[Closed] [Interest Check] Urban Shadows 2e

With the promise of Urban Shadows Second Edition (US2) (Kickstarter link) promised to finally arrive for backers later this month, I am wondering who is interested in playing here on GP?

The game will be heavily collaborative (all my games are, but Urban Shadows has that assumption built into the rules), so players should be self-motivated and interested in helping shape the world and the story in detail.

We will decide together —in general as part of this recruitment, and then in specific detail in the game after a group is formed— what, where, and when we will be playing, as well as the overall expected tone and feel for the game. Urban Shadows (US) tends towards darker stories, but I lean away from outright 'horror'.

US stories are more about the people and relationships than the 'action', so I have seldom had trouble setting it in countries that restrict guns (even though many/most of the Playbooks assume guns):.

US mainly works in, and assumes, a 'modern setting', though I have shifted the dates by several decades either way with some success. Given that we are unlikely to all be from the same place, I often suggest playing in a town or country we all don't know, that way we all learn something new together (just a suggestion, though).

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Recruitment will not be first come first served. This is a place to express interest and talk about what we feel like; then, if there is interest, a group will be formed from those that roughly share a vision. Please be open about what you want, and don't just go along with what others suggested before, unless you actively want to see that story.

Urban Shadows tackles topics that many find difficult. Players and characters from marginalised groups are welcome, and all players should be mature and supportive. Safety tools will be discussed, and used as needed.

I don't expect graphic descriptions of intimacy any more than I expect graphic descriptions of violence, but sex is part of the game.

Players will be expected to post most days.

Definitely interested. Played Urban Shaodws once, but with additional OWoD material, and ot was fun until it died, so interested in trying again.

Urban Shadows is fairly light on setting, so I can see people adding in WoD story and history and such (which is what I assume you did with that game?). I am unlikely to do that, I usually prefer to create new settings.
Urban Fantasy can often struggle to find purchase, especially if players expect the GM to provide story and such. It has few built-in mechanisms for 'creating adventure' and is mainly about the characters and what they do. So if the players aren't actively driving their characters (possibly driving them like stolen cars:) and don't care about the little things that are going on in their lives, Urban Fantasy games can easily wither and die.

This sounds intriguing. I don't know the system yet, but I am a fast learner.
I enjoy dark stories and like to contribute to where we are going as well :)

Sorry should have clarified. It was add on material someone made for OWoD. So I haven't played completely Vanilla Urban Shadows 1e.

Absolutely get new settings and up for that :p

Oh, I played this before and didn’t get that far. I played "The Sworn" and we didn’t get too far. It might be fun to actually get into the full role play. I just lost a game so I have room for at least one more.

Count me in if you decide to run this.

I am hoping for four players. As the book says:
Though I don't doubt we can manage with three. :)

Greetings, I am interested, but I am totally new to Urban shadows. I don't have the books but if you can accept a full newbie, I will be glad to give this a try.

Sorry if I'm a bit late but if you have room for a fifth player, I have an idea for a Vamp I'd like to play! I was in an Urban Shadows game on here for a really long time and it was super fun so I'd love to give the second edition a go.

Hi!

Hope that this is still open. :)

I would love to be part of this game. I worked through my Teenage Angst(TM) with Vampire the Masquerade (VtM OWoD) and still am a huge Jim Butcher - Dresden Files - fan.

Settingwise I see many possibilties and have no clear favourite at the moment. Mystery plot, damsel in distress with a ticking clock, defending the city against a common enemy, ... I am open for a lot of things.
I have to say that like an epic/big story much better than a learning the ropes style of game, tbh.

I could get my hands on a first edition rulebook if that helps a little and have already read all through the kickstarter link. Sounds lovely. Have at least 3 character ideas atm. ;)

Also I would prefere to play with Adrastheia, as we have finished together other adventures at GP before and it was always great fun. :D

Do you have any familiarity with PbtA games? Not a requirement, just calibrating. :)

So you played 2e? The Sworn is new to this edition, right? When did you play? At what stage of development? Just curious.

I was not planning on this being a newbies game, but am normally happy for that. I was sorta hoping to get people who knew what sort of game Urban Shadows plays, since it is a particular thing of its own and people often come to it expecting something else and are disappointed.

The book puts a fair bit of effort into explaining what it is and how it plays, so we will need to make a plan with that.

This game is not first come first served, so there are no players yet. :)
Character Creation in US (and most PbtA) is a collaborative process, so don't come with character ideas yet. If you have something —it is hard to read a game book without coming up with characters:)— we can talk about it after we have settled on what the world is like and what sort of story we are looking for (at the start). Some playbooks don't fit some worlds, so it is common to restrict the available playbooks at the start.

If your idea still fits then we can talk about characters.

Technically not open yet, the book is still not finished and they missed their Feb deadline (no comments, now, come on:).

I think it is ready enough to think about starting, though, and they are promising 'early March' release [ref] and I don't plan to use their cities.
I backed the first edition because it promised to able to play Dresden... the end product was very different. :)
Urban Shadows is not as flexible as other Urban Fantasy games, it has its own style and strongly sticks to it. Some of those 'settings' need a fair bit of massage to make them work with this ruleset (Monster of the Week is often a better fit, it is very flexible). Such plot-elements might come up, though.
I tend to agree, though those can be scary to 'commit' to in an RPG, especially a PbP one with strangers on the internet. We also have quite some new player interest, so we may start with a learning the ropes game... though that could mean something else, since a 'teaching game' need not have 'internal learning' as part of the character stuff.

I did run a US game where the characters started outside of their 'home city', away on holiday, and that was the first time they encountered the supernatural stuff, they changed (fast-tracked Changed to another Playbook) and returned home much weirder than they left, only to find that their city was as weird as the holiday location now that their eyes were open. But US assumes everyone is well-steeped in the supernatural.

I enjoyed having everyone start as one of the 'mundane' playbooks with an eye to which supernatural one they wanted to transform into (bitten by wolves and vamps, or whatever they asked for:), but that can be very slow to 'get to the point' in PbP and does not really work with the assumptions in US, where even the most 'mundane' (the Aware?) is well aware of the supernatural world.
I don't think it would. The new edition is very different to the old one. We will have to make a plan.

Unlike other PbtA games, this is not one where the players only need the reference handouts (well, there are no handouts yet), so, ideally, everyone should have the book. But we will work something out.
I should read that again (it has been four years since I backed this) just to make sure it still represents what the end-product is like. 1e changed a lot during the production, going from 'basically Dresden Files' to 'can not play Dresden Files'.
Quite right. :)
Noted.

Consider yourself on the short-list and Adrastheia dragged along with you. :)

Of course! It’s a pretty vague idea (just something that got my brain ticking as I was reading through the game book) and I’m happy to come up with something else if it wouldn’t fit the setting or the tone of the game. Speaking of, I don’t really have any particular preferences regarding setting. To me, the quintessential urban shadows setting is a big modern city but I’d be open to exploring a different kind of setting or a different era if that’s what other people are excited for. The previous urban shadows game I played on here was set in Montreal and it was a lot of fun doing research and exploring the city on google maps to see the real world counterparts of the places our characters were visiting in the game :)

Cool. Blessed are those who are flexible as they shall not break.
That is pretty much baked in the setting assumptions, yeah. Work has to be done to veer away from it. The book also pretty much assume 'Merica!, though we can change that with interesting results.
I don't think this game is well suited to other eras. The 1e Dark Streets (IIRC) supplement tried to address this, but I was not convinced.

I have had games set in past decades and constantly had to remind players that their chanters (like most people) did not have cell phones in the early 90s. :)

I think I prefer to leave the exact date a bit undefined, so we would mainly focus on the decade we were interested in, and that is largely defined by the means and speed of communication: mail, telegraph, radio, phone, cell phone, smart phone (texting), AI and so on; so that would be the sort of decision that is helpful. Smart Phone being the assumed default.
Yep. That is a big part of such a game (though not required for everyone to engage with). I tend to run a mix of real streets and actual shops (from google streetview) and nebulous neighborhoods where we don't care what the streets are called and just talk about 'a block or two over...', and everything in between.

If you are wondering whether I am aware of what kind of games Urban Shadows generally play, then rest assured, I think I have a general idea. I am a big fan of World of Darkness and also dipped myself into Chronicles of Darkness. I love all the gamelines they have and Mage seems to be my favourite. If there is any playbook on 'Mage' like characters then I would love to play it, if it is not already taken. I have always wanted to play Vampire the Masquerade, but I haven't read the entire V5 book yet, and I haven't found anyone willing to run V5 for a newcomer. I also love Changeling and Hunter game lines. Does Urban Shadows have it's own specific setting? If so, then I am not familiar with it. However, I am familiar with tone and genre of supernatural urban intrigue. Also familiar with Jim Butcher's Dresden Files novels and Ben Aaronovitch's River of London novel.

Cool!

Your idea with the holiday I appreciate and would be willing to try, if this what the group wants. And I get where you are coming from. To be completely honest, I already did my amount of changing from normy to a werewolf/garou, got my kiss (vampire) at least 8 times and so on. Because of this I would prefere to start as an established person in the paranormal society if possible.

Now I am curious what "1e changed a lot during the production, going from 'basically Dresden Files' to 'can not play Dresden Files'." means. What is the hindrance to "not being able to do a DF-kind of game"? :)


Thanks for putting Adrastheia and me on the short-list. Looking very much foward to this game!

... and then you list some other games that are very different. (But I joke :)
I am not trying to put you off, just saying that Urban Shadows is its own particular thing and not 'general Urban Fantasy'. Many people have come to it expecting to be able to play something other than what it is, and clashed with the rules. There are systems that are more able to run general Urban Fantasy, maybe Monster of the Week, or even something tailored to the particular thing people are wanting. Urban Shadows is as specialised as something like Vampire: The Masquerade is, for instance, and, like that game, plays the type of game it plays.

The book makes this quite clear, but it seems most of us don't have that, so I will need to make a plan.
Yes and no. It is 'our world, but slightly different', so basically Urban Fantasy by definition. It is set in a single city, or neighborhood (with little wiggle room on this):. It has rather defined Playbooks (classes in other games) that are meant to work in the type of game it is meant for, so it can not play a game of Vampire or Werewolf or Mage, not only can there be only one of each of those, they each have a particular flavour baked in.

You can take a look at the Playbooks available (some, but minor changes in the final product) and the wide array of Moves (more substantial changes, so maybe don't read these too carefully yet:) in the free Quickstart linked from the Kickstarter page. They don't have official handouts yet, so I will have to make something for the game.
Please see The Wizard in the Quickstart. I think this is a good illustration of what I am saying about people coming with a desire for a particular thing and then being disappointed by what they can do in US. The Wizard is a really cool Playbook, but if one expects Mage or Dresden, then it can feel ... limited?
Cool. That gives us some common ground to dialogue. If you take a look at the Wizard playbook you will see that this is quite different to Dresden, and the Vamps and Wolves are also different, though Dresden had quite some variety of those, so who knows. :)
Also excellent books. And more what I am feeling like at this time, though also hard to do directly in US. I am considering running the Rivers of London RPG (BRP), but am not sure about it yet.

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Feel wise I also thought while reading the Slough House books by Mick Herron (Slow Horses) that the feel of the city they had in those could be cool in US.

I doubt we would go that route, though we could if the group really wanted to.

The reason I did this that time was that the group objected to the game being stuck in one city ("this is not City of Mist, after all.":), and wanted to try forcing it to branch out and I had not 'prepared' anything and did not have the energy to start with multiple cities defined and characterised.

I have run games where the players move between several cities (with a sorta Supernatural TV show vibe) and we defined more the type of areas that they would go back to as needed, Midwest, New York, The Sticks. Urban Shadows fights one if they do that, but it is quite doable, with effort.

I have also run a game where there were several groups of players —who know each other— each with a game set in a different city but with the same 'game world and rules', things that happened in one would bleed over to another and things that were defined or worked out in one would also be true in another, though not everyone knew about it. The players could talk about it out of game, and we treated that as though their characters had emailed or phoned each other —with the expected miscommunications and misunderstandings. It was a lot of work, but quite fun and we did a few crossovers when only some players were available and had to drop into another group.
If we wanted play a game of 'zero to hero' or 'first time learning about the supernatural' then I would probably not use this system. Everyone is pretty powerful to start off with and the supernaturals are not more so than the mortals (Mortalis, in this one).

So we can assume your wish will be granted... unless we really want to try otherwise.
Hmm... It was a decade ago, so I can not recall details. Before the release Urban Shadows was billing itself as a way (the way, really) to play Dresden Files without the clunky Fate 2 Dresden Files RPG (pre DFA). This was unofficial, or course, since there were Intellectual Property and Licencing issues to contend with.

Then, by the time it came out, it was quite different to that 'promise'. Not saying it was a bad game, but many of us that backed it because of Dresden were disappointed.

You could, possible, play a DF-kind of game, but you could not play DF. The playbooks (archetypes) do not support playing Harry or Molly, or Thomas (though 2e might allow for Thomas:) or Billy and Georgia, or Murphy, or any of the types of characters you see in the books. You simply could not use these rules to play in that world, they had different intents.

Thanks for this great and comprehensive explanation. That's a shame, if it was implied in this way.


Your multi group world sounds pretty cool. Chapeau! :)

It was a decade ago. I can't say they officially implied it was, or could play, Dresden, but that was the prevailing opinion (among those looking for a Dresden (Fate (3, not 2)) substitute) and they did not say 'no'. However, many games change a lot during development, and kickstarters early in the development cycle can have a hard time defining themselves.

I just checked the old kickstarter page and they do imply it, but only by listing it first in what sort of stories it emulates:

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It worked well with that group.
What about my hat?! :)

I forgot about Angel. So many winters have come and past. .. ;)

The game has been slow to release, and is still not quite done, though they have released a 'final preview' (which is a bit of an oxymoron, no?:).

I figure the book is 'good enough' to get started with, so I will work through it and set up a game.

Who is still interested in playing?

I am interested to give it a try.

I’m still interested! :)

Hi,

I have run Urban Shadows 1E before, and I loved it. I'd be curious to see what changes they did in 2E, so count me in as interested too (provided that not having access to the handbook is not a showstopper)

Thanks!

Still interested. I 'll give Adrastheia a call to see if she is still on board. :)

On board and excited to play!

Alright, that is enough to justify starting a game.

@LightOfMidnight and @Ysolde, are you still with us?

This is not first-come-first-served.

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Playing a game in a closed city makes it easy to add players or characters later (no need to worry about how to add someone in the middle of a months-long dungeon:), so don't feel that you have to commit for the long-term if you find you are not enjoying it, and don't feel like this is the only opportunity to join.

However, the players that join at the start will have a much larger influence on the shape of the world, since it will be formed and shaped together, based on the starting characters and ideas.

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If you are not serious about posting most days, please don't join the game and slow it down for everyone else. We understand that stuff happens, and will work around any needed absences, of course, but let's all try, yeah?

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Give me a few days to read the book and put together some handouts and structure for the game and then we will look at who is interested and form a group.

Thank you for your interest. I am looking forward to running this, the game rules look promising so far.

Not sure if this is still the place to express interest, but I will anyway. I've played several PbtA games - Monster of the Week, Monsterhearts, Masks, OG Apocalypse World, and engaged in pre-game collaboration for some games that then didn't get started. Haven't played US, though I played some 1e WoD back in the 90s.

So that's me. Interested.

@VagueDm: Absolutely

Bit busy atm, so can't gurantee being able to post everyday, so I will let others get a look in atm. Thanks for checking in though.

Understood. We can always check in again later and see how things are going.

Invites sent, contact made, and we have formed a group. The game is full and applications closed.

Thank you all for your interest.

Hope it all goes well. And if you ever run another and I am less busy will be interested.

(Tbf I have been able to keep up with some daily games recentky, but didn't want to annoy people if I occasionally couldn't)