I go to GM a game of Unknown Armies with my four friends: Steven, Rita, Mike and Matt.
Steven played an Avatar of the Artisan - built like a brick-shithouse, but with a soul of a poet and a heroic attitude. Rita played Robert, a videomancer who was obsessed with TV evangelists. Mike played Seth, a strung out junkie entrophomancer. And Matt played Dr. Albert, an epideromancer doctor with a cane and a cynical attitude.
The quest was fairly simple and pure Unknown Armies: A man named Bill Toge had split into three different people (all named Bill Toge), and each one had gone to a different state in the deep south. Each got into a different heap a trouble, and each fled said trouble at the same time, returning to the same intersection they split apart into, crashing together and causing a massive time paradox.
And our heroes were in a bus that was sent end over end by this three way pile up, and were sucked into the temporal vortex, depositing them at the three "heaps of trouble" the three different Bill Toges had gotten into.
The first was a Safeway robbery. Bill Toge was low on cash, and so he and his three friends held up a Safeway, but the robbery went bad and Bill Toge fled (thus, arriving at the intersection to crash.) The PCs arrived beside one of the robbers, who thrust a shotgun at them. Thinking quick, Steven had his character grab a mop bucket off the ground and swing it.
"Oh, just as a note," I said as he rolled. "A nat 01 on a d100 instantly kills your targe-'
"I rolled an 01." Steven says.
So, this big, gently guy swings a bucket full of water into a guy's face and crushes his nose bone into his brain. In UA, you need to make a roll for any kind of mental stress - Violence, Helplessness, THe Unnatural, Isolation and Self - and since killing someone (even by accident) is a Violence-4 check, Steven rolls...and fails.
When you fail a Stress Check, you have a choice: Freak, Fight, or Flight.
Steven chose Freak.
So, Bill Toge and his surviving friends round the corner to see what happened, and they find Venice standing over the corpse of their friend, stammering: "I-I-I-I j-j-j-just meant to knock him out!"
They took this poorly and opened fire.
In UA, guns NORMALLY kill people, but they rolled so badly that Venice was only almost dead. He went with it and dropped to the ground, pretending to be dead. At this point, Mike's character leaped in to "help."
He had hidden beneath the pasta sauce rack, which had been knocked down in the scuffling. SO, he slathered pasta sauce over his face, crawled out from underneath the rack, and pointed at Bill Toge and said: "SINNER!" while using his magic to blast him. Entrophomancer blast spells cause the word you say to be written on the enemy's skin as if cut there by a knife. So, suddenly, Bill Toge has SINNER scratched into his forehead, cheeks, chin, throat, hands, arms, everywhere!
He and his robber friends have to roll stress checks, fail, and so the unimportant guys run and Bill Toge FREAKS OUT. The PCs - not really knowing what to do with him - shove him out the back and he runs off...thus, getting to the intersection. They failed their first encounter, and the temporal backlash created a perfect replica of Mike's character - who smiled knowingly and then vanished.
So, the PCs were then whisked away, to a crappy apartment complex, where they met the SECOND version of Bill Toge. This Bill had gotten himself in trouble by way of having a six year old daughter who was kidnapped and murdered by a child murderer, a child murderer that Bill had duct taped to a metal folding chair in an apartment and was threatening.
This Bill also happened to be an epideromancer. If you don't know, epideromancers are flesh wizards. They gain magical energy by cutting themselves and then use magical energy to FUCK YOU UP. So, Bill Toge had just ripped this guy's testicles out of his body without actually leaving a mark and this caused Matt's character to completely lose his shit.
So, Matt's character picked up a cat and threw it at Bill Toge's face.
In UA, ALL weapons are handled the same way: You ask three questions!
1) is it heavy?
No, just a cat.
2) Is it large?
Nah, just a cat.
3) Is it sharp?
YEAH, IT'S A CAT!
So, Matt managed to do 50% of Bill Toge's health in damage by throwing a cat at him. But then the full story about kidnapped child came out, and they managed to get the location from the child murderer and left him in the room, hurrying down to the basement of the building with their shotguns in a bucket (the same bucket used before to murder one guy, I note.)
They find the girl's bones in the incinerator.
So, Matt looks at me and says: "So, you said that Entrophomancer magic can rewrite history, right?"
And I said, "Yeah, but you need a major charge. You can only get that by risking your life and ten people's lives on a really stupid risk for no reason-"
"I LIGHT THE BUILDING ON FIRE!"
Matt's character had a heart attack. Steven's character burst into flames and died horribly. Rita's character barely escaped. And Matt's character escaped, despite dousing himself in gasoline AS HE RAN OUT OF THE BUILDING.
So, they get outside, and the whole building is burning, with everyone inside screaming for mercy and I said: "...Matt, roll a Self-10 and Violence-10 stress check."
But he got the charge. So, he could change ONE thing in the past - and he succeeded his magic roll, so...he made the girl no longer dead. Thus, obviating the need for him to have burned the building down. So, suddenly, everyone is fine.
The second Bill Toge tells them they're fucking insane and hurries off with his daughter, but doesn't get to the cross roads - they succeeded!
And so, the PCs were whisked to the last Bill Toge. This one saw a vision while high on mushrooms that Jesus would come in a silver spaceship with aliens called Ecnalubmas and take them all to heaven in 2014 at this location (a run down trailer park), but he and his cultists have drawn police attention and there is a standoff.
So, Rita used her magic to make televangelist "rules" a reality and slapped Bill Toge in the forehead while shouting, "JESUS COMMANDS YOU TO BE HEALED!" ANd so, Bill Toge was healed, and they managed to talk the police down from running in guns blazing. So, the cultists went in quietly, and an Ambulance arrived - with it's name spelled backwards on the hood: ECNALUBMA
The driver - a hispanic man - stuck his head out and waved at them: "Hey guys!" he said, and they saw that his nametag...was Jesus.
They were whisked back to the three car pileup, which had become just one car - since the extra Bill Toges were no longer getting there. BIll Toge looked at them like they were crazy for standing in the middle of the road...and drove off.
With mike character's evil twin in the back seat, still waving at them.
And as I said, "The End", my friends looked at me and said...
"Unknown Armies is WEIRD. When do we play next?"
