Help me Urban Shadows Community, you’re my only hope!
Last night was game 4 in my new US adventures. I’m the MC. My players fought a particularly nasty bear-demon-thing left as a trap by a vindictive hunter. All of us are rules-heavy transplants from other systems: D&D3.5, Pathfinder, GURPS.
So… how does combat work? I mean, it kinda worked, but I’ve got a lot of questions:
* Unleash on a 7-9 makes the player choose “they inflict harm on you” or “you find yourself in a bad spot”. Why would the players ever take harm? What would encourage them to do so? Do I just ask them to be reasonable, only so many bad spots you can find yourself in before it catches up to you?
* If the player took “find yourself in bad spot”, what could that mean? At one point fighting the bear-demon-thing one of my players took find yourself in bad spot just as he’d done the “take something from them” to take the bear-thing’s balance (shot its foot off). They fell down a ladder, lost their footing, got in someone else’s way. But they recovered as soon as the bear did, so it didn’t really cost them anything… so how could I have adjudicated that better?
* Does that mean I’m not taking my MC move of inflict/trade harm enough? Like I should just fiat “you take 3 harm from its bilious claws”?
I don’t need a lot of systems or case-by-cases, more of a narrative guide, maybe? Or example combats from others?
The combat spooked my group enough (two people are in the hospital now) that I don’t know that there will be lots of combat going forward but I’d like to be armed with more knowledge than I have now when it comes up.
Ah you probably have little experience with PbtA systems based on the information in your post. 7-9 means the opponent hit you doing some damage to you in the combat. Page 40 (hard back version) tells you about that 7-9 ‘bad spot’ result.
PbtA games generally place a heavy burden on the MC to come up with stuff on the fly in response to results like this which is very different from most rule heavy trad games.
You might want to get AW and read that as it has a tonne of advice about running games using the system.
Totally true: first PbtA game evar. I get the “come up with stuff on the fly”, really have no problems generating fiction, but what stops my players from just getting in worse and worse spots? They’re already being attacked by a huge monster — what’s the worse spot there? Do they not get to choose it next time, then? Or maybe that’s when the demon summons a little buddy to help it out so now there’s TWO of the damn (heh) things?
Similarly, except for the social provisions of “don’t be a dick” (which, hey, might be enough!) what’s to stop a wizard from accumulating hold through lots of channeling? They have it until spent, not until scene’s end.
I handle “find yourself in a bad spot” by upping the ante on that player. Let’s say their a Fae who Unleashes using their faerie magics and choose to be a in bad spot; maybe I pull them before their Monarch to answer for a past crime or slight, or maybe their magicks turns ballistic and affect everyone in the area, or maybe they feel the tug of a Debt being passed from them to someone else, etc.
Or I’m a Hunter who Unleashes with my bad-ass shotgun and then whoever I just shot, or maybe a buddy of theirs knocks it from my hands and down a nearby sewer grate and I’m left without my gun.
Just complicate things, put them in positions where they can’t just keep Unleashing in the same way; essentially by changing their narrative positioning in the conflict.
If a Wizard has Hold, he can’t keep rolling for more Hold; that’s just silly. If someone tells you there’s nothing against it in the rules, tell them they’re being silly and then say no. 🙂 You’re the MC, arbitrate the moves and if they have concerns they can take it up post-session so they don’t distract from the game going on right then.
If you’re good about putting your players in bad spots, they will gladly take the harm sometimes! 😀
In many ways, “end up in a bad spot” is double or nothing. You do your harm, but now the next roll is for higher stakes. Andrew Medeiros nails it when he talks about changing the fictional positioning:
… you drop your gun and the bear-demon charges you. What do you do?
… the bear-demon summons up two smaller demons. They three of them rush you at once. What do you do?
… the bear-demon grapples you and the two of your fall off the building. You’ve only got a few seconds before you hit the ground. What do you do?
I’d also urge you to take a look at the long example. We show some combat there, and you can get a sense of how the pace of the rolls works.
And thanks for running the game. It sounds like an awesome session. 😀
Wizard channelling: Luckily, I play with reasonable people and that’s what we came up with. 🙂
As long as the bad spot is actually bad, players should feel like harm is a considerable alternative. Like, the PC could take harm herself, or make so much noise that the people around the corner will join the fight. Are those people reinforcements? Police? Innocent children? Pick whatever would make it BAD and let the player have a say in what kind of badness to accept.
At least with harm, there’s a limit to badness and armor to mitigate it. There’s no ceiling to how bad a “bad spot” can be.
Thanks for all the examples. I’ll re-read the long example as well.
Thanks for writing US in the first place you two! It was a pretty good session. The pacing in session 4 was much better than session 3 because I remembered to make my moves when things stalled.
I’m kinda in love with the threats/countdown clocks/storm trio. I’m a story-heavy GM anyway, but the formalism around the types/subtypes/impulses are a fantastic scaffold to hang all this stuff off and keep track. Really helps to keep things swirling, which I appreciate.
Now, an addendum that just occurred to me that I’m writing as much to remind myself as to advise you… 🙂
Ask yourself what the PCs want in the conflict (besides “to not get hurt”) and threaten that thing. Examples:
They’re sneaking in somewhere. Bad spot = being seen or heard.
They’re trying to protect someone or something. Bad spot = that other person or thing is in peril.
They’re trying to slay their enemies. Bad spot = enemies are presented with an opportunity for a clean getaway.
etc.
Jason Tocci That’s a really good point. This situation was perhaps too straightforward, i.e. “their lives” might’ve been the extent of what was on the line. But in the future…
David Hayes – My dark secret: When there’s nothing else obvious on the line, I sometimes just default to D&D 4e status effects. 🙂 “The blow doesn’t hurt, but it does knock you flat on your back / daze you and make it hard to react / immobilize you under the creature’s body!”
Those status effects go a long way because they are real shifts to the fictional positioning of the characters!
GM: Okay, the bear-demon knocks you down. You’re trapped under it.
PC: I unleash! AGAIN!
GM: How? You are wielding a sword and you’re completely trapped under his body.
PC: Oh. Yeah, that’s a problem. I guess I push him off me?
GM: You’re The Wolf, so that seems reasonable. Sounds like you’re trying to Let it Out to take hold of something vulnerable, i.e. YOU. Roll with Spirit.
Since there are four of them, I wonder if I was sharing too much spotlight. As in going through an implicit initiative order for no good dramatic reason.
Just like the name and locations lists, I might pile together a list of bad positions ahead of time so I don’t have to depend on my brain to do it in the moment.
Where can I find the long example? My group is also new to US. So far I love it–it’s what WoD should be–but we’re still figuring out the rules.
Page 237 of the rulebook. Very helpful.