Unknown Armies 1st Edition questions

Games Discussion Unknown Armies
1

I picked up a copy of Statosphere over the weekend, and it's a fab book, but as I only have a copy of the second edition of the UA rules, I've got a few questions about some of the terms in the book:

  • What do BOHICA and OACOWA stand for? (I'm guessing they correspond to a natural 01 and natural 00, respectively)
  • Characters have letters in brackets after their speed stat, like (S) or (F). What do these signify?
  • What does the skill Agent of Renunciation actually do?
2

p. 27
BOHICA:
Bend Over Here It Comes Again
roll double zeroes, absolute failure
It is suggested that it not be fatal, as it is worse to live with the outcome.

OACOWA
Open A Can Of Whoop Ass
roll 01, perfect success
This doesn't work on the impossible, but trumps "must be this higher than this number or failure" die rolls in other rules.

p.52
Initiative for GM Characters is not rolled. Their initiative is equal to their speed score, and the F or S stand for Failure or Success or which "phase" of initiative they take their turn on.
In order:
OACOWA
High success
Low success

High fail
Low fail
BOHICA

p.187
Allows reality to be bent to ones will
Any time the character makes a roll that is less than her Agent of Renunciation skill, she can increase or decrease her result by 10%.
No more. No less. Ten shalt be the number thou shalt alter, and the number of the altering shall be ten.

3

Thank you!

Ha ha ha! Every game should have this as an in game term!

Ah. 2nd ed agents can do this with just their soul stat, hence my not being familiar with the skill.

4

Yeah, they are basically fancy names for crits and botches.

I think the terms were abandoned for being overly cute. It's the difference between "cool" and "trying too hard to be cool"

I like the 2nd edition terms, since they are simple, and everyone knows what they mean.

Brian