A character faces a stress check whenever one of their shock meters is threatened. If the character can’t avoid the assault on their psyche, they have to defend themselves to find out whether they become more hardened or broken by the experience. If this happens too many times, they will either burn out or go mad.
Unknown Armies is a sandbox game that gives players a framework for their characters to become invested in and affect the playing world. There are a handful of character aspects and mechanical levers that are key to this interaction. Most of these are captured on the character sheet. This summary …
Unknown Armies is a game about characters trying to fix the world. Collective objectives are a useful mechanic to focus the cabal on doing just that.
But do they become irrelevant when you’re running a one-shot with the 3rd edition rules?
The world after 03/03/03 has definitely hardened. The baseline tolerance or immunity for physical and emotional stress has been raised. A higher exposure to shock has become normalised in the world of UA3. Coercion is going to be harder to push. But when you do, the consequences are going to be more intense for characters.
Changing the world in Unknown Armies usually involves breaking it with some kind of Unnatural force. There’s more than one option available for using the Unnatural or magick. This guide will help you choose which type suits your character.
Identities capture the role or exceptional powers of a character in the world. They may represent a mundane persona, a supernatural talent, an adept magickal tradition, or an avatar of an archetype. The mechanics supporting them are broadly consistent, but there are slightly different treatments for each.
Generating a character in Unknown Armies 3 is, by default, a collaborative process that is tightly integrated with world-building. It’s designed for setting the campaign stage, and knitting the cabal together and into a world that the players and GM want to explore. But that’s just one of four different methods described in UA3. So, where do you start?
It’s fair to say that player- and character-driven roleplaying has moved on since previous editions, and Unknown Armies 3 has been brought up to date with a bang.
The focus throughout this site will be on the third edition (UA3). You won’t need prior knowledge of the game system or setting. But if you are familiar with earlier versions, here are the main differences in a nutshell.
