Review: Urban Shadows
Sept 16, 2016 19:33:40 GMT -8
Post by lowkeyoh on Sept 16, 2016 19:33:40 GMT -8
It’s been a long while, but I decided to post my review of Urban Shadows because no one seems to be talking about it, which is a real shame because it’s a fantastic system. Superb playbooks, superb system rules. Great mechanics that facilitate complex webs of intrigue and political machinations.
Link to DriveThru It's $12
So let’s start at the beginning. What is Urban Shadows. US is a modern fantasy PBTA game that is heavily influenced by World of Darkness and Dresden. Heavily. So much so that there's a WoD conversion kit out there. Playbooks are cover all your fantasy bases and every has dope moves. We’ll get to some of my favorites in a bit. You have four stats that represent your character’s stats, and four stats that represent their standing within the various communities. Factions, and the playbooks that belong in those factions are:
Mortality: Veteran, Aware, Hunter
Night: Spectre, Vampire, Werewolf
Power: Mage, Oracle
Wild: Tainted, Fey
Immortal, Dragon, and some others are playbooks that were in the playtest but not in the final release, probably going to be in supplement in the future.
Some of my favorite moves are the Veteran’s Old Friends, Old Favors and the Oracles Foretelling. OFOF let’s the player roll any time they meet an NPC, a strong hit lets them tell you why they’re old friends, a weak hit lets them tell you why they’re friends and they owe them a debt, a miss let’s them tell you why the person wants them dead.
Foretelling is rolled at the start of the session, 10+ hold 2. 7-9 Hold 1. You can spend hold to declare a disaster is about to happen, and everyone gets +1 ongoing to avoid it. 2-6 they see the death of someone important and are at -1 ongoing to stop it.
Moves like these are fantastic ways for players to shape the story and really drives home the collaborative nature of the story telling. Any room they walk into could be danger that you have to improvise and any NPC could be an old friend of foe.
I mentioned debt, which is a mechanic that allows players leverage to get other players, NPCs, and Factions to do what they want. The Tainted is a demon touched and part of his playbook revolves debts owed to his patron. Vampires are all about a web of people in their debt. This is a good mechanic for people to guide players to the people and factions that owe them and is a way to have factions put PCs in sticky situations. If everyone’s on their shit and is really in it for just the RP, debt can be ignored to some extent, but it’s not that intrusive of a mechanic.
Debt reinforces the main theme of the game, which is that you’re all single people in a complicated tangled world of connections. Every problem has a face and so does every solution. Urban Shadows is a very very social game where character and alliances are key.
Characters are not all goody two shoes, though. Each playbook has conditions that earn them corruption. You fill up the corruption track enough, you gain a corruption power and start over. Gain too much corruption and retire your character and they belong to the GM. It’s a balancing act, but one that is tempting because corruption powers are fucking great. Things that cause characters to gain corruption are things like Vamps feeding on unwilling victims, Oracles giving false prophesies, Ghosts looking at scenes of victimization without doing anything, or Fey lying. Corruption moves ALSO gain you corruption, but are fantastic.
Last up are drama moves. Everyone has a move that’s activated when they are physically or emotionally intimate with another person. I know this strikes people as sex moves of Monster Hearts and it can be, but we always play it as emotionally connecting with someone else. There’s also death moves, which are great. It makes the sting of dying a little worse when you can have one last powerful act before you die.
Advancement is based on interacting with all four factions, so it keeps everyone moving all over and interacting with the entire city.
The system is robust enough to handle political intrigue but also if you’re my table it also does fine with wild adventure. It handles mystery. It does high or low combat just fine.
It’s super fun, super cheap, AMMMAAAAAAAAZING at cons. You really should do yourself a favor and check it out.
Link to DriveThru It's $12
So let’s start at the beginning. What is Urban Shadows. US is a modern fantasy PBTA game that is heavily influenced by World of Darkness and Dresden. Heavily. So much so that there's a WoD conversion kit out there. Playbooks are cover all your fantasy bases and every has dope moves. We’ll get to some of my favorites in a bit. You have four stats that represent your character’s stats, and four stats that represent their standing within the various communities. Factions, and the playbooks that belong in those factions are:
Mortality: Veteran, Aware, Hunter
Night: Spectre, Vampire, Werewolf
Power: Mage, Oracle
Wild: Tainted, Fey
Immortal, Dragon, and some others are playbooks that were in the playtest but not in the final release, probably going to be in supplement in the future.
Some of my favorite moves are the Veteran’s Old Friends, Old Favors and the Oracles Foretelling. OFOF let’s the player roll any time they meet an NPC, a strong hit lets them tell you why they’re old friends, a weak hit lets them tell you why they’re friends and they owe them a debt, a miss let’s them tell you why the person wants them dead.
Foretelling is rolled at the start of the session, 10+ hold 2. 7-9 Hold 1. You can spend hold to declare a disaster is about to happen, and everyone gets +1 ongoing to avoid it. 2-6 they see the death of someone important and are at -1 ongoing to stop it.
Moves like these are fantastic ways for players to shape the story and really drives home the collaborative nature of the story telling. Any room they walk into could be danger that you have to improvise and any NPC could be an old friend of foe.
I mentioned debt, which is a mechanic that allows players leverage to get other players, NPCs, and Factions to do what they want. The Tainted is a demon touched and part of his playbook revolves debts owed to his patron. Vampires are all about a web of people in their debt. This is a good mechanic for people to guide players to the people and factions that owe them and is a way to have factions put PCs in sticky situations. If everyone’s on their shit and is really in it for just the RP, debt can be ignored to some extent, but it’s not that intrusive of a mechanic.
Debt reinforces the main theme of the game, which is that you’re all single people in a complicated tangled world of connections. Every problem has a face and so does every solution. Urban Shadows is a very very social game where character and alliances are key.
Characters are not all goody two shoes, though. Each playbook has conditions that earn them corruption. You fill up the corruption track enough, you gain a corruption power and start over. Gain too much corruption and retire your character and they belong to the GM. It’s a balancing act, but one that is tempting because corruption powers are fucking great. Things that cause characters to gain corruption are things like Vamps feeding on unwilling victims, Oracles giving false prophesies, Ghosts looking at scenes of victimization without doing anything, or Fey lying. Corruption moves ALSO gain you corruption, but are fantastic.
Last up are drama moves. Everyone has a move that’s activated when they are physically or emotionally intimate with another person. I know this strikes people as sex moves of Monster Hearts and it can be, but we always play it as emotionally connecting with someone else. There’s also death moves, which are great. It makes the sting of dying a little worse when you can have one last powerful act before you die.
Advancement is based on interacting with all four factions, so it keeps everyone moving all over and interacting with the entire city.
The system is robust enough to handle political intrigue but also if you’re my table it also does fine with wild adventure. It handles mystery. It does high or low combat just fine.
It’s super fun, super cheap, AMMMAAAAAAAAZING at cons. You really should do yourself a favor and check it out.