[OSSR]Unknown Armies

[silva]

Good point. If a pineapple pizza recipe had only one ingredient and that ingredient was horseshit, it's easy to see how the experience as projected by someone who read the recipe wouldn't match up with the experience of someone who actually ate it, since even a mediocre chef would just make a pizza with pineapple instead of following the recipe.

I think you didnt get my point. Lemme tive you an example: Brie cheese with Damascus jelly is a nice combination because it mixes a specific, slightly sour taste (the cheese) with a specific sweet one (the jelly). Someone who never eated one of those igredients or a similar contrasting combination of tastes, wouldnt have a solid base to give an opinion. In this case the person can project an idea that could (or not) approximate the exact taste/experience, based on his experiences ( in which case the better idea would be simply to taste the dish).

[Kemper Boyd]

Sorry about the quotes tags thing, had no idea what's causing the posts to appear weird like that.

[virgil]

I think you didnt get my point. Lemme tive you an example: Brie cheese with Damascus jelly is a nice combination because it mixes a specific, slightly sour taste (the cheese) with a specific sweet one (the jelly). Someone who never eated one of those igredients or a similar contrasting combination of tastes, wouldnt have a solid base to give an opinion. In this case the person can project an idea that could (or not) approximate the exact taste/experience, based on his experiences ( in which case the better idea would be simply to taste the dish).

I am certain that there isn't a single independently unique component in Unknown Armies, and that every piece of the system has been personally experienced at one point or another between Frank & Ancient History in some other system.

[momothefiddler]

Good point. If a pineapple pizza recipe had only one ingredient and that ingredient was horseshit, it's easy to see how the experience as projected by someone who read the recipe wouldn't match up with the experience of someone who actually ate it, since even a mediocre chef would just make a pizza with pineapple instead of following the recipe.

I think you didnt get my point. Lemme tive you an example: Brie cheese with Damascus jelly is a nice combination because it mixes a specific, slightly sour taste (the cheese) with a specific sweet one (the jelly). Someone who never eated one of those igredients or a similar contrasting combination of tastes, wouldnt have a solid base to give an opinion. In this case the person can project an idea that could (or not) approximate the exact taste/experience, based on his experiences ( in which case the better idea would be simply to taste the dish).

As someone who's tasted and enjoyed a lot of weird things, I get where you're coming from.

And yet I still use the example of a pizza made of horseshit when I've never eaten a pizza made of horseshit, and nobody's called me out on it because apparently we all agree that a pizza made of horseshit is not something we want to eat. I think this is because I've had plenty of experiences with shit, and smelling it is enough to tell me I don't want to eat it, even if it's from a different animal that I haven't had much experience with.

I was quite skeptical about chocolate with sea salt in it, but I tried it because that was a new thing, and I'm glad I did because it is fucking delicious.

I'm not willing to try another variation on "someone else is in charge of everything and you have no agency and you don't know what success is or means", because that's not new. I've played that game. I've played that game way too many times and I already know I don't like it and sprinkling salt on the top isn't going to help.

[Edit] I can't even tell whether we're discussing UA or *W here but while the above description was originally about *W, it applies just fine to UA as well purely by virtue of the shitty skill setup. [/Edit]

Sorry about the quotes tags thing, had no idea what's causing the posts to appear weird like that.

Something to do with your post where you quote talozin, I'm pretty sure. At least go back and make sure they're all closed.

[silva]

Oh sure Momo, I got your point on horseshit. Im not even discussing it, really. D&D 3E is pure horseshit for me so I wouldnt eat it no matter the other ingredients in a recipe. So I see where youre coming from.

[Kemper Boyd]

I am certain that there isn't a single independently unique component in Unknown Armies, and that every piece of the system has been personally experienced at one point or another between Frank & Ancient History in some other system.

Considering the fact that Frank Trollman wants to call the rules set someone's CoC house rules, I highly doubt that. Dunno about Ancient History.

[momothefiddler]

Oh sure Momo, I got your point on horseshit. Im not even discussing it, really. D&D 3E is pure horseshit for me so I wouldnt eat it no matter the other ingredients in a recipe. So I see where youre coming from.

Have you ever explained your reasons for disliking D&D 3e (and, I presume, D&D in general)? If that conversation happened previously, can I get a link?

If not, I'd be interested in hearing your reasoning and how it differs from, say, Frank's stance on AW, but that definitely shouldn't go in this thread.

I am certain that there isn't a single independently unique component in Unknown Armies, and that every piece of the system has been personally experienced at one point or another between Frank & Ancient History in some other system.

Considering the fact that Frank Trollman wants to call the rules set someone's CoC house rules, I highly doubt that. Dunno about Ancient History.

I don't get this line of thought at all. How do you get no personal experience out of the claim "I recognize these rules and they were shit the first time"? Do you mean that UA isn't based on/related to CoC?

[GâtFromKI]

90% isn't very good anyway, except if you distribute bonus like candy. 90% on standard task is the skill level of a good student/apprentice ("you solve most of the exercises"), not of a professional with 40 year of experience.

A standard task in a calm context should not demand any roll for neither the professional nor the apprentice. Whats your point ?

So...

What does the "90%" represent, if it's not "90% of chance of succeeding a standard task"? It's "90% of chance of... doing... random stuff"? I though the great advantage of percent-roll-under is that it's easy to grasp for a beginner, but right now I'm confused and I have no idea of what the percentage represent.

Does a deadline count as a "meaningful time limit"?

That's where the Fuzzy Logic parts come in, if it's ain't a big deal to fail at a routine task, no roll necessary.

Firstly, I don't roll if nobody cares about the result. So obviously, Someone cares about it. It doesn't change the fact it's a routine task my character should always succeed as a professional, and right now he has only 25% chance of succeeding "because someone cares". That's a quite confusing game system.

Secondly:

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.

...

... So obviously, if I have "a meaningful time limit" but none of the other condition, I don't have to roll. So your commas do not mean "and". I don't think it means "or" either. So it means... something. As far as I know, if [random condition with random weighting only the MC knows > 1], I auto-success. If [random condition with random weighting only the MC knows < 0], I auto-fail. else, I have some chance of success, maybe equal to my skill percentage or maybe not, depending on other stuff.

It... doesn't sound "easy peasy" to me. And it doesn't seem my actual skill is the main factor in this system: the difference between a skill of 15% or 95% is less an issue than being able to convince the MC that I auto-success my badassery check because what I do is routinely badass.

[Kemper Boyd]

I don't get this line of thought at all. How do you get no personal experience out of the claim "I recognize these rules and they were shit the first time"? Do you mean that UA isn't based on/related to CoC?

It's closer related to Over The Edge for many parts and it's kind of the prototype for Greg Stolze's ORE. BRP is highly traditional in most regards, it's got the stats that really don't do anything, damage bonuses, hit points derived from stats and all that. UA just uses the same type of dice, the rest is more or less something that's new.

[Username17]

I don't get this line of thought at all. How do you get no personal experience out of the claim "I recognize these rules and they were shit the first time"? Do you mean that UA isn't based on/related to CoC?

It's closer related to Over The Edge for many parts and it's kind of the prototype for Greg Stolze's ORE. BRP is highly traditional in most regards, it's got the stats that really don't do anything, damage bonuses, hit points derived from stats and all that. UA just uses the same type of dice, the rest is more or less something that's new.

Could you try to be less smug while wearing your ignorance on the outside? Unknown Armies is made by two people: Greg Stolze is only one of them. The other of course, is John Tynes.


That John Tynes.

Not only is Unknown Armies very obviously someone's set of Call of Cthulhu house rules, it isn't even Stolze's. It's Tynes' set of Call of Cthulhu house rules. You know, the guy who writes Call of Cthulhu supplements for a living and very obviously has a set of house rules for Call of Cthulhu that he uses in his actual house.

-Username17

[momothefiddler]

I don't get this line of thought at all. How do you get no personal experience out of the claim "I recognize these rules and they were shit the first time"? Do you mean that UA isn't based on/related to CoC?

It's closer related to Over The Edge for many parts and it's kind of the prototype for Greg Stolze's ORE. BRP is highly traditional in most regards, it's got the stats that really don't do anything, damage bonuses, hit points derived from stats and all that. UA just uses the same type of dice, the rest is more or less something that's new.

Ah, fair enough. I understand the argument now. My only experience with CoC is a single low-mechanics session and my only experience with UA is this review, so I don't have the ability to evaluate it, but it does at least make sense now. Thanks for clarifying.

[Kemper Boyd]

Not only is Unknown Armies very obviously someone's set of Call of Cthulhu house rules, it isn't even Stolze's. It's Tynes' set of Call of Cthulhu house rules. You know, the guy who writes Call of Cthulhu supplements for a living and very obviously has a set of house rules for Call of Cthulhu that he uses in his actual house.

-Username17

This is actually fairly easy, because both Tynes and Stolze have written about the design process of UA. Both of them say it was Stolze who wrote the mechanics.

http://www.rpg.net/oracle/essays/uadesign.html

http://www.gregstolze.com/atlas.html

[silva]

Interesting link, Kemper. I always thought Stolze had come up with the awesome setting and Tynes with the system, but it was the other way around.

If there is a problem with Unknown Armies, in my opinion, is its unfocused nature. Its like its trying to be 3 games at the same time - the game of the clueless mundanes who stumble with the unnatural and try to deal with it; the game of obsessive adepts in crazy quests for power (and ruin); the game of cosmic assension/avatarhood contenders. Id prefer it chose just one of those niches (preferably the adepts one, the one I like more) and focused on it, giving a more solid support and resources on running it. And let the oer aspects (mundanes, avatars) to supplements.

How do you see that, Kemper ? Perhaps the new edition will do this a way ?

[Username17]

Kemper, you need to read the World Tree OSSR. If something looks exactly like a set of Call of Cthulhu house rules, and is co-written by someone with a long history of writing Call of Cthulhu material, it's a fucking set of Call of Cthulhu house rules. That is what it is. The authors may have (or think they have) good reasons to claim otherwise in public, but that doesn't change what it is. Unknown Armies doesn't just have obviously traceable Call of Cthulhu DNA, it has Call of Cthulhu semen on its face.

-Username17

[Kemper Boyd]

If there is a problem with Unknown Armies, in my opinion, is its unfocused nature. Its like its trying to be 3 games at the same time - the game of the clueless mundanes who stumble with the unnatural and try to deal with it; the game of obsessive adepts in crazy quests for power (and ruin); the game of cosmic assension/avatarhood contenders. Id prefer it chose just one of those niches (preferably the adepts one, the one I like more) and focused on it, giving a more solid support and resources on running it. And let the oer aspects (mundanes, avatars) to supplements.

How do you see that, Kemper ? Perhaps the new edition will do this a way ?

I've discovered myself that mundanes and adepts tend to play well together, especially in mixed groups where you have people who are new to the game and people who have played it before. Mundanes and adepts are power-wise pretty comparable, since there's lots of stuff that any given adept is not going to be any good at.

I'd ditch the middle tier and combine Cosmic and Global, instead, because the organizations on that level are pretty comparable in power, despite their varying aims.

[GâtFromKI]

In my experience, telling to a newbie "you can play a sidekick" is like saying "no, we don't want to play with you; but we need someone to buy some beers". Especially in a game where it's not possible for a side kick to become a real character.

So I guess you're saying that in mixed groups, newbies play adepts and experienced players play mundanes.

[Kemper Boyd]

Well, I can teach someone the basic rules on the fly no problem, but the magic rules add quite a bit more stuff to read and to understand before you can use them.

My group's got an Entropomancer (one of those guys that gets to do stuff with random chances), a mundane pro burglar and a mundane grad student with a military background. Because of how the charge structure and the magical abilities for adepts (and Entropomancers specifically) works, the adept can keep up for short periods of time with the skills of the other two but plays second fiddle every time there's something going on that relates more to the other PC's skill sets.

[GâtFromKI]

Entropomancer + mundanes newbies sounds really great.

"hey guy, will you play with me? Here are the rules:
* my character can do anything your characters can do just by being lucky, because his power is being lucky.
* my character gain mana by risking your characters lives or by risking TPK.
So I decide of what you do (by not doing it myself) and when the game end (by attaining a TPK). But my character totally need yours to fuel his mana pool!"

... It sounds even shittier than entropomancer "I gain charge by risking TPK" + adepts, and shittier than "the experienced player plays batman and the newbie plays Alfred". That's quite an accomplishment.

But since, as the experienced player playing Batman, you say that the other players are happy to play Alfred, I guess it's OK.


Anyway:

Well, I can teach someone the basic rules on the fly no problem, but the magic rules add quite a bit more stuff to read and to understand before you can use them.

I think I'll never understand this argument.

So you have a fantasy setting, and you think it's a great setting, with rules to play a fantasy character, and you think this is great also. And you want you convince peoples to play the game. So, you do it by... Making them play boring mundanes characters they could play in CoC. Because obviously, that's what's you like in this game: you can use it to play CoC instead of an X-man.

Err... No. You can't pretend the rules are simple if you have to use the kindergarden's rules for your friends. You can't pretend to "initiate" your friend to this game if they're playing CoC while you're playing UA.

[rasmuswagner]

AH and FT are on a hyperbole bender as usual. There's plenty of shit in Unknown Armies, but the low skill percentages are not part of the shit. The low skill percentages are a fucking improvement on CoC because unlike CoC, where skills are calibrated for "HerpDerp", skills in UA are calibrated against "getting it right on the first try, under pressure".

Also, getting 90% right on the test in college is not a fucking 90% skill rating, nor is it even an indicator of the ability to perform actual tasks, and whoever insinuated that is a massive twatwaffle.

[Kemper Boyd]

Because obviously, that's what's you like in this game: you can use it to play CoC instead of an X-man.

Err... No. You can't pretend the rules are simple if you have to use the kindergarden's rules for your friends. You can't pretend to "initiate" your friend to this game if they're playing CoC while you're playing UA.

I think it might not translate well from the review, but the game isn't about playing supers even if you have magic.

And you probably missed the part where I said that the power level of characters tends to balance out fairly well between characters, magic or not. Because of how charging works for Entropomancers: they can't charge up without endangering themselves needlessly so taking risks while pursuing goals with other player characters doesn't count. And the meat-and-potatoes part of charging, minor and significant charges, don't give you any bonus for endangering other characters.

And I don't play in my current campaign, I run it as the GM.

[Username17]

Kemper is sort of telling the truth that there isn't much difference between an adept and a mundane. But that's because players are pretty much set to failure on almost everything and can only really do a couple of things and those things are so poorly defined that the authors of the book actually take time out of their day to spend actual wordcount telling you that they aren't even going to bother trying to define what characters might be capable of.

An adept has about five magical things they can do, and maybe they can do some spontaneous magic with some good old fashioned mother may I. And that's not a whole lot better than what the mundanes can do, because the mundanes only have a couple of skills that work even half the time, but all of those skills can be used whenever the GM calls for them. So if you beg the GM to let you use your tiny handful of skills on useful things, than you'll have a coin flip's chance of doing something useful if they take pity on you and let you use those skills.

So it's actually kind of true: mundanes and adepts don't have a big power difference. Because both characters have year passes to ride the fail train and can only really do anything if the GM lets them use one of their skills from their absurdly tiny and non-standardized list.

But we've already established what kind of GM Kemper is:

Like in real life, starting a fight is easy but ending it is hard, which I like.

Fights in UA are horrendous, protracted slap fights with lots and lots and lots of failure. Kemper Boyd likes that, because he's kind of a sadistic douche as a GM. I can totally see how UA would totally appeal to someone who was kind of a sadistic douche if they got to be the GM.

-Username17

[Longes]

When I showed my character idea (Plutomancer/Merchant) to my Shadowrun group, who have played UA in the past, they said that the character would be too insane to function, and that the only Adept/Avatar is Freak. And since no one plays UA online in 2014, I didn't get a chance to get a second opinion

[silva]

Dont see why a plutomancer couldnt work in shadowrun. In fact, I think all adepts would work great in shadowrun. I remember a urban shaman concept in pomoma that was cool as hell - he must live and breath human urbanity at all times, otherwise - if he steps in a garden, touch a tree or eat a fruit, he loses all his magickal charges.

[Longes]

Dont see why a plutomancer couldnt work in shadowrun. In fact, I think all adepts would work great in shadowrun. I remember a urban shaman concept in pomoma that was cool as hell - he must live and breath human urbanity at all times, otherwise - if he steps in a garden, touch a tree or eat a fruit, he loses all his magickal charges.

Errr. No.
I showed a UA character I made to people with whom I play Shadowrun. Those people played UA in the past which is why I showed it to them. The character was not for Shadowrun.

[Sakuya Izayoi]

Every GM I've met who says "don't roll when it's not important" has been on the Internet. When I actually play a game, the GMs tend to be the kind that have you amputate your own fingers on a failed Make Sandwich roll. I daresay that's the actual appeal of stuff like % roll-under, and target numbers designated with adjectives rather than examples, to them.