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Type of bind: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 793
EAN num: 9781589780132
ISBN number: 1589780132
Label: Atlas Games
Manufacturer: Atlas Games
Page Count: 336
Printing Date: 2002-07
Publishing house: Atlas Games
Sale Popularity Level: 313309
Studio: Atlas Games
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
What will you risk to change the world?
The acclaimed RPG of modern occult intrigue returns in a stunning new hardcover edition. Completely reorganized, largely rewritten, and jam-packed with new art, the second edition of Unknown Armies isn't just better. It kicks metaphysical ass!
We've remixed the book based on the level of campaign you want to play: Street, Global, or Cosmic. At street level, you're outsiders to the secret world of magick, ordinary people entering a land of mystery and peril. At global level, you're mojo-wielding cabalists in the occult underground, pursuing your arcane agendas and plotting against your rivals. At cosmic level, you're in tune with the cosmos itself, fighting to shape the subsequent incarnation of reality. Background material is divided up as well, so new players in a street-level campaign only read what the
GM wants them to know.
But the beats don't stop there:
Much more information for new players, to get them into the mindset of the game and help them make better characters and stronger campaigns.
* New character-creation options, including Trigger Events, Paradigm Skills, and power levels scaled to match the level of campaign you're playing.
* Numerous rules tweaks, including a new initiative system, Fuzzy Logic skill checks, player-directed combat modifiers, amped-up martial arts rules, a new experience system, and more, all dedicated to upgrading UA's innovative percentile system into a lean and precise tool for fast play and player empowerment.
* More magick for non-adepts: Authentic Thaumaturgy, new rituals and artifacts, and revised versions of Proxy Magick and Tilts allow the freewheeling use of symbolic, sympathetic magick by anyone with the will to make it happen.
* Twelve schools of magick (up from seven in UA1) for obsessed adepts, including revised versions of published schools (Bibliomancy, Personamancy, and Urbanomancy) and two new schools (Videomancy and Narcotic Alchemy).
* Fourteen avatars (up from eight in UA1) for archetypalists, including revised versions of published avatars (The Messenger, The Mother, The Mystic Hermaphrodite, and the True King) and two new avatars (The MVP and The Warrior).
* More resources for the GM, including specific guidance on combat, wounds, skill checks, campaign building, and other critical issues.
* New cover art and design, new interior art and design, and a hardcover binding to keep this game in line.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers -
This is one of the most fun RPGs I've had the pleasure of GM'ing. It's dark, fun, sometimes humorous, and overall a blast to play.
Rated by buyers -
Unknown Armies is the game that brought me back as a RPG enthuisiast. When the very first edition of this game came along I had grown tired of the overly popular games such as Dungeons and Dragons and all the World of Darkness games. I read an online review of Unknown Armies and its intrigued me so much that I got the game. I read it over and instantly was drawn in. Unknown Armies seemlessly blends its setting and its system. Its truly a character driven game where the beliefs (obsessions and passions) of the characters can affect the outcome of the game and the sucess of dice roles. The modified percentile system that the game uses works great and stays in the background, not intruding the roleplaying and plot development. Tynes and Stolze created a unique cosmology that sets UA a head above the rest of the modern occult, horror, and conspiracy games that are out there. The 2nd Edition of the game corrects a couple of bumps in the system such as spending experience points. More importantly the 2nd Edition sets the framework for very exciting and interesting UA campaigns. This is the best modern setting RPG out there and I am serious in saying that it has the potential for being the best paper-and-pencil RPG. I hate to use the words "instant classic", since that is such an oxymoron, but this definitely will be a classic of RPGs.
Rated by buyers -
If you're a roleplayer, and you're tired of the same-old stuff, give this a look. The very first edition of Unknown Armies was good, but the 2nd edition is much improved--the elegant rules are somewhat simplified and easier to grasp now (and thereby more elegant). The book is organized more logically, and the writers provide much better information on how to run a campaign, giving this book a lot more direction.
It's a very setting-specific game: It seems that the world we know is full of secrets, and when you start to learn of some of them, everything changes for you. That in itself isn't original, but the details often are. The "feel" of the game is that choices have consequences.
The rules focus properly on role-playing over rolling dice. Character generation is fast and simple, with only 4 characteristics, and no definitive skill list (players can make up their own skills, subject to GM approval). Combat requires only two rolls per round: initiative and a single attack/damage roll--whether you hit and how much damage you do is resolved in the same roll. There are three different and fascinating systems of magic, all easy to use, believable within the context, and highly flexible. The "sanity" rules are an improvement over the already-good Call of Cthulhu rules.
A comparison to Call of Cthulhu is apt--both Tynes and Stolze have written quite a lot of Call of Cthulhu material in the past, and it seems almost a cliche now that so many people who read this book immediately start to think of how to incorporate Call of Cthulhu into it. But while there are many correspondances, at their hearts, Unknown Armies and Call of Cthulhu are opposites, and merging them is a difficult (but worthy) task. CoC is about a nihilistic spiral into madness and death; Unkown Armies is about desire, hope, and what you'll do to get them--and the consequences of your actions. As dark as it can be, Unknown Armies is set in a human-centered world; CoC is set in an alien-centered world, in which human hopes are utterly irrelevant. Both are wonderful games.
Rated by buyers -
It isn't often that I can read an role-playing game cover to cover and find that the game is playable and it reads well. Unknown Armies, UA, is a fantastic game with ten gaming ideas for every paragraph.
The system is a simple percentile system but the system is elegant, letting the player characters flip numbers under certain role-playing situations. It plays dramatic and fast.
The combat chapter begins with ways to avoid a fight. Then it launches into the way combat works. Beautiful.
Magick is brutal and extracts a price.
The world is fun and has a captivating cosmology while still allowing the DM and the players to make some choices about how the world really works and the headlines of the paper are fine adventure fodder.
I cannot stress enough how well written and fun this game is. I have both played and run it. Please pick it up and find out for yourself.
The works of Tim Powers are where many of the metaphysical ideas of the game come from. Check out his novels if the game appeals to you.
Rated by buyers -
This game is well worth it, and that's putting it mildly.
The game's mechanics are simple whether you play street, global, or cosmic, and the fact that you're not limited by JUST what's in the book as far at character types makes it take your creativity to a whole new level; the only limits here are those of your imagination, and what your GM will allow. Over all, the game strikes me as a combo of Mage; the Ascension, Call of Cthulu, with a healthy dose Jung,(the man, not the game:) thrown in.
The trick here is that the simple game mechanics may not work for game players who come from "traditional" statistic laden systems that simply require a dice roll to solve most problems; players must think originally, creativly, and the game indulges you to go places that some folks may fear to tread, so it may not be for everyone. It'll be a grand and enjoyable challenge for both GM's as well as players.
Myself, I like it a lot, as it challenges more than just a few traditional ideas about life, the universe and everything; be prepared to be changed by this game, if ye dare!!!
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