Quick question: how do you handle Put a Face to a Name?
A lot of the time when a new npc or group is introduced, all the players want to roll Put a Name to a Face. Every time, all of them.
As we have 6 players, this breaks the flow of the game somewhat; but for me (MC) it also breaks immersion & narrative credibility , that quite often 5 out of 6 people already know every person around, with 5 different haphazard reasons/stories that don’t really mix or match.
We’ve discussed it and sort of agreed that not everybody has to roll; we usually get it to the first person that meets the npc, and then either the 2nd player in the scene, or the first time they tell of the npc to another player.
However, as it is a Faction move, and thus the way to leveling up, this has some considerable weight for some players.
Only one gets to roll. Ask who is most likely to know them
Part of the problem is having six players. Although the game says 4 or 5 players with less than four giving issues associated with lack of interaction between players and the environment I’ve found that four players is the optimum for a good game allowing the MC to exert control over the group. Stamp out the everyone rolls thing. As you have found this gives a problem. One or two can test as usually the group should be all doing disparate things and you’ll have to hop between them so the full group never meets a single NPC at the same time preventing this issue.
Nigel Clarke Oh, they split plenty of times, hardly ever are they all together, other than to relay info to each other. And request each other’s help (jeej debts!).
📌
I allow player to roll that move when NPC is met and seen or mentioned by someone else in the scene “their character is in”.
So if all 6 of them are in a bar talking and Red Scar is mentioned, yes all of them roll, but if one of them is cornered and attacked by Red Scar only this one rolls the move, other have to wait until they hear or see Red Scar themselves.
Does that help?
Pawel Solowczuk Do I understand you correctly that if one PC encounters Red Scar, he rolls the move; if that PC then tells the other PCs, they all roll the move?
Andrew Neale yes, that’s how I understand the move trigger.
Pawel Solowczuk How do you suggedt to handle the narrative credibility issue? (that quite often 5 out of 6 people already know every person around, with 5 different haphazard reasons/stories that don’t really mix or match.)
Andrew Neale I’m not sure that I understand the question (narrative credibility), but I will try to answer 🙂
Urban Shadows is a social game, PCs lived in the city for years (I do not accept characters that are new to town, because I don’t feel that this is in the mood of the game), living in city for years they get to know other supernaturals, some as enemies, some as friends, some just from reputation (7-9 result means that they heard of the person, maybe met them in the past, maybe not, up to them).
The game tells you that game members of Red Scar wolfpack are not targets of that move, they are just goons with drive to sever powerful, but Beta in that pack might be important enough to be worth of the move.
So another tip is to try and keep the NPC list in a range of 20-30, if there are more, kill some off, when PC misses hit the street – they find the contact dead and someone else is there and thinks that PC did it, what do you do? 😉
So to sum up, I don’t think that 5/6 of the team knowing people in town is an issue. If the Immortal/Vamp lived in town for 50 years, yeah, he knows people and they know him.
If I can suggest something something on the side, I would split that 6 players team into two. I personally think that 5 players is too many to share the spotlight, 6 … way too much.
Another tip (I didn’t need to do that with my usual team of 3) – if a lot of PCs roll the move at once, ask them to connect why NPC owes/is owed into one story. PC A helped NPC with something that NPC did for PC B -> two PCs are now tied to one story and NPC from 2 angles.
Also at some point in the game (usually around session 3 when you have NPC list with few Wizards, Vamps, Wolfs and so on), ask PCs to stop introducing new NPCs and go earn XP from other moves, hit the streets with existing NPCs, investigate existing NPCs, drop names, have intimacy with each other or NPCs etc.
Pawel Solowczuk I really like this:
“when PC misses hit the street – they find the contact dead and someone else is there and thinks that PC did it, what do you do? ;)”