I just borrowed Unknown Armies (2nd ed, 2002) from a buddy, since it'd been recommended to me by some online mates.

It's a strange sort of game. Think of all those paranoid schizophrenic fantasies, "if you look at the phone numbers of all seven murder victims, the last four numbers add up to 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, and 17. And their house numbers are the same! He's choosing his victims by that! But why? All I know is, I'm 19! I'm off to make a gun out of soap." Well, the story of the game is that all that crazy shit is TRUE. And your characters begin exploring the world of the occult and discover this.

For those who don't know, it has a rather more complex sanity mechanic. Instead of just "SAN", there's Violence, Helplessness, Unnatural, and so on. You have two slides for each, one "hardened," and one "failed." So if you have a lot of Violence Failed notches it means you curl up into a little ball; a lot of Violence Hardened notches, you're the mafioso they get to kill a guy with a cricke bat, cut him up with a chainsaw, put him in a barrel, fill it with concrete and put it in the Yarra. A lot of Helplessness Failed notches means a tendency to panic, a lot of Helplessness Hardened notches means a tendency to be used to being useless, like some bloke unemployed for ten years and not minding it.

It's an interesting game. I could see taking the magic parts out, and making an interesting modern-era game. Like for example postapocalyptic. "You must survive, what are you willing to do to survive?" Or perhaps a gangsters game. "Hmmm, beating people up for money is one thing, but selling drugs to little kids? I dunno..." But it could be a bit depressing and introspective.

I know quite a few people have read it, though not so many run games of it. What are your thoughts on it? Especially on the idea of making it mundane.

I think it would be a natural for Ellroy style games, which is a major influence on it anyway.  You could easily do say the Sopranos as well.

The key is obsession, if you are running a game with obsessives it will do that well I think.

Quote from: BalbinusI think it would be a natural for Ellroy style games, which is a major influence on it anyway.  You could easily do say the Sopranos as well.

The key is obsession, if you are running a game with obsessives it will do that well I think.

That or anything where there are hard choices to be made and traumatic experiences that will take a toll on the character psyche. War-torn settings come to mind. You could use it for a game set in colonial (or post-colonial) Africa, the Russian front in WWII, the Balkans, or the current situation in Iraq.

I think it's a solid idea, by the way. From my experiences with it, UA works better when the weird stuff is kept relatively low-key. Running it as a mundane game seems a natural step to take.

Certainly you could do stuff like Resevoir Dogs or the Usual Suspects with it quite readily.

RPGPundit

Quote from: JimBobOzIt's an interesting game. I could see taking the magic parts out, and making an interesting modern-era game. Like for example postapocalyptic. "You must survive, what are you willing to do to survive?" Or perhaps a gangsters game. "Hmmm, beating people up for money is one thing, but selling drugs to little kids? I dunno..." But it could be a bit depressing and introspective.

I know quite a few people have read it, though not so many run games of it. What are your thoughts on it? Especially on the idea of making it mundane.

Warning, I'm going to get all creamy, in this post

I've only run mundane UA games. Perhaps, a few films will give you an idea of where I'm coming from. Fuck it, this post is going to be a ramble...

You mentioned post apoc. Okay, Perfect. I'm thinking Omega Man and Soylent Green. That bastard Heston, has a lot to answer for....but wait...creepy decent into the unknown, add, Welle's, Touch of Evil to the mix. Not post apoc, but rather good UA material - an example of the clash between corruption and evil. Heston, maybe a prick, but fortunately, he's got a more than a few roses, in his film bio

Me, I'm old school, when it comes to UA. Paranoia or - as I define it - the corruption of normality. The Korean film Old Boy or, Roeg's Don't Look Now are the territories I operate in, when running UA. I mean to be really old school, and why the fuck not, lets go really into obsession mode, Vertigo anyone? or how's about The Conversation. Don't let the genre confuse you...mundane or not, The Parallex View, is a good starting point for much madness..

I don't think this game has a humanistic world view. I think it, finds the human experience troubling. Stripping away all that magic stuff, would be a good way to explore this. Which brings us to Roman Polanski. This motherfucker, makes UA films or at least used to, without even realizing it. Yeah, I know UA was not even made, hell for all I know the designers weren't even born when he(Polanski) used to make great films. Knife on Water,   The Tenant...hmmm

Recently however I admit, I've been drawing inspiration from more subtle works for UA. So, far, the French and Germans, have provided some stuff - Cache, the past haunts you does it? Why not, it doesn't want to be left alone or how's about The Swimming Pool? and I've rediscovered some old master, Wender's Paris Texas - obsession fined tuned to perfection.

To go really far out, and back to more familiar waters, try Apocalyspe Now Redux. I mean Kurtz had it right. He was trying to make the reality in his head conform with what he saw when wide awake. There's something UA-ish about this...

Okay, all this really does not make much sense, and was probably not what you're looking for. Short answer, yeah UA can be used to run mundane adventures

Regards,
David R

That was... interesting, David R. But you gotta give us details of one of these campaigns. What happened? How did the players like it? Like I said, a lot of this stuff seems a bit introspective and depressing. That is, "not fun." Interesting, but not fun.

Obviously, from what people have said, when you're actually in play it is fun. So tell us about it.

Okay JimBob, but remember you asked for this war story  

I'll try to explain...no...tell you (soon) want happened in my most recent UA campaign - 7 Cuts

Regards,
David R

I've posted this on an UA thread on tBP.

7 Cuts - For seven pcs. What bound these folks of various social and economic backgrounds is that they shared the same father, although they never knew it growing up. Besides having very distant mothers and the usual problems associated with their individual socio-economic backgrounds, they had relatively happy childhoods.

(Okay, so I used most of the system, meaning the players generated more or less UA characters. One of the aspects of character creation, was to tell me something from their childhoods - it could be anything, an event, item, story whatever - it could be innocuos or not, just something...anything . Also character generation was done individually and not as a group, as is the norm in my games)

They were brought together by coincidence or rather a complex adventure masquerading as fate...too complicated to get into here.

(The adventure started of them with the pcs for various reasons either in their work or personal capacity looking for this man, who would do something for them. A benign old man (think Donald Sutherland...in well...some of his more benign roles . He turned out to be the lawyer for their (supposedly) dead father)

What propelled their stories forward was that on each of their birthdays, they received a small ornate box from their father. Inside was the key to their own personal horror.

(Now the lawyer informed them that their dad did not leave them anything, except said, box which would be handed to them on their birthdays)

Their story arcs connected at some points. Ended abruptly. Went nowhere but always there was that dreaded inevitable cut.

(Each box contained something that was somehow connected to the past of it's bearer. It always led, sometimes in the most complicated vague manner, sometimes not - always shocking and unexpected - to that something, the player had told me about his/her background.

It could start of sinister. One pc received a newspaper cutting about a young girl who was kidnapped and butchered who was last seen wearing, the pc's favourite dress.

What was inside the box I have to say was so compelling to the players, they had to investigate...because as each pc learnt more about what was going on, they discovered, some secret that was hidden from them, that had to be exposed, normally because someone else was in mortal danger...

BUT... the price of such heroism on their part was brutal...a cut...blood drawn either by them or from them... they become damaged folks...not broken...but damaged from the experience)

Off hand I do remember that some pc arcs were based on movies such as Old Boy, The Piano and in one moment that shocked everyone including me (the GM for christ sakes  ) - Don't Look Now

(The above is probably why I was referencing so many movies . The thing, is I've got to say, that the players loved it. Was it depressing...yes...but in a fun horror movie kind of way. Staging it as a mystery really helped the rpg aspect of it all.

Except here, the more you discover, the more you realize that something bad is going to happen to you...or you are going to have to do something bad to someone else...to save a life, not your own.)

7 Cuts, they all had it coming

Regards,
David R