Pyramid Pick
Unknown Armies, Second Edition
Published by Atlas Games
Written by Greg Stolze and John Tynes
Art by Samuel Araya, Paul Carrick, Moises Donoso Segundo, Felipe Echevvaria, Earl Geier, Matt Harpold, Vance Kelly, Ann Koi, Thomas Manning, Tony Moseley, Rob Nemeth, Dan Parsons, Jim Pavelec, Brian Snoddy, Drew Tucker, Haroudo Xavier
336 page B&W hardcover; $39.95
Now billed as "a roleplaying game of power and consequences," Unknown Armies takes as its central premise the "occult underground." In the peripheral vision of the normal world, people compete for occult power. From millionaires seeking transcendence to flesh magick adepts who lie rough on the streets to Avatars seeking to embody the archetypes of the human consciousness, those in the know exist in that hidden world. PCs may be members of the occult underground, its rulers, or ordinary people who find their lives affected by it. Whoever they may be, the occult underground is a part of their lives somehow.
All Unknown Armies PCs have an obsession. In addition to being a plot hook, the obsession has a mechanical effect. The system is percentile-based, and when a roll is made using a skill directly associated with a character's obsession, the digits on the dice can be "flip-flopped." For example, a roll of 92 (almost certainly a failure) could be switched to 29 (almost certainly not).
Unknown Armies hovers somewhere in the middle of the spectrum in terms of rules complexity. With just four stats (Body, Speed, Mind, and Soul) . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: July 26, 2002
Copyright © 2002 by Steve Jackson Games. All rights reserved. Pyramid subscribers are permitted to read this article online, or download it and print out a single hardcopy for personal use. Copying this text to any other online system or BBS, or making more than one hardcopy, is strictly prohibited. So please don't. And if you encounter copies of this article elsewhere on the web, please report it to webmaster@sjgames.com.