History TabletopGame / UnknownArmies

* BadassNormal - Most non-Adept and not-Avatar [[PlayerCharacter PCs] in a Cosmic game.

* DisabilitySuperpower - Some schizophrenics actively channel the backwash from any magic cast nearby, which can be [[ItGotWorse a Very Bad Thing]].

* CrowningMomentOfFunny - the ''rulebook'' has one, of all things. In the description for Videomancers:

* {{Deconstruction}} - the game plays with most of the tropes you see in modern fantasy games, but makes sense of them the most mundane ways possible. If they can change reality, why aren't Adepts in charge? Because the very nature of their power makes them loony, and the price they pay to work their miracles makes them as useful as a carefully chosen tool, only weirder. Why is magic falling behind technology? Because technology is just better, and more reliable. Why isn't the supernatural more widespread? Because it makes you batshit crazy, and you don't trust what batshit crazy people tell you.
* {{Determinator}} - one of the powers of the Masterless Man.
* DeusSexMachina - pornomancy. Subverted in that pornomantic sex rituals aren't much fun at all to their practitioner, and having ''regular'' sex is taboo to them.

* DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu - you can face the very principles of reality one on one. You can even take their place.

* EasyAmnesia - the Personomancer spell The Mirror, Crack'd is a magical case of retrograde amnesia with some interesting side effects.

* GenderBender - avatars of the Mystic Hermaphrodite.

* GhostlyGoals: A ghost's personality has no subtlety; they can only act to fulfill their Obsession. If they want revenge, they will chase you to the end of the earth. If they want to collect every last Pokemon card, you better not have a tight grip on that Charizard.

* GodWasMyCopilot - the [[spoiler:Comte De Saint-Germain]], immortal [[PhysicalGod uberpower]], [[HeroicSociopath sadistic bastard]], and appearing in at least half the stock campaigns as a bit part, sometimes in simultaneous roles halfway across a state. Often provides DeusExMachina and DiabolusExMachina.

* KatanasAreJustBetter - semi-averted; katanas are good, but not better than any other sharp weapon of similar size.
* KnightTemplar - literal example in the Order of St. Cecil, who may simultaneously begin to brainwash the party adept and [[EnemyMine take on quite a number of nasty critters for you]]. Other groups can serve, especially The New Inquisition and the Sleepers.

* LinearWarriorsQuadraticWizards - averted. Adepts require not only a decent skill level to cast any sort of spell successfully, but also must charge up by doing particular ritual acts. Attacking via magic is less efficient than just using a gun. Avatar magic is flat-out linear, providing particular effects at a particular level of skill. Ritual magic progresses randomly, depending on the whims of the GM. Psychics are generally even more limited.
* LiquidAssets - played more literally than most, as an avatar of the Merchant can trade any intangible good between two other people.

* LonersAreFreaks - mechanically, any individual who is alone for prolonged periods of time ''will'' fill up the Isolation failed bar to go insane or head a long way toward going sociopath.

* {{Muggles}} - but don't you mess with them. They are officially referred to as "the Sleeping Tiger," and the book includes some sobering tables outlining what happens when they wake up.
** MugglesDoItBetter: But adepts do it in ways that [[ConfusionFu defy logic]]. Nobody gets to have it both ways.

* OnlyAFleshWound - the Videomancer spell Watching the Detectives is intentionally designed to invoke this trope.
* OurDemonsAreDifferent: They're actually this world's version of [[OurGhostsAreDifferent ghosts]], and are universally [[strike: quite bitter about not being able to move]] terrified of moving on to the next life.

* PaperThinDisguise - a high-level avatar of the Trickster can disguise himself perfectly with just a few token props.

* PunctuatedPounding - the Freak does this to [[spoiler:Jolene]] in ''Godwalker'':

* RunningGag: A subtle one: almost every adventure book refers to an ambulance driver named Jesus who rescues people from alternate timelines or otherspaces.
* SanityHasAdvantages: No [[WeaksauceWeakness Taboo]] to break, for example. Playing a BadassNormal in this game is perfectly feasible.

* ScaledUp - the Herpemancy formula, "I am become Typhon" - "Sometimes you just gotta turn into a giant snake."

* SquishyWizard - subverted with fleshworkers, who are usually enormously tough...but go down all too easily all too often because they CastFromHitPoints. Especially true if they go for the Major charge, which involves permanently damaging themselves in some hideous way. (Amputation's a popular one. The Freak ''drank acid.'')
* SympatheticMagic: Rituals and tilts use this heavily.
* TheTrickster -- Another one of the archetypes a character can channel. The powers of an avatar of the Trickster are pretty much straight from the trope, which is of course the idea.
* UnexpectedGameplayChange: The most obvious consequence of casting the Ritual of Light is that Unknown Armies changes from being a "rules and dice" RPG to a pure story-telling RPG. Instead of rolling d10s to determine the outcome of any given check, the gaming group votes on whether they think the outcome should be a success or failure. The GM's vote does not count for more than the players'. This is because the player characters who cast the ritual are linking directly into the Statosphere: for a short time, reality is defined purely by their will, and their choices.
* UnfazedEveryman -- [[spoiler: Depending on the outcome of To Go, this archetype may just ascend to the pantheon.]]. Further spoilers: [[spoiler: A side-effect of this is that adepts can suddenly turn ten minor charges into sigs, making magick immeasurably more powerful.]]

* TheVillainMakesThePlot: Averted. While there are cool, ManipulativeBastard factions [[UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans trying to create a perfect world by any means necessary]], they are presented very sympathetically and as PC options, particularly for global and cosmic games. Real, pure villain groups are actually kind of pathetic (infernomancers are portrayed as more dangerous to themselves than anything, while demons are immensely petty creatures who are actually harmless in the grand scheme of things).

* WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes: The Fear passion encompasses both the fears listed in this trope with others such as victimization, losing control, and other things that key off one of the Stress meters.
* WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity - With great insanity comes great power.

The world you know is only the surface. The Occult Underground swarms beneath it like a nest of bugs. Adepts alter reality with the power of their own obsessions and madness. Avatars gain the favor of the cosmos by playing their part in the collective unconscious. Those without magick hunt down those with for their own purposes--to control, to suppress, or to assimilate. Sounds pretty interesting, right? There's a catch. There's always a catch. All labor in secret for fear of [[TorchesAndPitchforks the sleeping tiger]]--magick may be powerful, but all the forces of the arcane aren't worth much compared to the panicked masses on a witch hunt. Further, magick power is bought at a steep price. You can alter human flesh only by scouring your own. You can gain the strength of the archetypal Warrior only by never relenting, even when tact or sanity say you should back down. You can bring about anything with magick--provided you're willing to sacrifice your humanity to do so.

* BadassNormal - Most non-Adept and not-Avatar PCs in a Cosmic game.

* Determinator - one of the powers of the Masterless Man.

* CastFromHitPoints -- Epideromancy works this way, as do certain rituals. There are also many magick schools that are more indirectly self-destructive.

Greg Stolze also wrote a [[http://www.gregstolze.com/fiction.html#godwalker novel, ''Godwalker'',]] starring several of the NPCs from the game books as they converge on a small town in the midwest and completely mess up it, themselves, and each other. If you'd like an idea of what it's like to play in a global/cosmic game of UA, Godwalker is a good place to start, and it only costs [[ArcNumber $3.33]] in Kindle format.

* CosmicHorror - subverted. It's the anti-Lovecraft : you aren't scared because the cosmic powers that can crush you like a bug without noticing it are inhuman horrors from the depth of the cosmos. You are scared because they were humans like you, and are living metaphor of what being human means. You aren't mortified because you're helpless, but because [[ArcWords YOU DID IT]].

* CrowningMomentofFunny - the ''rulebook'' has one, of all things. In the description for Videomancers:

* LiteraryAllusionTitle: "Unknown Armies" is a line cribbed from WilliamButlerYeats.

* CrowningMomentofFunny - the ''[[BeyondTheImpossible rulebook]]'' has one, of all things. In the description for Videomancers:

* FisherKing - and you can be one, too!

* HumansAreSpecial: One definite given in any UA game, on account of how the cosmos pretty much revolves around the collective will of humanity and its chosen representatives.

* TheFool -- one of the archetypes a character can channel. The powers of an avatar of the Fool are pretty much straight from the trope, which is of course the idea.

This is a fantastic and extremely gritty roleplaying game, full of HighOctaneNightmareFuel. Combat is brutal and bloody--the combat chapter opens up by describing several ways to ''get out of a fight,'' since more often than not you're gonna get torn the hell up if you're not careful, or even if you are. The rules are light, but clever and flavorful, with fancy dice tricks adding spice to the usual d% system. The powers of magick are even more flavorful, bizarre, and amazing. The setting is imaginative, detailed, and engrossing.

* {{Immortality}} - One goal to aim for; apparently, if Dick Jones could ever get this for the Freak, the Freak would stop hating him so much...

* MemeticBadass: in the game, BruceLee has become such a Memetic Badass that you can channel his sheer badassery through ritual magic.

* SanityMeter - Five of them, each with two aspects.

* AscendedFanboy -- a whole team of them: the Team Salvation is a team of occult do-gooders who used to play [=RPG=]s and read comics together as kids. The team leader's motivation is explicitly defined as "Be a superhero".

* BodyHorror -- various, but Epideromancy is the #1 source in the game. It's a magic style revolving around molding the bodies of others like clay and powered by self-mutilation... think about it. Its signature attack spell ''isn't'' the one that lets you break bones or tear flesh just by touching someone, it's the spell that lets you mold flesh about the area of your palm. Its most common use? ''Seal someone's mouth and nose.''

* AntiMagic -- the sample NPC, Eustace Crane, is a walking fifty yard bubble of this that ironically wants to believe in magic. Other sources exist.