In a few hours I’m headed to a local game meetup and I’ve pitched Urban Shadows in the hopes of getting at least two sessions in to be named Champions in the book.
Any advice for a first time Urban Shadows GM? I’m relatively new to running Apocalypse World games in general – ran a PbP AW game, a session or two of DungeonWorld, and a few play test sessions of my own dark fantasy hack.
Take a look at the MC Quick Start Guide we posted on the last update. It should be helpful to get you up and running!
Mostly, I try to create situations in which the PCs are being pushed and confronted by NPCs. Cash in Debts on them from NPCs. Threaten violence. Make the politics of the City feel chaotic and dangerous. 😀
Yeah, I’ve been reading the quick start guide this morning. Good stuff.
Did it get run/played at Jank on Demand?
It did! We had Meghan, Dr. Boyfriend, two JoD newbies, and a regular named Avril. Things went well, people really enjoyed character creation. I had printed a map of Chicago that had some community settlements from 1950 (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b5/Chicago_Demographics_in_1950_Map.jpg) that the players drew circles on to represent faction turf. The coolest turf stuff we came up with is that street level and above in The Loop (Chicago’s downtown, including the theatre and financial districts and the Mag Mile) was Power’s turf but the subways, pedway, and lower Wacker/Michigan/etc. were Night’s. Wild claimed contrasting neighborhoods with Lincoln Park (a swank neighborhood) and Back of the Yards (where the old slaughterhouses were). Night also got the stretch of lakeshore cemeteries starting with Wunder’s. Humanity got Roger’s Park and filled in some of the other gaps. The players really got into the map.
I made one big blunder in character creation that, I think, had a cooling effect on the game as a whole. When we made the debt moves at the end of character creation I forgot to point out that debts can be exchanged with NPCs. So all the debts were pointed at one another, except for the Tainted who had his progenitor with 3 debts on him. This made for a really tight knit group but there wasn’t much I could do as the MC to push them at each other.
The players made a Wizard (Avril), Spectre (Meghan), Aware (Dr. Boyfriend), Oracle (Sean), and Tainted (Vladimir). The Aware was a UPS store employee/drug dealer. The Wizard was a biochem grad student at Northwestern who supplied the Aware. The Spectre was murdered by H. H. Holmes during the 1893 Columbian Exposition (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Devil_in_the_White_City). The Oracle used drugs to control/interpret his visions similar to the painter from the first season of Heroes. The Tainted was trying to take over Chicago through crime and supernatural warfare.
This setup was unsettling and challenging for me. I’m so far removed from the idea of drug culture that wrapping my head around these relationships was really hard. When we highlighted stats, no one trusted the Tainted at all so he got to highlight for the other four characters.
I started off by framing a scene where the Aware hits up the Wizard for a resupply and it turns out there’s a new drug that the Wizard has synthesized. They sample it and have crazy visions (the Aware had to Keep Cool as he watched the Wizard die repeatedly; the Wizard had a rush of arcane euphoria and rolled Let It Out). The Aware took a few hundred doses to sell.
Then I told the Oracle his visions were of fire, blood, and death so he went to see what the hell the Tainted is up to lately. The Tainted started talking about taking over the city and decided to go terrorize some folk. We wound up making an NPC that was the clerk at a 7-Eleven who’s in the know with the various factions. The Tainted rolled Hit the Streets and found out that a cult has popped up in Humboldt Park that is pushing the mortal gangs out.
The Oracle was not too happy with the Tainted so he went looking for the Spectre, and found her reflection in a car window in lower Wacker. They talked a bit about his visions and he Let It Out then realized that the fire, blood, and death he’s been seeing is the same fire, blood, and death that killed the Spectre all those years ago.
Cut to the Aware in his apartment with his girlfriend Mindy (hope/lust, greed.) where he’s talking about this new drug and how it could really open peoples’ eyes to the supernatural, maybe do some good for the city. She starts talking about how it could be a big score for them, getting in on the ground floor if it takes off. The Spectre decides to haunt the TV and starts appearing completely out of place in every shot of Toddlers & Tiaras while the two mortals have a conversation. She decides she likes the apartment and wants to have a conversation with the Aware so she starts talking some shit to Mindy who freaks out and storms out of the place. The Spectre and Aware start talking (keep in mind that the Spectre is still just an image and voice on the TV). The Spectre wants to move in because, hey, nice place, right? She wants to know how to get rid of Mindy because she’s just annoying. Things almost got to the point where I have them do their intimacy moves but they wrapped the scene before I called for it.
At this point Sean had to go so I did one last scene where the Tainted gets a phone call from his demonic father Balthazar (justice/pride, wrath.). I cashed in a debt to make a hard move: Offer an opportunity at a cost, which was to say, “I’m very disappointed that Chicago is still free so I’m coming to take care of things myself. Bring me the Wizard and you can earn a place at my side.”
We wrapped there and had a brief post mortem. Players were interested in doing a second session so we will try to get that on the books for next week, depending on schedules. They loved the map and character creation went really well. Having needs and wants questions on the archetype sheets really gave some color to the characters. The Aware had the need for a stable relationship and then we introduced his girlfriend – which meant she was not a stable partner. Great stuff. There was some confusion on the wording of the debt moves as to who owes whom that people felt could use some cleaning up. Over all, it was very positive.
I think having the players make NPCs and exchange debts with them would have given me more leverage throughout the session to get things rolling. Lesson learned. I also pulled back from the sexual content in the scene with Mindy because there were some new kids at the table. Initially I was going to have her be very amorous at the mention of a new drug that could make money but I wasn’t comfortable going there without knowing Sean and Vladimir. We hadn’t had a conversation about lines and veils so I didn’t push in that direction. Had it just been Meghan, Dr. Boyfriend, and Avril there definitely would have been more explicit action going on there.
That’s what I have for now. I may scan the archetype sheets and post them for people to see.
Sounds awesome. I’m glad Megan Pedersen finally played, I recall bugging her about that at last GenCon. 🙂
I really like how you brought that map out for the political setup, that’s super smooth!
The map bit was my favorite thing of the session. I’m not sure I can adequately assess the gameplay since we didn’t have much time to actually invoke the mechanics beyond a roll or two. I’d be interested in trying it out with a little more time to let things breathe and do scenes in the world. It seemed fun, but we weren’t really working much with the experience/corruption tracks since we had limited time.
The debt thing is not very clear for me. I was confused by the wording and by what owing and be owed really entailed. That’s my only downside in the experience. I didn’t get it which made me kind of put a blinder on to it.
haha that’s too funny Megan Pedersen. We have tried multiple incarnations on the wording of who gets the Debts and each time a different pool of people express confusion.
I really don’t know how to fix it. I’ve looked to Monsterhearts as an example but I think the conceptual difference between a String and a Debt don’t let that work.