UnknownArmies
Unknown Armies
Unknown Armies is a little known but totally kick ass pen and paper roleplaying game. It is Krendal's favorite modern RPG with Exalted being his favorite fantasy game. But none of you really care about that, I don't suppose.
I am right with you there, Krendal. I am super into Unknown Armies. I kind of split my time at work between writing stuff here and writing stuff for www.unknown-armies.com (and groups.yahoo.com/groups/makattax) ... um, and also pretending to work.
I know a few other folks here are also into UA. I know Ben-San is also on the UA site. I think there's a few things that kind of have similar appeal between the games:
- both operate on a very epic level, but include a lot of the seedy, dirty, street-level elements
- both detail multiple rocky paths to personal enlightenment which grant spectacular powers at the price of mental health and stable personality
- both include concrete mechanisms for this (Limit Breaks and Taboos)
- both assume, but then build on, concepts of modern Paganism (basically all the writers of Exalted do occult stuff in real life, and the UA writers seem to be split between diehard occultists and diehard skeptics)
- both have elaborately built worlds with offbeat philosophies and detailed, surprising cosmologies
I dunno. I am seeing the similarity, and I've actually been wanting to speculate on it for a while. -TedPro
- I'm fairly sure that there isn't a particularly high number of occultists writing for UA. I've been on the mailing list for years, which is frequented by just about everyone who's done a relevant amount of work, and I can't think of a single one off the top of my head. Which writers did you have in mind?
- Besides, really, while I love UA and I love Exalted, they're like strawberry jelly and steak. I don't think they go together well.
Wow - I'm interested in writers who do Occult stuff in RL, that's something I hadn't heard of. Interesting similiarities, I'd never noticed those before.
Anyway, I'm also a big ol' UA fan. -MeiRen
Rad, MeiRen! Yeah, there's a good number of Pagan game writers, it seems like.
Oh! I forgot another three more similarities:
- Both have essential, inseparable, detailed mechanics details governing personality, sanity, and motivations (Nature, Virtues and Willpower in Exalted, and Obsessions, Virtues and Madness Meters in Unknown Armies)
- Both include a concept of Heaven as an imperfect, malleable place.
- Neither contains a system for good or evil, despite (or perhaps because of) the detailed mechanics for goals and standards of behavior.
I'd add that they both have very evocative names for their "magik powerz". "God Takes Care of Drunks" and "Knowledge without Learning Method" are both a lot cooler than, say, Expeditous Retreat. I'd say the lack of a morality system is because both games have pretty solid views on ethics. Randy Douglas and the Lover Clad in the Raiment of Tears really don't need Alignment. -Mei Ren
Very good points, Mei Ren. The names of the powers definitely take effort to evoke a style.
I sort of think that both systems do have a game-enforced gray morality, though. Even the Lover Clad in the Raiment of Tears has a Compassion score (perhaps in a very distorted way) and even The Bad Man has a Noble stimulus. Similarly, even the good guys have Rage Stimuli and Limit Breaks. -TedPro
I just realized that GCG wrote an adventure in the UA book One Shots. The adventure is "And I Feel Fine..." an adventure about the end of the world that I'd wanted to run at a mini-con in my area a few years back... but unfortunately no one signed up to play. At any rate, while I'd seen his name on it and had been aware of his status as head developer of Exalted, I didn't make the full connection until a couple days ago when I was flipping through One Shots again. I'm not sure if he's written anything else for UA, but I'm going to have to check now... -Krendal
