Hello fellow urban shades! It’s been too long since I’ve posted anything regarding the progress of US. You’ll be happy to know we’re on schedule for our Kickstarter and eventual release, which is exciting and scary all at the same time.
One thing I would love some feedback on is chapter names and headers. I have an idea of naming the chapters after different parts of a metropolis. Here is what I have so far, please let me know if or what you like and what you might change if you were doing this. Thanks in advance! 😀
I The Suburbs: Introduction
II The Tracks: Rules Intro
III The Subway: The Moves
IV The Alleyways: Factions & Debt
V Downtown: The Archetypes
VI Uptown: Character Improvement
VII The Streets: Archetype Breakdown
VIII City Hall: The Master of Ceremonies
IX The Strip: Your Opening Session and Threats
X The Docks: A Different Shade
City Map: Index & Mediography
Of course, these are preliminary names for as of yet undefined chapters. Chapter numbers and functionality are subject to change.
I think these are great!
You may want to call the Surburbs, the Park.
Surburbs and Urban are not working for me.
That’s a good idea. I chose Suburbs originally because as you approach the city you need to travel through the ‘burbs first which seemed to fit in nicely with the introduction chapter. Parks has a nice ring too, it’s calm and you can see the city but aren’t quite in it proper.
I like.
The Station. That’s your first stop in the city. 🙂
The Park would be better for IX. Open space to start, and the scene of many crime stories on Law and Order.
Solid advice, Jon!
Have you released anything abiut menaces/threats yet? And what about the game setup? I’m planning on start a US game next week. Where can I find the more updated US files?
We don’t have anything written up regarding the opening session yet, at least not completed, it’s a work in progress atm. Game set-up should still be directed via Archetype choice, Introduction and Starting Debts. Loads of story should come out through that. 🙂
I have done up some preliminary Threat set-up though. Here’s what we have so far, feel free to playtest it and provide feedback.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/xgs8z58z93gc2yv/Threats.pdf
Thank you Pavel, I really appreciate that sentiment. I truly hope it becomes a great game enjoyed by many. I know I love playing it. =)
Excited to try this
Thank you, Andrew.
You know, I’m brazilian, and a friend of mine runs a game store, and he is bringing Monsterhearts, translating and all. Although I like Monsterhearts a lot, I must say that UrbanShadow’s approach seems more appealing to me.
Keep up the good work!
Also, I would like to point out that the MTV’s series Teen Wolf is a good source of inspiration for UrbanShadows. Although it have all that “twilight” feeling, it is a lot better than I expected.
It totally seems like we have factions fighting the whole time, specially Mortality (with lots of hunters) and Night (with a lot of werewolf packs). I can totally seize some of the characters in the archetypes you came up with, like the Aware, the Hunter, the Wolf (derp), the Oracle and even the Fae later on.
Totally recomend!
Danilo, thanks for the recommendation. I’d love to release a Portuguese version of US someday. 🙂
I was talking with my game group about US, and they are all excited to play. But we are all very busy people, so they fear they won’t be able to play every game session. Thus, I decided to create two custom moves, in order to make it part of the game:
When you “pack your things and move to another town”, your character is out of play for the rest of the season. You can bring her back in the next season. When you do so, you should chose: change to another archetype; gain a character advancement; erase a corruption advancement or gain one character advancement and one corruption advancement.
When you “stay out of action for a while”, your character is out of play for one or more sessions. When he decides to come back, you roll with one of your character’s highlighted stats. With 10+ you can heal 1 harm for session out of play. With 7-9 you heal 1 harm for session out of play, but you put yourself in a dangerous situation related to the stat rolled. With a miss, you’re in a dangerous situation related to the stat rolled, no harm healed. Whatever the results, mark experience.
Both situations will be build up with the MC making a lot of questions!
How does one change archetypes? I get an aware becoming a vampire, but how does a vampire become a werewolf?
I am fine with the move as long as an agreement of fiction is creates to explain the alteration, and an understanding from the player that the MC can deny it unless such fiction works.
It’s a cool idea. I have some questions about it though.
For the “pack your things” move, allowing them to change archetypes is a pretty big deal, and it can also be done by choosing the ‘gain an advancement’ option. This is just me though, I always think changing archetypes is something that should happen during play, out of the actions taken in the session, but I recognize that that’s my opinion not fact. 🙂
With the ‘stay out of action’ option, I wouldn’t stress the healing part, healing can be hand waved really easily and more importantly, situational. If they’ve missed 2 sessions but only three hours have passed, it’s not really appropriate. But if three weeks have passed, they should heal all their harm. What about this instead?
“When you “stay out of action for a while”, tell us what you’ve been up to and roll with the appropriate stat. On a 10+, you handled it very well and made an important discovery or ally. On a 7-9, you accomplished your goal but trouble is following after you. On a miss, trouble is on top of you.”
Just an idea. Go with what feels right to you though. And if you do play, have a blast!
Tommy, if the change was set-up before they left I can see it working. If the Expert was infected with vampire venom and left seeking a cure or whatnot, they could easily return as the Vamp having no succeeded. But unless that was already established, it won’t make a lot of sense.
Andrew, you made some good points. I think I will stick with what you suggested. The idea that something big happened while the character was absent motivated me to include ‘archetype changing’ in the move, but I agree that it is already covered by the option “gain acharacter advancement”, and it would need to follow stuff happening in the story.
Tommy, archetype changes would only happend when it make sense: a mortal being turned into a vampire or a wolf, for instance, or a dragon learning magic. notice that you keep some of your old moves – so you’d keep being a dragon, but now with magical powers. Of course in some cases it wouldn’t make sense at all, but even a vampire becoming a mortal is possible – maybe this is how vampire works in the game world you and your groupo came up with. So it’s more tied to the way your gme group built the game world in the setup process and while playing to se what happens.
Well said. Archetype changes are always conditional to the setting and story.
When i think about an archetype, what comes into mind is what best summarize a character. So, let’s say, you play a wizard who happens to be a vampire (like a tremere, from vampire, the masquerade). What is more important for that character, to be a wizard or a vampire? Assuming you only become a wizard later on the story, you could emulate it by taking some of the moves from the wizard archetype. Maybe at some point, the ‘wizard thing’ becomes more important than the ‘vampire thing’, and you decide to actually change your archetype – as pointed by the rules, you would keep some of the vampire moves. This is totally ok to me, as long as it make sense in the setting & story.
Which is why I was talking about fiction first above …. I don’t disagree with your points as long as it makes sense with the story. On that arena, we all are aligned.
Is the kickstarter open yet? I’d like to donate.
Hey Sean, we appreciate the enthusiasm for sure! Our Kickstarter has not begun yet and we are aiming for a May debut. We will keep you informed for sure!