Hey guys 🙂 mc’d my second session of US today. The story is starting to thicken, got 3 threats i need to flesh out for later.
We had a great time, even if the amount of npcs generated through moves can be a bit overwhelming at times. There ‘s one part my players have trouble with (and me too) : corruption.
Only some of my (5) players have marked 1 corruption. I suppose I should be more hardcore with the scenes I frame, but none of my players seem to seek out corruption advancements. But reading reviews and comments, the corruption system seems to be the heart and highlight of the game. Anything I’m missing ? Or is it supposed to be a slowburn ?
Any input on how you handled corruption at first ? Thanks a bunch 🙂
Each playbook has something that causes Corruption. Keep those close and drive the action to force the players to choose… And if they choose to avoid corruption, then bring the consequences home from that decision.
I have played or run yet, but I got the impression Debt was the central mechanic. That said, Corruption is one of the ways PCs can leave play as well as gain power, so it should play a role.
If they’re not motivated by power – common enough – put the screws to your players? You can set up plot points or clues so that the PCs have to Let It Out or otherwise use powers and be exposed to Corruption to move forward.
Yep, force the corruption. Give the Wizard dark forces to deal with, give the Fae reasons to break promises, etc. Use the wording of their corruption move when you ask.
Also, talk to them. The game is not a turtle game. You can’t hole up and protect yourself and “win”. It’s a game about characters on a dark path. Corruption emphasizes that dark path.
In our games, Corruption has been the road to hell and saving the world.
Thanks 🙂 yeah I think I need to be more proactive on this front…
Christo Meid I had a very interesting take on Corruption with my Fae player. He fled his noble responsibilities in his court, and corruption was him being pulled back home.
In the final few scenes of the game, he maxed out his corruption while performing a ritual with other city fae and pulled an entire city block back with him to the fairy realm.
Nice! My Far had also been banished, but was racking up corruption to save the world. He was a changeling who kept hoping he could find his parents, and if this world went to the demons, that want going to to happen….
He was also incredibly naive and annoying, inserting himself in everyone’s relationships as Matchmaker.
At the beginning PC get corruption in 2 ways – their playbook corruption move and let it out, some playbook also have special moves that could give them corruption like Wizard or Fae.
Let it out is a way for PCs to portray them using super powers they do not have another move for. Give PCs possibilities to trigger that move.
“They are escaping in a car after capturing and your car has flat tires, what do you do?”
Here you can also hint “so you know you can use your vampiric super speed as let it out to catch up to the car and jump on it”.
As mentioned by Christo Meid, remember and play to your PCs corruption move, hard or soft, depending from playbook.
Tainted almost anytime he performs his job or works for his patron will trigger his corruption move.
Fae player has to be very clever about not flat out lying and you need to be on your guard to catch him doing so.
Wolf – have some people kidnapped to motivate Wolf to use his tracking.
Tempt Wizard with other offering Wizard a good or bad deal for what he wants.
Ask Oracle to tell someone false prophecies and such stuff.
I personally find Specter move not easy to trigger without pointless scenes of violence.
I’m one of those people who was super afraid of losing my character due to 25 corruption. After some time I realized I was missing out and ware using let it out and corruption moves when I could as they are awesome.
Especially Specter corruption moves are beyond awesome in fiction, if you Spectre has a Link, threaten the Link and watch fireworks as he dominates NPCs or just smashes them with a truck.