is it just WoD/Mage but good?

It's certainly more approachable. I think it accomplishes what WoD/Mage wanted to do but failed at. Also also; extremely funny how the original game is actually oudated now given how based on the modern culture and zeitgiest nowadays.

>>95876127
Shame the 3rd edition didn't give us modernised Vidiots. Atleast UnnaturalPhenomena forum still somehow trudges along:
>https://www.unnaturalphenomena.com/wp/

>>95876122 (OP)
>but good
Unknown Armies was one of the first roleplaying systems I was exposed to, and also one of the worst.

>>95876163
care to elaborate?

>>95876163
>and also one of the worst.
How so? It was one of my first as well but it's honestly pretty rules light I can't see what anyone would be upset with it.
Make your own skills, they can't be higher than their parent stat, roll percentile dice to do everything. It's all straight forward.

>>95876223
>Make your own skills, they can't be higher than their parent stat
I can kind of see a problem here already. If you conceptualize a skill as something that you're good at, but it's a percentile roll-under system, you can end up in scenarios in which listing something on your character sheet actually makes you worse at it.

>>95876253
Except that rules are explicit about it working the other way around. There are unskilled rolls, which suck for you, and there are automatically passed checks. In most cases, 15% of skill does make you meaningfully better than not having a skill on the sheet in the first place, mostly because the system is pretty explicit about "roll only when under pressure or when results are meaningfully uncertain" part.

>>95876122 (OP)
I'm running a game of it right now, it's fun as hell. The system is simple enough that it doesn't slow down play but encourages the players to roleplay. I get why the freeform skills might trip people up, but I think it's cool and a flexible way to make pretty much any kind of character. I also like that it's a "hidden magic world" setting where it makes a little more sense why magic is hidden, and there isn't some all consuming secret war with giant monolithic conspiracies, like WoD. There are big conspiracies in the setting, but they aren't insanely all powerful, and they are ultimately ran by people with understandable goals.

I'm running a session tonight, the players need to figure out if they are going to help the ghost of the true king of the city, or his assassin, who is going to try to become the god of mass shooters, while being pursued by characters from a lost children's television show that have somehow leaked into our world.

>>95876146
The treatment of Videomancy is kind of goofy, yeah nobody watches TV anymore, but doesn't that make someone who still does WEIRDER? Shit Greg, just give the boys a Taboo for using TiVo and netflix and hammer out whether they need to catch all TTG tier mararthons lr just their usual time.

>>95877232
Honestly, I could see the school split like theCryptomancers did. One school focused on old school broadcasts and the other focused on binge watching Netflix.

>>95877232
>>95877352
I figure they'd still work exactly the same, they'd just be considered weird and oldschool, the same way mechanimancers are in 2e.

You could still be a powerful Vidiot if you stick with people's court and dr. Phil.

>>95876122 (OP)
It's like WoD but instead of playing an all powerful reality warping mage you play as a homeless wizard that sometimes uses his own piss as a spell component

I've had an idea for a historical UA game that takes place in the lead up to and during the Chicago Worlds in 1893, as sort of the moment when the "modern" world begins. Cabals all over are trying to stake their claim on the new paradigm of reality while in the background, H.H. Holmes and his murder house have an entirely different idea of what the next century will look like.

I am probably not smart enough to elaborate on this, however.

>>95877148
nice!
wich edition?

>>95877148
nice!
which edition?

>>95876163
>>95876175
>one of the worst:
NTA, but I always felt the mechanics were ass, but the lore-building and setting were grade A awesome sauce.
I honestly think some dude could take the core aspect of the game and make a whole new RPG that captures the play better in better mechanics, and make a more streamlined lore while you were at it.

It's got a fantastic setting and conceptually great and is completely FUCKED by the fact that it's shackled to a d100 system.

As always, I like to pop my head in the Unknown Armies threads that crop up to say that if you want a feel for what a campaign could be like, try reading "Last Call" by Tim Powers. It's got archetypes and assumption, the desperation of immortals, the magical underpinnings of the Fisher King, the American West, and mob-built Las Vegas, and the symbolism behind tarot cards. The rest of the series "Expiration Date" and "Earthquake Weather" explore the themes from different directions, with vaping ghosts and the secret history of California wine-making, but "Last Call" itself is strongly Unknown Armies-coded.

>>95876122 (OP)
>Just wod/mage but good
That would be Kult

>>95878196
Why?

>>95876122 (OP)
Third Edition is gay and stupid, but that's just my opinion.
Second Edition is what you want to look at.
My only complaint about the setting is that it's a little too mechanically freeform. Make up whatever skills you want, make up whatever kind of magic you want, it works however you want it to work, etc.
Most of the premade magic is really niche and stupid too. I don't think most players genuinely want to play as a porno priest.
The lore and setting are better than WoD/Mage.

>>95876122 (OP)
I've been running and playing UA3 for the last five years.
The dice system rewards acting like a crazy person and reinforces the game's core theme that being an obsessive weirdo makes you more powerful. It's a d100 game so your base chance to succeed is shit, but you can boost it by acting with your Obsession and Passions (Rage, Noble, Fear). These let you reroll or flip failed results if you do the action in a way that satisfies the underlying urge.
The combat system is one of my favorite in any RPG. At its core it's the usual blocks of HP chopping at each other, but when you layer on the psychological stress system things get interesting. If someone isn't sufficiently hardened in the appropriate stress meter then there's a chance they lose their cool when they get attacked with a weapon, when they witness a terrifying magical event... It's hypothetically possible to get instakilled with a gun or direct damage spell but the more likely outcome is that fights end when someone breaks and either runs for it or gives up. What's really cool is you can use the Coercion system, which is the game's social combat system, in actual physical combat. The more you know about the target's wants and desires the easier it is to push their buttons and make them lose control. When you get it right it feels like Brainiac telling Superman to put the whole world in a bottle.
The biggest barrier to entry is the game assumes you're already familiar with the lore from prior eds. The book attempts to explain the world and mythos but like many Kickstarted legacy games it was written for superfans of the series and it shows. Normally lore doesn't matter but in UA3 it's a problem because the default mode of play is for the GM and players to collaboratively assemble the campaign premise and setting together. When it works it's magical, but it's a heavy creative lift if you're just starting out. You basically need the 2e setting books to make it happen.

>>95878777
>Third Edition is gay and stupid, but that's just my opinion.
>My only complaint about the setting is that it's a little too mechanically freeform. Make up whatever skills you want, make up whatever kind of magic you want, it works however you want it to work, etc.
this is an odd position to take. the biggest mechanical change from 2e to 3e was moving away from freeform skills and toward a codified universal skill system

>>95878879
From what I remember, the skill system is supposed to revolve around "Identities" that you make up, and you can do anything those identities can do. That's freeform as hell, and I'm completely perplexed how you could possibly call that a universal skill system.
Then again, I'm remembering the prerelease. Maybe they fixed how retarded it is.

For extra fun, try to work the title into your roleplaying dialogue, like
>”It seems like we’re up against all these…unknown armies!”

>>95878962
identities have three "features" that are chosen from a prebaked list (skills, stress offense, stress defense, magic shit, etc...). you do technically have the option to make up a "unique" feature but nobody ever does it because it's strictly worse than just picking a skill that covers the same thing. like you don't need a unique feature for "computer hacking" because you can just take subs knowledge or secrecy or whatever in that slot and do the same thing while also having the ability to do all the other stuff those skills do.

>>95878998
they also codified the power creation system for unique supernatural abilities in a way 2e didn't
in 2e all the weird superpowers besides adepts and avatars were individually handcrafted, and while it was cool to have all these unique abilities that defied classification it could also be hard to set boundaries on what they could do if a player wanted to create their own
in 3e if you have an idea for a unique superpower that's not covered by the other systems you assemble it from a menu of broad categories (specific information, general harm, protection...). it's not as evocative as handmaking totally unique powers but it's a hell of a lot easier to actually run and play

>>95879026
>>95879026
>>95878962
Two add my two cents, my two biggest issues with 3e are the fact that the identities limit feels too restrictive compared to 1e and 2e feel of gonzo chase for power and the fact that getting rid off stats and keying the basic skills off the trauma meter leads to dumb scenarios like character's ability to dodge being detrimental to maintaining normal relationships.

>>95879155
Yeah, they wanted to condense everything to a one page character sheet. They made some retarded concessions to accomplish that.

>>95879208
I unironically think that their original stat spread was almost perfect for basic character building. All I would change would be soul/charisma split and maybe, if we are doing nitty gritty, speed/dexterity and mind/will splits.

>>95877668
>>95877929
2nd. Its been a long time coming, it's a game I've looked at from afar since it first came out. It's probably my single favorite RPG book.

>>95878034
I'll never understand the crazy hate that some people feel for d100 systems.

>>95879155
If you want a character for whom dodging is important, you bake it into an identity. It's less "you are better at dodging because your relationships are bad," and more "you're a twitchy, paranoid fucker who's always on the lookout for who is going to hurt you next."

>>95879554
I suspect a lot of it comes from bad experience with old school Call of Cthulhu, Runequest, Rolemaster, etc. Getting stuck because you had a 35 percent chance to find the clue, whiffing your 22 percent chance to hit with the club until you roll a critical failure and shit your pants...

>>95879572
The issue is that it's less organic than the previous system where skills were tied to characteristics. Dodge is such a generic skill that you shouldn't expend very limited resources, like identity options, or make big sacrifices, like getting it from trauma meter, to get it.

>>95879822
If you were a person who'd never been in a dangerous situation, who has not trained at all, why would you be any good at dodging? I fundamentally disagree with your reasoning. If it's something you want to be specifically good at, you build it into an identity. If it isn't, the only way you get good at the antisocial side of the shock gauge is taking shocks. Nothing is free. It isn't any different than not putting points into dodge in 2e.

>>95877232
Videomancy doesn't work any more because the paradox is
>You are alone, but you are united with all the many many people also watching the same broadcast at the same time as you

streaming killed the central tenet of videomancy; an alternative about consuming vertical video app scrolls for hours upon hours might be able to exist today, but one of the things I always liked about UA is that the various schools come and go as society changes, same as different dukes go up and come down.

That said, I didn't like 3e's mechanics at all, and UA as a whole's take on the supernatural conspiracy world does not work in today's political climate.

Today we live in a world where people openly claim conspiratorial takes, political sides don't say "I disagree with you on what that truth means" but "I disagree with you about what is true" to a degree that was not seen in the 2ks when UA was big.

anyway, I don't want to get into political discussion, just how worldviews have change enough that the "the secret conspiracies operate just under the surface, hidden" take on the world no longer feels right.

Mechanically, I prefer 1e/2e over 3e, by a wide margin. It seems a popular take among people who've played both.
I could stat a UA 2e character in two minutes on a napkin, without looking at the rulebook. I could explain how to play them to a new player in two minutes, and promise to explain the complex bits as and when they come up and matter. UA 3 has too many interlocking parts, and I dislike how the stress/sanity system changes your core skills around. I liked the stress gauges and sanity system existing just underneath all your skills, but not directly impacting them beyond "you are currently too busy screaming to try to persuade anyone. Roll Soul to see if they look kindly on your gibbering instead."

Making up your own skills, or renaming existing skills for purely flavour reasons, is good.

>>95878861
that was lex, it's more impressive because he's a normal human

>>95878196
How does Kult compare to Unknown Armies?

has anyone played both?

>>95880092
if anything its more believable, we find out conspiracies being true every week, in a month could be revealed that magic is real and it wouldnt even be that weird

>>95880019
The difference is that 2e experience points system lets you develop jack of all trades approach, as opposed to the 3e where every skill you learn is essentially a permanent commitment due to the very limited amount of skill slots from your limited number of identities.

1st edition?

>>95878196
isnt Kult more like Call of Cthulhu + Silent Hill?
from what Ive seen, more focused on solving a mystery.

>>95882435
2e is so close to 1e you can port 90% of 1e into it without even tweaking the rules.

>>95878164
Oh yeah, I've read that UA was inspired by Tim Powers, but I never understood why, because I was mostly aware of his fantasy historical books (Stranger's Tide and such).
I was very tempted to try Unknown Armies, but I'm a perma GM and couldn't really figure out how to create a scenario for it.

>>95882477
then why did they release 2e?

>>95882967
Partially to polish up and condense good stuff from 1e, like making the Tilting magic core, partially to move the setting's timeline past 2001 and partially to start adding new content.

>>95883241
>>95882967
>>95882477
>>95882435
https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/35072/main-differences-between-the-1st-and-2nd-editions-of-unknown-armies
>The biggest difference by far is that the 2nd edition is organised into three distinct sections according to the power level you wish to play at. Character creation has also been tweaked so that starting characters also scale according to the power level
>Significantly extended background setting information, with plot hooks liberally scattered through the whole book
>Additional character creation steps/options including the addition of Trigger Events and Paradigm Skills
>General rules were tweaked, including rewriting the initiative system, adding 'fuzzy logic' skill checks, additional combat modifiers and martial arts rules, and a new experience system
>Thaumaturgy was added, as well as new rituals and artifacts
>Proxy magic and tilts were updated
>Five more schools of magic
>Six more avatars
>Additional resources for GMs to assist with the design and running of campaigns
>In addition to the main points above, there are numerous smaller changes, for example the removal of the terms BOHICA and OACOWA, which were replaced with Fumbles and Crits respectively.

For my money Break Today was the high water mark of the whole series

They brought the setting forward and showed how Unknown Armies could movie beyond 1990s millenarianism while also providing an interesting on-ramp for new players that didn't rely on Delta Green/World of Darkness style top heavy metaplot conspiracies to hand out orders.

If 3e had actually got any setting books we could have that for the present era, but Atlas doesn't give a fuck about RPGs

>>95882345
Not really? Going by the book, you're getting anywhere from 1 to 8 xp a session and you can only raise a skill or attribute 3 points per session. You could slowly spread out all your skills at once, but that would be dumb. The way skills work 2e, it makes sense to have a handful of skills at 15 for minor rolls and be really good at two or three things.

The one thing I *do* think 3e doesn't do as good a job of highlighting is the "only roll when it's important, stupid," concept that minor, significant and major rolls really make apparent in 2e.

>>95882494
If you want to start the PCs as normies, you can run any kind of horror scenario, just replace the antagonist with an adept/avatar or a cult they are running.

If you want to run a game where the players themselves are adept/avatars/clued in normies, just have them hired to to find a weird artifact that two or three other individuals or groups are looking for. Your artifact should have weird pop historical resonance, so it could be like, Jimmy Hendix's headband that he had on during Woodstock or something.

At least, that's what I'm doing, just kind of peppering in a layer of weird on a mystery.

>>95884185
Yeah, that's exactly my point here. 2e lets you get some minor know how without having to dedicate limited slots.

>>95880019
>>95882345
>>95884185
>>95884354
Is it really that different?
In UA2 you've got a smattering of stuff at 30 or 40 depending on how you distribute your points
In UA3 if you've got a middling level of hardening (and player characters generally do) then your skills are also in the 30 to 40 range.
The mechanical changes don't seem that big, less than the difference between 1993 Delta Green and 2016 Delta Green or OWOD and NWOD

>>95885522
It really isn't, but it *looks* like less, so people have an immediate distaste for it.

>>95885522
The issue is two fold. First, 3e doesn't have character stats like Mind to help you deal with the generic tests. Second, the lack of the generic statistics basically crashes the minor, significant, major skill check split that made 2e so good.

>>95885522
UA3's trauma track skills are also a lot less stable than UA2's base skills, depending on how much trauma/therapy a given PC is involved with. I really like it because it creates some neat tension; but I can absolutely see why a person would prefer the more static and reliable system in UA2.
Honestly if I can get my hands on a 2e version, I might just switch to that but build supernatural powers with 3e.

>>95880092
/tg/ in general has a hard time understanding that games and their settings have a distinct ethos that actually has implications for the vibe.
>That's an interesting setting! What system should you use? You should scrape the serial numbers off of a 5e D&D variant! :D
This is still considered a semi-logical piece of advice, so you can imagine how badly these troglodytes will botch even more niche settings.

>>95886629
For me, Don't Rest Your Head was the game that opened my eyes to how much system can influence the overall tone and feeling of a game.
>Also while I hate shaving the serial numbers off the latest incarnation of d20 and using that for everything, it's why I hate "gurps can do it" just as much. Yes, gurps can do it, but it doesn't do it in a way that feels right most of the time.

The difference between UA2, where you are in control of your skills, and UA3 where your skills are often at the mercy of the stress gauges (and thus the story and how often the GM actually makes you roll them) is a big game-flavour difference.

>>95886629
>>95886681
Adding my own take, the big issue with feel in the 3e compared 2e and 1e is sudden loss of all the stat and skill point tinkering that was baked into magic. From Epidermomancy and Narcoalchemy messing around your skills and stats directly, to Personamancers essentially casting new skillets as their powers, to smaller things like the hearth eating spell or Soul Sipping.

The 2e UA was filled with dozens of gonzo abilities empower your characters, usually at a terrible price. It also had a very freeform way of handling skills, with no limits on their number, which allowed for some fun fine tuning.

The last thing I dislike about tying everything to identities is basically making being an avatar take one of very limited character slots, killing the whole idea of the unaware avatars, which were one of the coolest parts of the worldbuilding and great character hooks.

>>95880092
>>95886681
>>95889256
Have to agree with all this but you guys said it way better than I could ever have.

>>95884002
>For my money Break Today was the high water mark of the whole series
I think so too. It's a perfect entry point, an example of how a cabal can both succeed and fail on a large scale, and a ready-made group structure. I also think To Go is a great campaign to either follow or steal things from.

>>95890205
This looks so cool I want to play it right now. Are there any discord servers or forums where I could find a game?

>>95890225
Man, I can't imagine you'd get a lot of Discord severs going for a game that's a quarter century old and not exactly toppin' the lists when it was new. A shame, because UA works great for theater-of-the-mind text-only style play.

Fuck, UA would be fantastic for a Disco Elysium style RPG, even. God, I wish I could make a video game.

>>95880092
>streaming killed the central tenet of videomancy; an alternative about consuming vertical video app scrolls for hours upon hours might be able to exist today, but one of the things I always liked about UA is that the various schools come and go as society changes, same as different dukes go up and come down.
The last, aging, videomancers only hold power over boomers anymore.
House Youtube, House Tiktok and the multi-headed Streaming barony are picking the videomancer Empire's carcass.
House Streaming thrives by conquering the Videomancer's empire, but is inherently unstable.
The rival brothers Youtube and Tiktok have a mephitic aura, but no one can really figure out why.
Here is a campaign writing itself, right there.

I'm wondering what the tenets of "Youtube-mancy", or "Streaming-mancy" (we really need better names for these) could be.

>>95890385
You don't need a new name or to subdivide all these things. It's all videomancy already. YT, TikTok, streaming, video games, it all attacks the eyes, the visual cortex and that's how it worms itself into your brain and the prefrontal. These might be factions or clans within Videomancy, but the magick should be vastly congruent regardless of the app, site, or technological medium of visual communication. Ya vid me?

>>95890385
Algomancy? Understanding the self through the holy rite of interfacing with the algorithm. I am what the stream defines me to be, rather than the other way around.

>>95880092
>>95890385
>>95890418
ALGOMANCY
Algomancers interface with social media and content-distribution platforms not merely for entertainment, or as an addiction, but as a spiritual pursuit. To define themselves based on the characters, media, and advice found on bite sized, vacant content. The ultimate paradox of the Algomancer is that everything you consume is custom tailored for you, you can't get out more then what you put in.

>Minor Charge- Spend a significant amount of a day scrolling. Breaks can be taken, but no more then 10 or 15 minutes between sessions of screen time. Mechanically, you can't do anything useful for that day such as working a 9-5 job or training a useful skill.
>Significant Charge- Make a serious personal decision based on the recommendations or attitudes found in the Algorithm. Such as removing your child from public school after watching a clip about how public schools are actually made to make people stupid, or taking an expensive trip to northern iran to investigate claims of giants in the mountains. These decisions can ultimately be good in the long term, but all are ultimately risks based on nothing.
>Major Charge- Become immortalized in a viral internet clip. You do not necessarily have to the one to record it, but you do have to see it after it is posted, watching very cuts and edits of your 15 minutes of fame. The ultimate form of self recursion; wasting time viewing yourself through an algorithm designed to engage you.

>Blast
This school's blast works a little different. Instead of performing direct damage, this school curses the target to be beset by fear or anxiety inducing content on social media, tailored for them. This causes minor stress to their gauges; such as short videos which expose their political beliefs at being defeated or inferior, or if they had a rough time in high school their highschool bullies and social-superiors suddenly reach out with their beautiful wife and house, etc.

>TABOO
The Algomancer cannot ever take advice or face-value social cues from others in person. This doesn't work for obvious things; you can't say "Hey you should keep breathing" and by continuing to breathe they don't taboo, but it does mean that they can't change their plans or learn valuable skills from others. They cannot seek psychological therapy; as they are supposed to be self sufficient from the "nourishment" of their recursive algorithm. You can still make use of any service bought and paid for (like medical care or buying the services of mercenaries, etc.), but accepting medical advice from your friend who is a trained combat medic will cause you to taboo. You'd much rather scroll on your phone to search how to apply a tourniquet while bleeding from a gunshot wound, just to make sure you're "up to the trends".

>Spells
>Wake the Sleep (1 Charge)
This spell can only be cast when you first wake up; either from sleep or the state of being unconscious. If you stare at your phone for at least an hour, you regain +1 hit point or increase your daily healing by a small amount. If you perform this spell even once, the first time you wake up without using it, you cease healing for the rest of that entire week.

>Armor of Unawareness (3 minor charges)
If you are suddenly thrust into a dangerous situation, such as a mass shooting incident, a natural disaster, or a riot, you can walk while scrolling on your phone. You are given an aura of protection. No crossfiring bullets, random falling objects, or floods of water while strike you; instead miraculously avoiding your path. This effect doesn't work against people trying to target you specifically, but random criminals or muggers will just skip their eyes right over you. This effect ends the moment you stop scrolling to take in your surroundings.

>Thumb of Destiny (1 Significant Charge)
You can swipe your thumb across any mechanical device to activate it; like an electronic security door or safe.

>Filter the Information (2 Significant Charges)
You gain the ability to read and possess a massive amount of information in a short amount of time. For example, flipping through the pages of a book as fast as you can, or rapidly scanning your eyes over a police databank and absorbing all of that knowledge immediately. You have perfect photographic memory and recall and can perfectly replicate the knowledge found within no matter how complex. You can perfectly write down or sketch what you've seen with an uncanny, savant-like level of accuracy. You forget all of this information in exactly eight minutes.

>Tunnel Vision (3 significant charges)
You can curse anyone whose social media profile you have open to suddenly be afflicted with a sense of visual vertigo. They can only see and react to things directly in front of them, causing panic and stress, and cutting out all of their peripheral vision. This could be extremely useful in a fight or to sneak past someone, but you have to find an online account of theirs in some fashion to use it.

>MAJOR CHARGE EFFECTS
Insert a new idea, piece of disinformation, or useful tip into the public unconscious. People are free to ignore or build upon this idea, but it will worm its way into the public sphere forever and be impossible to fully get rid of. This can also be used to improve an existing idea, causing it to reach more people. Alternatively; Force every single screen in the entire world to play a single video clip for exactly 60 seconds.

>>95894132
>The Algomancer cannot ever take advice or face-value social cues from others in person. This doesn't work for obvious things; you can't say "Hey you should keep breathing" and by continuing to breathe they don't taboo, but it does mean that they can't change their plans or learn valuable skills from others. They cannot seek psychological therapy; as they are supposed to be self sufficient from the "nourishment" of their recursive algorithm. You can still make use of any service bought and paid for (like medical care or buying the services of mercenaries, etc.), but accepting medical advice from your friend who is a trained combat medic will cause you to taboo. You'd much rather scroll on your phone to search how to apply a tourniquet while bleeding from a gunshot wound, just to make sure you're "up to the trends".
Would this include advice related to the Algorithm itself? Like if I tell my Doomscroller pal "Try cussing in your search results." does that screw him for charges?

>>95894201
I personally think the algorithim would be more or less "safe" since you'd have an almost religious reverence for it; similar to an AI-cel on 4chan. It's just a shitpost and probably not the most well thought out bit of content ever but I tried my best.

>>95876122 (OP)
Personally, I've had an idea for a very powerful but not lore breaking duke - a dipsomancer who accidentally ended up stuck with three item bound familiars (bound ghosts) and figured out how to feed them charges with alcohol instead of his blood.

Basic idea is the inexplicably powerful but also incredibly confused adept whose main goal is just deepening his search into mysteries at the bottom of the bottle, despite technically somehow cracking the eternal youth through his familiars' schools of magic.

The whole idea was based on the official familiar rules, but with cursed rings instead of animal companions. I was once preparing a campaign about different immortals in Japan, so I thought that a dipsomancer lucking into the immortality via accidentally stumbling upon a powerful cursed artifact/item bound familiar conspiracy and collecting others after promise of power before derailing the grand plan to spend his now unnaturally prolonged days making moonshine in the boonies would be a fun NPC.

>>95894081
>>95894132
>>95894174
>>95894201
>Where's Dave? Fuck man, you didn't hear? One of those fuckin' driverless cabs plowed into him on 36th. Dunno how the fuck it happened. I mean, yeah, we jaywalked, but it was clear. Then Dave fuckin' looks at his phone and just freezes in his tracks. Cab knocks him twenty feet into the intersection. Poor fuck's in a coma. Can't fuckin' imagine what was so important Insta that he had to stop. I looked at it and it was just a picture of himself starin' at his phone lookin' at a picture of himself starin' at his phone lookin' at a picture of him...

>>95876122 (OP)
It's WoD but woke

It's a dead system, Stolze abandoned it. No more support, and the organization of 3e is absolutely fucking horrible

>>95894081
>>95894132
>>95894174
TIL my wife is an algomancer
Damn that's really really good. Screencaping everything

>>95895757
how is it more "woke" than WoD?

specially since it hasnt produced content for years

>>95896397
"woke" in this case means Anon has never read UA, has no interest in UA, but does want everyone to know they are here and are a gaping felch of an asshole.

Vtubers are the other attempt to capitalize on Videomancy.
Vtuber stream watching has the same kind of attachment to a "totem" show/chuuba, the same "watch it live" thing.

But IDK enough about chuuba culture (which is to say I actively avoid it) to write an adept school for them

>>95897105
I think it's got whiffs of Amoramancy myself.

>>95896397
Antagonists factions include:
The Do-Boys of a Billionaire embittered by losing out his chance to be part of the Invisible Clergy to a Porn Star.
A gang of Self Appointed Magic Neighborhood Watch with a bogus history going back to the 1600s that actually only started little before WW2 because of some shit getting dumb in China.
A Billionaire Boys Club of Actual Cannibals that eat Illegal Immigrants.
Previously Mentioned Pornstar's former co-workers who have now formed a Cult in the wake of her recorded ascension.
And the most dangerous of all: A Transvestite.

>>95895757
my brother wod but woke is just wod

>>95900376
> your enemies are trannys and pornstars
uhhh based?

>>95900607
The Freak is fucking terrifying. Unironically the single scariest person in the setting.

Feel free to yell "urrh woke didn't read" at me.
From a magical perspective, the world is split down gender lines. There have always been societal roles that are a) gender-locked and b) mystical.
Wise women, old sages, high priests, the village witch, your midwife grandma who understands childbirth like nobody else within a 50 mile radius, the warrior-hero whose quest ends with symbolically fucking the country's collective hole.
There have always been kinds of magic in mythology that are only the domain of men OR of women, not both. There have often been specific named mythic figures who are taught these things as a one-off. IIRC Odin is one of them.

In unknown armies, there are two kinds of magic. There's Adept magic, the sort that comes from holding a paradoxical worldview, like the above mentioned videomancers (finding union with others in watching TV alone) or entropomancers (feeling like you have power by taking risks) or epideromancers (rule the self by harming the self). Then there's avatars, who walk a path that other humans have trod over and over and over until we collectively recognise an archetype. Protective, loving Mother. Wandering Masterless Man. Bargain-making, letter-of-his-word Merchant. The harmless yet impactful Fool.

Among these, in UA 1st/2nd edition, was the Mystic Hermaphrodite - someone who represents and embraces the paradoxical nature of magic, of opposites being brought together, as well as the common (in older generations) nature of specific kinds of magic as a gendered occupation.

Under most circumstances, being both an Avatar and an Adept is impossible, especially at a high level of power. Avatars are submitting to the collective unconscious paradigm of How Things Work, while Adepts draw power from believing in a worldview other than that - it's like being a hard atheist and a true believing mormon at the same time.

>>95902045
The Freak is both a very powerful avatar of the Mystic Hermaphrodite *and* a powerful Epideromancer. It manages to hold this paradoxical worldview in part because the Mystic Hermaphrodite is about the paradox inherent in magic.
The Freak is also a self-centered survivalist and will fuck you up if you get in its way. It will bargain with people, but only in ways that benefit it. A high level MH can stockpile magical charges by doing MH things, and Epideromancy is one of the schools of magic that benefits from having a stockpile and that is relatively hard to force to taboo (lose their charges by violating some belief).

The Unknown Armies novel, Godwalker, features the Freak using epideromancy to tank gunshots, then reach through the shooter's face and pull his frontal cortex out. It still has juice after that.

The Freak is basically Unknown Armies' Adam Smasher. It's a force that answers to very little, is brutal enough to win and savvy enough to survive, that can be dropped on people who do retarded things.

Two caveats. One, UA 3rd edition fucked around with all the avatar paths and removed the Mystic Hermaphrodite for reasons that seem dumb. Two, the Freak is not invincible. In the aforementioned novel, it feels an Entropomancer gain a Major Charge (which is pretty much a once in a lifetime achievement for most Adepts). The Mystic Hermaphrodite knows when people gain charges in their area, like a wizard radar. It feels that specific thing happen, it looks over in the direction that happened for about two seconds and an "oh shit" look comes across its face, and it immediately drops what it was doing and sprints full pelt away from the incoming bodybag-with-a-major.

That should give you some idea of what major charges are like in terms of UA power levels. The Freak has access to a deep well of Significant and almost unlimited Minor charges, and has all the setting lore in its head, and maybe five minutes prep time, and it chooses to run.

>>95902045
>>95902074
fukken wild

>>95902399
One of the better things UA did was explicitly suggest the game be divided into three levels of gameplay, for tonal reasons.

>Street Level
PCs know very little, what they know may be tiny fragments of the truth, viewed through a very personal lens and distorted to wrongness, or they may just be wrong. You will encounter strange shit and have no idea what it is, why it exists, etc.

>Global level
PCs know a fair amount, what they know is a singular crystallised piece of the truth, viewed through personal goals and distorted somewhat. The PCs within a global party are obsessed, powerful, and pursuing their own agendas, but those agendas are still framed within the sort of things a regular human would agree with. Hunting secrets for temporal power, trying to control the arcane so they can live forever, setting up a conspiracy because they want to be kings

>Cosmic level
PCs know the truth, either explicitly or implicitly. They know some or all of the secrets behind the curtain, and the game explores the consequences of knowing how the world truly works and how to change it

The Freak is a Cosmic-tier antagonist who has seen the truth - that you can ascend from human to something higher, that those who ascend are almost universally Avatars who reach maximum power, and that those who ascend lose their physical form but are able to shape the world and the human condition, and it has REFUSED to do that. It's happy holding on to cosmic level knowledge and power, cock blocking anyone else from taking that spoilered step because there can only be one Godwalker at a time, and it's not going to let anyone else take its place

IMO the best unknown armies is street level with a group of players who have a mixed level of knowledge of the setting. Having a single player in there who knows the truth is fun, because having everyone else look at that *player* panicking about something OOC adds some interesting tension, but that's true of most horror

>>95902540
Feels really similar to the later Hunter the Vigil's conspiracies.

>>95902074
>One, UA 3rd edition fucked around with all the avatar paths and removed the Mystic Hermaphrodite for reasons that seem dumb.
Oh no, Anon. Mystic Hermaphodite is still in setting, it just goes by the title "Sexual Rebis." these days, now granted UA3 doesn't have any avatar rules for it, but Mystic Hermaphodite's channels are pretty forward compatible to UA3. Epideromancy isn't (because Lol BODY stats) but if memory serves the updated Epideromancy is in book 4 or 5. Meaning you can easily remake the Freak in UA3. Maybe even have the party get pasted by it on the way with their meeting with the Comte De Saint Germaine.

>>95902074
>it immediately drops what it was doing and sprints full pelt away from the incoming bodybag-with-a-major.
Because The Freak isn't stupid. A major charge is dangerous no matter the level you're operating at. An Entropomancer with a major charge could fucking turn you inside out and probably leave you still alive to enjoy it after. Hell, they could probably Final Destination everyone within a mile, just guarantee their eventual, inevitable, messily creative death.

>>95902867
Yeah, especially since the average Bodybag who earns a Major has just done something remarkably stupid, so that they are both hopped up on the incredible energy of a Major burning a hole in their pocket AND the emotional crash of whatever stupid risks they just took, which MUST have a huge meaning to them.

>>95902793
Didn't they swap the Freak and the Comte's places in the cosmology? I remember being annoyed at what they did to the UA3 cosmology but it's been a hot decade since then.

>>95902910
>Didn't they swap the Freak and the Comte's places in the cosmology? I remember being annoyed at what they did to the UA3 cosmology but it's been a hot decade since then.
I think there was a thing about the House of Renunciation. I resolved to ignore pretty much all of 3E's 'updates' and do my own.

>>95902867
They can do quite a bit worse than that. Major Charges can let an Entropomancer basically retcon history, as long as it doesn't fuck with the event that gained them the Major charge or go down the Path of Doing Stupid Shit for Magic Tricks.
>>95902910
>Didn't they swap the Freak and the Comte's places in the cosmology?
At said meeting, yep. I'm on the fence, because I really like Freak and Comte, but I kinda like that the Human Eternal took one look at the Sorrows bs and said "Yeah, but nah I ain't doing whatever the fuck this is."

>>95902743
please elaborate

>>95897105
It feels like you could make another Adept school out of that, but from the other side of the camera so to speak:
>Speculomancer (from speculum: the mirror)
Adepts who are obsessed with broadcasting their lives constantly. Influencers, who derive power out of their image, Dorian Gray style.
Some of their spells could be around making things invisible (allowing them to act in the shadows while seemingly filming every single thing they do), or visible (seeing spells, traces of people's passage..). Or being able to ignore physical and psychological damages by letting themselves be possessed by their persona.
In the end a speculomancer could be an undead with crippling mental illnesses, but who keeps looking like a joyous 20-something years old as soon as a camera is pointed at them.
Taboo could be to fail to film themselves at a given frequency (or to have a video of them uploaded, where they act out of character?).
Charges could be gained by gaining new followers, filming and broadcasting an important event in their lives, filming and broadcasting an important (but not supernatural) event.

best thread on tg right now

full disclosure: Im a Chud.