Urban Shadows RPG: Discussion – Page 4 – Powered by the Apocalypse G+ Archives

I have a question for fellow MC’s- tomorrow I’m planning on running my first Urban Shadows session.

Both me and my players are entirely unfamiliar with Urban Shadows, and I’ve read through everything over and over anxiously(I fear I might be a bit under prepared) but I wanted to ask:

Do you all have any advice for the first session? I don’t want to force my PC’s into a specific situation, but I’m not sure how to handle threats.

Should I build a threat for each PC and try to tie them together? I’ve been fussing for the past few hours over how to build good threats, but should I just leave things to improve and try and let things play out in the first session so I have more to build on for the next? My PC’s have unfortunately not given me a lot to build on for the first session.

Question about the “Withering” Faerie Magic.

Question about the “Withering” Faerie Magic. Is it intended to be triggered via “Unleashing an Attack”? Or is it triggered just by the Fae touching someone (perhaps after using Keep Your Cool as described in the rulebook)?

On the one hand, it’s definitely doing violence. On the other hand, it’s quite an expensive move, and needing to Unleash (via the Fae’s worst stat) on top of that might put it over the top. It’s also not specified that it’s a weapon that requires Unleashing (as Elemental Weapon does) so I was thinking that it might simply be triggered “When the Fae touches someone and they choose to Wither them”. But it’s not entirely clear to me. Any thoughts?

I have a question regarding Custom Moves: When and how do you share these with the table?

I love all the information in the book about creating custom moves for scenes, characters, and more. But I’m unsure how to disclose these to maximum effect?

Do you just wait until the trigger occurs for the first time and then show it to the triggering player? What about moves that don’t have a trigger? Do you just slap them on the table at the beginning of a session and say, “Hey guys, here’s some more moves”?

Curious as to how others have done this and what has worked well or not so well.

Thanks for your help

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.

Does Urban Shadows still work well if you set in an openly supernatural urban setting, like the movie “Bright” or…

Does Urban Shadows still work well if you set in an openly supernatural urban setting, like the movie “Bright” or True Blood?

I have an idea for a campaign where every PC is a cop in a Shadowrun-like city, and it occurred to me that Urban Shadows would be a cool system to use for it.

Question: besides the angel, do you have any plans for future books, like dark streets?

Inmortal’s schemes.

Can the schemes be advanced during session or only using the opportunities offered in the start session alt move?

How does the interruptions works? Is only a move to use with the start session move?, or is something to appear during game time?

The +1 obtained via the Alliance scheme is permanent and without handicaps apart completing a scheme? An Inmortal could end with +3 in all factions so?

Has anyone created an enitirely fictional, your very own, city for the campaign?

Has anyone created an enitirely fictional, your very own, city for the campaign? If so, how’d you do that? Have you used maps? If you did, were they handwritten (?) or done in some program? I’d appreciate any bit of help or advice

Question about the Immortal:

The move “Chameleon” has left my MC and me stumped. Can I get a few examples of an Important Ritual that would trigger this move or even a situation in which a ritual would occur?

Hey I’m currently tooling around doing some pre US game prep, (what little you can do without the player’s…

Hey I’m currently tooling around doing some pre US game prep, (what little you can do without the player’s involvement). So i have been making some random magical items and stuff, ready to be used in game if needed.

I figured i might ask to see if anybody else would post examples of custom moves they have made for magical items or trinkets.

To start the ball rolling, here is an item i made a custom move for (item concept not originally mine).

Box of secrets:

An ornately carved wooden box that, if opened and the bottom is placed on a surface, will create a magical “hole” in the surface that the user can then use to see or hear anything through. It is possible to reach through the box and take an item out of the other side, but it hurts like a bitch.

• Move: When you place the box on a flat surface like a wall or a floor and open it roll Wild;

o On hit, you can see through the hole to the other side. On a 10+ pick 2. On a 7-9 pick 1.

 You can hear noise through the hole but no noise travels the other way.

 The hole is visible from the other side and can be looked through.

 Noise passes both directions through the hole so conversations can be had.

 At a cost of 1 harm you can reach through the hole as though the surface was an inch thick.

o On a miss, mark 1 corruption but you can still see through the hole.