[UA] On the product line and my relationship with UA (LONG fanboy rant)

[Ville Halonen]

I actually completed my collection of UA books inside a month (or less) from buying the game. I totally freaked out. 

The funny thing is how I bumped into it in the first place. 

I went to the gaming store sometime last November, I think, checking out if Fluid Mechanics (for Blue Planet v2) had finally arrived. It had, IIRC, but I had no money and it didn't look too good, so I flipped through a few other books on the Just Arrived table. I wondered what the one titled Hush Hush was, the cover looked good. "A Sleepers Sourcebook" for Unknown Armies. 

Wait a minute, didn't I notice the name sometime reading the Blue Planet mailing list and didn't someone convert BP to the UA system?

And why's it say "Recommended for mature readers" on the back cover? Is this one of those Black Dog style books including shockingly violent or pornographic pictures for shocking violence's or pornography's sake? No, oh my, this one actually looks good...so I walked to the Atlas Games section on the game shelf and took out UA, and the layout looked very nice. And what's that, Postmodern Magick? Sounds neat. What? Iconomancy? Pornomancy? Annihilomancy? Infomancy? Urbanomancy?

Whaaaaat's this?! 

We were freaking out with my friend over the inside cover pictures and I promised myself to check the game out on RPG.net the next day, and fell immediately in love, drooling over the reviews, and borrowed the needed money from the aforementioned friend.

Next up was LG$, and then the rest in one big bunch. All inside a month, maybe less.

And now I'm the happy owner of 'em all, and a happy GM also. We've had a few sessions now, with an unfortunate and somewhat unexplainable pause since the previous one, and although there hasn't been much going on except for one character (whose player is so satisfied with his character and active that he gets an advantage over the more passive players and me being an amateur GM haven't done much about it), everyone has fun --- or so I hope. 

Funnily we have four mages...a personamancer (the active one) who has attained a very obedient servant named Ralph; an entropomancer, a whacko who has actually played the russian rulette once for fun, and is a good character, although somewhat of a comic pain-in-the-ass --- and sometimes a comic relief; an urbanomancer, who hasn't done that much; an a dipsomancer, who also hasn't done that much.

I'd say more, if the entropomancer fella didn't read this list. 

I made a few amateurish mistakes with my GMing, being an amateur, but it's been fun, and I'm looking forward to running more and developing the plot and the GMCs and my skills. But most of all, giving something for the urbanomancer and the dipsomancer, and finally having clearly understood the passions, playing them up more.

But I digress (boy, did it take long to figure out what the word means!). I was supposed to write up short reviews of the books, so here goes.

The core book's a great read, and actually the first roleplaying book in English that I've read twice, at least in a ca. three-month span. Very inspiring and thought-provoking (and scary, when it comes to the madness chapter), and worth every penny. And I've never, ever read as weird an adventure as BI3P.

One Shots was a surprise. I never thought I'd like a collection of premade adventures, but hey, if one adventure pits the players against one another, the other makes you write up a story in-character and the third quotes Bret Easton Ellis in the title page, can it be bad? No, it wasn't, and I think it's a great book, perhaps even one of my favorites.

LG$ is quite nice. Roll Your Bones was awesome the first time, but honestly, I think it lacks the finesse in writing to last indefinitely as a great read. A fine story, but Mr. Stolze has done better job stylewise. Full of fun stuff, but there's not much that I do with the adventures as I've never thought of running TNI-based groups. The first one's quite a killer, though, IIRC.

I'll have to read PoMoMa again, and actually I'm gonna read 'em all again, but especially this one. I read it in bits, a few pages now, Statosphere then, a little more PoMoMa, Hush Hush, and then finally finishing PoMoMa. A few GREAT schools (Annihilomancy, Bibliomancy, Cryptomancy and Infomancy, at least), the Magick Theory chapter is wonderful, and there's not much to complain---except for the GMCs. Maybe it's that I had just read Hush Hush, but quite frankly most of the GMCs in PoMoMa suck. There's simply nothing too inspiring or imaginative or well-conceived to me. Here's where this could've, and should've, excelled with examples of newly introduced magick school practitioners and unique unnatural characters. 

And I don't know whether a Cliomancer has messed around with my brain, but I really remember so little of PoMoMa stuff. Have to read it again.

Kicking off with the absolutely mind-blowing Stolze fiction Statosphere not only looks great, but also tastes great. The House of Renunciation chapter is imaginative, terrific and terrifying, and inspiring. Can't wait to introduce them to my game.

And Hush Hush must be my favorite of the supplements. The Doggie story is marvelous, and at least as good as A Stone in a Shoe. Can't, and don't want to, say which is better, but as if the creators of this game hadn't done so already, both give me strength to believe that it IS possible to write honestly well-written RPG fiction. The rest of the book isn't any worse---lots of setting background, nice CotT rules and other useful additions (and the locations! Geez!), but what really excels in this book are the GMCs. I don't think there were any average ones, and lousy ones are straight out: extremely fantastic and entertaining characters that set standards for awesome GMCs. I'd never thought to have liked premade chars, but thank you for showing me that it was just a matter of never seeing GOOD ones.

In a humanocentric game such as this I think it's important to introduce characters who really are human, have their histories and reasons for what they do, however sick---unlike the superhumans or empty silhouettes in PoMoMa. When I run UA, I want to express and examine the human nature and society and everything human by various means granted by this greater-than-life game, and so I get my kicks out of isolated, carve-both-of-your-eyes-out-sick'n'sad humans and ice cold personamancer bitches rather than super-statted, unbeatable (as I recall) Avatars of the Merchant, who are more like (quite good) plot tools than characters.

That's why I like Watchmen and From Hell and Batman (and Alan Moore and Alan Moore and Alan Moore, did I say Alan Moore already?) over Superman. 

I can't praise Hush Hush enough. And I love Lucifuge. Okay, it's not human, but it's utterly, thoroughly cool, and it does add certain dimensions to the humans surrounding it.

I want more supplements to spend my badly-needed-for-food money on! In the mean time, I try to keep up with the list, which offers great discussion and ideas, so thanks to everyone here, also.

Enough ass-licking and shooting up egoboosters up the veins of those responsible,

-V
The unspeakable supporter

P.S. Got lucky at the local library's used books' sellout: purchased the hardcover Finnish translation of Foucault's Pendulum for something like 60 cents (new HC's cost ca. 20$, but I'm not up to date with the exchange rates). Shows how little brains the personnel's got, but hey, can I complain? It's not in mint condition, after ten years of public use, but it's pretty damn near to good as new, beating the crap out of most second-hand books. Apparently people don't read anything that heavy anymore. Which comes as no surprise. 

P.P.S. Finally saw The Exorcist, although it was the Director's Cut. Was very impressed, way better than I remembered from last seeing it. The ending was lame, though; should watch the original.


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