Review: Urban Shadows

Time for the first of my promised post-GenCon reviews.

Urban Shadows is one of the latest Apocalypse World based games kickstarted in the past year. As the name indicates, this RPG focuses on politics and action of urban fantasy with the players taking on the roles of vampires, fae, monster hunters and more.

I've had this game in one form or another for quite a while. I contributed to the kickstarter, watch the G+ community and played it at GenCon. What I've seen is what I consider the best game to use the Apocalypse World system yet.

Overview

Urban Shadows focuses on the theme of community and sets itself in a city inhabited by a secret world of supernatural creatures. Think less Twilight and more World of Darkness or True Blood. The available playbooks (the system's equivalent of classes) are divided between four factions.

Mortality focuses on the mundane people of the city: normal humans, both aware and unaware of the supernatural. The Aware is someone who knows about the supernatural and is drawn to that world for their own reasons. The Hunter is your classic monster hunter. The Veteran is someone who used to be a player in the city. They tried to retire but they find themselves being pulled back in. Think Whistler from Blade.

Christ! I'm too old for this! Somebody get me a goddamn wheelchair!

The Night faction focuses on the street and the monsters that live there. The Vamp is your seductive vampire, spinning plots and pulling people into his or her web. The Wolf is your territorial werewolf, part monster part gangleader. The Spectre may be dead but lingers to help or cause trouble for the living.

The Power faction sees the city from a higher level. This is the realm of Wizards and vision prone Oracles who manipulate the city's destiny.

Finally we have the Wild faction, the domain of outsiders like the Tainted, who sold their soul to demons and now do their dirty work, and Fae, exiles and interlopers from distant Arcadia.

There will also be a bunch of bonus playbooks that came out of the kickstarter. Look forward to the Angel, Dragon, Immortal, Scholar, and Vessel.

Innovations: Experience and Debt

The most interesting changes for me from the standard Apocalypse World system are the introduction of corruption and the debt mechanics.

Corruption adds a whole new track of advancement for characters, one where they are rewarded for their darker impulses. Corruption acts like experience, unlocking new moves which in turn give characters even more corruption. The danger however is that if you embrace your inner monster you will lose control of your character as he or she (or it) is eventually forced to retire from play to become a new Threat. So it forms a nice dark spiral where characters are easily tempted by more power at the threat of a loss of agency.

I think it does a good job of modelling World of Darkness's downward spiral of humanity and is an idea I might use next time I want to emphasis that aspect of the game. In Urban Shadows it certainly creates an interesting dynamic where a character either resists their darker impulses or races to concluding their story and retiring to safety before they become a monster.

On the topic of the standard experience and advancement system, that requires characters to interact with each of the four factions. Once each faction is marked they advance. That helps foster the community feel and forces characters to get involved in other people's business.

The other fun mechanic is the debt system. Replacing Bonds or Hx, it codifies the favors owed between characters, including NPCs. The rules do everything you'd expect a favor to do: helping rolls, getting answers, trading favors, granting opportunities, and so on. The result is much more flavorful than Hx and more concrete than Dungeon World's Bonds. Characters can refuse to honor their debts but its risky and you can never lose debts you owe that way. Most likely you end up owing more.

Genre Specific Moves

A good deal of effort has been put into refining the Basic Moves of the game reflect the genre. These moves are "Unleash", "Escape", "Persuade an NPC", "Figure Someone Out", "Mislead, Distract or Trick", "Keep Your Cool", "Let It Out", "Lend a Hand" and "Get in the Way". From the names alone you can see the social focus of the game. We have only one direct combat move (Unleash) and several moves focused on social interaction of one sort or another. We even have a dedicated escape move which seems to exist to encourage people to bug out and prolong conflicts.

Urban Shadows also provides two other sets of moves: Debt moves and Faction moves.

The Debt moves include "Do Someone a Favor", "Cash in a Debt", "Refuse to Honor a Debt", and "Drop Someone's Name". The first is simple, you do someone a favor they owe you a Debt. "Cashing in a Debt" lets you force a character to help you in some way. "Refusing to Honor a Debt" can get you out of that problem but is risky. You probably will end up owing more and if you fail you might find that no one honors their debt with you any more. "Dropping a name" is a way to turn a Debt into an opening with someone else.

Faction moves focus on getting players involved in the different factions. They also allow one to mark a faction in order to gain experience. The moves include "Hit the Streets", "Put a Face to a Name", and "Investigate a Place of Power". As we can see they are primarily for learning more information and perhaps getting assistance. Factions are groups you go to for help, not things to destroy.

Top Notch Advice

Finally the game master sections add the icing to the cake. These sections are the best I've seen for an Apocalypse World game covering such topics as a thorough discussion of the principles to lots of examples of moves (both MC and player) to handling NPCs and different playbooks to exploring identity and community.

We also get a nice worked example of play to learn from, worked out Threats and Storms (this game's version of Fronts or groupings of Threat linked by a common thread), and a lot on customizing the game. We get example custom moves, an example of solo play, and a whole bunch of advice. Urban Shadows really encourages one to add custom moves and it helps you do it.

Conclusion

Urban Shadows is great game for fast paced political action between supernatural forces. The rules and advice are among the best I've seen and I look forward to getting a physical copy of this well laid out and easily referenced book soon.