Unknown Armies

[GravyFingerz]

As it stands, I have not gamed in two months, and I stand to lose two more months for "not gaming", and so thus, I have a little bit of time to prepare for my next game. Which brings me to my point - Unknown Armies. My players have shown interest, I'm totally interested in running this game, but I feel like I need some sort of advice, not only for setting up a game, but perhaps some source material to set the ambiance of the game.

Therefore I come to you, EN World community. I beseech you, if you know of any sources I can scavange (books or such), some advice, or recounts of games past gone well, then please, share them with me. Anything helpful you might submit, I will find to be very ... helpful.

What is this game about? Sure, it says it's occult horror in the persuit of knowledge and meaning, but what is it really about? What does the game draw upon for inspiration?

It's also 2 am, so I have this fuzzy headed feeling and am unable to recall most of the game. I've never played or run it before, so, keep that in mind.

Thanks EN World!

 

[FunkBGR]

Unknown Armies!
Unknown Armies

There's some books out there by Tim Powers which captures Unknown Armies perfectly. The one that comes to mind right now is Last Call. I can't describe it well enough, but it's a fun read.

Also, Godwalker is a book you can find that's by Greg Stolze. You can find a link to it on Lulu or his website I bet.

First things first - when running Unknown Armies, I've always found it important to think first on what kind of scenario/adventure I want to run. The power level in the game is really important.

If all your players are new to the system, I find it best to usually start as normal people, using the Street-Level character creation. Every time I've done that, I've come up with a schtick to bind everyone together, or had the players come up with one.

Three successful examples I've used:

- Bill in Three Parts: Straight from the book, I had everyone driving along and come across this car crash. When it was over, everyone found themselves standing outside a car, in the middle of nowhere. In the glove compartment were all sorts of weird things like pieces of Aleister Crowley's Tarot, a gun with a single bullet, a picture of an earthquake rose, a membership card to a Discordian society, and an atlas with three points marked on it. I physically gave the players an atlas in this instance, and would add things to it as we played - hidden messages, etc. They ended up traveling all across the United States in this car doing random things - stomping a factory that manufactured and delivered "fear", etc.

- The Blue Teapot: Everybody was told that they knew this guy - Charles Johnson - or something like that, and that they had to work him into their background. Thing is, I told all the players this same thing but individually, as in "that was their hook". So opening sequence is all of them at Charles Johnson's funeral, where someone gives a Eulogy about how this brave soldier fell in battle. After the awkward exchanges where people were asked to share their experience with the guy, the lawyer takes them aside and says the guy left ALL OF THEM a single blue teapot in his will. Next thing they know, a guy who can fit under doorways is after them, and all sorts of crazy goons. I'm pretty sure I stole this idea from Unknown Armies website.

- The Museum: Everyone worked at some Natural History museum during the night shift, so we had a researcher, a security guard, etc. The museum gets attacked in the night by some sort of shadow things, power goes out, etc. Players defeat the "things" using flashlights and stuff, but discover that they're all after the new exhibit straight from Egypt. Insert weird stuff as we go, and bam, you have a game!

- To Go: I just finished running To Go last Spring. You can always find a copy of that, and run it. It's not like other "pre-fab" campaigns, and can require a lot of work - BUT - holy crap is it fun.

Dangit. I get so worked up about this game, because I have so many fond memories of it.

 

[Achan hiArusa]

I've got the book, but I've never ran it. One of these days I would like to run a fusion Unknown Armies/Kult/WoD/Delta Green game since all of these are sitting on my shelf taunting me (plus my roomate has gotten me into Supernatural).

 

[Byrons_Ghost]

I've been thinking of running a game myself lately. One possible opening was a nWoD module called "Chicago Workings" that's available on rpgnow.com. Basically all the characters are mortals in the same neighborhood, and a strange fire gets them into a plot involving a pair of dueling geomancers (both of whom are now dead). Ken Hite did some of the fluff and background for the module, so it's got a much more UA feel to it than the usual WoD stuff.

This campaign website has a lot of good ideas, but the wiki organization makes it hard to navigate:

PmWiki - UnknownUSA.UnknownUSA

Atlas games, the publisher, also has some resources up like scenarios, fiction, etc. Be sure to check out the "Recommended Sources" link, which is basically a bibliography from the authors of the game.