Quote from: JesterRaiin;890236The element of weird doesn't bother me. "Trying too much", being as edgy as possible, push the experience beyond the limits of "reasonable". That's what makes me a bit suspicious.

Well, if the players want to push it beyond those limits? Make sure you discuss the matter.
To quote an experienced person, "rules can't cure asshole, nor stupid".

QuoteI wouldn't want for the game to evolve from "Occult Underground" to some parody of itself, along the lines of Paranoia, only with magicians. :nono:

...not that it wouldn't be fun to play.

It would be, of course:).

QuoteHmmmm, well, my answer involves a deep dig and a few truckloads of concrete...

As long as it's for the whole party of PCs, you can make it an in-game event:p!

QuoteAha! Your cunning plan has been... Well, successful.

Clearly, my work here is done:D!

Quote from: AsenRG;890248Well, if the players want to push it beyond those limits? Make sure you discuss the matter.
To quote an experienced person, "rules can't cure asshole, nor stupid".

Yep, however, if the game suggests being edgy, edginess suddenly becomes reasonable.

...btw, that's one of reason for selecting proper imagery for any given RPG.

Quote from: AsenRG;890248Clearly, my work here is done:D!

Thunders, rain, wolves howling, angry mob wielding torches and pitchforks approaching a broken, wooden windmill...

Quote from: JesterRaiin;890249Yep, however, if the game suggests being edgy, edginess suddenly becomes reasonable.

...btw, that's one of reason for selecting proper imagery for any given RPG.

I'm starting to suspect you use "edgy" differently. Care to explain it and how it can make the unreasonable reasonable:)?

QuoteThunders, rain, wolves howling, angry mob wielding torches and pitchforks approaching a broken, wooden windmill...

...the True King was unhappy;)!

Quote from: AsenRG;890252I'm starting to suspect you use "edgy" differently. Care to explain it and how it can make the unreasonable reasonable:)?

"Edgy", as in "consequences be damned, lights, cameras, action: THE BAAAAD MAN IS HERE!" You know, players acting irresponsibly (this is Unknown "remember, violence is optional" Armies after all), stealing all show, putting whole group into danger, demanding for their special snowflake characters to be treated with more respect thy deserve... for no other reason than "I deserve this!"

Damn...

I should really stop playing with strangers. Oh well, back to plan D: abduct some homeless people, turn them into my slave-players.

Quote from: AsenRG;890252...the True King was unhappy;)!

The Pilgrim tipped his Sombrero

Quote from: JesterRaiin;890266"Edgy", as in "consequences be damned, lights, cameras, action: THE BAAAAD MAN IS HERE!"

In UA? Sure, you can do that...but we're talking about the frigging Star, right? Bring spare character sheets. There's at least one Warrior avatar or some Adept that's going to object:).

QuoteYou know, players acting irresponsibly (this is Unknown "remember, violence is optional" Armies after all),

Self checks. Violence checks. Becoming a sociopath and/or madman precludes being an avatar.

Quotestealing all show,

When I began playing, I used to do that. One of my first GMs brought me to the side and told me "Asen, you're good player, you've got fast reactions to what I say, but let the other players do something, too".
It works better than "no, you can't play the Star, because you'd be too much of a Star".

Quoteputting whole group into danger,

...we're talking Unknown Armies, right? The game where being sane enough and non-obsessive enough to look the other way, not check the weird noises in the basement, and call the police is treated as a game-breaking superpower:D?

Quotedemanding for their special snowflake characters to be treated with more respect thy deserve... for no other reason than "I deserve this!

State it clearly: "if you dig yourself shallow graves and jump in them, don't expect me to fix it for you. You get what you earn."

QuoteI should really stop playing with strangers.

Well, at least it would be better to make sure they're on the same page as you.

QuoteOh well, back to plan D: abduct some homeless people, turn them into my slave-players.

You'll have to feed and house them anyway, or someone might find them:p:D.
Once you're doing that anyway, why don't you simply offer food to homeless people that play well;)? I'm sure some of them would be able to play some mean Adepts.

QuoteThe Pilgrim tipped his Sombrero

And The Fool Ascended as the 333th Archetype, which is why the next occult age contains Facebook;).[/B]

I was browsing a thread on this topic over at TBP yesterday which made it sound like this will be Unknown Armies: The Twee Edition, which wouldn't interest me. However, that's probably the posters reading their own views into the game. I'll have to check out the previews when I have time.

Quote from: AsenRG;889991No, in a game where a central premise is that occultists are just as deluded as everyone else, they shouldn't have:).

That would be a central premise of any 'real' occult rpg: that most people who claim or think or pretend they are doing occultism are deluded or posers.

Again, except for the mechanics of how magick actually looks, in every other respect UA is the most reflective of what the real community of magicians are like.

So finished reading book one (gamma). Thumbs up. And considering the context of the discussion, I found the first lines amusing.

   Unknown Armies is an occult game about broken people conspiring to fix the world.

It's a game about people who want things very, very badly. Social justice, a fair shake, redemption for their myriad sins, or just a bigger slice of the pie, they want it. But no one is just going to hand it to them. No one else, frankly, gives a shit. Shits only begin to be given when their pursuit of their agenda inconveniences somebody—the folks benefitting from injustice and unfair shakes, or the people who were on the receiving end of those myriad sins, or the pie-eaters who are placidly argue that "sharing is for bitches, and poor people."

Other than using 'she' to refer to the 'Game Moderator' the writing is essentially free of politically bias. If fact, if you consider Avatars like The Firebrand having taboos which are essentially 'My movement right or wrong' it actually has as many negative things to say about groupthink as not. It's going to be interesting to see how other archetypes relevant to our current zeitgeist (like The Feminist or The Gamer) will be integrated if at all. I suspect trying to avoid problems over this is why the current batch of Avatars is rather broad and generic.

Personally I don't mind an RPG about obsessed and unreasonable people out for social justice. That's how I've been running Mage Ascension since forever. The problem is getting people like that to work together can be a little tricky. Unknown Armies is still very much a game about weird loners working together, so you can already see the problem. And while the Avatars and Adepts in this edition strike me as much less 'antisocial', they're still essentially 'my way or the highway' philosophies. Extreme personalities tend to not work well together unless they face a mutual threat or share a particular trauma, and I think that would be a much more effective way to unite them than a shared Objective.

The mechanics revolve around the Madness Meters, now called Shock Gauges, and play is all about inflicting and coping with trauma. Failing checks either Harms you and brings you closer to a mental breakdown, or Hardens you and brings you closer to becoming a sociopath. So the game even implies that too much trauma can make you a sociopath, which is just another reason to dismiss the SJW influences people are worried about.

There are five Shock Gauges and ten core Abilities. Each Gauge determines two Abilities (as one goes up the other goes down), can be Coerced by one, and Resists challenges to it with another. The full list is:

• Self determines Knowledge and Lie scores, resists challenges with Notice, and is coerced through Knowledge
  
• Unnatural determines Notice and Secrets scores, resists challenges with Knowledge, and is coerced through Secrets
  
• Helplessness determines Health and Dodge scores, resists challenges with Status, and is coerced through Connect
  
• Isolation determines Status and Pursuit scores, resists challenges with Connect, and is coerced through Status
  
• Violence determines Connect and Struggle scores, resists challenges with Health, and is coerced through Struggle
  

So simple enough to reference if not remember.

Identities are roles which Substitute for one Ability (with a score unaffected by Shock Gauges), and have two additional Features which can either do the same or Asses/Resist/Coerce specific Gauges, grant Unique Abilities, add to Wounds or Initiative, or a few other things.

Combat seems alternatively too complicated and simple in the wrong places, and leads to weird (intended?) things such as chainsaws being the most deadly hand to hand weapons available. I also find myself wishing for actions which might have unintended collateral damage. Other than that I find UA3 to be far more mechanically and thematically sound than either Conan (which has problems that will never be fixed) or 7th Sea (which has problems that hopefully will be) and can confidently run it in its current state.

Quote from: Future Villain Band;888568I'm not happy with a couple of the core setting changes involving the Comte becoming Old Mother Apocalypse and the Freak becoming the Human Eternal.

While I miss them, these changes still make sense in the setting. The Archetypes changed with the zeitgeist and the Avatars changed with it.

Quote from: Just Another Snake Cult;888583A big part of why I loved this game in the 90's was it's grittiness, and having the ultra-politically-correct Cam Banks as developer does not bode well for that aspect of it.

I'm starting to find Cam to be borderline racist in his advocacy myself, so I probably wouldn't invite him to a party, but neither would I dismiss his technical and artistic contributions. Nobody benefits from dismissing progress just because it comes from the wrong sources. And again I found little in the gamma that was obnoxiously political or agenda driven.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;893200So finished reading book one (gamma). Thumbs up.

It's probably just my paranoia, but I find the message behind your review a bit worrying. I mean, I get the impression, that UA3 are gonna be quite fine game, but requiring whole set of tweaks and cleaning to become a game about occult societies, rather than a game about magical Social Justice Ragnarok.

Damn... Vanitas vanitatum...

Nice hat, btw.

Quote from: JesterRaiin;893238It's probably just my paranoia, but I find the message behind your review a bit worrying. I mean, I get the impression, that UA3 are gonna be quite fine game, but requiring whole set of tweaks and cleaning to become a game about occult societies, rather than a game about magical Social Justice Ragnarok.

Compared to what, Mage: the Antivaxxension?

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;893200Other than using 'she' to refer to the 'Game Moderator' the writing is essentially free of politically bias.

• Self determines Knowledge and Lie scores, resists challenges with Notice, and is coerced through Knowledge
  
• Unnatural determines Notice and Secrets scores, resists challenges with Knowledge, and is coerced through Secrets
  
• Helplessness determines Health and Dodge scores, resists challenges with Status, and is coerced through Connect
  
• Isolation determines Status and Pursuit scores, resists challenges with Connect, and is coerced through Status
  
• Violence determines Connect and Struggle scores, resists challenges with Health, and is coerced through Struggle
  

I found the same. And on top of that, I found the different gender of GM and players is simply convenient when you're not sure who the author is talking about:)!
Please note, the gameplay example in Book 2 has an equal number of male and female players. This neatly mirrors what I expect the gender ratio to be when I get around to running it;).

Of course, in my book my convenience trumps the political-fuelled objections any day of the week. I don't want games to be political tools for any side, and UA handily avoids this while admitting that society and the zeitgeist have become more divided!

Thank you for compiling the skill list, BTW;).

Quote from: JesterRaiin;893238It's probably just my paranoia, but I find the message behind your review a bit worrying. I mean, I get the impression, that UA3 are gonna be quite fine game, but requiring whole set of tweaks and cleaning to become a game about occult societies, rather than a game about magical Social Justice Ragnarok.

Damn... Vanitas vanitatum...

Nice hat, btw.

No, it's a game about Magick being used for whatever, and needs basically no adjustments* in order to do that. The focus of the review is, I suspect, an answer to the concerns that were expressed earlier in the thread.

*There's, like, the smallest of three factions in a single group that you'd need to excise to avoid SJW-related issues appearing on screen altogether:D!

I'm not even planning to excise them. They're somewhere there, but their faction isn't well-represented here. There might be, like, one or two of them nearby.
I am, however, planning to use the biggest faction in the same group for my con game;).

Quote from: AsenRG;893256No, it's a game about Magick being used for whatever, and needs basically no adjustments* in order to do that. The focus of the review is, I suspect, an answer to the concerns that were expressed earlier in the thread.

Come on, being paranoid is one of seldom forms of entertainment I still find fun.

Ahem. I know it sounds a bit jaded and cynical, but I choose to be biased towards every new game, every new reboot & edition. I've seen way too many games announced as the next best thing since the discovery of a toilet paper... And 99% of these games turned to be crap.

So. This way I'll either find myself positively surprised or gain the opportunity to say "just as suspected".

Quote from: JesterRaiin;893294Come on, being paranoid is one of seldom forms of entertainment I still find fun.

Ahem. I know it sounds a bit jaded and cynical, but I choose to be biased towards every new game, every new reboot & edition. I've seen way too many games announced as the next best thing since the discovery of a toilet paper... And 99% of these games turned to be crap.

So. This way I'll either find myself positively surprised or gain the opportunity to say "just as suspected".

Then I assure you the game would at least answer and quite probably exceed your expectations;)!

I had a reviewer say that the groups and GMCs mentioned in the game this time around didn't seem very horrific or disturbing, that it was all fairly mundane and not particularly troubling. I'm not sure if this says something about how jaded we all are now, but maybe the really horrifying thing is that we don't find things like GNOMON or the Ordo Corpulentis disturbing.

Kind of like the folks who think the show Mr. Robot isn't that great because it's just the Matrix without CGI.

Anyway, we've unlocked a bunch of new stuff in the campaign, including a DM's Guild-style portal on DriveThruRPG for folks to sell their own UA3-based content, which I hope to see go live not long after the UA3 PDFs are wrapped up and off to backers. That's where I expect to see a lot of wildly different takes on what transcendent horror and occult weirdness feels like to our audience.

--Cam

UA is one of these brilliant games I have never run, though I'm sure most of my group would love it.

Come to think of it, some scenarios I have in mind for use with CoC or Mage: the Awakening might work just as well (if very differently) with UA.

As for the Kickstarter, I am slightly shamed by the pristine, unused copy of UA2 in my shelf (picked up a few years ago just so I owned a copy of this gem) and scared of the strong dollar dollar and the $100 tag, before shipping, on the level I'm interested (Checker). But I may yet break down... I do need to run this game some day. And honestly, Book 3 alone looks like great source material for my other modern-day fantasy/horror poisons of choice.

Decisions, decisions...