Heres some feedback- I’ve run 1 game and played 2 at various cons. I did like the coverage of the various urban fantasy tropes, and loved being able to play an Highlander-esque immortal. Thats a 20 year old dream realised.
One thing I and others like Neil Gow observed is that the playbooks need some.. ooomph, or a bit more meaty provocation in the style of Apocalypse World or Monsterhearts.
For example could the questions on each Skin be made unique instead of standard 3 that get repeated a lot?
Who are you?
How long have been in the city?
What do you desperately need
e.g. Wolf “How many did you kill when you first changed?”
Vampire “What do you regret you can never now do in daylight?”
Monsterhearts does some hard framing in its questions for Strings, and that is part of what is missing here- the questions are too generalised and open. But they are also a bit dull (“How long have you been in the city” vs say “Why cant you leave the City?”) and need something to sex them up, make them a bit more challenging.
Some of the moves are a bit dull too, and again a revision to see how they can be made a bit more provocative/challenging/defining would be good, even if mechanically the same, they need a bit of flavour (such as the roll with X instead of the normal Y in situation Z type ones)
Some feedback on the Intimacy moves (originally from Kickstarter comments page).
I played in Chirags 2.0 playtest game and thought some of the Intimacy moves needed punching up, as a few seemed pretty dull, or dont really fit the theme. Specifically…
Hunter has an interesting sex move (honest questions) but how is it in theme to the Hunter? Wouldnt it work better for the curious Aware? Indeed you might be better swapping the Hunter and Aware sex/intimacy moves (since supernatural sex seems to be a trangression for the monster hunter, it fits better for gaining corruption). But also include an effect for intimacy with a Mortal too, since just marking corruption or no effect is fairly dull.
For the Fae, wouldnt an exchange of promises work better with intimacy (a 2 way street) rather than it being a demand? Perhaps they can refuse if the Fae doesnt give them a promise in return?
The Immortal shouldn’t be about saving lovers- their tragedy is they always outlive their mortal loves, so the Intimacy move seems out of theme. Giving up their Immortality to save their love on the other hand might be an interesting (if archetype-destroying) intimacy move. Definitely needs punching up or changing to something like the Vamps intimacy move about owing them a debt or giving them a glimpse of your past (flashback time?).
Oracle & Spectre & Veteran- reasonable, no issues.
Vamp- reasonable
Wizard- this seems to be the Harry Dresden rule. Not sure what the logic of marking Faction is with the wizard than say another character type? What are you going for there?
The Wolf- reasonable, though you might go for the Monsterhearts version instead of you have a bond until one of the 2 of you is intimate with another partner.
I love the who are you items.
Thanks Steve. We’ll give this a good look over during the revision.
Steve Ellis I didn’t think of that, but you’re absolutely right that the Aware and Hunter seem to have Intimacy moves that better fit each other. And the Intimacy Move was really my only problem with the 2.0 version of the Aware; I otherwise love the skin. I just found its IM to be incredibly dissonant with what seemed to be its overall theme. Your trade would fix the problem and make the Aware a lot more cohesive as far as I’m concerned.
I also agree that the IM given to the Hunter in return should have something to make it useful with Mortality, though. Perhaps the opposite, in a limited fashion? You can remove the Corruption gained by getting too close to the “Monsters” you’re meant to hunt by reestablishing intimate connections with humanity(Mortality faction)? But it would only work on corruption gained via your IM so you couldn’t abuse it to get rid of corruption gained via unrelated means.
As for the Wolf, I think the current version is awesome. It seems to be modeled after certain ideas about a wolf pack. You can establish a bond with multiple people at once, which isn’t creepy or skeevy in US since Intimacy in Urban Shadows is intentionally broad to cover much more than romantic/sexual relationships. It should be almost as easy to trigger an IM with friends and family as with lovers, not to mention being possibly triggered in certain types of adversarial relationships as well. And the time limit enforces the idea that those kinds of bonds need to be maintained, lest they weaken on you. The MH SM is meant to be being protective of your “mate,” but the US IM is I think meant to be having an awareness of “your pack” as a whole.
They just released 2.1. The Hunter move stayed the same, and the Aware move’s change is lateral at best, and maybe worse. In 2.0 it corrupted you for Intimacy with someone you don’t love . . . which probably needed changing, yes. But now the 2.1 version corrupts you if you are intimate with any non-Mortality. I honestly have no idea why this is the case; it makes no sense to me.
Yeah, disappoining some obvious changes were not made- the Immortal one in particular still misses the tragedy of Immortals – that the ones they love keep dying. If you want to share the curse of immortality, be a Vampire instead.
Why is that not a fictional element that the player can determine? Why does that have to be mechanical?
You can say that for any skin Move. In this case by being the mechanical rule it makes it easy for Immortals to keep loved ones around – that doesnt inspire any meaty conflicts or tragedies to fuel the fiction, it just maintains the status quo. Thats uninteresting fictionally. Now if an Immortal had to give up their immortality to prevent a loved one dying (and then taking the Mortal package) then that would be interesting. But given the Immortal is 70% derived from Highlander, its missing the tragedy of immortal existence (no kids or legacy, and loved ones dying of old age/evil immortals)
Steve, I always play Immortals that no longer have loved ones, so wouldn’t this be a waste to me?
Its an intimacy move – if you chose never to get intimate then whatever is written there (canon version or mine) is a waste.