Connect Two Elements
Each player connects two elements that are unrelated. One of them could be a new element. The link may be made to another PC with their permission.
Category: World Building
Character generation in Unknown Armies is a collaborative player-led process that is tightly integrated with world-building. It is designed for setting the campaign stage and scenario objectives, while knitting the cabal group together and into a world that both the players and GM want to explore.
It takes place as the first session of play, known as the Character Phase.
References: UA3, Book 2: Run. Chapter 2 ‘Objectives’. Chapter 3 ‘Characters, Cabals and the Stage’.
Add another Identity
Add a second identity that defines what the character is, to the exclusion of other things they could have been.
Relate to a Player Character
Pick another player character to fill one of your relationship slots (guru, mentor, protégé, favourite or responsibility). The starting value will be determined by the value of the upbeat ability of the shock meter that is associated with the relationship type.
Add and Connect One New Element (GM)
The GM adds a new character or location, and then defines a connection to it. It could be linked to another element or to any of the player characters.
Add Your First Identity
Pick one identity at this stage. It should be really useful for indulging your character’s particular obsession, and for pursuing the cabal’s objective.
Describe some Of course I can examples and pick an ability it substitutes for.
Describe Your Obsession
Describe what your character just can’t help but be obsessed about. This is the lens through which they see the world and the impulse that drives their actions. If their rage, fear and noble passions spin their moral compass, their obsession points to their magnetic north.
Add and Connect New Elements
Each player in turn brings one new location or GM character into play. They then draw a line connecting it to either their own character or a different element that has been introduced.
Describe your Unnatural Trigger
Every character in Unknown Armies has an ‘origin story’ that describes how they came across the Unnatural. In this step, each player describes their character’s experience. This is then translated into notches on their Unnatural shock meter.
Set a Cabal Objective
The first thing players and the GM do is to agree the type of challenge they want to face, and the specific objective they want to pursue initially. They’ll set out a path with the key milestones they expect to hit as they go after it.
This is the single most important part of the character phase.
Set the Stage
The stage is the framework of the campaign: “a loose collection of seeds for the GM to play with and the players to use as a wish list.”
Start collecting seeds to bring to the first session, at which the group will begin selecting and arranging them into the broken world they want to fix.