Unknown Armies character creation session

[Ferry Bazelmans]

A few weeks ago I stumbled upon a few people (let's just name them, it's easier that way - Robin, Robert and Roy) who were looking to start a new group and desperately needed someone to GM. This was of course an excellent way to see if I could get one of the many rpgs pining away in my bookcase played at last.

I met Robin and Roy in a local bar and we just discussed what we liked about certain games, settings and genres, just to get it clear what they liked and wanted from a game. I'd brought along both Kult and Unknown Armies, because both games are

A) playable in a number of styles
B) dark (which seemed to be what they wanted)
C) not being played and were in no danger of being played anytime soon with my existing circle of gaming contacts

I found out Robin was very keen on not being deprotagonized. He wanted to be in the middle of the story without ever feeling like he was being tossed about like a paper boat in a summerstorm. Roy was more interested in the possibility of roleplaying kick-ass brooding heroes (in any given setting).

In the end, we decided on Unknown Armies, after I read them some flavor from the book, explained the interesting hooks in the setting and I explained where I wanted to go with the plot and the theme.

Robert (who'd only ever made a character for AD&D without even playing so much as a minute) couldn't make it, but we agreed to come together last Wednesday and make characters in a group session, since I explained how that usually creates a bond between characters right from the start (since concepts and ideas fly across the table and people pick up on them, creating links between characters).

Last Wednesday was that character creation session. I'd put the basic character creation steps in a little guide for each player. This eased everything along marvelously, since I didn't have to concentrate on one player and leave the rest hanging. After they'd come up with a concept and a personality (defined by either traits or a few quotes), they went through the rest of the process. They decided from the start that they did not want their characters to be familiar with the setting (the Celestial Clergy, the existence of magick or the occult underground and so on).

The game will be set in 1990 in NY City and will start on December 31st 1989 at 11:59 PM btw.

The characters:

Maria di Alfredi - a young woman trying to make it as an actress and dancer, both on Broadway and in independent films. She works her ass off giving aerobics lessons to bored housewives and spends much of her free time rehearsing and training for auditions.

? - A homeless vet, living on the streets of New York and spending much of his time in the shelters around Brooklyn. Has the feeling Uncle Sam betrayed him when he came back home and was spat upon. Heart of gold though.

Mich Garcia - a courier with his own one-man company. He rents a small warehouse where he spends most of his time when he's not out dodging traffic on his way to deliver a package. Knows he would never get by if he only made purely legal runs, but doesn't want to know what he's carrying. Also in possession of two large dobermanns. Not to keep people out of his warehouse, but to keep them from putting stuff in it.

Mickey Johnson - Washed-up biker à la Easy Rider and Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man. Spends most of his time hanging in bars trying to relive his glory years with the Angels.

Jeff Hardly - The mafia's choice medical practicioner when they need some work done on one of their men and they don't want to be seen in a hospital. Doesn't really have any medical background whatsoever, but has a strange fetish for cuts.

Of these only Maria, Mich and, to a slightly lesser extent, the vet really jump out at me. The Doc and Mickey seem to be a bit bland, but this could of course be remedied in play. I'll have to wait and see.

And now for the plot:

As the last step in character creation, I had each player write their character's name down in the center of a virginally white piece of paper and then told them to associate some people, concepts or organizations with the character and write them down. This produced a character-centred relationship map. Of course, since they'd been at the same table when they though up their characters, it's rather easy to assemble these personal maps into a larger one and draw some additional relations in there. This will produce my relationship map for the game and it should come in quite handy when I'm stumped for a direction in the plot.

One common element that is part of most characters' backstory or relationship map is the mafia, so that's definitely the glue that can bring these people together. Maria might have some familymembers in the mafia, Mich will probably do runs for them now and again, Doc operates on their goons and Mickey and the Vet will no doubt have done run into them at one point or another.

All in all, I see some great leads for games. I conciously want to avoid the Shadowrunesque games of "Here's the mission, go do it". I want the characters to be in the middle of the plot, not at the periphery, trying to solve my premedicated puzzles.

Anyway, I just thought I'd share this. I'll keep you posted on the actual sessions. :)

Ferry

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Ferry,

I like one aspect of the characters' (or rather, the players' contract) quite a bit - the deliberate downplaying of the whole "occult underground" thing as a basis for the characters' goals. Just as Call of Cthulhu became more and more focused on the "occult investigators" paradigm, UA seems to me, judging by the supplements, to have become focused on "everyone knows all about Avatars and has a scam going on about them."

My own play of Unknown Armies was fun as hell but it was definitely along the lines of the published scenarios: freaky characters crammed together in a tight space, watch fireworks. If I were to play a longer-term game (as Dav has hinted he might run one day), I'd go much more in the direction that you have.

I suggest one major consideration that is unfortunately completely absent from the rules: tons of NPCs who generate emotional commitment from the players. Not, "This is your character's sister, he loves her," but rather, playing a character such that the players like having them around and respect (and come to own) their emotional state. Without this, I think that UA characters are not much more than an exercise in personality-mechanics and blood-spattered imagery.

Best,
Ron

[Mike Holmes]

Ron brings up an interesting point. I, too, like to start characters out as unaware of the supernatural elements. It is a much btter way of developing the characters in the long haul as Ron suggests.

But this does mean that in UA and CoC, and the like that you are more or less on your own as far as published material. This is a real problem in such scenario stuff. They all assume a sort of generic level of knowledge about such things as though the characters are caught in some steady state of understanding (despite rules in CoC for a Mythos Skill). UA even provides three of these steady states, but it would be difficult for them to assume that there were characters at different levels of understanding for a particular scenario.

In any case, this is important. Because uninformed characters are at a much greater risk. While even the player may have an understanding of the fact that these supernatural elements exist, it takes some really tricky (and sometimes unauthorized) use of Author stance to keep such players alive against the complete unknown. And they will not have use (full at least) of the powers that the game often assumes that they will need to come out alive.

Which means that you have to come up with all this on your own, Ferry. Which I'm sure you're capable of. How do you intend to keep these characters alive? Or do you intend to use the "serial character" method (character dies, and the next becomes more knowledgable through investigation of said death or the like) to advance character knowledge. Or do you intend to keep the characters in the dark indefinitely?

Mike

[Ferry Bazelmans]

Ron brings up an interesting point. I, too, like to start characters out as unaware of the supernatural elements. It is a much btter way of developing the characters in the long haul as Ron suggests.

Well, I gave them the choice. I had no problem running a UA game where players knew more, but they really wanted to grow into the setting. Which is fine by me, since it gives *me* a chance to adjust to the setting. :)

Which means that you have to come up with all this on your own, Ferry. Which I'm sure you're capable of. How do you intend to keep these characters alive? Or do you intend to use the "serial character" method (character dies, and the next becomes more knowledgable through investigation of said death or the like) to advance character knowledge. Or do you intend to keep the characters in the dark indefinitely?

Well, the nice thing about UA is that most unnatural things that occur don't challenge your sanity straight away. I am not going to throw them into the midst of the occult underground, but rather confront them with the cosmology of UA, letting them decide when they want to delve deeper into it.

At the moment, with the mafia theme going, I'm thinking of having the local don be a mechanomancer who is into the habit of skinning his henchmen and stuffing them full of clockwork in an effort to create a more obedient workforce and have them outlast most of his loyal but still living lieutenants. On the outside, this would not be visible. Sure, the goons act kind of strange (or really strange, depending on where you're coming from), but most people won't do anything more than gossip.

Until the good doctor has to operate on one of them and "forgets" about it almost immediately. He does get plagued by nightmares though. :)

And Maria goes to a funeral for her cousin Tony, where she is sure she sees an uncle of hers who is supposed to be dead and buried (a slip-up, the uncle is an automaton).

Slowly but surely I'll feed them into the UA cosmology. Where they want to go in that cosmology however is their choice.

Ferry