countries signals that you are not somebody to take lightly so the threat alone will protect you.
For the minor charge you only need to have the gun out and have the potential for it to be seen easily by others, not to have it actually seen. For the significant charge you specifically need to hide it, so that works in the fulminaturges favor in countries with high gun control as well.
>>46461650
It's just 100 miles consecutively, something that you could do every day depending on your job, but sleeping in a new location is still easier to get than the 100 mile charges. Viaturges are meant to be as mobile as possible, but that doesn't work for every party so I could see plenty of situation where you're full of significant charges while never being able to get those minor charges, which shouldn't be how things work.
>>46464292
Sorry, I meant to say:
It's just 100 miles, not consecutively
>>46464292
I think the intention is to stop you racking up significant charges too quickly. A long-haul trucker could do maybe 600 miles (say, in three 200-mile chunks) in a day just doing their job.
You do not want a trucker PC to be able to say. "I do my job for 5 days, I now have 30 significant charges."
Whereas 30 minors and 5 sigs, while a potent pocketful of mojo, is manageable. I mean, it's still a hell of lot of magick to harvest off a week of downtime; you don't want to fuck with a trucker viaturge, but it's not insane.
>>46464448
I agree on that, switching the two wouldn't work as significant charge gathering needs to be slow, but I still think having the minor charge be sleeping in a new location with half the time required of its significant variant would work better. In 5 days you could gather 15 minor charges if you really pushed it. A trucker with a triphasic sleep schedule would still be better off as just some random hotrod enthusiast with only a monophasic sleep schedule, but the difference between the two wouldn't be 4 charges a week with the hotrod guy and 30 charges with the trucker, it would be 5 charges for the hotrod guy and 15 charges for the trucker which is a lot more fair.
As to what replaces the significant charge I'm not so sure anymore, but just having it be based on the amount you travel seems a bit boring.
I made a very quick sketch up of an Unknown Armies character sheet for 3rd edition. It's nothing special, but it's something. If you plan on running 3rd and trying the gamma, use these. Hopefully it helps. They're camera shots as I don't own a scanner, apologies.
>>46464792
The char sheets are gonna be coming soon on the KS hopefully. They were mentioned in the first backer update.
>>46464792
Second page
>>46464815
Hopefully soon yes, but in the meantime I hope these will do for quick scrims.
>>46447836
There should be a minimum distance difference for the 'location you haven't been to before'. I'd say, going off the minor charge, 100 miles as a default.
>>46464817
For the third page I just used the second page of the 2nd edition sheet as that's all still relevant info except for the exp points.
>>46464817
>>46464792
Just a heads up exif data gets removed when you post on 4chan so your images need to be oriented correctly without the exif orientation tags before posting them.
>>46430039
YES! YES! I MUST BACK THIS!
>>46465451
Chill. It'll be there for a few weeks.
>>46464792
Here, I cleaned up your sheet for you.
Is there someone who can gain charges from BUMP!
>>46469850
Could you be a bit more specific?
>>46470056
I think it was a joke.
An Adept that gained charges from bumping threads, though... hm... maybe their school is about making the impermanent last? Things that are inherently transistory and ephemeral, but you push them to die slower, to last longer, to survive like living things do.
On the internet, this has to be done on Snapchat or 4chan, where things die at some point - though Snapchat keeps pictures, doesn't it, on its servers? Though 4chan archives threads too. Anyway.
In the real world, this is done with graffiti, and other forms of street art. Such as those people who 'yarn-bomb' things.
A minor charge would be creating something impermanent, and then -fighting to keep it around-. Preventing a cleaner from wiping away your graffiti. Posting in a thread to recover it from the brink of death. And so on. It has to be a noticeable 'recovery' - for example, bringing back this from page 11, or stopping the cleaner right before they begin washing the graffiti down.
A significant charge would be ensuring your piece survives for an incredible period of time, and leaves a lasting impression. Having your thread stickied is a good way to do this. Or
A major charge is making something impermanent last forever in some meaningful way. A graffiti slogan that changes society. A thread that starts a new meme.
What's taboo is to create something permanent. If one of your temporary creations gets 'archived' - made permanent in some way, for example your graffiti is accepted by the business you sprayed it on - any charges you got from THAT creation are immediately lost. Where's the meaning in the survival of something that doesn't have the chance to die?
>>46470271
That's pretty good actually. What do we call it though?
>>46470271
Holy shit I need this.
>>46470537
Prorogatiomancy
>>46470537
Curathurgy, because the adept is a curator for something
>>46470271
minors could be from thing the adept didn't create, but protects anyway. The neighborhood tree and shit.
>>46470537
>>46470553
Thanks.
Well, for nicknames, they can be Vandals, Kilroys, and Taggers (nice double meaning, there).
For their fancy name, proskairomancers? Proskairos means 'impernanent, temporal'. Kairos is a special meaning of time in ancient Greece, as well - it's " a time lapse, a moment of indeterminate time in which everything happens", and means "the supreme or opportune moment". Seems very fitting.
There are many types of Vandals. As established, there's graffito artists, but also people who struggle to make social networking posts survive. There's hackers who deface websites and try to fight internet security as long as possible - there's 'yarn-bombers' and other avant-garde artists - there's performance artists and flash mobs, who make art that HAS to end at some point, but keep it going on for as long as possible - and so on.
The key to their creations is that their creations are NOT WANTED. A temporary installation that has been paid for, accepted, is NOT fighting for survival. Its life cycle is boring. These creations - these works of art - have to be organisms in their own right, facing a bitch-of-a-world, just like we do. That's where the mojo comes from. This is the ENTIRE POINT of the hacker and graffiti subcultures of Proskairomancy.
In addition, as it's about survival, proskairomancers often compete for space and attention. Tagging, turf, and so on - that's all a natural extension of the wars for human attention, for the art-intake that is an artform's food, fight, flight, and fuck, all at once. An artform lives by people knowing it exists - and dies by people not wanting it to. That's what gives TRUE art its power.
>>46470756
I like the idea of competition and ownership, since that's very important to graffiti artists. However, since this originally started with a discussion about 'bumping', we can certainly make the charge structure not mention it has be your thing you fight to keep around.
Cont next post...
>>46470821
So, the central paradox of the school is kinda two-fold. These people coddle creations that they want to survive on their own. And there's the whole 'permanence from the impermanent' idea. You want it to last, but not to last FOREVER.
Their RMD should definitely involve aspects of ownership (turf, tagging), opportunity (can't get caught), time (it's all about impermanence and permanence, after all), expression, and survival.
Using 3e rules, Ω is probably -1.5. (Taboo is relatively easy to trigger, especially if you have an enemy, and charging is a felony for some styles)
The sig. charge is probably just right. You're supposed to be able to get one a day, on average, with moderate effort. If you make three pieces a day, and one out of three last a month, that means - with a month's investment - you're getting about a sig. charge a day. I guess 'art that leaves a lasting impression' might be doable too - just throw up some shocking graffiti, or some nasty swear words on a Cambodian painting newsgroup that makes someone cry.
Alright, time for some spells!
Minor:
Tag - 1M - By leaving an identifying mark on something, the Kilroy can claim it as their own.. This lets you flip-flop a Lie roll when trying to convince people that, yes, this nuclear bomb is yours. Does it give you clearance to leave with it, or explain why you tagged it? No. Good luck explaining that part.
Bomb - 1M - Vandals, as the name implies, are good at vandalizing things. This lets you mess with something you could have messed with, given proper resources and time. It lets you, basically, squeeze an hour or two's worth of hard work into a single instanteous moment of vandalizing. A tag instantly appears on a car's windshield... an SQL injection is instantly completed... and so on. Obviously, hacking generally takes longer, so it's much harder to make it useful there (unless you've set up a lot of the work in advance)
>>46470537
Perpetumancy?
>>46471264
What you hear: What started out as a territorial dispute between a Taggers in Windsor, ON trying to cash in on each others attempts to claim symbolic ownership over a particular tag-gone-viral has spiraled out of control. With amnesiac flash mobs and traffic-snarling culture jamming displays threatening public order and it can't be long before someone clamps down on it.
>>46471264
Woops, Tag should probably do Status, not Lie.
Wildstyle - 1M - This lets the Tagger substitute their Adept identity for a Health, Dodge, or Pursuit roll, but only while they're working on a piece. Health to get around - Pursuit to avoid people messing with them - and Dodge to avoid the batons when they start smackin' ya.
Oracle of Graffiti - 1M - This lets the Kilroy see out of every one of their pieces that's still surviving. If they're a Hacker Kilroy, it lets them see out of any screens displaying what they've hacked. This sensory dump is an instanteous bombardment, so it's tough to sift through if you have a lot of it.
Hyperkulture - 3M - Someone looking at a piece of yours - however hastily made - within your eyesight immediately suffers a case of Stendhal syndrome for a number of minutes equal to the roll. Basically, they suffer an extreme emotional reaction to your piece - rapid heartbeat, dizziness, fainting, confusion and even hallucinations sometimes. The emotion is linked to however they interpret the piece.
Turf Warrior - 1M - While within eyesight of one of your works, you can cast this spell. If it succeeds, avoid the next attack directed at you - OR at your work. For hackers, you can't just have your work on your smartphone, because there it is 'accepted'. It has to be in the wild, on someone else's 'territory', that is, a screen you don't own.
Tools of the Sprayed - 2M - You immediately acquire whatever tools you deem necessary for your artwork through happenstance. If you're a hacker, this is tough, as smartphones and laptops aren't often lying around, nor are power outlets.
Significant coming up.
>>46471571
>all those extra words I didn't edit out
shit
>>46471264
>>46470821
I hope you don't mind, but I also thought of my own variant of the school:
A proskairomancer believes that the most wonderful things in life are those we only experience once. After all, over time even the most mundane things can grow to become a part of us, and when we lose those things we lose ourselves.
Taboo: A proskairomancer wants things behind only memories, but at the same time give things time to create as many memories as possible. If a proskairomancer ever catches a person or a group of people actively trying to destroy something that holds meaning for others the proskairomancer has to stop the destruction with enough effort that the proskairomancer puts themselves at some level of risk.
The tension between wanting to let as many people experience something and wanting to foster as many nostalgic memories as possible is strong. While proskairomancy seems like one of the calmer schools out there, that is only if it's looked at at face value. The more proskairomancers in the area the more likely they are to stop each other from gathering charges, leading to a brutal turf war between the more aggressive proskairomancers.
Minor charge: Let something you created get destroyed. The number of hours you put into the creation of your object, forum thread, art piece, or structure equals the number of charges you gain when that thing is destroyed. If you know for certain that someone or something is out to destroy your piece you must try to stop them or else you violate your taboo. For things on the internet that never fully go away there must be no activity or discussion on your creation for one consecutive week, the memory of your thread is not the thread itself but the discussion between its members.
Significant charge: Have the memory of your destroyed work be used to fuel something made by someone else based on your own work. If you ever discuss your work with the person you inspired prior to their own work your don't get a charge.
>>46471588
Blockbuster - 2S - The bigger, better, badder version of Bomb. This either SERIOUSLY messes something up - the equivalent of a solid 24 hours straight of work, and it can do some things kinda-really-impossible for you. For example, a Hacker's Blockbuster could do things only a computer with extreme processing power could handle, and a Graffito's Blockbuster could cover an entire building, even in weird little nooks and crannies you could never reach normally.
Aerosol Surveillance - 1S - This gives you the permanent ability to see out of any of your works of art - but only one at a time, and it takes a few minutes to recover and switch to a new one. And it replaces your normal vision while in use. You roll, and the sum of the digits of your roll is your starting identity in "Aerosol Surveillance".
Soul Spray - 1S - This requires you to 'tag' someone. If you're a Graffito, just spray them in the face. If you're a Hacker, that means you have to figure out a way to digitally fuck them up. Hacking into their social media account and 'leaving your mark' is a good way to do that... but only if that mark isn't permanent, remember.
Anyway, once you've done that, you can convey a command to them face-to-face or through text or whatever. As long as they know the person talking to them is the person who 'tagged' them, it works.
If they don't at least attempt to complete your command, they face a stress check equal to the ones digit of your roll, targeting their Self. Because right now, you OWN them, and so denying that command is denying their owner.
Avant-Guard - 2S - When you cast this spell, if you're within line of sight of one of your works, you get a benefit to your next Combat or Dodge roll. The benefit is, all Difficulty and Penalties are removed, and your identity or ability gets a +10% increase, multiplied by the ones place of your roll. If you roll a 19 and succeed, you get a +90% bonus on your next roll.
>>46471964
This is interesting! I'm not sure about the taboo - I think it's on the right track but it just feels a bit off to me - but the Minor Charge and Significant Charge are very interesting. Different from the philosophy I was going for, but in a compelling way, a very Adept way.
>>46472020
One more, and then I think I'm gonna call it good for now.
Turf Surf - 2S - If you're within eyesight of a piece that has survived a week or longer, and that piece is within one mile of another of your pieces that has survived a week or longer, you can instantly travel between the two.
>>46470821
>>46471264
>>46471588
Nice nicknames. Can't wait to see what would happen if one of these guys runs up against an Annihilomancer.
The obvious major charge effect would be prolonging your own life but what else would there be? Maybe the ability to have an unshakeable claim on your turf for as long as you're alive? The death of a powerful Vandal could result in the destabilization of entire regions as the cosmos pumps the area full of chaotic energy to overcompensate for years of peace and order.
>>46472144
Ah, I forgot to do that. Here's my ideas:
Agreed, a 'turf territory rule' was the first thing that came to mind. You basically become the True King of all that your pieces can 'see' from where you put them.
The ability to make someone 100% obsessed with one of your pieces. When it disappears inevitably, they go catatonic.
Prolonging your own life by tying it to the survival of your works of art.
>>46472235
>Dorian Gray magick
>>46472271
It's a Cameraturgy effect, yeah?
A chandelier made of hair. The book passingly mentions Hair adepts as one of those 'obscure weird' schools, but man, shit made out of hair is creepy.
>>46472762
What the fuck.
So wait, does the game still have write-in skills or are more skills essentially 'required' to keep with the madness altering-skills thing?
>>46474673
The new edition uses an identity system similar to the way Over The Edge, I think, I haven't read that much on skills but it seems you mostly roll your identity for just your regular skill checks. 2nd edition had write in skills though.
Your magic is usually more of a concrete thing, it just happens to be that homebrew is really easy to make so that's why you see so many people talking about new magic spells and schools.
Madness altering shit is part of the game though. Like Call of Cthulhu you're supposed to end a campaign a hell of a lot less sane than you started the campaign. The difference between Call of Cthulhu and Unknown Armies in terms of how you lose sanity is that your sanity loss is your own damn fault. You dug too deep.
>>46474673
You have Identities. You must have at least two, but can have up to 4. You get 120 points by default to split amongst them (though the GM can give you more).
Each Identity stands in for one Ability and does two other things (which can be standing in for other Abilities). Identities don't go up or down with being hardened (again, worth noting, failed notches don't do anything to your skills, only hardened notches)
So, for example, you could have Doctor 60% as an Identity and say that it substitutes for Knowledge, substitutes for Status and allows you to provide medical attention.
Such a character would keep rolling Doctor 60% for Knowledge and Status rolls, no matter how many hardened notches they racked up in Self and Isolation.
Conversely, you could have, say, Black Belt 60%, which substitutes for Struggle and Dodge and also provides wound threshold. Such a character would be able to throw a punch and avoid attacks at 60% without having to be hardened to Violence or Helplessness.
Avatar and Adept magick are Identities (which don't substitutes for any Ability or have any extra features; the magick is enough). And you pick one Identity to link to your obsession and you get to flip flop it.
So you still name your own skills, but they are broader and what they cover is slightly more structured.
Time for a bump.
>>46475335
I thought it could only substitute Doctor 60% for Knowledge and Status rolls if them being a doctor was relevant to the roll? If you're trying to remember how to bake a cake, that probably wouldn't work, right?
>>46477612
Neat. Looks like the after-shock of a scuffle between adepts.
>>46479647
I may be misunderstanding, but AFAICT, if you have an Identity which subs for an Ability as one of its feature, you can just do it. You need to justify the link when you make the Identity, but if you've persuaded your GM that being a doctor and being educated and wealthy/respected are linked, then the Identity just works, for all uses of that Ability other than resisting stress or coercing a metre.
Which, in this case, makes a degree of sense; a doctor will likely be smart and have a good memory, because they were able to get through medical school and will probably have a decent credit rating/bank balance/social standing in his community, even when it's not overtly about medicine.
The bit that relies of persuading the GM that being a doctor is relevant is the "Of course I can X, I'm a Y" rule, which would come into play if the bloke with Doctor 60% wanted to use it to sneak into a hospital or poison somebody but make it look like an overdose; i.e. using the Identity for something other than it's established features.
I may be off-base, though and if I've missed a relevant paragraph, feel free to put me right.
>>46479980
Yeah, just reread the book and you are right. It never states any restrictions on the substitution. Thanks for the clarification.
Has anyone ever played as a Sleeper (or someone trying to join the Sleepers)? They seem oddly well-suited to being protagonists in this newest edition.
>>46455669
So, I've been reading through the rulebooks, and Mak Attax has definitely fractured severely in the new age. This is good - it means we've got some awesome politics to play with.
What if the Kannibal Krew were a sort of fifth column, infiltrating each of the splinter cells for their own agendas? This means that, in the course of the player's investigations, they end up running afoul of multiple groups under the Mak Attax umbrella... Since the Mak Attax 'stick together', as the book notes, but they still have underlying tension, the palyer's investigations into the Kannibal Krew could not only promote a paranoid defensive response from the branches, but also instigate a civil war between the branches, as they each think another branch might be the Kannibal Krew that has been killing people in 'their' name.
>>46481320
Or, of course, they suspect they've been infiltrated again and go full turtle-shell. This would also cause some nasty political blowback.
I dont know what happen, but I just spend the last hour listening to Britney Spears songs,from the 90's until now
She definitely fit an archetype, but I just dont know what would really suit her..
>>46481320
On second thought, I don't even think we need the Kannibal Krew. It looks like the Mermaid Attax could bea solid replacement.
>The baristas, on the other hand, aren’t trying to help anyone but themselves with their chargedropping. That movement drew the people who wanted to be on top of a New Weird Order, and in addition to random dosing, they tend to monitor their high-end clients in order to gain influence and curry favor with lawyers, executives and anyone in high tech.
>Another option for a terrifying change to the
status quo comes from the baristas embedded in the Mermaid’s flank. One of their members is on the cusp of decoding a ritual that inclines people to take a certain course of action. Mechanically, they either do it or they take a Rank-3 Self check. The tricky bit about using it historically was that had to be delivered through a hot, bitter beverage that the target requests—not one that’s offered by the ritualist. But, oh happy day, people walk through the doors of coffee shops and ask for hot bitter beverages all the time. The Mermaid Attax crew in Washington DC already knows which takeout orders are going to the Supreme Court and the Senate. Mastering this rite could make them the unseen power brokers behind American government.
>>46481320
>>46482508
Wow that fits in perfectly. I haven't gotten a chance to read nearly as much of the 3e books as I would have liked by now but I was already planning on instances of the PCs tracking down weird people that work at fast food places only for them to turn out to be relatively harmless Mak Attaxers. I'm still not sure how far I want this campaign to go up the conspiracy food chain but I've definitely got some things to consider now.
>>46472020
I kinda like the idea of them having more spells about manipulating time, or more specifically duration and ephemerality
Live In the Moment - This spell expands someone's current moment to lasts for an hour (could be adjusted. Maybe longer if you spend more charges). As an example, if someone is "waiting for the bus," you can expand that moment to consume the next hour, meaning they will still be waiting for the bus for the next hour. A moment must be a short (less than an hour) and have a definitive beginning and end. The subject is unaware of the time distortion, as is everyone around them. To the subject, it appears as if the activity took the normal period of time and then the world "jumped forward" to its current state. Other moments include taking a nap, eating lunch, checking your email, driving to a specific place, reading the suspect their rights, and so on.
>>46484095
Yeah, that's why I left two slots open in Significant. I was trying to think of some more solid time-manipulation spells that captured 'opportunity' or 'moment'.
Live in the Moment is real nice for the class, gives them time to 'take a moment' to throw up a tag, or instantly yarn-bomb a car, or whatever. I like it.
I was considering a Synchronic Pull spell to manufacture 'opportunities', and a combination Significant Blast / Alter Significant Tangible Object that instantly bombarded someone with the 'wear and tear of time'. That one would make someone instantly exhausted, starving, thirsty, and if you pump 'em with poison beforehand, dead. To an object, it just rusts it, weakens it, wears it down, etc.
>>46484050
Yeah it's crazy how well it fits, right? It's not as evocative as Kannibal Krew, BUT the book doesn't mention how the 'hot bitter ritual' actually works. Could still involve cannibalism. And it's far more likely the protagonists pick up coffee at Starbucks than go to any other fast food places, right?
So is it clear what archetype the Naked Goddess ascended to in the new edition? Is she her own thing, the Girl Everyone Can Have But You, did she replace the Whore?
>>46486220
It seems to be most closely related to the first one, but pushed even further - The Girl No One Can Have.
"She's visible, present, close enough to touch. But you can't touch her." [...] "She's above you, and worst of all, you put her there because that's what you do with a goddess, right?"
top kek she's the goddess of putting pussy on a pedestal
To everyone who's read the playtest: how do you guys like the identity system, especially the features? I like what I've seen so far, with most of my problem with it being the matter of formatting, but I'd like to hear what people think it does badly, as I'm running a campaign for my players soon, and I'd like to know if there's anything I should fix up.
>>46488481
>>46488482
>>46488483
just curious...
>>46488481
System seems quite nice to me.
>>46488481
Are there guidelines on how to make one? I ask because it seems really interesting but also really hard to properly create or balance them.
Also; I wish someone would just upload the playbook already. I really don't want to make a kickstarter account.
>>46488481
I have experience with Over the Edge and Everway that have a similar identity skill systems. (Both being John Tweet games) They are very easy to exploit and require constant adjudication by the GM -- these systems provide next to no tools to maintain a balance between the players. It's all on the GM.
That's not necessarily a bad thing. Over the Edge's setting and genre eats power-gamers alive, and I imagine UA is similar.
>>46489646
There's a copy in the last thread, with some pretty explicit guidelines for identity building. >>>46349665
