Niche protection in Urban Shadows.
Following is my thought after many hours spent playing and MCing Urban Shadows.
I see that even if there is a niche protection regarding playbook selection, other than that nobody is really special and XP system further invites going to NPC Wizard rather than PC Wizard.
So let’s see an example. Players are a Wolf and a Wizard. A Wolf finds he has a problem than need Wizards knowledge.
If he goes to PC Wizard, PC Wizard might use his cool moves, chance are he will have to make investigation of his own and that can take 1-2-3 sessions (because some misses ware rolled and some other plots got in a way) to get back the answer and faction will probably not be marked, no xp will be gained.
If he goes to NPC Wizard not only he gets to mark faction, get xp, but also his problem might be solved far quicker.
Am I missing something, is my observation correct? Any way you see to make going into PCs better solution than hitting the streets with NPCs?
For example in Apocalypse Wold the niche protection is very strong. If we have a Chooper and a Savvyhead, for Chopper there is nobody else in a 100 miles who can fix his bike, Savvyhead is the only guy so he better keep a good standing with him.
You aren’t wrong exactly. The chief advantage to “doing it yourselves” is you don’t get into Debt with bad people. If you Put a Name to a Face to introduce a new NPC wizard it’s quite likely you might end up owing them something you don’t want to pay in order to secure their cooperation.
I’ve always marked the faction when moves (cashing in debts) target PCs as well.
Oh yeah, you definitely mark faction when you Move on a PC