The Inside Scoop on Gaming

This is one of those reviews with a go-out-and-buy preface, as in: "If you don't already own Unknown Armies, run, don't walk, to your neighborhood games vendor and pick up a copy right now." Unknown Armies is sort of like the modern equivalent of Over the Edge, only more disturbing, and a little less funny. If you like Tim Powers novels, you should drink Drano rather than not buy this game.

Of a small but excellent line, I'm already convinced that Postmodern Magick is a superb addition. Usually one pores through a new suppliment for a currently active game with the expectation of sifting through a bunch of useless junk, and some nicely colored gewgaws that'll never find a place in the hearts of your playgroup, for those couple of nuggets that might inspire plot or maybe just an NPC.

So, reading Postmodern Magick casually with that sort of expectation, I wound up with a sort of a buzz on. First, there wasn't anything useless, the colored gewgaws might make their way into things eventually, and the majority of stuff was inspirational. My only trouble now is deciding what to use now, what later, and how to keep track of a campaign future stretching at least a couple dozen sessions.

Okay, it's called Postmodern Magick, so you'd expect there to be extentions of the various schools of magick (quick summary: each school is based on some means to generate a magical charge, forbidden behavior, and a set of formula spells. Simple, elegant, and uniformly intense. Not Mage.), which is in fact the bulk of the book. And the additions are all genuinely fascinating, inspiring both for new PCs but also for the occasionally NPC adept. There's definitely something to be said for a system and its suppliment that get make me eager about a school of magick devoted to the glorification of pop Idols, a concept I'm usually biased against.

The schools of magick were expected, and excellent, but also included are a number of incredible twists which open whole realms of fascination in the Unknown Armies magick. This is better than picking up the AD&D Grimore when you were thirteen. First, rituals, (including one where two partipants fight for possession of each other's bodies, skills and memories), artifacts (one of which might in fact be Hell), and unnatural creatures (including a new kind of PC). All excellent, but the time honored descriptive laundry list is the best way to describe them and for that you'll have to read the book. Second, a Supporting Cast section that, without faultering once, provides a good half dozen plot threads in and of itself. Finally, though, and best of all are some new mechanics for magick.

My reaction to adding new mechanics in a suppliment is usually pretty negative, and there are a couple nice but not fantastic extra rules about making useful random effects into formula spells and whatnot. But then there's this section on proxies. People who can stand in, mystically, for someone else. Which means that they show up in scrying as the original, they can collect charges for adepts, and receive the benefits of spells the adept can usually only cast on themselves. But they can also break the taboos of adepts and avatars, or be sacrificed in the place of a loved one. The possiblities and complexity added boggle the mind, and I look forward to throwing huge monkeywrenches into plots using this method.

Round out with some really good intro fiction, an excellent sketch of the life of an adept (poor, criminal, and always waiting for a fight), and some very eerie art sprinkled with images of recent murderers going about their business in the presence of the corpse, and you have the best twenty bucks I've dropped into gaming in at least a fortnight. Probably more like a year.

Style: 5 (Excellent!)
Substance: 5 (Excellent!)

Postmodern Magick
Author: Various (Ed: John Tynes) Category: game Company/Publisher: Atlas Games Line: Unknown Armies Cost: $23.95 Page count: 192 ISBN: 1-887801-81-2 SKU: AG6003 Capsule Review by Judson Lester on 04/07/00. Genre tags: Modern_day Horror Conspiracy	This is one of those reviews with a go-out-and-buy preface, as in: "If you don't already own Unknown Armies, run, don't walk, to your neighborhood games vendor and pick up a copy right now." Unknown Armies is sort of like the modern equivalent of Over the Edge, only more disturbing, and a little less funny. If you like Tim Powers novels, you should drink Drano rather than not buy this game. Of a small but excellent line, I'm already convinced that Postmodern Magick is a superb addition. Usually one pores through a new suppliment for a currently active game with the expectation of sifting through a bunch of useless junk, and some nicely colored gewgaws that'll never find a place in the hearts of your playgroup, for those couple of nuggets that might inspire plot or maybe just an NPC. So, reading Postmodern Magick casually with that sort of expectation, I wound up with a sort of a buzz on. First, there wasn't anything useless, the colored gewgaws might make their way into things eventually, and the majority of stuff was inspirational. My only trouble now is deciding what to use now, what later, and how to keep track of a campaign future stretching at least a couple dozen sessions. Okay, it's called Postmodern Magick, so you'd expect there to be extentions of the various schools of magick (quick summary: each school is based on some means to generate a magical charge, forbidden behavior, and a set of formula spells. Simple, elegant, and uniformly intense. Not Mage.), which is in fact the bulk of the book. And the additions are all genuinely fascinating, inspiring both for new PCs but also for the occasionally NPC adept. There's definitely something to be said for a system and its suppliment that get make me eager about a school of magick devoted to the glorification of pop Idols, a concept I'm usually biased against. The schools of magick were expected, and excellent, but also included are a number of incredible twists which open whole realms of fascination in the Unknown Armies magick. This is better than picking up the AD&D Grimore when you were thirteen. First, rituals, (including one where two partipants fight for possession of each other's bodies, skills and memories), artifacts (one of which might in fact be Hell), and unnatural creatures (including a new kind of PC). All excellent, but the time honored descriptive laundry list is the best way to describe them and for that you'll have to read the book. Second, a Supporting Cast section that, without faultering once, provides a good half dozen plot threads in and of itself. Finally, though, and best of all are some new mechanics for magick. My reaction to adding new mechanics in a suppliment is usually pretty negative, and there are a couple nice but not fantastic extra rules about making useful random effects into formula spells and whatnot. But then there's this section on proxies. People who can stand in, mystically, for someone else. Which means that they show up in scrying as the original, they can collect charges for adepts, and receive the benefits of spells the adept can usually only cast on themselves. But they can also break the taboos of adepts and avatars, or be sacrificed in the place of a loved one. The possiblities and complexity added boggle the mind, and I look forward to throwing huge monkeywrenches into plots using this method. Round out with some really good intro fiction, an excellent sketch of the life of an adept (poor, criminal, and always waiting for a fight), and some very eerie art sprinkled with images of recent murderers going about their business in the presence of the corpse, and you have the best twenty bucks I've dropped into gaming in at least a fortnight. Probably more like a year. Style: 5 (Excellent!) Substance: 5 (Excellent!)