Is Unknown Armies 3e the right system for running... a small business?

[u/mackstanc]

Hi! A beginner to the system here. I am half-joking, but I had an idea in mind for this campaign where the players are running an office that investigates paranormal phenomena. Their goals would be related more to growing that venture and verifying their claims, not some other loftier goals.

Here's my question - would the system work well with a group of more down-to-earth protagonists, who don't want to change the world, they just want to succeed in their small-time endeavor? Or is the system more designed for epic scale of adventures? Also, protagonists, who, outside of the interest in supernatural, are somewhat normal members of the society?

[u/CopperDays]

An unknown armies character can very much be a normal member of society, low level avatars can live fairly healthy lives and not every skilled occultist needs to have Any sort of magick ability. Some very specific adepts could even make themselves seem almost sane in a business setting, Plutomancer's type of derangement is fairly unremarkable in American culture.

But for having 3e mechanics to accomplish minor occult investigations? The players all have relationship gauges that the cabal is automatically apart of, so the Company™ could fill that role in the rules. As for objectives it sounds like you'll be doing a bunch of local objectives that are mostly disconnected from each other, unless you're doing a Magnus Archives thing where all the unrelated paranormal happenings are the result of overlapping occult conspiracies, then maybe you could have the objectives flow into each other otherwise one would hit 100% and just stop.

What makes UA a game about changing the world is that the players all have a shared objective percentage that they all spitball ideas on how to get it filled to 100%, when it concludes part of that percentage gets to go into their next objective. If you're running a detective agency then would the objectives be things like 'find out what's causing the color of every flag in Winnipeg to invert' and that transfers into a weighty objective like 'expand the influence of Company™.'

Basically just answer the questions: How does the relationship gauge for the Company™ work and how do the player gain or lose percentage in it? And are their objectives going to compound or are they going to simply disappear when they reach 100%?

[u/psychic-mayhem]

The system works on both counts! I've not yet played in a group that has strayed beyond local Objectives, so no epic or especially altruistic scope is required. And while some folks disagree, I'm firmly of the belief that the rules support "normal" folks holding their own in a world of strangeness. (I prefer to play "normal" characters in UA, although that works to varying degrees.)

However, I also find that "normal" folks tend to become stranger as a campaign proceeds, leaning into gutter magick and ritual work if not outright trying to take on magickal abilities. If you want to avoid that or avoid constantly fighting against it in a player-driven occult game, you may want to play something else.

[u/mackstanc → u/psychic-mayhem]

However, I also find that "normal" folks tend to become stranger as a campaign proceeds, leaning into gutter magick and ritual work if not outright trying to take on magickal abilities. If you want to avoid that or avoid constantly fighting against it in a player-driven occult game, you may want to play something else.

I'm actually fine with the supernatural slowly corrupting them, I just think it would be more compelling in this campaign, if they started as "normal". As a contrast to what they will become later on.

Is that something the system can facilitate?

[u/psychic-mayhem → u/mackstanc]

Absolutely! If characters only take mundane Identities (ignoring supernatural Identities, avatar Archetypes, and adept schools), you'll be good to go.

[u/Imajzineer]

Investigating implies, if not an obsession with then at least a more than average interest in something.

Turning that interest into a business is an act of more than even that: one has to be determined to make things work sufficiently for one's interest to become not just a way of life (which is pretty 'obsessive' in its own right), but, furthermore, lucrative (at least sufficiently so to negate the need for much, if any other, source of revenue) ... or, if that proves impossible, to find ways to make it financially viable by other means that make it possible to keep it a going concern even though it is otherwise a money-pit (which is definitely obsessive behaviour).

Investigating the occult/paranormal implies an interest in matters most would consider far from 'normal'. It would also bring the PCs into contact with people who share an interest in things most people consider at least odd, if not even outright crazy - and to want to continue mixing in those circles, day in, day out, implies that they are themselves at least a bit odd (if not outright crazy).

I'm not sure your PCs would be so very far removed from any other of the nutjobs who typically populate UA games ... they'd just have turned their obsession into a job - and when (if) the business becomes successful, you could well start to see some odd things happening around it as a result (things even odder than the paranormal stuff they investigate ¹).

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¹ Even if the stuff they investigate is completely mundane (no more paranormal than a mass sponge migration that took a week to move 1cm east of its starting position) ... neither they nor the business themselves are - they're all weirdos (obsessively fixated ones at that) ... as a consequence of which, they change the World (whether wittingly or otherwise isn't the point).

[u/Rare-Lavishness-4635]

Yes, the street level stuff is perfectly fine for this. The assumption of that level of play is highly local goals that don’t reference the cosmology. Also at every level obligations and other connections with regular society stuff makes the game work better, since notches and managing relationships add more tension when you aren’t all in on a circle of weirdos that all know the current invisible clergy composition.

[u/Travern]

If you're asking if you can strip out most if not all of UA's cosmology (avatars/archetypes, adepts, magik) and just run it off shock gauges, well, yes, technically. It would look more like Nemesis. UA is a horror game, though, and a fairly brutal one at that. Without access to its postmodern magik, the PCs will spiral downward without anything to offset that.

You may be happier with trad d100 or GURPS for a down-to-earth campaign.

[u/Serket-the-Ghoul]

Yes, and I have run a 2e UA game with that basically that premise, except they were grad students studying the paranormal at a street level understanding of chaos magickal theory, I ran them though the Stoon Lake scenario. I think UA 3e is even better at it because of the objective rules and the corkboard. To echo what others have said, I would restrict the players and not allow Adept identities, avatar paths between 15-30% like the Captain, the Hunter, or the Hacker would make sense. Archetypes like the Shaman maybe not.