Unknown Armies and/or Night's Black Agents

[tormsen]

I am thinking of running one or both of these games with some crew IRL, so I thought I might test the water to see what kind of interest there was in playing either of these on the forums.

A brief overview for those who don't know:

Unknown Armies: A game of surreal occult horror by John Tynes and Greg Stolze, that emphasizes human obsession, power and consequences. In many ways, the philosophical polar opposite of Call of Cthulhu, but no less awesome. Players would begin as ordinary people who have brushed with the occult underground, and make their way into this world that lies just under the banality of ordinary life. It draws on everything from the fantasy novels of Tim Powers, the films of David Lynch and David Cronenberg, the Illuminatus! Trilogy, and comic books such as Grant Morrison's The Invisibles. The system is pretty straightforward, percentile-based and quite elegant in it's own way.

Night's Black Agents: A new game from Kenneth Hite, which combines the genres of spies, thriller and vampires. Kenneth Hite described it as "The Bourne trilogy if Treadstone was vampires." You play burned ex-agents of various national intelligence agencies, with your own particular set of skills. You build badass agents from the paranoid world of espionage and they stumble across vampires. The system is designed for each Director (GM) to custom build their own vampires and the conspiracy associated with them. It uses the GUMSHOE system by Robin D. Laws, designed for investigative roleplaying (also used in Trail of Cthulhu).

Anyway, I would be happy to run either or both of these games on the forum, if people are interested. What say you?

[Dave Syrinx]

Sounds like a plan. I did run an [UA]-game here a couple of years ago with CoC-rules. "And I feel fine..." from the One shots scenario book.
I used the pregens from the scenario and I think it was a success.

[Mr. Handy]

I'd play in either of those games. I would have said I've never played Unknown Armies before, but I played in "And I feel fine..." - I just never knew it was an Unknown Armies adventure until today. I played Night's Black Agents in a tournament at DEXCON last year, where Ken Hite himself was there and ran it for one of the groups (not mine). I played the Roger Moore version of James Bond in that one. I was killed by a spider the size of a Volkswagen. Actually, most of us in my group were, but it got me first. I did get to be cool and debonair before that, though, and even saved the girl, who survived the adventure. There's going to be another NBA tournament at DEXCON this July, also hosted by Ken Hite, and I may play in that one too.

[tormsen]

You lucky bastard. I am trying to find extra jobs to afford a trip to GENCON, but it's a big unknown at the moment. Expensive going to the US from Korea.

Anyway, I will start preparing some basic character generation information for both games, and wait for some more people to show interest. I will likely run a scenario from one of the UA books, but design my own NBA campaign. Therefore, the UA will probably get organized faster.

[Tabs]

N.B.A. sounds interesting. Chalk me up as a possible player, please.

[tormsen]

For players interested in UA: have you read any of the adventures? Particularly the Bill Toge adventure from the main book, or the adventures from Weep or One Shots? That will help me decide. Also, how does one go about setting one of these things up, anyway?

NBA is still in the works, just trying to get my head around GUMSHOE for the time being.

[Mr. Handy]

I haven't read or played any UA adventures, except for "And I feel fine..."

[Priest]

Just got a copy of NBA, when you do it give me a shout it looks interesting.

[Mr. Handy]

I can set up a forum when you're ready. I'll need the name of the game and a short text blurb (like you'll see with the other games here) first. You can just post them here to let me know when you've decided what you're running.

[tormsen]

Cool, I have written up the character generation stuff already so I can get things started.

[Unknown Armies] Bill in Three Persons

The story of a man divided begins at a lonely crossroad.

[Mr. Handy]

I set up the forum here and made you its Keeper. I placed it in Other Eras and Settings since it's a different system, and I don't know when the game takes place.

[tormsen]

Thanks. I can't find the file where I put all the UA character generation stuff, so I may have to rewrite it. Hopefully I can get it done this week, or next week.

[thumbprince]

I don't mean to threadjack, but is there enough interest for NBA too?

[tormsen]

I think there is. I'm not ready to get it running yet, but I'm working on it.

[thumbprince]

I could start a DG game using the Dunwich Sanction rules in the main book. I have something fleshed out for a game set in the 1990s....

[tormsen]

I'll be in for that, sounds good.

[thumbprince]

viewtopic.php?f=39&t=4086 - thread for Delta Green via NBA interest.

[thumbprince]

Mr. Handy has set up the game, Dark Margin, in the DG section. Thanks!