Hello, folks!
Urban Shadows corerules talk enough about group advancements, such as “lead or join a Vampire Clan” and “lead or join a Wolf Pack”, which allow the PCs trigger new moves… In that logic, it wouldn’t work well if firts session characters started the game as members of those kind of association. For example: the Vamp should start the game alone, without a clan, and then develop relationships that move the story to the point they join or lead a clan. Then, my question is: the MC needs to deny the Vamp, the Wolf, the Spectre and so on starting the game as a member of such a community?
You know, this never occurred to me before. Curious to hear responses.
A table is welcome, I think, to play with the meaning of “lead” and “join” in this case.
Imagine being part of a pack or clan as an outsider, constantly on the sidelines and ignored and belittled. Used as the punching bag or the joke, kept around for what you can do for others rather than valued as an individual, and with no power to really influence the group at all. Unlocking the “join or lead” advancement could represent finally being authentically welcomed into the fold, elevated from outsider to insider; or following the stratospheric ascent from outsider to leader.
You may be part of some gang from the start. You just don’t lead it or aren’t so involved with them to receive mechanical benefits yet.
Yeah, Alpo _’s got some good points here. I’m loathe to tell a player “No, you can’t do that” when they propose that they’ve already got a pack, but the fictional position is much different. The move that comes with claiming that advance is designed to make the advance a fundamentally different experience than just saying “Yeah, all vampires are in Clans and I’m already in one.”
So… I was thinking in something like these options: 1) The Vamp begins as a solitary being at the city, and as the campaign flows they can get into a vampire clan; 2) The Wolf begins as an almost member of some werewolf pack, and then they may become a full member (for an example, I thought in Alcide, the wolf character from True Blood. He shows out, when in Bon Temps, as a kind of solitary split member of Marcus’ pack until he kills the pack master and is called to take responsibility for this).