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 covers the essential mechanics behind some of these levers. It’s useful in play to understand strategic situational options, and also when making key character design decisions.
Cabal Objective
One of the first things a playing group determines in the character creation process is the cabal objective. It is set collaboratively to reflect the specific change they want to bring about in the world, or the truth they want to discover (or create), along with a plan or path to get there.
If the cabal anchors the characters, the objective provides a collective focus to pursue, and a hook for forward momentum.
Progress made towards the objective is measured on a percentile scale. New objectives are set when old ones are met (or abandoned).
The cabal ties are strengthened through relationships that characters define with the group as a whole and other player characters.
Obsession
This is the key driver for an individual character. It transcends group objectives, which get reset as the campaign progresses. Characters pursue their cabal objectives through the lens of their obsessions.
The obsession is always connected to a core identity of the character. The obsession identity for an adept is always their school of magick.
A character can always flip-flop rolls made against the related identity, to turn a failed roll into a success, or to improve a successful roll.
The GM can use obsessions to tempt characters into taking certain actions or to confront them with difficult choices, especially when the cabal objective and obsession appear to be opposed.
Passions
These are triggers for the character that might illicit rage, noble and fear responses.
Characters can always re-roll a failed check in a situation that a passion is triggered, or flip-flop once per session.
The fear passion is connected to a shock meter, decided by the player at character creation. When it is triggered, the character is subjected to a stress check against that meter. If they can’t withstand it, this will result in adding a hardened or failed notch to the meter, increasing the chances of the character becoming callous or insane.
The GM pulls on passions in a similar way to obsessions. In crude terms, while an obsession is actively pursued, a passion is most often compelled as a reaction to a situation.
Shock Meters
Shock meters are critical to Unknown Armies, and represent the psychological temperament of a character in five key areas: violence, sense of self, helplessness, isolation and the unnatural.
How resilient or broken any of these meters are – marked by hardened and failed notches respectively – indicates how close to burning out or going mad the character is.
These notches accumulate separately on each meter, and whenever a character faces a stress check they have to defend against. If they pass, they become more hardened. If they don’t, they mark a failed notch.
- When shock meters become too hardened, a character becomes increasingly callous. When they either accrue 25 hardened notches across their shock gauge or they harden two shock meters completely, they are burned out, and can no longer use their passions (to re-roll or flip-flop) or their avatar identity.
- If a character accumulates 5 failed notches in a meter they suffer trauma, and develop a permanent mental disorder. Whenever they have to defend any future stress checks against that meter, they automatically fail, causing them to fight, flee or freeze until the threat is removed.
Both of these consequences fundamentally break people and most characters will want to actively resist this outcome. That also makes attacks on shock meters a crucial lever for changing the world. Both the GM and player characters exploit this through coercion.
A burned out or broken meter can be healed by undergoing treatment with somebody who has an identity with the Therapeutic feature. This is a slow process, but can restore use of passions and the avatar identity.
When a character becomes an adept (either at the start of a campaign, or during play) they accrue an additional hardened and failed notch in relevant shock meters.
Abilities
Each character has a series of upbeat and downbeat abilities that are linked in pairs directly to their shock meters. As a meter hardens, its upbeat ability diminishes and the corresponding downbeat ability goes up.
Abilities are measured on a percentile scale, and rolled against when a character wants to do things in stressful, critical or uncommon circumstances.
Some abilities are also used to defend stress checks against the specific shock meters. Coercing a stress check to harden one shock meter can alter a character’s capacity to defend against future stress checks on a different meter.
Identities
Every character has ten generic paired abilities, but typically just 2-4 personalised identities. These uniquely define their persona and role in the world.
Players can define character identities quite broadly. Usually they will include 2-3 features that provide key mechanical effects and benefits. These features (Play, p43) are the only ways to:
- improve a character’s capacity to take physical damage (Provides Wound Threshold)
- effectively shoot guns (Provide Firearms Attacks)
- treat the physically wounded (Medical) and mentally troubled (Therapeutic)
Identities are measured on a percentile rating, just like abilities, relationships and objectives. All mundane identities can substitute for one or more abilities, which are declared when the identity is defined. This allows a character to decouple the chances of succeeding in related activities from any changes that are forced to a corresponding shock meter through a stress check.
Though they aren’t tied to shock meters, they are also not static. Identities can improve through failed experiences. At the end each session that a character makes an identity check and fails, they get to increase the identity rating by 1-5 points (Play, p45).
The exception is avatar identities, which behave in the opposite way. These increase at the end of a session in which they are successfully checked. They can also decrease by a similar amount if the character breaks their taboos that session.
Taking an avatar or adept identity is the only way a character can cast powerful magick or channel archetypal powers. Other identities, including supernatural ones, give characters the tools they need to tap into the Unnatural.
Coercion
Coercion is a core means by which one character can try and change another character in the world. They may want to get them to reconsider their position and beliefs, or to follow a particular course of action that they may not initially be inclined towards.
The coercion mechanism is built on establishing a credible threat against a target character, and then rolling against a relevant identity (with the Coerces Meter feature), relationship or ability to persuade the target they are serious.
If this threat roll succeeds, the target can choose to either acquiesce or resist. If they resist, they must face a stress check, with all the consequences to their sanity as described above.
The rank of a stress check that the target faces is determined by how well the agitator succeeds in their threat roll, and whether they can bring either their own or the target’s passions into play (Play, p56).
A supernatural identity with the feature Specific Information can be helpful to infer information about a target’s passion triggers. An identity with a Unique feature to read a person can also be used to bring passions into play to increase the stress rank.
An identity with the Evaluate a Meter feature can be used to discern vulnerabilities across the shock gauge that a coercion attempt can better exploit.
Conflict
When coercion fails, or simply a direct approach is required, characters can physically attack the opposition and any obstacles.
In the absence of a more suitable identity that provides martial skills or substitutes for the appropriate abilities:
- hand-to-hand combat actions, including grappling, disarming and using non-lethal weapons, usually require a Struggle check.
- throwing objects – from furniture to projectiles, including nets – usually involves a Fitness test.
You need an identity with the Provides Firearms Attacks feature (Play, p43) to be able to accurately shoot a gun against an active opponent. Otherwise the best you can do is make a Struggle check to attempt suppressive fire (Play, p66).
Be warned: combat is deadly, and recovery is slow.
Relationships
Characters have a number of explicit relationships with other players characters and with the cabal as a whole. They are sources of strength and renewal, as well as resources to tap into in pursuit of an objective. Relationships are also vulnerabilities that can be exploited for coercion, both by and against player characters.
There are five specific types of relationship that reflect how a character sees the object of the relationship: as their guru, mentor or protege, as someone they have responsibility towards, or someone they consider their favourite person.
Relationships are not necessarily reciprocal. Only one person or organisation can occupy a relationship slot.
Players don’t determine all of these relationships at the outset. They will have a defined relationship with at least one other player character and with the cabal as a whole. In the collaborative world-building process, they may define up to three relationships to begin with.
The strength of relationships is measured on a percentile scale. The value of the upbeat abilities of different shock meters determines initial ratings for each relationship. Once set, they then improve or worsen independently.
Characters will be connected to a wide range of elements in the game world – including probably some other player characters, as well as locations and organisations – without that connection being defined as one of these special relationships.
The Unnatural
There are plenty of mundane ways to influence and change the world. However, when that fails, or a character needs to push beyond normal parameters, they can tap into the Unnatural.
A single hardened Unnatural notch allows any character to roll against their Secrecy ability to perform improvised gutter magick tricks.
Use Gutter Magick is a feature that can be applied to identities to improve it independently of shock meters. Another feature is Casts Rituals, which involves greater dedication – such as being a priest or ritualist – but opens up magickal rites.
Anything more powerful or predictable requires a dedicated adept, avatar or supernatural identity.
- Adepts use powerful magick to bend the world to their ways, and which they can use to construct magical artefacts and places. Their school of magick is their obsession identity.
- Avatars behave in a manner that is aligned with universal archetypes, and through this alignment can channel immense power to shape the world, and eventually to potentially ascend into the collective unconscious.
- Supernatural identities provide a paranormal or psychic connection that a character can exploit.
Without any of these, characters can use artefacts. Both artefacts and rituals – and the means to cast them (such as charges and certain ingredients) – are relatively rare. Obtaining them – for whatever purpose – may well become cabal objectives.