Hi all,
I see some references in the rules to things that haven’t been explained. I’m guessing this is because readers are assumed to be familiar with these, but I’m wondering if Urban Shadows prefers one over another.
Things that I’m talking about here include:
– Fairy courts: what courts are there? What are their differences? Is there a universally-agreed point about each court?
– How is the wizard council structured? Do we have other councils?
– How can vampires turn other humans into vampires? Also, how can vampires be killed?
If you search about any of these on Google, different series have different ideas. I’m wondering if Urban Shadows prefers one over the other. For example, regarding killing vampires, I’ve noticed in the long game example that the vampire is killed with a gun shot, and because it’s to the neck and at intimate range, it’s assumed that the vampire can’t regenerate.
However, in some series, vampires re-animate after a while, and only garlic/holy symbols/wooden steaks/silver/fire (the weaknesses differ a lot) do the job.
I’m just thinking that if Urban Shadows picks one set of rules over another, I should get myself familiar with it because my players expect me to know those. If not, should I give people hints about what “I”, as the MC, think as “correct” in this game?
Thanks a lot!
I think those are the kind of things you decide with your players while character and worldbuilding.
Ask the player of that booklet. If you wish, you can use leading answer. Instead of ” how are mage politics structured?” say ” why the way mage politics is structured easily lead to abuse of power?”.
Or, instead of ” do vampires have weaknesses?” ask ” which common material could kill a vampire?”
I can only second the answers given above and try to give a little more description and example.
If you are looking for inspiration, I like to think that Dresden Files is an inspiration for my Urban Shadows games, I read few books and that’s how I pitch the game to my players “We gonna play a political game with super natural creatures, similar to Harry Dresden adventures”.
However someone else might draw inspiration from World of Darkness.
That said in Urban Shadows your table (meaning MC and players) get to decide what they want in your game. Player of a playbook should decide about stuff for that playbook. Table should decide about unassigned playbooks.
And you can change it from game to game, mix and match, make it your own game. Just remember to leave space for drama – if vampire player says that vampires cannot be killed in any way this doesn’t lead to a good story. However if he plans to takes Tainted move “Tough as nails” he can say that some Vamps are resistant to damage.
Example: In one game Vamps ware killed by direct sunlight, but it was ok, because everyone else was also only active during night and it was not a problem.
In another game that I currently play we have a Vamp and Veteran and Scholar (who are both elderly and mostly active during day). Having a Vampire not being able to act during day in that game would have been no fun, so we said that Vamps can walk in sun, but they are weaker – and each time I try to use a Vamp super power in direct sunlight they always fail, I have to lure my enemies into shadows or wait till the night then I can strike 😉
Very helpful answers. Thank you!
Ask your player.
We usually let the MC decide for all details that are not related to the PCs.
In my campaing, as an example, my vampire hunter player decided that vampires are not burned or killed by sunlight but during daylight they are powerless as normal humans, but still undead.
Wizard player decided that there is a world-wide order of mages (Order of Hermes) but no local organization in player city. So the Order is something distant and uninvolved but int he biggest threats.
As no player was playing Faes I ruled, as MC, that courts are related to seasons, Summer vs Winter and that mid-seasons are aligned to both. Autumn more usually inclined toward Winter and Spring to Summer. Summer and Winter are ruled by Queens, powerful as deities, Autumn and Spring by significantly weaker Dukes.