Urban Shadows RPG: Discussion – Page 43 – Powered by the Apocalypse G+ Archives

My group is having some trouble with debts. We’ve played Urban Shadows a couple of times, but have never done the debts well. Last night was a brand new game, and we had a hard time with them.

In one scene, our demonologist was summoning a demon prince to subdue the other demon she had failed to bind. From put a face to a name, she had a debt with him, and they had a working relationship. She can just cash in the debt, roll persuade with +3, and go right? Does she need additional leverage? Like make another promise or threat to the demon prince? Or is the debt enough? (it seemed like it should have been enough in the fiction). I had her promise the demon a small favor as leverage, but it felt wrong.

At the very beginning, our puppet master character cashed in a debt to get our witch to help out with his problem. Because he was cashing in a debt, he felt the need to remind the witch of the debt she owed as a veiled threat (You better help or I’ll pull the rug out from under you). The witch’s player felt like he needed to go along because of the debt rules, rather than reacting with hurt pride as his character would have, in order to follow the rule. In other words, the players felt like the debt rules got in the way of the fiction.

And that’s the main concern of my players. It seemed like the debt rules got in the way of the fiction. Do you have any advice? Is it just inexperience?

This is also the second group where the players have complained loudly about the experience point system. They want to level up, but feel like it’s too hard or too forced. What would you say to players in this case?

Thank you! I’m excited to get better at the game.

It appears that there are no playbooks that start with armour.

It appears that there are no playbooks that start with armour. I assume this is by design, but wouldn’t it make sense for certain playbooks (like the Hunter and Veteran) to have armour?

Is there a section for looking for a game?

At the beginning of a game, is it ok for two players to owe each other debts?

It seems like during the game, if you do a favor for someone and you owe them a debt, it makes sense to cancel the debt you owe – but is that a requirement?

Can someone owe you a debt, you do something for them, and now you owe each other a debt?

Spectre question: Without the “Wall?

Spectre question: Without the “Wall? What Wall?” move, can Spectre’s move through walls? In my PbP a player recently mentioned that his Spectre “can’t yet walk through walls” but that seems like a strange arbitrary block. Still, it does seem to make the move a little weird if any Spectre can move through walls. Thanks!

Sort of off-topic. Just a realization.

Edited to be less of a rant.

Okay, with reading Urban Shadows I’ve figured out why the idea using the rules in Monster of the Week, Urban Shadows or Monsterhearts to run a Divine Blood setting is difficult for me to get started.

The matter is one of base assumptions.

While the agenda and faction system of Urban Shadows works great for some of the possible political campaigns of Divine Blood, the agenda of MotW works good for some of the more action elements and the agenda of Monsterhearts is good for a more soap-opera-ish civilian campaign…the archetypes/skins/playbooks are where the problem exists.

In general those three games focus on how supernaturals are NOT human, even if they look human.

Divine Blood focuses on the idea that a soul is a soul is a soul…ie, it focuses on how supernaturals ARE human.

So a lot of the archetypes and playbooks don’t make sense with Divine Blood’s fundamental world rules.

It’s less of a problem in MotW since most of the playbooks are assumed to be human and it’s simple to just have a non-human from Divine Blood in one of the normal playbooks and represent their innate abilities via Use Magic (vampyr, for example, mostly go through life not realizing they aren’t human…so most would more closely fit the Mundane playbook from MotW). Or I could represent a spec-ops soldier grown numb to violence using the Monstrous playbook. But with Monsterhearts and Urban Shadows, where most of the playbooks are assumed not to be human, its an issue.

I’ll have to consider the necessary reskinning before working on a packet for adapting DB to these rules.

I have a one-shot/tournament Monster of the Week scenario that would be rather easily reworked into this game.

consider something like the Tournament of the Dragon from Champions 3rd or 4th edition….every 60 years it’s held to choose the most worthy warrior to face and defeat the death dragon in combat…the winner gets a few mystical boons as well (assuming the Death Dragon does not defeat them, is not released and does not destroy the world), or Mortal Kombat (lose 10 Mortal Kombats and get invaded), or Fate/Stay-Night’s Grail War.

Every 60 years, five artifacts are created and distributed as part of a re-occuring ritual. People seek out and earn these relics and then try to win the remaining relics from the others, finally using the five to reseal a big bad evil thing (I usually go with Typhon from Greek Myth). Only the boons come from the magic siphoned off the Big Bad Evil thing, so some of those immortals that have participated multiple times start to turn evil…and the cult that initially created the ritual to gather power has turned to evil and seeking to release the BBE…

The one-shot is assuming every artifact has been collected from around the world and the various parties are meeting to have the confrontation and decide who gets to perform the ritual. With the players being the group holding one of the artifacts.

The campaign would be first spent learning about and getting one artifact…followed by learning there are five of the items and then heading to the city of the ritual in order to compete in the tournament.

It could easily be scaled from a global competition to a city one.