Another round of question time! Can a player take a Corruption move from another archetype that refers to the archetype-specific ability (Fae magic, Wolf transformation, etc) to gain that ability? Or are those particular moves off-limits to “cross class”?
Thanks in advance!
In my experience it hasn’t been an option. I do like the idea as many of the corruption moves are not too specific to a playbook and can add interesting twists to any character. 🙂
The reason I was asking is that in Dungeon World, the Class-specific Moves are Moves that can be taken as a Multi-Class option. In Urban Shadows, they aren’t laid out quite the same way. If a Wolf could take Fae Magic as their multi-archetype Advance, then I’d say the multi-archetype Corruption Advance could be taken after you’ve taken the core mechanic behind it.
But, since this obviously isn’t Dungeon World, I didn’t want to make any assumptions.
I think you need to use your judgement on this. Many of those example corruption moves build upon a pre-existing move or quality of an archetype.
My default answer to this is no, but if you as the MC think it’s appropriate that they can take the corruption move and also give them the base move/ability, go for it! It had better REALLY fit conceptually though. If the Tainted thinks it would be cool to be a werewolf now without any justification, I call shenanigans! However, if the Aware is dealing with the Fae and they “gift” them with some kind of power, well then now we’re talking! ‘)
Just had a thought. You could give them access to the complete pair of moves when they select the corresponding corruption move, but add in the caveat that they would have to mark corruption twice to use it. Just an alternative path to take.
Thanks for the answer!
I think the route I’ll go for now is the Dungeon World route, allowing a player to use their normal other-Archetype Advance to take a “core” power, and then that would allow them to take the corresponding Corruption Move. Not that it’ll happen, but one of my players wondered about it.
Obviously it’ll have to make sense, or be re-flavored. So, if a Hunter ends a fight with a Werewolf and shortly after gets enough Faction to advance, then yeah, I’d let them take Transformation.
On the other hand, if the same Hunter wanted to take Transformation without ever interacting with a Werewolf, I’d require they re-flavor it in a way that makes sense. So, maybe they find an Amulet of Ra that turns them into a sun-blessed warrior, and it activates at night because you’re meant to bring Light to the Darkness. That, or the Tainted who can hulk out and go “full Demon” or something.
The nice thing about all the Apocalypse systems is that you can’t really unbalance them, as all I have to do is require more rolls to even things out when it really needs to be tense.
Andrew Medeiros Speaking of marking corruption twice, I was thinking of that possibility with Veteran taking Back At It to take the Aware Corruption move If You Can’t Beat ‘Em.
I think the result is that for one Veteran Corruption move, you get an Aware Move and an Aware Corruption Move that includes two other Moves from other non-Mortal archetypes. Each non-Mortal move usage resulting in two Corruption.