I have carefully read the hack and conducted a trial session last Sunday (the party consisted of tainted, dragon, hunter and immortal). It was cool and we enjoyed it and I think we are going to make it a full campaign (and most likely that it’s not going to be a single one). The style is well seasoned and concentrated which helps to set up the proper mood even if you haven’t been acquainted or interested in urban fantasy before like me.
I could make compliments for pretty long, but let’s talk about the parts which can be improved.
First of all, the previous option of joining a theme group instead of leading it as it is now seems more interesting to me: it can be interpreted in different ways, while leading could be a separate quest.
Second if we leave it as it is now the unique role of the King and his band appears questionable. Probably it’d be better to single out the receipt of the gang as a separate item out of the moves as it is in classic AW, to write it down near the workshop rules while the King would be given special options for gang management? For example, he could be given the chance to take a new gang option every time he chooses an advance “a new King move” or you could add a couple more advances concerning gang development. Probably he could be given a gang management move so that he could do something that others can’t or he could have been given a move that is similar to Rally of Sergeant from Regiment hack?
By the way, talking about workshops: the advance that is giving the workshop to 6 out of 14 characters is decreasing the originality of Expert. I would have singled out workshop from moves as a separate item, just like the gang and would have given the Expert something that would sound like «When you go into your workspace and dedicate yourself to a task, decide what and roll+mind. On 10+, choose 2, on 7-9 choose 3, on a miss choose 4. MC still might connect them all with “and,” or might throw in a merciful “or” as a basic move, if you succeed mark experience.» This way the Expert will be able to control his research more than others.
The Immportal seemed have little bit diffusive style comparing to other characters. He barely has any really attractive moves that underline his personality. Probably he could have been given an analogue of Bardic Lore from Dungeon World and pick complementary knowledge areas on advances. It would have underlined the fact that he is very old, had seen a lot and had plenty of time to study the picked area really deeply.
The Vampire has confused me with lack of mechanical obligation of drinking blood. Probably this move should include some kind of an obligation which would force him to do so?
The item of “Reduce an injury they are about to suffer by one step” appeared a bit weir to me. Do I understand it correctly when I say that it lets me cure a person, who owes me, forgiving him his debt? There is inner logiс in it, but it decreases the undesirability of being a debtor. I can easily imagine the situation when two players who play on one side exchange the debts between each other to have a chance to cure each other. Or it was supposed to be so? I’d rather change it to “Increase an injury you are inflicting on them by one step” or remove it.
Last, the last playbook esign version which had been released a couple of days ago seemed less convenient than previous one. Corruption advances were perceived easier when they had been placed in 1 column.
Anyway—it’s a great job and many thanks for the hack! Hope my ideas can be useful to you.
Hello Nikita, thanks so much for playing Urban Shadows, you have no idea how much it means to me. And double thank you for taking time to post about it! You’ve got some valuable insights and there are some points I’d like to respond to to help clarify things. But knowing these rules need clarifying is super useful in itself because that means I need to write it more clearly.
The gang/group joining/leading is a tricky one. Some people want to join groups and some want to lead them. If you don’t want leadership then you don’t have to take it, just take the advance as a membership thing. Allowing it to be flexible is probably the best answer.
Workshops I think are fine as they are. You could argue that someone having access to a Workspace makes the Expert less impactful but any Archetype is threatened by that. I don’t think a mature player is going to be threatened by someone taking a Workspace too. Besides if that player is taking the same kind of Workspace (keep in mind there are many different types) as the Expert, they are being a douche and shouldn’t be doing that. 🙂
The King is always the best at having a crew. They start off with one which is an advantage no one else gets. They get to choose a fancy perk to the crew that no one else gets. When a player choose to join/lead a group, they have no control over the specifics of that group, the MC gets to decide all that. The King has customization so I don’t think it’ll ever be a contest in reality.
The Immortal needs sprucing up, no argument there. I like the idea of a sort of ancient.ecclectic knowledge move so I will work one in. Any other ideas you can come up with would be appreciated.
The Vamp is as hungry for blood, flesh or emotion as the Aware is for information or the Spectre is for revenge. It’s all narrative. If a player decides he wants to play the type of vampire that hungers constantly, let them! They’ll do a better job of it than any rule I can write will. But let’s say the type of vampire they are making doesn’t need blood, but perhaps enjoys it when they want to. The Vamp isn’t one specific type from fiction, it’s generic enough to allow players and MC’s to make it their own.
“Reduce an injury they are about to suffer” This definitely needs new wording. Essentially it means you can lower an injury that they are suffering as they suffer it, not heal it after the fact. It’s a protection move. “I bodycheck the werewolf before he sinks his teeth all the way in” or “I throw a platter at the gunmen to compromise his fire” are examples. So instead of the werewolf or bullets inflicting a critical injury on the person, the Debt reduces that to a grievous instead. I’ve seen this application of Debts used once, by me as a player lol. So maybe it needs to get tosses out as wasted space. Thoughts?
As with all layout concerns, it’s always a work in progress I’ll see what I can do to fix your layout concern. But I get a lot of insights on these and I tend to go with the majority. 🙂
I hope this helps and thanks again for your feedback. It’s very useful!
First of all I want to thank you for your attention to my ideas.
Now I will briefly go through some minor points before moving on to the core.
The wording “join a group” seems to me more flexible, as it can include leadership or not, as opposed to “lead a group”, but in general it’s not significant.
As for the King, I would like to see his basic move stronger, but I have no reasonable arguments on this point.
As for the workshop it is not my concern that situation in which two players take the same workshop, but a situation when the player ignores the archetype of the expert because his basic move does not give anything but a workshop which is so easy to get anyway.
Debts – if I understand that right if I have a debt against Jack, I can use it to reduce the injury which Jack is going to inflict me or to reduce injury that someone else is going to inflict to Jack? As for me I like the first option and I don’t like the second.
As for the Immortal—it’s a really weak spot (in our case it was the character of my wife, who by the way is translating all of this which I think deserves some recognition). So here are some ideas for improvement. The only move which we liked as is was Well-Versed, it’s really good. Instead of Been There, Done That move I would suggest another move that would indicate the age and social activity of the Immortal—“you’re immortal and been living within the human society throughout generations, observing the lives of those who could be important or useful for you. When you interact with someone important (of your choice), roll+heart. On a hit, you have been around him for ages—tell what you know about him and how are you linked to him (you have been dealing with his father, you were teaching him something, etc.). On a 10+ you write down debt against him. On a miss, he understands that he had seen you before and you haven’t changed much since that time.” Practiced Liar move appears to be too PVP to me, it doesn’t give any advantages in case the player interacts with a NPC so I would like to add some extras. Maybe a +1 to Persuade rolls or when you successfully lie to someone mark experience? I don’t have any other ideas at the moment. Instead of Dauntless I would offer something like that: “you have died many times and are not afraid of it. First, the threat of death or pain doesn’t scare you anymore, so you pass Strand Strong automatically without a roll in such circumstances (when someone threats you with death or injuries of course, in other cases the player should roll normally). Second, at any moment you can pretend you are dead or kill yourself with effort of will (not for real).”
Thank you once again for your attention to my feedback and I really hope some of my ideas can be useful to you.
Hey Nikita!
I altered the Group advance to now say “join or lead a _” so now its an open choice for the player, cool?
Also cleaned up the corruption advances section like you asked.
I understand your concern regarding the Expert but I think it’ll be okay. People choose archetypes for the idea and concept not for the core move. Yes lots of archetypes have access to workspaces now but every archetype has access to the others’ core moves, its the flexibility of the system. I think you’ll find the Expert is still a popular choice still.
I reviewed the Immortal and I forgot I already redid some of their moves to the point where I’m quite happy with the choices there. Been there, done that is maybe the only one I could see replacing as its similar to the Vamps move. As for practiced liar, this move stays, sorry. Every immortal I’ve seen in play has taken it and adored it. Its not just for PCs either, an npc can spend a debt or MC move to read a protagonist and I’ve seen this move used to devastatingly cool effect through that. Besides its not pvp, its secretive, I think that’s an important distinction. 🙂 I also think the immortal should fear pain and death. In battlestar galactica the cylons all came back from death and it messes them up causing serious trauma in some cases, I see the Immortal in a similar situation. Death is always traumatic and that’s why they mark corruption when they die.
Hope this helps, and thank you to your wonderful wife for her time in translating. :D