I have run Urban Shadows twice now and its been a lot of fun. However, I have noticed that the Vampire playbook almost assumes that the PC is a newly created vampire, as its last Debt question identifies another PC as being responsible for that PC becoming a vampire. In both runs, the players of Vampires have chosen to have been Vampires for quite some time (it is one of the central appeal to being a Vampire).
If this Debt question hasn’t been changed, it is possible to have it listed first and not last on the list? That might help it be asked in a more formative part of the creation of the PC concept.
Who says it has to be a PC? 😉
It was you or Andrew who recommended that Debt questions should be aimed at PCs 🙂 Its also in the Quickstart Guide IIRC. FWIW we ended up assigning it to an NPC in one instance.
If the text of the book discusses assigning Debt questions to NPCs, then that’s cool. But when you combine that suggestion with that question, it stuck out as a notable sticking point.
Luke Walker – Totally. I think most of the Debts should be pointed at PCs, but that’s one that makes a lot of sense to be pointed at an NPC. We also carefully phrased it–“responsible” vs “definitely turned you”–so that players can say things like “Oh, the Immortal is causally responsible for turning me because he sold me to a vampire.”
Yeah, we’ll definitely make sure to say something about it in the Vamp’s section on debts! 😀
Awesome. Thanks.
Its actually similar to one in the Tainted Playbook, though that is more obviously directed at the Demonic Patron as an NPC, where the Vampire one is more open as you say.
In the majority of the Urban Shadows and even AW games I’ve played, we’ve handled debts at character creation by letting everyone look through the playbooks and choose whatever they think is appropriate and describe what the debt exactly is. Even then, if none of them seem appealing, we’ve also gone with making our own “debt questions” and assigned debt as seemed fair.
John Layton – Awesome, man. Good to hear that it works for your group. In general, we put the Debts on each playbook to help reinforce the concept of each playbook and to make sure that the PCs have lots of reasons to work together.