I find the idea of a superhero game that escapes stat crunch very compelling.

This is the closest you'll ever get to a jojo rpg. >normal people can't see your powers >level up by asserting or changing character traits >extremely flexible choice of powers >thought-based combat

@moderncrusader5128

3 жыл бұрын

i agree

@andrewlance3898

3 жыл бұрын

I'd also recommend looking into Monsters and Other Childish Things. You play children who are best friends with horrifying monsters, which is very easy to reflavor into Stand Users and Stands. You can even deal emotional damage by talking, which allows those lengthy dialogues during combat to have mechanical weight

@screwtapee

2 жыл бұрын

And you can even play as a jojo stand

I think your idea that the group never finds fame to be inaccurate, they can certainly find fame and recognition but rather than being recognised for taking thr megavillain with supercapabilities the Mist might twist it so that they get recognised for uncovering a crime bosses attempts to usurp the power structure of the city

City of mist is SUCH an awesome place to explore. I have loose ideas from a pyromaniac group made of individuals like the little match girl, firefly, Dabi, Pele, etc. or to tie closely to the mafia and Hades angle, a back alley doctor single father with the Asclepius Mythos.

ERRATA: The game’s genre is urban supernatural noir, not superhero. The main artist is Marcin Sobon, not Monster Pit Studio. Support the channel by joining my Patreon! www.patreon.com/thaumavore Newsletter sign-up: bit.ly/ThaumavoreNewsletter

Great game and great review, but I have to disagree with you on your criticisms with the mist. I think your dissatisfaction comes from an error in understanding the game's premise. City of Mist isn't a superhero game. It's an urban fantasy noir game. And the trope of the hidden world is very common in that genre. The Mist exists for a reason, it makes the player's outsiders in a world that is new and mysterious, a world that is isolated, and distinct from the world they know. It also makes the story focus on that world instead of the boring, mundane sleeping world. It can so create a lot of drama between the rift protagonists and their sleeper friends and family that can never truly understand them. Gaming fame in the sleeping world is impossible but that's ok because the sleeping world doesn't matter, but you can most certainly gain fame in the awaakend word. The key is to embrace the Mist and its function in the story, embrace the mystery, embrace the uncertainty and embrace this hidden world. You'll find the game much more enjoyable if you do.

@DaveThaumavore

3 жыл бұрын

Aha! Yeah I’m not too familiar with the urban fantasy noir genre but now that you mention it, hidden worlds do sound familiar. Good call. Thank you!

@Hanzo615

3 жыл бұрын

Personally i think his criticism is perfectly valid despite this being an urban fantasy noire setting . I think that handling the aspect of the hidden world the way Mist does really makes it seem that the whole hidden world and ones actions in it really don't matter .

@Hanzo615

3 жыл бұрын

@@richmcgee434 Dude, way bigger disasters than covid have not prevented people from finding reality boring. Hell, way bigger disasters have been happening before 2020 and you yourself have probably forgotten about them and then kept doing your thing.

How have I never heard about this channel?! These are the best rpg reviews I have ever seen.

@DaveThaumavore

3 жыл бұрын

Thanks! Spread the word!

This is THE video I've been searching for. Thank you so much!!

@DaveThaumavore

3 жыл бұрын

Glad I could help!

I like the bit at the end there, "falling back asleep." Actually, I should be going to bed irl anyway.

The whole mist concealing the fantastical reminds me of the Percy Jackson books, as that too has a Mist that conceals god stuff and monsters

The best reviews as always!

@DaveThaumavore

3 жыл бұрын

Thanks, Magnus-san!

this and masks a new generation is my fav ttrpgs

@hipsterbrigadier9428

2 жыл бұрын

I haven’t played either but they’re currently the two I’m looking into, which do you think would be easier to run?

The mist doesnt delete what you do, it hides within reason, if you use firepower to kill a person, the mist will make it looks like you set a person on fire with gasoline or a flamehtrower, if you solve a case and save people, you still did that but without powers. You can even get super hero famous among the rifts. The focus of the game is more investigation, than the normal hero stuff And easy to read ? This was one of the most confusing books I ever tried to read, luckily the crators made some videos on the main subjects, there is a lot of people on reddit/discord and the rules are simple (even though the book makes them kinda confusing). The game can be played with any group with a lot of imagination, but you need a person (preferrably the DM or MC) to know them all.

Wow I've played a couple of sessions of this game but it seems like we haven't experienced a lot of it's capabilities. Thanks for the review, definitely made me want to run it sometime.

@DaveThaumavore

4 ай бұрын

Yeah it’s pretty complex.

This is just like the unsleeping city from dimension 20

I was on the fence but you convinced me, I ordered this two book bundle.

"Fame is a major component in a lot of super her stories" True, but this is fantasy noir. That detective just found Jack the ripper and is possed by the spirit of lupin 3rd. And he is gonna steal his favorite knife and no one is gonna know.

Well I am trying a One-Shot with a group of newbies soon, without ever having played the game. But I feel from reading it, it is not too complex. As long as the group accepts, that everybody is still learning and maybe using one of the amazing pre-gen Characters I think it is possible. Will report once it worked out or turned into a train wreck :D

@xdan-

2 жыл бұрын

So what happened?

@MrJojux

2 жыл бұрын

@@xdan- We went with Pre-Gens and the Pre-Written Case "Demons in Cross-End". It was quite the system change as everyone was used to D&D or Cthulhu, but everyone had a lot of fun. It was really roleplay intesive and solving the mystery was very fun for the players. Unfortunatly the party did not really side with any side to strongly and mostly watched the final battle. If I were to run the adventure again, I'd try to to make both sides seem more sympathetic. I don't want to spoil anything for potential players, so I won't go into bigger detail. As the MC the biggest problem for me was to know what to do, if rolls reached a partial success, when to give out a status or a tag. And the biggest thing - knowing the setting and the clues well enough, as this is important, to make the mystery cohesive. I feel like D&D allows for more improvisation on the storyline, as players usually don't have to figure out as many clues and don't always need to know every detail. But City of Mist invites for better encounter improvisation and creative problem solving by the players. But that is based on 2 sessions of the game. I'd love to run or play it again sometime and feel like you could tell amazing stories with this system, but it requires more preparation, to tell a coherent story. A lot of help is offered in the book to do so, with frameworks and pre-written cases being available. And I'd love to play some selfmade characters, as I've never seen a more flexible system for character creation so far.

In Fate, you can have Aspects aka tags on vehicles, ships, castles whatever you want.

So I've always wanted to hop on this but ironically the mist part has always been the reason why I haven't. It sort of reminds me of mage the ascension it feel but it was always that collective amnesia thing that my players and I couldn't get pass ( or I couldn't gm properly)

Very Percy Jackson-like! Love it!

played at the table and... I love everything except the tags and the game itself. It's a beauty to read, but on the table crumble (in particular the move to get clues)... And it's a shame cause I would love to love this book

@DaveThaumavore

3 жыл бұрын

Clues and investigation mechanics are notoriously hard to design for universal appeal. I can see what you mean by that.

I wanted to love this game but found reading it to be the biggest gamebook chore I've had in years. The game is way more complicated than it needs to be as well. A perfect example of a game with far too many moving parts where the mechanics get in the way of me telling the story I want to tell, imho.

@daddystabz

3 жыл бұрын

The game could be way, way shorter on page count. The author drones on and on in places, beating the subject into the ground.

When talking about the flaws of this game and stating that player character can't gain fame due to the mist I don't think that a very uncommon troop of this gerne. Percy Jackson litterally has the mist as well. Grimm has a similar thing that hides the monster and the Main Cast try to hide the truth. In Fables(Better known for the video game adaptation The Wolf Among Us) a huge part of Bigby's job is too keep everyone from revealing the truth. I feel the hidden in plain sight and normal people forgetting is a massive part of the Urban Fantasy gerne. Also, it's not fully forgetting. They forget the fantasy elements then their minds fill in the rest. The example in the book was "A sleeper might mistake a fire breathing dragon as gas line explosion."

Would other rifts in the city take note of you? Like a city CEO that mythoz with Zeus and they see your actions. I get that not everyone love you, but I think I’d like that you for the most part are seen as a nobody

For me the extra complexity put me off running the game, I prefer the lighter end of the PbTA scale.

@DaveThaumavore

3 жыл бұрын

It’s got a lot of moving parts, that’s for sure.

@daddystabz

3 жыл бұрын

I felt exactly the same. This is one of the most complex games I've ever read. I bought the books and was super excited to run this and after reading them, put them on my bookshelf and decided to use Call of Cthulhu 7th. edition instead.

@daddystabz

Жыл бұрын

I agree 100%.

This game is totally Nwah

Maybe I misunderstand the premise of the game, but it sounds a lot like the world of darkness games to me with loads more book keeping. It sounds a lot like how I run my mage games. Characters, in a city, can see through the lie (mist) due to their connection to their connection to a watchtower (myth). Maybe there is something cool that happens when you keep track of all the lists you mentioned, but I felt my interest quickly disappear.

@daddystabz

3 жыл бұрын

Pretty close assessment. The game honestly needs a different engine.

It sounds like the author took a lot of inspiration from 'blades in the dark' for game design. Seems like a clever idea, but just overworked, if that doesn't sound unfair. I mean, just listening to this review (excellent as always Dave) makes me tired. It's just not my vibe I suppose.

@daddystabz

Жыл бұрын

Except the fact that Blades is 100 x better.

its weird because it seemed simple without many numbers at first but then the complexity reared its ugly head and all these mythos/logos themes and level up stuff.....just complexity by a different name

@daddystabz

Жыл бұрын

It is the heaviest pbta game there is.

Love the review and once again this PbtA game isn't for me. I do like Monster of The Week but that's it.