Ok so I’m officially giving Urban Shadows the full read through, and I have a couple of nuance-y questions about the rules as written I just want to be fully clear on.
– The Wizard’s Sanctum Sanctorum specifically mentions “spell ingredients” but the only ingredients listed in wizard spells are personal objects from others that one would assume they don’t have bags and bottles of (“Oh we need the Governor’s fingernail clippings? Third shelf from the back”). Is the intent here more for uses of power during Let It Out? Or something else?
– Spectre harm is a little confusing to me. Regular people can’t interact with the Spectre, so it’s probably safe to assume mundane harm from guns or knives doesn’t do anything, even when physically manifested, right? So supernatural harm is the only thing that can harm the Spectre’s corpus, and they reform in a few days. But what exactly triggers the “spirit passing on permanently” bit of the End Move if not supernatural harm?
– The Tainted’s Tendrils in the Dark explicitly says “assume your demon form and go to work”. I assume this means that the patron’s job requires immediate attention, but not all of the jobs you select are really things that need immediate demon-form attention. (“I need you to smash into this building and negotiate the fuck out of this demonic contract!”). Is the intent here that the “right now” job be one requiring violence?
– You can gain things by calling in Debts, but what about stuff that is… minor or not debt worthy? It’s apparent that the characters have different levels of starting wealth, but it’s not exactly clear how to manage this. The Fae can probably easily buy a round of drinks for a local bar, but I doubt The Hunter could. It seems a little silly to require The Fae to have a Debt with the bartender or something to do it. Should this be entirely managed by fiat alone?
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The intent of a Sanctum Sanctorum’s components is that it narrative-ly resembles a location where magic for the Wizard is easier to cast. It has the salt, chalk, theramin, newt eyes or what-ever else the player would use to declare magic is happening. No systemic bonus. But remember that the Sanctorum is a location. The MC can no longer ask where the magic is being cast and interrupt it as causually as if you were in your apartment kitchen.
In the sanctum description, the “spell ingredients” are whatever you have already when you roll a 10+. It’s not a move about specific ingredients for specific spells. If it helps to think of it this way, if could have just as easily said, “A summoning circle” but on a 7-9 you need a bigger circle.
Also, “Move on through to the other side” is an advance for the Spectre – you choose it voluntarily, if ever at all.
1) Spell ingredients are all about fictional positioning. Use them to build plots around and as justification for Let It Out.
2) You’ll have to find out what might make the Spectre move on to the other side…. Could be a wizard’s spell? Or maybe the loss of an anchor? Or whatever else fits your game!
3) Nope! The idea is that the “right now” puts the Tainted in a bit of a spot.
4) Yup, just manage it the way people manage it. Someone buys you a round of drinks, no Debt. But if they buy all your drinks for a year, you probably owe them.
As for the demonic jobs, brokering contracts is really the only one without an obvious use for demon form, and you gotta take 2, so you’ll always have some excuse to look big and scary when you use that move.
And as for buying drinks at the bar, yes, pretty much by fiat. There’s no rule for tracking individual dollars. I’d only tell a player “yeah you can’t afford that” for buying a round of drinks if it made the game more interesting somehow, regardless of archetype. Anything actually expensive (like a rocket launcher) should come through Debts, not dollars. That’s what the game is about, after all.
Sorry for multiple quick replies – I keep thinking “That’s all I know” and then remembering something else while I wait for the car dealership to find my keys. 😛
Thanks all. That definitely clears up 3 and 4.
2. So for all mechanical purposes, the Spectre cannot “die” in the same manner as other characters? The way I’m understanding you all is that they must explicitly choose to die, or it must be some sort of special NPC thing – either a big plot point, or maybe just regular old necromancers all over the place able to do real harm.
1. If I’m reading you all right, the move exists for use in the Sanctum primarily, right? I think I was reading it as a “get in the car, we need to make a stop off at my Sanctum for some things” move, but couldn’t really see any particular reason you would need “some things”.
On 2: It’s probably more accurate to say that there is no written rule explicitly stating how the Spectre can die. Whether that means the Spectre can die involuntarily is up to you and your table.
There are a lot of gaps like this in Urban Shadows (like many other PbtA games!) that are kind of up to you to fill. Like, there’s nothing explicitly saying that The Vamp hates sunlight – so do they? At my table, the Bloodsuckers experience great pain in the sunlight, but the Flesheaters are disintegrated by it, and the Breathtakers just kind of dislike it.
On 1: The Sanctum move specifically says, “When you go to your Sanctum for a spell ingredient, relic, or tome” … so yes, it’s pretty specifically for the sanctum. Channeling and Let It Out are your out-of-sanctum magic options, basically. Or is there some other move you mean?
Jason Tocci no that’s it. I was just reading “when you go to your Sanctum for X” in the same way you’d “go to the grocery store for milk”. I was envisioning a quick stop off to gather supplies for use outside the sanctum, and I think that’s sort of where my confusion was from – there didn’t seem to be much necessity for said supplies outside the sanctum.
Aaron Griffin: Oh huh, neat point. Well, my group has a Wizard and he hasn’t used that move, but now that you mention it, I would let him grab something from the sanctum and take it elsewhere. It’s just a question of what would be within reason to grab from there – but we’ve established pretty well what his PC’s areas of expertise are, so I don’t see that being an issue.
(And honestly, I keep trying to come up with an idea of something I wouldn’t let him get, and I’m coming up empty. There is nothing too powerful for me to veto because anything that powerful would be HUGELY problematic for him. “Do I have a holy hand grenade?” Well, you do focus on religious antiquities of Abrahamic religions, so why not. “Do I have a magic sword that kills vampires with a single blow?” Uh, that’s pretty specific, but maybe, sure, let’s see how The Vamp on the team feels about that, though. “Do I have a tome with a spell that could destroy the city?” What? Yes, of course you do. Totally. I’m sure nothing could go wrong with that.)
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