Unknown Americana Character Ideas
Nov. 18th, 2002 10:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
robotnik2004Here come a couple of lengthy posts about the UA game.
Underneath all the macho talk, the guns and the BOHICA rolls and so forth, Unknown Armies seems to me to be a game about character. I want to give the players as much input as possible as to the nature of their characters and the kinds of adventures they're embarking on. I have a setting in mind (highways, trailer parks, burger joints, motels, roadside attractions), a cast of supporting characters, and lots of ideas. But rather than impose a narrative structure right off the bat, I'd like the players to have input into who they are, why they're together, and, (in at least a general sense) what their goals are.
I've brainstormed some rather lengthy lists of ideas that will hopefully spark player creativity and suggest the kinds of things that I have in mind. But everything is open to negotiation.
First, some ideas about individual characters.
A couple of things are a given. One is travel. We're making a road movie here, so we don't want PCs that are deeply rooted to one place. (Unless you come up with a good idea of how you want to get "uprooted" at the start of our story.) Another is that the characters are, by and large, people on the margins. They don't have to be total losers, but there are no millionaires here, no big shot celebrities, no captains of industry. (Note: your PC may well be a big shot in the occult underground, if we decide that's the kind of campaign we want-just not a big shot in the mundane world.) The third is that Unknown Armies characters are people that get into trouble. They can be good or bad, brilliant or foolish, cautious or insane, but somehow they all have something that drives them into sticky situations, that puts them in places where they probably shouldn't be. You certainly don't need to have a death wish. But by definition, anyone involved in the Occult Underground of America has got themselves in a dangerous place. If your PCs were good at staying out of trouble, this game wouldn't be about them.
OK. I've listed a bunch of character types that would fit well in the game world and in the story I want to run. But these should trigger your ideas, not limit them. Hopefully we can bounce some ideas around and then settle on character ideas and a campaign frame that will make everyone happy.
The Underworld.
The world of organized and not-so-organized crime. You could be hit men in black suits, car thieves in Hawaiian shirts, or up and comers in the Dixie Mafia. This could be your current employment, or you could be an ex-criminal, trying to put your past behind you. (Of course, there's always the irresistible lure of that One Last Job.)
Grifters and Drifters.
Slippery con artists, grifters, pool sharks, pro poker players (straight or crooked), or just plain drifters. Not quite the underworld, but not Rotary Club material either. There's lots of great potential characters and story hooks in this category.
On the Lam.
You could be fleeing the long arm of the law, or the mob, or Something Else. Maybe you're charismatic bank robbers? Prison escapees? White trash lovers on a crime spree? Runaway kids? Or maybe you are the pursuers: bounty hunters? skip tracers? mob enforcers?
Car Talk.
A grease-stained mechanic, a white-knuckled speed freak, a salt-of-the-earth trucker, a devotee of 70s muscle cars or 40s hot rods, or a tinkering crank who's "this close" to re-inventing the suppressed 500-mile-to-the-gallon hyper-combustion engine. Cars are cool. Vroom.
The Fed.
Because this game is about the occult identity of America, there's a certain symbolic appeal to having one or more of the PCs be employees of the federal government. The FBI has been done to death, I think, but there's something appealing to me about the idea of intrepid field agents or investigators from other, far less glamorous branches of the great government bureaucracy. How about an IRS agent, or an investigator for the U.S. Census Bureau, or the Postal Inspection Service, or the Federal Highway Administration, or hell, some tiny forgotten office in the basement of the Library of Congress?
Carnie Folk.
OK, we're getting weirder now, but weird is good. You could all be members of a traveling circus, workers in a carnival, an old-style "medicine show", even a freak show. This is a good way to bring a lot of really odd characters together.
Occult Cabal.
At least one of the PCs should be a dabbler in magic or the occult. But if you want, you can all be. We'll talk more about the types of magic available to you and the sorts of goals an occult cabal might have, but keep this in mind as a way to organize the PCs and the campaign. (In fact, I suspect this may be the only real way to unite a really disparate group of characters.)
Playing in a Traveling Band.
A struggling rock band on tour trying to hit the big time. Don't want to be a rock star? How about old blues men, or a bluegrass jug and banjo band? Any other kinds of touring performers (stage magicians? stand up comics? lots of clowns in a tiny little car?) might work too.
We Are Family.
Here's a way of connecting all the PCs that I'm surprised is not done more often: they're all related. This solves the problem of creating a bond between PCs while letting them run very different kinds of characters. You could be a once-noble bloodline, a weird hillbilly clan, or just a mismatched bunch of adult siblings wondering what your late father found, or maybe hid, in the Okeechobee swamps all those years ago...
Adepts and Avatars.
There are two main types of magick user in Unknown Armies: adepts and avatars. Adepts gain magic through their obsession with a single thing: it could be booze, or money, or history, or risk, or any number of things. Avatars devote their life to following the path of some archetype, gaining power through walking in the footsteps of an occult pattern. It's hard to explain unless you've read the rules (or Tim Powers' Last Call), but we can talk about it.
Other Weirdos.
You could also have some occult background or gift that doesn't fit exactly into either of the above categories. Jeremiah and Bryant have independently suggested overlapping (though hardly identical) automotive feng shui ideas, which I think are terrific. Want to tell fortunes? Be a rain maker? A faith healer? See dead people? Be living under your grandfather's blood curse? Ask me and we'll talk about it. I'm open to almost anything-though as you'll find, every magical gift has its price.
Combo Platter.
We can always mix and match a bunch of the above. A gang of car thieves doing strange errands for a decrepit old wizard. A trucker deep in debt to the Dixie Mafia picks up a young hitchhiker who happens to be an avatar of The Fool. A lightning-rod salesman with rainmaking powers and an orphan who claims to be Elvis Presley's secret son. A biker gang called "The Templars" on a quest to find the Golden Fleece. A father-son-and-daughter team of con artist plutomancers. Now you're getting the idea.
Next, putting all these oddballs together and giving them something to do.
Underneath all the macho talk, the guns and the BOHICA rolls and so forth, Unknown Armies seems to me to be a game about character. I want to give the players as much input as possible as to the nature of their characters and the kinds of adventures they're embarking on. I have a setting in mind (highways, trailer parks, burger joints, motels, roadside attractions), a cast of supporting characters, and lots of ideas. But rather than impose a narrative structure right off the bat, I'd like the players to have input into who they are, why they're together, and, (in at least a general sense) what their goals are.
I've brainstormed some rather lengthy lists of ideas that will hopefully spark player creativity and suggest the kinds of things that I have in mind. But everything is open to negotiation.
First, some ideas about individual characters.
A couple of things are a given. One is travel. We're making a road movie here, so we don't want PCs that are deeply rooted to one place. (Unless you come up with a good idea of how you want to get "uprooted" at the start of our story.) Another is that the characters are, by and large, people on the margins. They don't have to be total losers, but there are no millionaires here, no big shot celebrities, no captains of industry. (Note: your PC may well be a big shot in the occult underground, if we decide that's the kind of campaign we want-just not a big shot in the mundane world.) The third is that Unknown Armies characters are people that get into trouble. They can be good or bad, brilliant or foolish, cautious or insane, but somehow they all have something that drives them into sticky situations, that puts them in places where they probably shouldn't be. You certainly don't need to have a death wish. But by definition, anyone involved in the Occult Underground of America has got themselves in a dangerous place. If your PCs were good at staying out of trouble, this game wouldn't be about them.
OK. I've listed a bunch of character types that would fit well in the game world and in the story I want to run. But these should trigger your ideas, not limit them. Hopefully we can bounce some ideas around and then settle on character ideas and a campaign frame that will make everyone happy.
The Underworld.
The world of organized and not-so-organized crime. You could be hit men in black suits, car thieves in Hawaiian shirts, or up and comers in the Dixie Mafia. This could be your current employment, or you could be an ex-criminal, trying to put your past behind you. (Of course, there's always the irresistible lure of that One Last Job.)
Grifters and Drifters.
Slippery con artists, grifters, pool sharks, pro poker players (straight or crooked), or just plain drifters. Not quite the underworld, but not Rotary Club material either. There's lots of great potential characters and story hooks in this category.
On the Lam.
You could be fleeing the long arm of the law, or the mob, or Something Else. Maybe you're charismatic bank robbers? Prison escapees? White trash lovers on a crime spree? Runaway kids? Or maybe you are the pursuers: bounty hunters? skip tracers? mob enforcers?
Car Talk.
A grease-stained mechanic, a white-knuckled speed freak, a salt-of-the-earth trucker, a devotee of 70s muscle cars or 40s hot rods, or a tinkering crank who's "this close" to re-inventing the suppressed 500-mile-to-the-gallon hyper-combustion engine. Cars are cool. Vroom.
The Fed.
Because this game is about the occult identity of America, there's a certain symbolic appeal to having one or more of the PCs be employees of the federal government. The FBI has been done to death, I think, but there's something appealing to me about the idea of intrepid field agents or investigators from other, far less glamorous branches of the great government bureaucracy. How about an IRS agent, or an investigator for the U.S. Census Bureau, or the Postal Inspection Service, or the Federal Highway Administration, or hell, some tiny forgotten office in the basement of the Library of Congress?
Carnie Folk.
OK, we're getting weirder now, but weird is good. You could all be members of a traveling circus, workers in a carnival, an old-style "medicine show", even a freak show. This is a good way to bring a lot of really odd characters together.
Occult Cabal.
At least one of the PCs should be a dabbler in magic or the occult. But if you want, you can all be. We'll talk more about the types of magic available to you and the sorts of goals an occult cabal might have, but keep this in mind as a way to organize the PCs and the campaign. (In fact, I suspect this may be the only real way to unite a really disparate group of characters.)
Playing in a Traveling Band.
A struggling rock band on tour trying to hit the big time. Don't want to be a rock star? How about old blues men, or a bluegrass jug and banjo band? Any other kinds of touring performers (stage magicians? stand up comics? lots of clowns in a tiny little car?) might work too.
We Are Family.
Here's a way of connecting all the PCs that I'm surprised is not done more often: they're all related. This solves the problem of creating a bond between PCs while letting them run very different kinds of characters. You could be a once-noble bloodline, a weird hillbilly clan, or just a mismatched bunch of adult siblings wondering what your late father found, or maybe hid, in the Okeechobee swamps all those years ago...
Adepts and Avatars.
There are two main types of magick user in Unknown Armies: adepts and avatars. Adepts gain magic through their obsession with a single thing: it could be booze, or money, or history, or risk, or any number of things. Avatars devote their life to following the path of some archetype, gaining power through walking in the footsteps of an occult pattern. It's hard to explain unless you've read the rules (or Tim Powers' Last Call), but we can talk about it.
Other Weirdos.
You could also have some occult background or gift that doesn't fit exactly into either of the above categories. Jeremiah and Bryant have independently suggested overlapping (though hardly identical) automotive feng shui ideas, which I think are terrific. Want to tell fortunes? Be a rain maker? A faith healer? See dead people? Be living under your grandfather's blood curse? Ask me and we'll talk about it. I'm open to almost anything-though as you'll find, every magical gift has its price.
Combo Platter.
We can always mix and match a bunch of the above. A gang of car thieves doing strange errands for a decrepit old wizard. A trucker deep in debt to the Dixie Mafia picks up a young hitchhiker who happens to be an avatar of The Fool. A lightning-rod salesman with rainmaking powers and an orphan who claims to be Elvis Presley's secret son. A biker gang called "The Templars" on a quest to find the Golden Fleece. A father-son-and-daughter team of con artist plutomancers. Now you're getting the idea.
Next, putting all these oddballs together and giving them something to do.
