I’ve been chatting a lot with my players about what is and isn’t working for them about this game, and I’m hoping to get some GMing advice from you folks to fix the “not working” parts. Namely…
1. Marking factions to advance
They HATE to “split the party,” making it hard to interact with multiple factions per session. I’ve mitigated the issue somewhat by letting them mark the faction of their choice if they contribute to the campaign log, and I figure I need to bring more factions to them – e.g., get FBI agents from Mortality actively tailing them – but I’m open to other ideas.
2. Using Debts … like, at all
I call in a few NPC Debts per session myself, but not sure what else I can do.
3. Tailoring actions to moves
I try to encourage them to just tell me what they want to do and let me figure out the move, but this is an especially tall order when you need to pick specific moves if you ever want to advance. I’m wondering if there’s anything else I can do to make this work more smoothly (aside from “play more often than every other month so they finally memorize the moves,” which is unfortunately not possible to schedule right now).
Thanks in advance for any input!
To be blunt: if they don’t like branching out and interacting with the different factions, and they don’t like trading favors by engaging with the Debt mechanic, then Urban Shadows probably just isn’t a good fit for this group, because that kind of political play is where the game lives. Maybe some other urban fantasy game would be more suited to your table’s needs (assuming you want to stick with the genre)?
Yeah, this occurred to me, but we don’t want to switch systems midway through a story. We’ll finish up the campaign probably after 12 sessions or so and then play something else. (About 7 sessions in so far.) I just want to make the rest of the sessions the best I can make them.
#1: at minimum, each player is bringing in a faction every session that hasn’t been marked so far, right? That’s due to the intro move. Keep building on those threads; don’t let old plots lie fallow! Remember that the city’s factions are intertwined through one another. Tie the webs of disparate factions together.
Plus, don’t forget that factions are not monolithic. There’s probably an oracle who heads up a ring of mystics in an inner-city block ruled by werewolves and vampire drug-dealers. There’s probably a faerie and a mortal who have banded together through strange circumstances. The player characters themselves are examples of this, since they all come from different stocks, and there’s likely at least two factions represented amongst them, if not more. What fiction are you able to spin out of that?
If you want to work on getting them to cover more ground, you can also bring in more individual plot threads. Each of the characters has individual issues going on, starting from character creation–like how the Vamp has a lair and a web, the Wolf has home turf to take care of, etc. Each playbook actually has individual space that doesn’t necessarily involve the other players. You can lean on that some, to emphasize how each player’s character has their own individual needs.
#2: what debts are you cashing in on the players? Like, maybe they don’t understand how potent debt can be. Keep in mind that you can cash in a debt on a PC to get them to do something at moderate cost for you. They have to refuse to honor that debt if they don’t want to do the thing. Make sure it has a cost. Keep the cost moderate–in other words, it shouldn’t be debilitating or massive–but make sure it’s a cost. Debts don’t get erased for nothing.
#3: the only moves that work towards advancement are faction moves, debt moves, and intimacy moves…and the triggers on those are all pretty clear. Players can work towards them fairly easily, I think. Debt moves are super-easy to trigger, then intimacy moves, and interacting with someone from a faction very much seems like it’ll eventually trigger a faction move out of the actions you’re doing.
The way I like to approach player-side moves (and remember, there’s nothing wrong with the player speaking the name of their move) is to often say something like “Okay, so you’re sizing this werewolf up, trying to figure out what sort of threat he is. That sounds like Put a Face to a Name, yeah?” and then, when the player affirms, telling them to roll it.
Sometimes, it’s the other way around. The player tells you, “I’m Letting it Out,” and you respond, “Okay, so what are you doing, exactly? Are you projecting a creepy vampiric aura, using a hypnotic stare, or something else?”
Sometimes, it’s dead-obvious what’s going on. “I’m rifling through the files in the landlord’s desk. Is that Investigating a Place of Power?” All you have to do is affirm them.
I wouldn’t have them try to memorize the moves. Just print out the pages with the basic moves, and when the players are stuck in a situation and need to do something, they’ll look at the pages and think up things to do. The moves in Urban Shadows are tools for getting what you want. Make them easy to reference, and the players will use them.
Maybe they don’t like splitting because you run them in the same way everyone else does: half the table sits there and waits their turn.
Have them split up and flit between then more rapidly – Stavros, you’re in the van and the wolf gang has you tied up. While you consider your options, Brill and Candice, you wake up in the diner, charred and damaged from the explosion. Stav is missing.
Also, which of these issues have you talked about with them? They might also default to never splitting the party because in some RPGs, doing that is tantamount to suicide because it’s a game that expects a team working together.
Andy Hauge: We don’t use the intro move every session because we usually have to start and end right in the middle of the action and we already have more loose threads than we need … But I should give this some more thought, thanks!
As for the debts I cash in, it’s mostly stuff to keep the story moving. When they would rather sit back and watch Power duel over who gets to be the next Chancellor of the Sundered College, the Tainted gets a call from her boss telling her to step in on his behalf. When they’re holding a dangerous artifact and have no idea what to do with it, representatives from four different groups come calling in their debts because clearly it belongs to them alone. And so on.
As for players speaking the moves, that’s kind of the problem (in at least some players’ eyes). One person tells me he hates consulting the page of basic moves before he announces any action to make sure the move is “allowed.” I tell him, don’t worry, just tell me what you want to do, but I think the lack of things they expect to see from D&D (like “perception check,” a clear omission that I personally love) throws him off.
Aaron Griffin: Nah, I’ve been running PbtA games awhile now, so I’m pretty used to the whole “conversation” thing. My theory was just that they are too trained by many more years of D&D never to split the party, but at least one player tells me she just really likes group problem solving among PCs way more than hitting the streets to chat up NPCs. (Yeah, I know, this may not be the game for these players, but again, we’re this far in, so I just want to do the best I can for them.)
Andy Hauge: This post came entirely from a conversation we had today about all these issues. And yes, the “tantamount to suicide thing” is likely a factor. They’re open to trying a lot of different games, but they’ve played D&D more than anything else, and it remains their favorite system and style of roleplaying. Lot of old habits that did hard with that, I think. (For me, too.)
Jason Tocci so then we can all agree the system isn’t for them. The problem is that they’re not giving it a fair chance, though. “We want to do X and not Y” ok, fine but this game encourages Y, can you just try it for two sessions or so?
If they’re not willing to put things aside and try the game, then you should abort. It is not the GM’s responsibility to entertain them. If they’re not willing to try, you shouldn’t either.
Aaron Griffin: I feel bad if I misrepresented them that much! They want to give this a try – it’s just not coming to them easily. I’m just trying to figure out what I can do to help them along.
Jason Tocci hmm… Do they have an r-map in front of them during play?
Aaron Griffin: No, but that’s a good idea. There are a lot of characters and I bet it’d help not just keep them straight, but spark ideas for debt cash-ins.
As for players speaking the moves, that’s kind of the problem (in at least some players’ eyes). One person tells me he hates consulting the page of basic moves before he announces any action to make sure the move is “allowed.” I tell him, don’t worry, just tell me what you want to do, but I think the lack of things they expect to see from D&D (like “perception check,” a clear omission that I personally love) throws him off.
Aha! Okay, that helps me understand that bit a tad better. I’m trying to think on how best to address that. I don’t know how to address it to your group, but it’s not a case of being allowed to do something or not, of course. If something’s not covered by the basic or playbook moves, it’s either something you can do, no problem, or it’s something you can’t do.
You’re the Wolf, and you’re bounding across rooftops to get to a drug deal that Power is holding? That sounds totally fine to me, let’s cut past that and get to the important scene. You want to scale the Empire State Building? Uh….what? Other things will fall between those extremes, but as long as it’s unreasonable, you can generally move on.
The default response to “I do X” should be “Y happens”, unless there’s a move with dice involved. Perception is a neat one to bring up, because it illustrates something very real that you can do as an MC. “I look around the room,” can prompt a response like “You notice that there’s a shady figure hiding behind the dumpster, but you can also hear footsteps running around on the rooftops.” (Which you might notice as the MC move “warn someone of impending danger”.)
You can be obvious with what characters perceive, because information fuels action. You don’t always have to make everything totally out in the open–if the players are facing down a Wild faerie who has illusion magic and wander into its lair without taking precautions, it’s totally reasonable to hit them with a hard move like “The sprite appears right in front of you and sucker-punches you.” Though notice–that’s still an example of being obvious! You give information, which fuels action.
Everything is allowed; moves exist to put the spotlight on specific things that you do.
Maybe try to get them to talk in terms of intent rather than actions? “I punch him” / “OK, cool. Why? You want him unconscious or you want him mad?” / “I want to piss him off so he chases me!” (Sorry this example is pulling towards AW2 “bait a trap” 🙂