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Mak Attax, in case you didn't know, are a large but disorganized group of magickal revolutionaries who dispense mystic energy through what they call "special orders": minor charges handed out to unsuspecting customers of the world's largest fast-food chain. It's the occult equivalent of playing with matches, but the Maks believe that the fire they start could change the world -- even if they're not terribly clear on what they'd like the world to change into.
After the traditional cryptic photo-art, contents, etc., we get the equally traditional intro fiction, "What You Think You Know," by Greg Stolze. The story deals with a hectic couple of days in the life of Mak Attax ringleader Derek Jackson and some of his cronies. I'm never a big fan of game fiction, even the usually good UA stuff, but I felt that this did a pretty good job of showing how Mak Attax, despite its lack of coordination, somehow manages to muddle through.
Chapter One is About Mak Attax This briefly outlines the history, organization, rules, finances (such as they are), terminology, membership, and factions of Mak Attax. It's an interesting read, and it provides a complicated and plausible organization. Next up is information on running a Mak Attax campaign, which talks about the different types of Mak Attax "crew," as well as the problems and advantages of running a game where the characters are minimum-wage burger-jockeys.
Next we have a random table for possible special orders. The Maks have no control over how these manifest, and a big part of their job is keeping track of their customers and seeing how they react to the charges. The provided results range from the trivial (the recipient becomes 2" taller for a day) to the frighteningly powerful (the recipient gains an appropriate Avatar skill. Permanently). Closing out the chapter is a copy of the standard welcome email to the Mak Attax list sent out by Superconductor (Derek Jackson, from the UA rulebook and the opening story).
Chapter Two is Personnel. This provides descriptions and stats for Mak Attax members from the highest echelons (like Erica Fisher, who may be the power behind the throne in MA) to the bottom of the heap (May Rogers, a hippie who has a strange "astral travel" ability). Another email rounds out the section, this time demonstrating providing an example of the kind of flamewars you get on the open list.
Unknown Armies supplements always seem to have these long sections of GMCs, and I've been known to use a few from time to time myself, but they're certainly the least important part of the book in my opinion. I do appreciate that in a game as strange as Unknown Armies, having a lot of example characters can be very useful. Your mileage may vary; my mileage from GMC sections is pretty low.
Chapter Three is Customers and Other Hassles. This details how Mak Attax gets along with the other player in the underground -- not terribly well, it turns out. Mak Attax is heavily infiltrated by many of the other factions, but currently only one (the we-hate-everybody Global Liberation Society) is actively out to get them. The Sleepers, TNI, and others seem content for the moment to keep a wary eye on the group, but the moment your PCs do something stupid and public (or noble and heroic) that could change.
This section also includes another cabal, the Freebusters, who were mentioned in an off-the-cuff way in UA 2nd ed. They have a connection to Mak Attax, and they're similarly lefty in their general outlook, but they're not actively cooperating with the Maks. Three of the freebusters practice all-new magickal schools. Another minor cabal who might be sympathetic to the Maxers get a brief description here as well.
Chapter Four gives us Special Offers for a Limited Time, which is to say crunchy bits. The chapter is further subdivided into:
Artifacts, which range from goofy (a song that gets painfully stuck in your head until you hear it all the way through) to valuable (fertility talismans) to frightening (the Bleeding Gun, which can save your life while creeping you out).
Rituals: the most important ritual in here is obviously the Ritual of Lesser Correspondence. This is the ritual (or more properly rituals -- there are two versions) the Maks use to hand out special orders. You also get the Ritual of Fealty, which bonds individual members to the Mak Attax whole, the Ritual of Light (the big Y2K one), and a couple of others. A notable ritual here is Summon Familiar, which brings animal familiars in the classic occult tradition into the game. They feed on charges. Or, you know, blood.
New Schools! Yessir, we've got Anagram Gematria (A Grammarian Gate), which involves changing the structure of words in order to change the structure of reality, and which doesn't have any formula spells yet. We've got plutophagy, which involves eating money and things of value. It's kind of like plutomancy's twisted, violent 300-pound cousin, and it deals with feelings of revulsion and alienation. Next up comes herpemancy, which works with the symbolic resonances of snakes and snake charming. You get bitten a lot and probably die, but the spells can be nastily powerful. This is a very fighty school, right up there with epideromancy and entropomancy. Look out. Geomancy involves imposing order on the chaos of the natural world. Its effects deal with manipulating social and physical structures, as well as the underworld: a powerful, subtle school.
New Archetypes. Well, just one really: the Loyal Laborer, the faceless, tireless guy who works in anonymity to make the Great Work possible. Like a lot of these proletarian Archetypes (see also the Necessary Servant), this is kind of a dud. The 1-50 power is frustratingly unpredictable: you get to add the sum of your skill to the skills of people you're assisting. So if you have a 40% in the skill, you add 14 to the skills of your co-workers, but if you have a 41% skill, you add 5. Many PC Avatars start at the traditional 55%, of course, but working your way up through the first half of this Avatar skill is an awfully long run for an awfully short slide.
Next we come to the straight dope on familiars. You didn't think they were just going to be friendly magical animals, did you? Not in this game. Familiars have their own agendas (which influence what kind of animal they inhabit), although they are bound by the Summon Familiar ritual to assist their masters. Familiars can even be player characters, which might be fun if you don't mind playing a dangerous monomaniac who gets bossed around by another dangerous monomaniac.
And to round out the chapter, another email, in which two Maks debate exactly at whom they should be throwing matches.
Chapter Five is Franchising, which is to say a collection of scenario seeds and advice on how to tie them together into a single campaign. These are structured like the scenario seeds in Hush Hush, but unlike the Sleeper missions, these often involve dealing with the consequences of Mak Attax's membership and organization (a clockworker member accidentally puts a killer robot monkey into a kid's happy meal, for example, and the PCs must chase all over hell and gone to find it). These are nicely varied, from weird investigation scenarios to potential deadly challenges like rescuing a group of Maks (and mundane fast-food employees) from a group of GLS-allied goons. Excellent scenario seeds, here, which nicely accomplished the twin purposes of making me want to run a Mak Attax gtame and making me feel that I had the tools to do it.
We also get a description of what you can expect to find in the various areas of a fast-food restaurant, with some speculation about the possible violent uses of the fryolator. Lastly, we get a sample Mak Attax crew, "Rubble-Rubble," who are simultaneously a bunch of dysfunctional goofballs and potentially dangerous occult hardcases. Some more snippets from the Mak Attax online world, some more cryptic photo art, and have a nice day!
Overall, Break Today is a great resource, not only for GMs who want to run a Mak Attax game or just involve Mak Attax more closely in their campaigns, but for low-level UA games in general. Mak Attaxers have a different outlook and different problems than the badasses detailed in faction books like Hush Hush and Lawyers, Guns and Money. The artifacts, scenario seeds, and GMCs from this game serve as a very useful guide to street-level (and low-Global level) Unknown Armies campaigns.
Production-wise, the book is neatly laid out in a readable two-column format. Art is a really subjective thing, but I never said I wasn't subjective: I dug Dennis Detwiller's and Sam Araya's art, as well as the front cover. The rest ranges from quite good to not-my-thing. Most importantly, the book smells good. All in all, a valuable addition to the UA line, deftly walking the thin line between high-weirdness-humor and the downright silly.
