3 thoughts on “Hey, all!”

  1. My initial thoughts:

    1) Skyscraper-sized monster doesn’t seem to fit the general tone of Urban Shadows. Specifically, the default assumption seems to be that the general populace does not know about the existence of the supernatural, yet a 100+ ft tall monster let’s the cat out of the bag instantly.

    2) The corruption move should probably be about destroying things at any time, not just when you are monstrous. Perhaps something like “whenever you destroy something you didn’t mean to or headless of the consequences, gain corruption.”

    Specific move thoughts:

    3) breath weapon should probably be (close, area) not (far ap) .

    4) The flexible special ability should probably be fixed per character (ie you can’t choose between illusions/burning aura each time, only once). And given its flexibility perhaps it should be a separate move that adds on to the base transformation?

    5) Regeneration: One of the possible costs is “takes a lot longer than expected” but there isn’t any guidance on what that means. How long were they already healing? It might be more clear if the move were explicit that you are “hibernating” or something. How does this move contrast with the Wolf regeneration move?

    Debts:

    6) It seems strange the 1 person “knows how to kill you” and another “knows what you really are” since the former seems like a superset of the latter. I recomment replacing the “knows what you are” one with something else. Perhaps “you broke something someone cared about, you owe them a debt”.

  2. Ok, I took some of your suggestions, Charlie Collins. Indeed, the idea of this archetype changes the core assumptions of the game. I was thinking of it being comparable to the Hardholder from Apocalypse World, or the Chosen from Monsterhearts. As far as Regeneration goes, I wanted to express the consequence of wasting valuable time.

  3. I’m still not really feeling the “time passes” as a consequence. Part of that feeling may come from the awkwardness of balancing screen time for each player when something like that happens. It’s no fun if the player doesn’t participate for a while, which feels like a risk. I also feel like that flaw makes me wonder if you can regenerate mid-fight the way a Wolf can. Because “takes a bit too long” when it’s normally only moments means “takes a bit too long” is nothing if you are driving across town.

    To get a similar feeling perhaps something like:

    “You are drained, -1 forward” or “You spend more time eating and sleeping to replenish yourself, -1 forward on the next Start of Session roll” Either of those could give a similar feeling while putting a mechanic on it.

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