Episode 54 - The Good Friends delve into the Unknown

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Scott Dorward
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Episode 54 - The Good Friends delve into the Unknown

Post by Scott Dorward » Sun Jun 14, 2015 12:05 pm

This episode we’re taking a look at Unknown Armies, a roleplaying game that’s not strictly horror, but is close enough that we feel little remorse for talking about it. We also have too many hardened notches to feel remorse in general. We’ve done bad things. One of these bad things is discussing many GM-only parts of the game, so be warned that we’re laying its secrets as bare as the Naked Goddess herself.

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Re: Episode 54 - The Good Friends delve into the Unknown

Post by FrankyD » Sun Jun 14, 2015 6:51 pm

OK I guess I can handle that ... but I hope the nakedness was just used in a metaphorical sense ...
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Re: Episode 54 - The Good Friends delve into the Unknown

Post by Scott Dorward » Sun Jun 14, 2015 7:00 pm

Let's just say that there's a good reason why this isn't a video podcast.

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Re: Episode 54 - The Good Friends delve into the Unknown

Post by Keeper Kvallning » Sun Jun 14, 2015 7:31 pm

Looking forward to the new episode, currently working my way through the back catalogue right now!
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Re: Episode 54 - The Good Friends delve into the Unknown

Post by FrankyD » Sun Jun 14, 2015 7:37 pm

Scott Dorward wrote:Let's just say that there's a good reason why this isn't a video podcast.
Now I am thankful for that ... so I can "spend" my sanity on the important stuff, like "coffee is empty", "slow wifi" and "telemarketers" ;-)
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Re: Episode 54 - The Good Friends delve into the Unknown

Post by Dr. Gerard » Tue Jun 16, 2015 2:52 am

Unknown Armies has been on my bucket list for years, but this episode has buoyed it right to the top. I have always sought magic systems that are unusual and exact an interesting cost from users. I had no idea how deep the strangeness and the costs really went in UA. I really need to find someone to run it.

Sounds like its features are best displayed in a campaign, eh? What would you say is a minimum length of campaign for optimal exploration? 6 sessions? 10 sessions? One year?
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Re: Episode 54 - The Good Friends delve into the Unknown

Post by Fasckira » Tue Jun 16, 2015 8:49 am

Dr. Gerard wrote:Unknown Armies has been on my bucket list for years, but this episode has buoyed it right to the top. I have always sought magic systems that are unusual and exact an interesting cost from users. I had no idea how deep the strangeness and the costs really went in UA. I really need to find someone to run it.

Sounds like its features are best displayed in a campaign, eh? What would you say is a minimum length of campaign for optimal exploration? 6 sessions? 10 sessions? One year?
I played UA recently with Scott over 8 weeks and while it was very enjoyable it definitely felt like the type of game you'd want to set up and play for a bit more. I had never played UA previously and it took me a couple of sessions to wrap my head around how things worked both in setting and system but even accounting for that there was the definite feeling that my character had a lot more mileage in him/her.
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Re: Episode 54 - The Good Friends delve into the Unknown

Post by Scott Dorward » Tue Jun 16, 2015 9:46 am

Dr. Gerard wrote:Sounds like its features are best displayed in a campaign, eh? What would you say is a minimum length of campaign for optimal exploration? 6 sessions? 10 sessions? One year?
I've run a few campaigns, and the longest has been eight sessions. The short campaign is a good way to highlight one or two areas of the setting; you can certainly have others in there for window dressing, but they'll see little exploration. Personally, I find this approach works well for me, as I like focused games.

Street-Level games seem to work especially well for one-shots. You have a bunch of people who know little or nothing of the Occult Underground suddenly bumping up against this world of weirdness. It's a bit like Call of Cthulhu meets Neverwhere when this happens.

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Re: Episode 54 - The Good Friends delve into the Unknown

Post by Morthrai » Tue Jun 16, 2015 3:37 pm

Having a second listen to the UA episode has just reminded me that Scott's "Lamp Posts In Bloom" scenario was the very first submission for Protodimension that was not written by one of we three editors, if memory serves 8-)
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Re: Episode 54 - The Good Friends delve into the Unknown

Post by Scott Dorward » Tue Jun 16, 2015 3:41 pm

Morthrai wrote:Having a second listen to the UA episode has just reminded me that Scott's "Lamp Posts In Bloom" scenario was the very first submission for Protodimension that was not written by one of we three editors, if memory serves 8-)
Blimey! I never realised that!

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