Hey, we just finished our first session of Urban Shadows. All in all, we had a lot of fun with the system and really enjoyed how things went. That said, we had some questions and comments:
-We felt the Wizard’s intimacy’s move was a little weird and didn’t get what was it was trying emulate. We also felt it was a little hostile in comparison to the other intimacy moves, but that might be intentional.
-Maybe this is because we didn’t have exact text on how debts work, but we curious how you honor a debt.
-For the session intro move, it could be clearer that the person you choose tells you what faction to mark.
-We were a little curious how spectres work when it comes to harm. Like, can they get hurt when they can’t touch stuff?
These were just the things we picked up on during the game. Overall, the session was really fun and we liked the overall system.
Heya Nicholas, I’m glad you’re playing and enjoying U-S. That’s super great. Let me answer your questions as best I can.
-The Wizard isn’t actively doing anything with their Intimacy Move, it’s just bad luck to get close to a Wizard if they care about you, that tends to stick around.
-Honoring a Debt is easy, just agree to to the terms of someone cashing in a Debt against you.
-“At the beginning of every session, choose the player of the character you trust the least to spotlight a Faction for your character” How else would you say this to make it clearer?
-Spectre’s require a bit more imagination in terms of Harm. If you shoot a Spectre who isn’t Manifested, it’ll probably go right through them. But if Harm comes form a magical/psychic source, that’ll chew right through them regardless (i.e. spending time at a murder scene with probably do them great harm after a few moments whereas everyone else there would be fine). So yea, the Spectre faces a different realm of Harm basically.
Let me know if that isn’t clear or you have any other questions.
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Cashing in debts is basically “Okay, I need X. I’m calling in my favor, give me X.”
-Alright, so it’s supposed to represent that it’s dangerous to get close to a Wizard?
-So, that is how we running the debts, but the players were wondering if that was how it worked.
-It wasn’t that part that some of my players found confusing, it was the part about who marks the faction. We went with the person being described. So, I see X doesn’t have Mortals marked so I choose to spotlight that faction and X marks Mortals. The player was confused if the describor or the describee marks.
-That is pretty much how we agreed to handle the Spectre stuff.
-Yep, getting close to Wizards is risky, but not cause they’re a direct danger to you.
-So when you are making the Session Intro Move, it’s you who marks the Faction in question. Then you move around the table until everyone has done this. 😀
When you say “you,” do you mean I was right or that it is the opposite?
So, you go to make the move. You choose someone. They spotlight a faction for your character. So they choose the faction that gets marked for your character.
Andy nailed it!
Got it. Thanks, Andy and Andrew.