[OSSR]Unknown Armies

[Username17]

I have to say, I've been playing Unknown Armies for something like 14 years now and lots of those issues that the review mentions have never cropped up at all in my games.

How good are you at reading your GM's fucking mind to figure out what skills he's going to call for?

-Username17

[GâtFromKI]

I have to say, I've been playing Unknown Armies for something like 14 years now and lots of those issues that the review mentions have never cropped up at all in my games.

Yay, that's... A very useful counter-review you did here. Thanks to you, I'll continue not to play unknown army.

[Kemper Boyd]

How good are you at reading your GM's fucking mind to figure out what skills he's going to call for?

I've mostly GM'd it myself, and I tend to give the players some guidelines about what to expect in a campaign, or as an alternative, I tailor the game around what sort of abilities the players have.

[Username17]

I fucking love it when MCs claim that players in their games aren't annoyed by mechanics that are frustrating and disempowering to players. It shows that they are masters in all things, including empathy.

-Username17

[Kemper Boyd]

I dunno, I tend to have a short feedback session after we finish gaming for the night and the issues you raised simply don't crop up. I have some really outspoken players too, so that's not the issue.

Maybe it's a thing where you need to play a game to grasp how it works in play, instead of just reading the book? I wouldn't review things without playing them myself.

[Username17]

I dunno, I tend to have a short feedback session after we finish gaming for the night and the issues you raised simply don't crop up. I have some really outspoken players too, so that's not the issue.

Maybe it's a thing where you need to play a game to grasp how it works in play, instead of just reading the book? I wouldn't review things without playing them myself.

Are you implying that I haven't played roll under systems or that I haven't played games with "mother may I" skill systems? Because if you're implying that, you're an idiot.

Edit: I think perhaps I should be more explicit. This game is someone's Call of Cthulhu house rules. That's literally all it fucking is. I've played a lot of Call of Cthulhu, I can tell a shitty set of Call of Cthulhu house rules when I see them.

-Username17

[Kemper Boyd]

Are you implying that I haven't played roll under systems or that I haven't played games with "mother may I" skill systems? Because if you're implying that, you're an idiot.

Edit: I think perhaps I should be more explicit. This game is someone's Call of Cthulhu house rules. That's literally all it fucking is. I've played a lot of Call of Cthulhu, I can tell a shitty set of Call of Cthulhu house rules when I see them.

I'd say you haven't played Unknown Armies, champ. And while it's a percentile-based D100-rolling roll-under system, you'd be hard pressed to find more commonality with CoC than that.

Greg Stolze wrote quite a bit about the development of Unknown Armies on his personal website, which at least for me is interesting and fascinating stuff: http://www.gregstolze.com/atlas.html

[Username17]

Alternately, you can take your No True Scotsman / Oberoni hybrid argument and stuff it up your entire ass. Seriously. "In my personal home game, I used an undisclosed amount of mind caulk and things basically worked OK" isn't even an endorsement. You're arguing from an anecdote with no possible way to verify whether the anecdote is even relevant.

Arguing that people should only be allowed to argue from anecdotes is probably the stupidest fucking thing anyone has ever said. If you disagree, I suggest that are not allowed to criticize anything, including me, until you've personally given "cutting your own dick off and feeding it to reptiles at the zoo" a try. Without that arbitrary anecdotal experience, your statements on this or any other subject are worthless.

-Username17

[Kemper Boyd]

Like, what's with the hostility?

On a fundamental level, a review is a subjective thing. And reviewing a game without actually playing it is on the same level as reviewing a restaurant by reading the menu. Amusing, perhaps, but lacks a fundamental element of substance.

[Username17]

Like, what's with the hostility?

On a fundamental level, a review is a subjective thing. And reviewing a game without actually playing it is on the same level as reviewing a restaurant by reading the menu. Amusing, perhaps, but lacks a fundamental element of substance.

Hostility? You're the one arguing that anecdotes trump math and reasoned analysis. Given your position, I don't give a fuck what your position is on this or any other subject, and won't until anecdotally you have tried chopping your dick off and feeding it to reptiles at the zoo. Until you have that personal experience, your opinion is simply uninformed and fundamentally lacking in substance.

-Username17

[Omegonthesane]

I went through a period of fanboying over Unknown Armies after playing it - the setting's fun if you can work out anything to do with it.

However, when running it I consistently found the PCs confused by the mechanics, in particular the distinction between a "roll under skill" and "roll under stat" success and the thing where your successful d100 roll is treated as a 2d10 damage roll rather than rolling a separate 2d10 damage roll. There were also complaints that the Entropomancer charge structure was artificial, and the sample adventure gave inadequate guidance for how much the PCs had to disrupt the timeline before you could give them the victory, leading to the one complaint of player disempowerment I got. (Namely, that a player felt that calling the police during the shop robbery should have disrupted the timeline when there were already police present.) In practice, when I was playing the GM stuck to calling for rolls for the skills that the PCs are officially allowed to know about and when GMing I did the same, which isn't mandated by the system even if it is the most obviously sensible way to run it.

Of course, this was all long enough ago that I've almost certainly forgotten some of the mind caulk, and in particular the GM didn't actually expect us to not read the final part of the book OOC.

The sanity system appealed "rather a lot" to me, especially in comparison to the CoC one - but then, I rather susepct that isn't hard.

Like, what's with the hostility?

On a fundamental level, a review is a subjective thing. And reviewing a game without actually playing it is on the same level as reviewing a restaurant by reading the menu. Amusing, perhaps, but lacks a fundamental element of substance.

This isn't nearly as valid a simile as you think it is. Reviewing an RPG you haven't played is more like debugging a program without first running the program - which you can totally do, if the program is simple enough and the bugs self-contained within the program.

[erik]

I have played UA, and the review seems fairly spot on for the parts that I got access to read/play. Generally, the only parts of the game where the system wasn't a burden was when we went full on MTP. The sanity system is about all I can think of where the rules were not a net negative on the game and even still there was plenty of room for improvement. Players maybe dealt with sanity a few times a session, sometimes less. Sometimes none.

Kemper can you analyze or describe an instance where the main system was at all useful?

examples:
How is it useful to not have a codified skill system in a game where players are expected to select and use skills?

I'll lay out cons:
• Without mindmelding with the MC and coordination among players, the players are likely to invest into skills that are not compatible with their adventures or each other.
• It has the problem of adding additional skills to the game after character building multiplied by an infinitely large number.
• It's fucking lazy and retarded game design.

What are the advantages of having a d100 roll under system? And UA's tweaks to the d100 roll-under?

Some downsides:
• Without really high %'s the failure rate of skills is immersion-breakingly atrocious. (and nobody gets really high %'s. period)
• Tweaks to the % rolls just make things more confusing without bringing much to the game. Inconsistency on what a roll means. Initiative, Damage, Skills, Cherries.

[Kemper Boyd]

Kemper can you analyze or describe an instance where the main system was at all useful?

I've found that the system does a good job of fleshing out characters and the concept of having a skill penumbra is great. For instance, if you have a Guns skill, it might include things like general knowledge about guns, gun laws, how to get a gun and so on. Kind of like how Backgrounds work in 13th Age.

In my experience, the system is really really good for desperate and frantic combat too. 2nd Edition added focus shifts which allows you to raise your skill by 10, 20 or 30 percent at the cost of being easier to hit yourself, which allows you to deal out damage by taking a bigger risk to yourself. In my last session with my group, they were rescuing a kidnapped guy from a gang, which included stuff such as climbing up to a rooftop, jumping down to a balcony, using Entropomancy to make people freak out and wrestling with the opposition on top of broken glass. Like in real life, starting a fight is easy but ending it is hard, which I like. Unless there's a character who's really focused on that, that is.

And regarding the roll-under system, it's very easily picked up by people who haven't played before, which is always a plus in my mind. It's simple and straightforward. Interestingly, I think the main issue of high failure is that the GM shouldn't demand rolls as frequently as in many other games, which I think the 2nd Ed rulebook does bring up. If you have any basic competence in a skill, you shouldn't roll for everyday stuff. Having higher percentages in a skill doesn't affect doing everyday stuff that much anyway. A NASCAR driver doesn't irl gain much benefit from their race driving skills when they go grocery shopping, but can shine in situations where Joe Sixpack just isn't any good at all.

And about coordination between the GM and the players: I think that should be a must for every game. It's not like it's optimal even in OD&D for characters to be rolled in complete isolation from the rest of the players, because a party of six fighters isn't well balanced. UA is a bit more intricate than D&D but the principle is the same.

[GâtFromKI]

Interestingly, I think the main issue of high failure is that the GM shouldn't demand rolls as frequently as in many other games, which I think the 2nd Ed rulebook does bring up. If you have any basic competence in a skill, you shouldn't roll for everyday stuff. Having higher percentages in a skill doesn't affect doing everyday stuff that much anyway. A NASCAR driver doesn't irl gain much benefit from their race driving skills when they go grocery shopping, but can shine in situations where Joe Sixpack just isn't any good at all.

this is not something the system itself does; this is something you have to add to the system to make it work. Hence, the system doesn't work.

It would be excusable if it was CoC or an other prehistorical system: people created roll-under system because they didn't know any better. Except the second edition of UA was edited in 2002, so fuck it: people already knew that roll-under system were awful; editing a roll-under system in 2002 is like spiting in your face and saying "give us your money, then use whatever houserules you like".

[Kemper Boyd]

this is not something the system itself does; this is something you have to add to the system to make it work.

Says so on page 280, so you don't have to add that yourself.

[Kemper Boyd]

This isn't nearly as valid a simile as you think it is. Reviewing an RPG you haven't played is more like debugging a program without first running the program - which you can totally do, if the program is simple enough and the bugs self-contained within the program.

RPG's are a lot more complex than simple computer programs though. If one was so inclined, you could tally up all the variables that a rule system includes and those numbers tend to be on the ginormous side, even for a game that's as simple as UA.

[GâtFromKI]

Great, a Total Mother may I system.

You have to argue with the MC that your skill apply to the situation, then argue with the MC that you auto-success. And before that, you had to argue about your skills.

Or maybe the rules explain clearly when your Badassitude 25% gives you an auto-success and when you have to roll?

[Kemper Boyd]

Or maybe the rules explain clearly when your Badassitude 25% gives you an auto-success and when you have to roll?

Yes, in fact. If there's no current threat to the PC, no meaningful time limit, no significant penalty for failure, specialization is not an issue and no drama regardless of success or failure, and your applicable skill is 15% or more, you succeed automatically. Easy peasy.

[GâtFromKI]

Ok so you always fail at any meaningful task. But it's not a problem since you auto-success useless flavor task! I can use my Badassitude 25% to play Worf: I'm totally badass when nobody cares! But I'm a useless wimp during any actual fight.

That is, you know, the exact reason why Frank and AH think roll-under system are shit.

[Username17]

We mentioned a little bit about the rant about the "fuzzy logic" of skills in the book. Also how that is not, in fact, what the words "fuzzy logic" actually mean. Essentially there are three kinds of tests:

• Tests the player can't actually fail and only bothers rolling to see if they get extraordinary success.
• Tests the player is trying to roll under their attribute, and if they roll under their skill (which is always lower than the stat) then they get a nebulously better success.
• Tests where the attribute is meaningless and all rolls above the skill are failures.

So whenever a skill check is called for on your Badassery 25% skill, the GM determines arbitrarily whether you automatically succeed, succeed about 2/3 of the time, or succeed only one time in four. Based on the significance of the test. A more significant test will fail most of the time.

Yeah, it's crap. It's crap which is extremely arbitrary and dumps a simply ridiculous amount of power into the hands of the GM. Which is why I am totally fucking uninterested in anecdotes from gamemasters about how they think it's swell.

-Username17

[silva]

I have to say, I've been playing Unknown Armies for something like 14 years now and lots of those issues that the review mentions have never cropped up at all in my games.

While I played Unknown Armies just a couple times, Ive been playing Runequest a bit longer. None of the "problems" cited cropped up at all for me too.

But hey, its Frank, not worth takin seriously. Do like me: only read Ancient History part of the reviews.

[Omegonthesane]

This isn't nearly as valid a simile as you think it is. Reviewing an RPG you haven't played is more like debugging a program without first running the program - which you can totally do, if the program is simple enough and the bugs self-contained within the program.

RPG's are a lot more complex than simple computer programs though. If one was so inclined, you could tally up all the variables that a rule system includes and those numbers tend to be on the ginormous side, even for a game that's as simple as UA.

The components are not. It is possible to dissect and understand each component, and then understand their interactions. In fact, doing so without actual play makes it more likely that you'll understand, because in actual play people patch the game so it can continue and then probably forget that they did so.

I don't think there was a single attack roll I saw made at any point that wasn't at +30 shift, simply because otherwise nobody would ever hit anything. This demonstrates a flaw in the system - it was always necessary to take the maximum risk. Similarly, the thing with meddling with blasts by rolling more dice against a lower TN was a solvable problem rather than a trade-off of potential power for risk of failure.

[momothefiddler]

reviewing a game without actually playing it is on the same level as reviewing a restaurant by reading the menu. Amusing, perhaps, but lacks a fundamental element of substance.

This isn't nearly as valid a simile as you think it is. Reviewing an RPG you haven't played is more like debugging a program without first running the program - which you can totally do, if the program is simple enough and the bugs self-contained within the program.

I dunno. I think if you have both the recipes and the menu it ends up approaching a reasonable simile. I mean, you have to assume the chef follows the recipe, and you'll have defenders going "No! This restaurant isn't shit! Yeah, I know the recipe for the pineapple pizza has only one ingredient and that ingredient is horseshit, but our chef doesn't make it that way so we don't have any problems."

So it matches up pretty well.

[angelfromanotherpin]

While I played Unknown Armies just a couple times, Ive been playing Runequest a bit longer. None of the "problems" cited cropped up at all for me too.

I don't know anyone who's been murdered with a gun, I guess gun violence in the U.S. isn't actually a problem.

[Kemper Boyd]

I dunno. I think if you have both the recipes and the menu it ends up approaching a reasonable simile. I mean, you have to assume the chef follows the recipe, and you'll have defenders going "No! This restaurant isn't shit! Yeah, I know the recipe for the pineapple pizza has only one ingredient and that ingredient is horseshit, but our chef doesn't make it that way so we don't have any problems."

So it matches up pretty well.

I guess you've never ordered a tuna steak in a restaurant.