Author: Breeba, Bich

Hello, GM Brave back.

First of all, thank you to all of you guys who commented your thoughts and opinions, but I realized that I made a HUGE mistake with my last few posts. This was all on me and I apologize for the lack of communication, but rereading what I posted, it sounded as though this “campaign” that I have is something that I came up with all on my own and something where I didn’t have a conversation with the players.

That’s not true. The majority of what I built was in response to the party. I’m always constantly asking them questions about their characters, asking them where in Galestine they can be seen (we drew a map and together we are plotting important spots on that map based on their characters), and they’ve even been put in hypothetical situations and events that are completely improvised through group chats.

We’ve been planning this TOGETHER for practically a whole month now. And we all kinda pre-planned things together, but it’s because we love character development and storytelling so much. At times you can find us spending hours of our days simply talking about hypothetical scenes and so on. We call these scenes “goofs” where it’s just making jokes and having fun, but some of these goofs ended up becoming more than just a joke. Thus why I spent a lot of time talking about NPC’s that the Lobos will encounter. Those were goofs that are now a big deal.

All of what I mentioned previously was all thanks to the group. Quite frankly, I didn’t even come up with the demons being the main antagonist. That wasn’t until one player provided backstory of her character who is a demon hunter. And from there, looking at all the other characters and their backstories, I made these connections to provide them a main “villain”. But it wasn’t me who thought of this originally. It was because of them that this story grew.

This was my fault for not mentioning any of this, but last night I felt as though my posts were getting too long, and I didn’t want to bring discouragement to anyone who didn’t want to read such a long post. I should have mentioned these facts long ago…

And all these events and main forces that I mentioned would be in each ark isn’t exactly pre-planned either. Well it sorta is but I have a main goal for them to hopefully accomplish by the end of each said ark, but the rest is up to them. There are no limits as to what the party can do, there’s just that one thing that’s driving some sort of reason for them to stick together during this entire gameplay. They have the demons and other evil forces they will face to worry about, but other than that, everything is up to them. And session wise, I have no idea how long each ark will be (How many sessions each ark will be). It’s all dependent on the party. And the reason why I separated Recognition into arks is because I like to keep things organized. With all the ideas that were being thrown around, had I not separated these ideas into groups, then everything would become really messy, and then the game wouldn’t be fun for anyone. The point of the arks was to keep things under control and to avoid things getting chaotic.

I have that tendency to want to get things perfect and that’s why I decided to post my concerns last night. I started to feel like I needed other people to tell me what I was missing, and I am taking in consideration what you guys said about switching systems, but I honestly fell in love with Urban Shadows and I wanna try and see if I can stick with this system, but still get what me and the party wanted from this gameplay that we’re gonna have. I am NOT disregarding what you guys all recommended, please that’s not what I’m saying.

I don’t mind switching, but I have to ask the party how they feel because they already spent so much time developing their characters.

-We have a tainted college student who became a tainted in her moments close to death. After making that deal, she’s slowly become less emotional and more numb. Empty. So she’s trying her best to find a reason as to why life is so important.

-We have a wolf who has lived in his family’s territory all his life, and now thanks to a demon hunter, he’s made it out into the real world. (No, the hunter didn’t attack his family. He just accompanies her now on her adventures). He’s experiencing new things that otherwise he would have never seen on his home terf.

-That human demon hunter that is accompanied by the wolf is actually lost. She has no idea how she arrived in Galestine, but that’s because she lost her memories. What actually happened was that her father became a tainted and in order to get his soul back, she became a hunter, but word got around and she was eventually attacked, but she escaped. In the process of that, she lost her eye and she didn’t remember what had happened. All she knew was that demons had something to do with what happened to her. So now her goal is to find out what happened.

-We also have a fae who betrayed the fae court and was banned from it. She had stolen a precious item and thus because of that, her banishment resulted. This fae now lives in Galestine doing favors for other people in order to survive the streets.

-And our newest member of the lobos is a ghost who for years has been looking for who took away her life in a car accident, but after so long, she has grown tired of searching and just came to terms with what has happened. Now all she wants is a friend and interaction with anyone… ANYONE.

I’m honest to god really excited with this crew and I really want this story to be told. Thanks for all your help! I will take it all into consideration and hopefully this clears some of the miscommunications up!

Thanks again.

-Brave

Hello! It’s GM Brave again back with another request.

So in the previous post I’ve made, I was asking for help with how to make fights actually be fights in Urban Shadows, but now I need help with knowing how to be a GM in general. Like I said in my last post, this is the first game I’m ever GMing and I have 0 clue as to what to expect. I think in my last post I was starting to sound a lil too demanding as to “TELL ME WHAT I HAVE TO DO TO MAKE THIS GOOD” but really all I guess I’m asking for is tips.

How can I make this campaign of mine ring with the players as much as it has for me? How do I keep their interest and how do I just go about it?

I just need help, from GM to GM. I have the tendency to want to get things perfect, and I’m trying my best to stop that mindset and just go with it, but anything would help me tbh.

For a lil more context, my campaign is called Recognition, and it has 7 arks, each ark having a title starting with “Re” because why the hell not? Each ark has one specific end goal that “The Lobos” (name of the party playing) has to complete. The city this all takes place in is called Galestine (“Gale” for short) and is heavily based on New Mexico (with other influences too). Galestine is a pretty dangerous city with the influence of drugs, abusive homes, violence, poor economic support and poor education; there are too many elements in Galestine that make this place one of the worst in the nation. With Gale being a huge mixing pot with many different factions, there’s no telling who you’re going to bump into. Eventually The Lobos find themselves in the presence of a mixed group of Galestine citizens (mainly college students, a college professor, and their mom friend). This group calls themselves “The Guild of Good For Nothings,” TGOGFN’s or Guild for short. The Guild has been watching The Lobos and they end up becoming some of the most important NPC’s in the game. They are a source of valuable information and they can provide help pushing the story forward if The Lobos find it to be hard to know what to do next. With the Guild and The Lobos getting together, change is starting to occur in Galestine, and while most citizens either are all for it or don’t care, there are some evil forces who do not want there to be a change for the better. These evil forces are demonic, and all they want is to rule over Galestine as the patrons of the city.

These demons are the main villains of the story, and they’re out to get the Lobos, along with all the other fights that the Lobos will encounter. (Just to clarify, I do not mean tainted. I mean demons in general).

With that being said, I think I’ve rambled enough about Recognition. I can talk for hours about this, but I think I’m going to leave it there for the sake of not making this post longer than it has to be. To recap, I just really want help with GMing. Tips and tricks and some intel as to what to expect would be great. Once again, thank you guys all so much!

-Brave

Hey guys! It’s the GM talking and well, I need some help

I’ve been working on my campaign for a long time now and I got something I’m really proud of. My campaign is called Recognition and it has 7 arks (each ark being called something starting with “Re” because why the hell not). The party playing is also amazing and I’m so excited to get started!…. only issue is that I have the narrative down to the bone, but I haven’t thought at all about the actual game system and mechanics.

I love writing/storytelling and really, if I have the right to, I would call myself a novelist (words from other people who’ve called me that). If I get asked about Recognition, I would put everything in my life aside to sit down and ramble about it in a heartbeat. I love it that much, and all the possibilities and different stories within Galestine (the city Recognition takes place in) are so unique, I’m sure anyone can find a place in this story, and quite honestly, I could talk for hours about this campaign. But with so much lore, I have to find a way to implement the dice rolls, the intimacy and corruption moves, fights, decisions that my party makes and how I react to them, etc.

Basically, I have no idea what I’m doing

And this is the first game I’m ever DMing and I haven’t had the chance to play tabletop games all too often (because life has its way of draining all free time off my hands along with my energy once I DO have free time) so I have no idea what it’s going to be like. I also have the tendency to think that everything that I make has to be PERFECT. It’s a double edge sword I’ve wielded all my life. It makes me think down to the nitty-gritty details of my creations but it stops me from actually showing anything off because “It’s not perfect enough.” (If anything I’m going to probably show this to my friend and ask him if this is good enough to post)

But I’m not here to talk about my life’s biggest issues, I’m here to talk about my campaign! I need help figuring out how to incorporate all the fights and to know what to do during each “encounter” per say…

But I guess for context, the biggest villains of Recognition are the demons. (Not the tainted, for clarification. I mean straight up demons who are patrons in Galestine.) There will be many instances where demons will be a huge influence in the story, more specifically the fights and challenges that the party, (who go by “The Lobos”,) will face. For example, a fight that the Lobos have very early on in the game is a fight with an NPC who is a tainted hunter but is, plot twist, actually a tainted. (He is yet to have a name so we call him THT.) THT was just a goof that the party made, but eventually became the first fight in Recognition.

My idea is that he’s there at the start and he’s kinda what makes The Lobos realize that they work well together (or not; who knows) and he’s what starts this whole adventure, but instead of being killed, THT when (IF) defeated will end up really messed up and run away. He comes back near the end of the first ark, but he comes back as half-demon-half-human. His last encounter with The Lobos left him inbetween forms, so hypothetically, after a while of recovery, he’s gotten stronger and he’s harder to defeat.

I’ve gotten support on the idea, now what I need is to know how this is going to play out. I need to understand how do I make this happen without mucking it up.

Please, if I could get help, any at all, that would be amazing. Sorry for such a long post, but like I said, I could talk for hours about this. Thank you so much to anyone who helps me out!

-Brave

Hello!

We’re set to play a game of urban Shadows. Our MC is a first time MC. And I a, the only one who’s even played other tabletop games before, (Monster of the Week, D&D 5E). The rest of the party Is new, but they are really excited for it!

The city is made up but based on More of a New Mexico/Arizona feeling.

And the base story is a campaign for mayor where one of the main candidates is an oracle, and calls in the party because she’s seen her political assassination. That’s all the MC has told us plot wise. I’m playing a Wolf named Aurelio.(see art) We also have a hunter named Nadia, a Fey named Maeve And our last member hasn’t posted their character yet. We’re really excited, but If anyone has any advice let us know. Our MC really wants to do this right and I love my Hispanic wolf boy. XD