Category: Urban Shadows RPG

How should I approach the one-sided threat of violence in terms of Moves?

How should I approach the one-sided threat of violence in terms of Moves?

How should I approach the one-sided threat of violence in terms of Moves?

Example: a Hunter with a sniper rifle getting into position to support his allies in the coming confrontation.

In Apocalypse World (1e), there is a move to threaten someone to get what you want. In a situation like sniping, one simply used that Move. It worked perfectly.

I don’t see any equivalent in Urban Shadows. Unleash an Attack explicitly involves being in personal danger while doing harm.

Keep Your Cool is generic enough, perhaps, but using Spirit would hurt as the Hunter – who is the only one in a position to start the game with a sniper rifle!

Thoughts?

So the Vessel’s playbook under their gear says “A clumsy, but effective weapon (3-harm hand/close)” but provides no…

So the Vessel’s playbook under their gear says “A clumsy, but effective weapon (3-harm hand/close)” but provides no…

So the Vessel’s playbook under their gear says “A clumsy, but effective weapon (3-harm hand/close)” but provides no examples. Does anyone have an ideas?

For your reading pleasure: a WIP Urban Shadows take on my home of San Diego as a setting.

For your reading pleasure: a WIP Urban Shadows take on my home of San Diego as a setting.

For your reading pleasure: a WIP Urban Shadows take on my home of San Diego as a setting.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bFhwKiy0paErvA1R-9IcXrZRulg259BUh_6OqzJg4j4/edit?usp=sharing

John Layton and I are finally done with our MASSIVE World of Darkness supplement for Urban Shadows.

John Layton and I are finally done with our MASSIVE World of Darkness supplement for Urban Shadows.

John Layton and I are finally done with our MASSIVE World of Darkness supplement for Urban Shadows.

If you want to have the group play all as a singular archetype (ie. just Vampires or just Mages) or if you want to play in typical Urban Shadows fashion with a mixed group, this game works.

This supplement includes:

Changeling the Lost

Vampire the Masquerade

Hunter the Vigil

Orpheus (Wraith was just not a good combination with US.)

Mage the Awakening

Slasher

Werewolf the Forsaken

Demon the Fallen

This add-on doesn’t take the game away from being Urban Shadows. It is still the great game that Andrew Medeiros created, but just a 100x more World of Darkness(-ey).

I have included an altered XP system based on the XP styling from AW: Dark Age since US focuses on multi-supernatural entanglements, and some groups may want to focus on single supernatural confrontations.

Richard Rogers, this may wet your taste for something WoD/VtM. I know Jason Cordova that you group up playing these as well.

Lowell Francis, you can see here what I did for Changeling. I did have to remove a few Seemings as Darkling and Ogre were almost exactly like other books from different add-ons. Amazing how much White Wolf recycled from itself.

Steve Moore and Chris Riexax were both huge contributors at the beginning.

Big thanks from T. Franzke for helping me move past the +1 type moves to mostly narrative based moves.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9Hhx1yXlz-OdnVrRWxMMFU0YTg

Bought the game, loved reading it.

Bought the game, loved reading it.

Bought the game, loved reading it… And couldn’t get past the first session. World creation, character creation, first hour of play, and that was it, experiment failed.

Neither the players nor me managed to make it work. As a GM, I felt lost and oppressed by the imperative of thinking about the moves and applying them and interpreting them according to the situation.

As players, they complained about not being able to immerse themselves in the game because they always had to think in terms of moves, they felt restricted to limited options, and thinking in “moves” destroyed their immersion, they weren’t able to just “be their characters”.

The Apocalypse engine turned out to be incredibly hard to understand, impossible, even. We’re not D&D players, we play a variety of mainstream and indie games, but none has stumped us like AW did. This is very frustrating. And nothing I’ve read on the net helped me. The book itself was already doing everything it could to help me and it didn’t work.

For this specific game, I think I’m one of these GMs who need to play it first under someone who knows it like the back of their hand. Concrete examples, concrete situations, lived and played instead of read about. Which means it’s never gonna happen, I don’t have such a GM around.

But, guys, seriously : reading the game was great, and if only for that pleasure, I’ll never regret buying it !

So I’ve been reading Urban Shadows for a while and am thinking of starting up a game.

So I’ve been reading Urban Shadows for a while and am thinking of starting up a game.

So I’ve been reading Urban Shadows for a while and am thinking of starting up a game. I am concerned a bit about the concept of corruption. It seems that the PC gets to flex their true supernatural (etc) muscles or roll badly 30 times in the entire lifetime of their character, including taking the remove corruption move advance, before it gets retired.

That just seems kind of harsh to me. I really expected more rules to mitigate corruption than just the one advance when I first began reading up on the game.

Something like a penance move. Or am I missing something?

Do you guys find this limiting of the fun in your games or am I overreacting to how much and how quick the average character will burn through those 30 instances?

Thank you for any insight! 🙂

I’m having some trouble figuring out how to run a game for the Spectre.

I’m having some trouble figuring out how to run a game for the Spectre.

I’m having some trouble figuring out how to run a game for the Spectre.

They’re the most unusual archetype when compared to typical urban fantasy settings, and they don’t have most of the other characters limitations (being immaterial, invisible when it suits them and almost immortal).

So I have a few questions to anybody who played or had one in their campaign.

Can they carry regular items? The Manifest move doesn’t seem to have any limitations in this regard. In your games were they able to simply continuously manifest and carry around weapons or plot McGuffins?

How do they get around town? In your game did they go everywhere on foot? Or did they get a ghost car? Were they allowed some sort of transport powers?

How did they interact with combat? It seems to me that they face little danger from mortal enemies, and when dealing with other ghosts or spirits, can’t really get help from most other archetypes. Did they make a significant difference in physical confrontations?

How quickly can they de-manifest? Would you say that de-manifesting quickly (let’s say, to avoid an oncoming attack) is a “keep your cool” move?

Any and all input will be appreciated 🙂