The Unknown Armies Open Table?

 

I've cooled off on open table games over the last decade or so. Pacing is really important, maybe the most important part of running a game, and ensuring every game ends at a "good stopping place" where you can swap players/characters in and out is a pain. Playing with a consistent cohort who don't need everything explained to them repeatedly (not just rules explanations but repeated recaps of who they are, who the NPCs are, what's going on in the game world) is way better.

 

On the other hand, I thought about running a UA3 open table long before I got sick of running this style of game. Weekly open table games get better attendance at the RPG club than oneshots demoing new systems, which struggle to scrape together even a couple players.

In Defense of +1 Swords

Fighters need all the help they can get. It's like their one thing.

Riverboat Gambler - Session Six

Roddy and Zigar went back up the mountain to clear out the dungeon. They took the mutants Afex, Mancy and Josh with them. The monsters disappeared into the wilderness almost immediately and when the Gamblers were about half way up the path to the cave they returned with a warning: Cortez' Rangers were waiting by the dungeon entrance. There were twelve rangers with camels and rifles and they were probably waiting for someone to come out of the dungeon so they could shake them down for money. They had no doubt spotted the steam from the Last Round parked down in the river and had likely spotted Roddy and Zigar climbing the hill.

 

The Great Glass Mountain - Session Thirteen

 

The balloon sailed overhead and the Company turned to pursue it along with the Companion Cavalry. They rode west out of the grasslands and into the forest. Autolykos and the Horn Knight loosed arrows at the envelope, hoping to hole it. A howl of rage came from the basket. It sounded like the Glass Knight. The Flying Swords shouted down that the pursuers ought to hold their fire, lest they kill the hostage.

As night fell they came to the base of a cliff that divided the forest, which the Flying Swords sailed over. The balloon was losing altitude but Autolykos' pony could gallop no further. The Knights left their mounts with him and scaled the cliff on foot while the Companions galloped north around the obstacle.

Riverboat Gamber - Session Five

Petzholdt

 

The Human Jack Fatherd, the Halfling Roddy Applecreek, and the Elves Aphono and Datura took the Last Round north, up a tributary river toward the mandrake plantation. The sun rose and scorpions scuttled from beneath the stones dotting the rocky hamada beyond the riverbank. A couple hours north of the rock pile the shore was studded with warning signs. RISK OF INSTANT DEATH - THIS MEANS YOU. Pictures of men covering their ears or dying as a plant headed man emerged from the earth.

 

His Majesty The Worm Monster Mash - Deep Dwarves

No true Dwarf would allow the sun to fall on his head. That’s the philosophy of the Deep Downers, a disaffected youth subculture of Underfolk who shun the surface entirely. The movement was never popular in the City due to the sheer impracticality of urban life entirely underground. That changed with the discovery of the underworld. In the ensuing gold rush a number of Deep Downer expeditions disappeared into the dungeon, vowing never to return. The bulk of them met grisly fates and came back as undead. 

A handful survived.

The Great Glass Mountain - Session Twelve

The Company sailed west out of the Screaming Seer's sanctum. They moved thrice as fast as they did on land and by midday they had circled the shining tower in the center of the inlet. Further west a monumental arch emerged from the beach, green and shining where the patina hadn't covered the silver beneath. They came upon a narrow boat carrying a scribe and his assistant. 

 

The Learned Numerator Alfger ceased his observations of nature and hailed the Knights. He told them to rejoice because the time of order was close at hand. The Apparatus was nearing completion and once it was done the Knights would be liberated from the Seers and their nonsense. The Knights were skeptical that a machine would provide better instructions than the Seers. The Numerator told them they were welcome to visit the spire where the Apparatus was under construction. He knew they were busy burying their friend and didn't want to bounce from quest to quest until they had completed the one.

 

By night they set down the anchor off the coast and dreamed of a war in the shadows, lit only by the clash of weapons against an unseen foe.

 

Riverboat Gamber - Session Four

 

Roddy, Jack, Datura and Zigar shopped at the Potion Addict. They bought food, reagents to make hand grenades, and contemplated buying a Potion of Water Breathing. If someone swam under the Destroyer cult boat with an explosive charge they could detonate it at the same time as Roddy cleared the blockage in the river, letting the Gamblers proceed without fear of pursuit. The Bullywugs dissuaded them. The narrowboat was pulled by huge marine worms who would smell intruders and attack them underwater.

 

The Gamblers waited until dawn when the sun scraped the rubble pile clean of swarming undead. Roddy and his team planted the barrel while the adventurers at the bar, the Blackmath cultists and even the tribes of the plain looked on in anticipation. The blast created a big wave and a plume of water and debris, which the cultists eagerly sped into aboard their narrowboat, urging the worms into the spray and accepting minor casualties from the falling stones as the price of doing business. The Last Round spooled up the propellers and raced after them, taking the three mutants rescued from the Barbican along for the ride.

 

Unknown Armies Shotgun Scenario: Grand Supreme

The Entropomancers of Level Die get a letter.

To the sorcerers of Level Die

A challenge:

Come to Caesars Atlantic City and I will kill you.

I have a spectacular Roman cage cup dating approximately 100 years before the fall of the Republic. Its value is incalculable. Since I only charge using vessels I make myself, you are welcome to it. Come to the Toga Bar. I will be waiting there to take your skulls. If you survive the goblet is yours.

-Three Bear

It’s an obvious trap. That’s what makes it fun.

Unknown Armies Halloween Jam 2025 Feedback

 

It's time for another Unknown Armies 3e jam review. The event ran from October 7th through October 23rd and the specifications can be found here. The event received fifteen submissions. The ones shaded blue are my own.

The Great Glass Mountain - Session Eleven

The Company traveled east from the Screaming Seer's Sanctum and followed the river into the mountains. Their quest was for the Beast but to reach it they had to travel up treacherous mountain paths and places where there was no path. There were places a man could jump but a horse could not be induced to leap and land safely on the other side. Autolykos led them through places that looked impassible and turned them back when it looked safe but really wasn't.

 

In the mountains the water pooled at the bottom of a waterfall. Bones whirled in the water and hogs dragged the corpse of a mountain lion ashore to gnaw it. Whatever killed it was at the top of the waterfall, so that's where the Company went.

 

At the top, the opening in the rock face was large enough for a bear and then some. Auckland recognized it from his dreams. He was used to seeing it from the other side, looking out. The Knights didn't want to enter the cave and fight the monster on its own turf, so Tiber taunted it to draw it out.

 

The beast leaped from atop the cliff and fell on top of the Salt Knight. It had been waiting for the Company to go inside so it could trap them. 

 

Riverboat Gambler - Session Three

Aphono, Datura, Jack, Roddy and Zigar got in a longboat and crossed the river to the cliff where the red energy blast had opened a hole into the dungeon within. They rowed and hiked and climbed up the talus pile formed by the explosion and when they got to the hole they found tracks leading inside. Someone had beat them to it as they crossed over from the Mastaba. Two groups of humanoids.

 
Someone shouted from deeper in the underground complex. Another muffled explosion followed it, making the cliff shake.

Riverboat Gambler - Session Two

van der Poel

 

Aphono, Jack, Roddy and Datura sailed up the River Hog through the night. The night brought Ghouls who howled from the riverbanks at the blue glow illuminating the steam from the reactor, thinking it a third moon. Dawn brought giant scorpions out from under the rocks on shore. By day they came across a Grain Cult gunboat, shorn of its mast and anchored by the muddy riverbank. Captain Belkin of the Bread Box explained to the Gamblers that Aldrich's barge of Giants had crippled their vessel with a thrown lightning bolt from extreme range. They were patrolling the river for him and for other hazards, such as the Blue Dragon flying overhead or the savage tribes infesting the desert beyond. The Gamblers hitched the Bread Box to the Last Round and towed them upriver to the nearest village. The Iron Cup outlet served coffee and the Halflings played marching songs with Datura.