Just ran my 4th session of Urban Shadows last night, and damn it flew into overdrive.
For the first 3 sessions, my players and myself were kinda figuring out how to play the system, who our characters were, and what the score was in our city. I was actually really stressed out running the game because for the last 26 years, if I went to game with the minimal amount of prep I brought to Shadows, it would have been a flaming disaster.
But last night, everything clicked. I asked the characters more questions, whcih really freed me of some of the burden of imagination. Demons were slaughtered, others summoned. Police were evaded. Secret cabals of wizards were met.
In short, the game was sweet and sexy.
Great work Mark, Andrew, et al.
Ironically, I recorded a podcast on Shadows while still struggling with the game. If you’re interested, it’s here: http://plotpoints.libsyn.com/82-urban-shadows-apocalypse-world-engine
http://plotpoints.libsyn.com/82-urban-shadows-apocalypse-world-engine
I actually had the same thing happen to me with Apocalypse World. I ran like 2-3 sessions and I didn’t really get it. And then all of the sudden…
For me, I think it was when a character went to see an oracle. We got through a bloody piece of ritual magic, the oracle inhaled the fumes of boiling blood, and I asked the player what the oracle told him. He had to take a quarter of an hour to figure out what the oracle said, so we moved on to another scene, but moving that burden on to the player was so freeing, and the player was of course happy because for them it represented more control over the game.
Super enthused today.
The same thing happened when we played. The Corruption moves start opening up, and the plot lines really kicked in. I’m desperate to play again.