So I just ran Urban Shadows for the first time.
I liked it a lot! Somehow Corruption didn’t come up very frequently at all. I need to push harder on that, but almost every roll was at least a partial success. Faction Moves flowed much better than I expected. I used Debts quite a bit, but should use them still more.
I really missed “Read a Sitch” from Apocalypse World. Also, “Keep Your Cool” seems much more focused than “Acting Under Fire,” to the extent that I wasn’t sure how to handle a few things.
In AW, when someone is trying to overcome obstacles between them and someone else order to do violence to them, it would generally be Acting Under Fire. But Keep Your Cool seems much more reliant on the player wanting to avoid something in particular. I used it just as I would have used Acting Under Fire, and it worked fine, but I am unsure if I’m doing it right.
I need more system familiarity, but it was still lots of fun for me and, I believe, for the players, too.
Thanks for the help!
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Derrick Kapchinsky has the right of it when it comes to Corruption. Some players go crazy for it right away but that it rare. They’ll come to love it as time goes on, I bet. Definitely keep tempting them with it, tell them it’s candy!
Not having the Read a Sitch move isn’t really that big a deal. They can always Investigate a Place of Power to learn what’s really going on there, Let It Out to learn the answers through their unique powers, or just ask the MC what they want to know. You’re then able to make MC moves as the answers. If they ask you “What’s wrong with this place?” You can put a terrible thing in the scene that will endanger them momentarily. 🙂
Keep Your Cool takes a few sessions to get used to. It basically replaces Act Under Fire (since acting under fire is essentially remaining Cool in the face of pressure) but allows the PC’s to set the stakes. “You wanna sneak into the vampire night club? Sure, but you’re going to need to keep a level head and wait for the right moment to move in. Keep Your Cool and tell me what you want to avoid.” Maybe they want to avoid being caught, avoid walking into a trap, or miss out on the chance to come face to face with who they are there to see. In that example, if they want to avoid a trap, then no matter what they roll you can decide whether or not they’re caught or miss their opportunity to see their target. Just don’t let them list off a whole whack of things they want to avoid, they only get to name on thing to avoid.
I hope that helps clear things up. Please ask any followup questions you think of. Thanks for running, that’s super awesome!
Ben Barnett. I had large discussions with Andrew Medeiros about Keep Your Cool as I was having the same issues. Looking back, I don’t get what I was thinking.
If the players do something crazy, as the MC just make a MC move ….. they acted irrationally with no planning, and no safe being for their life. BUT if they take ANY precautions, then they are KEEPING THEIR COOL
I have also given corruption on successes but something Dark.
Derrick Kapchinsky Andrew Medeiros That makes sense about Corruption.
I hadn’t thought about just letting questions cause GM Moves in quite that way. I’ll have to try that.
I kept forgetting that particular Learn Something choice under Let It Out. It is, in truth, the grab-bag move that makes the least sense to me. It seems like the catch-all for gaining advantage or knowledge through taking your true nature, but I don’t have a solid sense of what it looks like when someone does it. Particularly when someone mortal does it.
That is an interesting take on Keep Your Cool, Tommy Rayburn. A bit of a different mindset.
Derrick Kapchinsky Andrew Medeiros Huh. I don’t suppose that there’s a way for a Kickstarter backer to get the latest rules? I’ll be running at least one additional game as well as finishing this “one-shot,” and I might be running at an upcoming convention.
Feel free to email me about that from my G+ profile page.
Derrick Kapchinsky Andrew Medeiros I don’t want to push for a firm date if they’re not comfortable announcing one. I look forward to them whenever they do come out.