hawkeyefan
Legend
So after a year and a half of only playing online, my group and I just started a face to face campaign of Spire: The City Must Fall (by Grant Howitt & Christopher Taylor of Rowan, Rook, & Decard) so I figured I'd start a thread on it. I'll post some thoughts on setting and on the system, and maybe some examples of play, but anyone else who has anything at all to share about the game should please post.
A quick TLDR for anyone who doesn't want to read through the below: Spire and the follow up game they made called Heart are both excellent, and deserve a lot more attention than they seem to get. Let's hope that Heart's recent win of seven Ennies puts more eyes on these games.
Setting
The game takes place in the mile-high city called Spire, which had belonged to the drow for centuries, but about 200 years ago, was conquered by the aelfir, or high elves, who now rule there. The drow are allowed to remain in the city so long as they perform a durance, or a period of indentured servitude, for the aelfir. The PCs are all drow and are all members of a secret order, the Ministry of Our Hidden Mistress, that seeks to restore rule of Spire back to the drow. The problem is that the odds are stacked against them, and even their own families and friends might turn them in should they find out what they're up to. So the themes of inequality and revolution and struggle are very much baked into the game.
The city is a quasi- steampunk, early industrial era setting. Humans are present in Spire, and they tend to specialize in engineering and unearthing technology from early ur-societies and then retro-engineering that technology. So there are factories and printing presses, and most notably, guns. This kind of modern take is combined with a very haunted vibe as beneath the city is the Heart, a tear in reality that allows chaotic energies to warp and twist things in the city, especially the closer you get to it. So things are more strange and unsettling the lower in Spire you go, especially when you start to move into the subterranean levels of the undercity.
Spire has some very surreal elements that remind me of Planescape or of China Mieville's novels. For example, there was an attempt to create a mass transit system throughout the city, but they accidentally tapped into the Heart, allowing its energies to flow throughout the city. So now there's a series of haunted train tunnels that exist slightly out of sync with reality, which can be used to get around by those who know the secret. Spire is a strange place and there are dozens and dozens of religions and cults and forms of belief. There are many factions within the city, all with interesting ideas and relationships to help propel play. The writing is actually quite evocative and there are just tons of ideas on every page. The details are very loose; the intention is for each group to take the concepts in Spire and make them their own. The basic mode of play would be a very sandbox style approach; let the PCs loose in the city with a very basic agenda, see what they get up to, and then have the world react.
System
A key idea there is that PC progression is based on change. PCs get Advances when they make a change in the city, for good or for ill. There are three tiers of abilities that you can choose from, based on the scope of the change; Minor Advances for small changes, Medium Advances for significant changes, and Major Advances for massive changes. So there's no XP system, but instead the GM and players decide if a change to the city was made, and what scope.
The classes are all very setting specific. There are 10 in the core book, but a few more have been published in supplements. They tend not to be of the generic "fighter" or "wizard" variety, although there are a couple that are closer to that than the others. So instead of a wizard, you'll find the Vermissian Sage, an occultist who uses a failed mass-transit train system that's out of sync with reality to move about Spire (as I said....the setting is bizarre). Instead of a cleric, you'll find an Azurite, a merchant priest devoted to the god of money, who can trade coin for magic. Each class comes with a couple of core abilities they begin with, and then they can pick two more from the class list of Minor Advances.
For most classes, at least one core ability and usually some of the Advances allow the player to declare facts about the setting or the NPCs, usually a number of times per Session or per Situation (scene/encounter). For example, once per session, the Vermissian Sage can declare that two NPCs are connected somehow, and the GM determines how. This means that the GM has to hold on loosely to things, and be ready to come up with information in response to what the players do. It gives the players new avenues that they can use for their characters to pursue goals. A lot of the focus of the game is the idea of leveraging advantages you have, including social connections. Each PC will also have Bonds, which are NPC contacts/friends/family that they can call upon for help. However, the more they do so, the greater the risk that Bond will take Fallout (see below).
The core mechanic when an action is declared is to roll a pool of d10s. You get one for trying, you get one more if you have a relevant skill, you get another if you have a relevant domain, and then a fourth if you have mastery on the roll (this is situational based on abilities and equipment). The PCs don't have attributes as many other games have; instead they have a list of Skills and a list of Domains; there are 9 of each. A Skill is a practiced or natural talent of some kind (Fight, Deceive, Sneak, etc.), and a Domain is a sphere or area of knowledge and familiarity (Academia, Crime, High Society, etc.). What Skills and Domains you have is based on a combination of your Class, the Durance you served, and any that are gained from abilities you select. Most starting PCs will have 2 or 3 of each, but may pick up more with Advances. So when you roll, you'll be rolling between 1d10 and 4d10. You keep the highest roll, with tiers of success based on the result (10 is a critical success, 8-9 is a full success, 6-7 is success with stress, 2-5 is a failure, and 1 is a critical failure).
Stress is the equivalent of Hit Points, although it is explicitly not "meat". You have 5 Resistance Tracks and when you take Stress, it gets applied to the relevant track. They are: Blood (physical harm), Mind (mental harm), Silver (financial harm), Shadow (harm to anonymity/secrecy), and Reputation (social harm). As you accumulate Stress, the GM will roll 1d10 and if the roll is under your current total Stress, then some of your Stress turns into Fallout. This is when the narrative Stress becomes a specific drawback. The severity is based on the total Stress you have, the higher the more severe. When you take Fallout, you reduce a corresponding amount of Stress. So if you have 6 Stress in Blood, and the GM rolls a 5 on the Fallout roll, some of that Stress converts to Fallout: Broken Leg and you have the appropriate penalties going forward until you can somehow remove the Fallout.
Your relationships with your Bonds can also take Stress and face Fallout. This Stress is tracked separate from that of the PC. When a Bond helps you out, they usually will make a roll of some kind, and they'll take Stress accordingly. In any session where a Bond takes Stress, the GM will roll at the end, and see if they get Fallout. If they do, they're going to be at risk in some way for helping the PCs. They may put unwanted attention on you, or they may be arrested or forced to betray you, or worst of all, they may be taken from their home and shot in the street. This element of the game is one I haven't yet seen in play after only one session, but it seems an interesting point of tension. You can use your Bonds as a resource to further your goals, but at what risk? It really seems to play with the themes of the setting quite well.
I really like this system, and the five different Resistances and Bonds give the GM a lot of different ways to complicate things for the PCs beyond just physical harm. It's also a very dangerous system for the characters as they can easily find themselves with a good amount of Stress quickly if things don't go their way. Luckily, there are ways to reduce Stress, either class abilities that are similar to like Cure spells in D&D, or through a Refresh action. Each class has a specific trigger that allows the character to Refresh, and clear some Stress. They're all keyed to class specific themes or ideas. For example, the Bound class (a kind of masked vigilante type) has the Refresh: Bring a criminal to justice.
The game takes a lot of burden off the GM as far as tracking status and the like. By default RAW, the game suggests that the GM track each PCs total Stress, but I opted not to do that. When there's something measurable like a tally or a track, I prefer players know where things are at so they're making informed decisions. I try not to just let things boil down to being only numbers, though, which seems to be the concern expressed in the book, so I wasn't too worried about my decision. NPC stats are simple and boil down to a few bits, mostly how much Stress they can take before they're out, and how much they deal to a PC. That's it...it's light in the best way.
Overall
Having only played one session, I have to say so far I like the game quite a bit. The rules are easy once you grasp the basics, and the characters are simple and take only a few minutes to make. If you're the kind of person who needs to read every possible PC ability before making a character, then you'll want to maybe read a bit of it ahead of starting play, but you should hold off on making a character as that's meant to be a group activity. One criticism I can think of is that the classes are so tied to the lore that it can be a bit tricky to know enough to make a character. This can be mitigated by doing character generation as a group, and going over some of the basics. By the time my group and I had discussed the classes, they had a pretty good sense of the setting, actually.
The other criticism is a minor one, and that's how details are organized in the book when it comes to referring in play. The rules are all easily accessible (they actually fit on a few pages entirely), but the setting info is less easy to find. But really, not challenging in the grand scheme of things.
All in all, the setting is evocative and detailed, but also loose enough for every group to make it their own. The mechanics are interesting and the classes and abilities are dynamic. Play is very player focused, though the GM still has a good deal of input. We had a really good first session with only a couple of minor kinks that I think were easily addressed. If you've been thinking about giving the game a try, or if you want something that takes some familiar concepts and twists them in new ways, then I'd strongly recommend it.
A quick TLDR for anyone who doesn't want to read through the below: Spire and the follow up game they made called Heart are both excellent, and deserve a lot more attention than they seem to get. Let's hope that Heart's recent win of seven Ennies puts more eyes on these games.
Setting
The game takes place in the mile-high city called Spire, which had belonged to the drow for centuries, but about 200 years ago, was conquered by the aelfir, or high elves, who now rule there. The drow are allowed to remain in the city so long as they perform a durance, or a period of indentured servitude, for the aelfir. The PCs are all drow and are all members of a secret order, the Ministry of Our Hidden Mistress, that seeks to restore rule of Spire back to the drow. The problem is that the odds are stacked against them, and even their own families and friends might turn them in should they find out what they're up to. So the themes of inequality and revolution and struggle are very much baked into the game.
The city is a quasi- steampunk, early industrial era setting. Humans are present in Spire, and they tend to specialize in engineering and unearthing technology from early ur-societies and then retro-engineering that technology. So there are factories and printing presses, and most notably, guns. This kind of modern take is combined with a very haunted vibe as beneath the city is the Heart, a tear in reality that allows chaotic energies to warp and twist things in the city, especially the closer you get to it. So things are more strange and unsettling the lower in Spire you go, especially when you start to move into the subterranean levels of the undercity.
Spire has some very surreal elements that remind me of Planescape or of China Mieville's novels. For example, there was an attempt to create a mass transit system throughout the city, but they accidentally tapped into the Heart, allowing its energies to flow throughout the city. So now there's a series of haunted train tunnels that exist slightly out of sync with reality, which can be used to get around by those who know the secret. Spire is a strange place and there are dozens and dozens of religions and cults and forms of belief. There are many factions within the city, all with interesting ideas and relationships to help propel play. The writing is actually quite evocative and there are just tons of ideas on every page. The details are very loose; the intention is for each group to take the concepts in Spire and make them their own. The basic mode of play would be a very sandbox style approach; let the PCs loose in the city with a very basic agenda, see what they get up to, and then have the world react.
System
A key idea there is that PC progression is based on change. PCs get Advances when they make a change in the city, for good or for ill. There are three tiers of abilities that you can choose from, based on the scope of the change; Minor Advances for small changes, Medium Advances for significant changes, and Major Advances for massive changes. So there's no XP system, but instead the GM and players decide if a change to the city was made, and what scope.
The classes are all very setting specific. There are 10 in the core book, but a few more have been published in supplements. They tend not to be of the generic "fighter" or "wizard" variety, although there are a couple that are closer to that than the others. So instead of a wizard, you'll find the Vermissian Sage, an occultist who uses a failed mass-transit train system that's out of sync with reality to move about Spire (as I said....the setting is bizarre). Instead of a cleric, you'll find an Azurite, a merchant priest devoted to the god of money, who can trade coin for magic. Each class comes with a couple of core abilities they begin with, and then they can pick two more from the class list of Minor Advances.
For most classes, at least one core ability and usually some of the Advances allow the player to declare facts about the setting or the NPCs, usually a number of times per Session or per Situation (scene/encounter). For example, once per session, the Vermissian Sage can declare that two NPCs are connected somehow, and the GM determines how. This means that the GM has to hold on loosely to things, and be ready to come up with information in response to what the players do. It gives the players new avenues that they can use for their characters to pursue goals. A lot of the focus of the game is the idea of leveraging advantages you have, including social connections. Each PC will also have Bonds, which are NPC contacts/friends/family that they can call upon for help. However, the more they do so, the greater the risk that Bond will take Fallout (see below).
The core mechanic when an action is declared is to roll a pool of d10s. You get one for trying, you get one more if you have a relevant skill, you get another if you have a relevant domain, and then a fourth if you have mastery on the roll (this is situational based on abilities and equipment). The PCs don't have attributes as many other games have; instead they have a list of Skills and a list of Domains; there are 9 of each. A Skill is a practiced or natural talent of some kind (Fight, Deceive, Sneak, etc.), and a Domain is a sphere or area of knowledge and familiarity (Academia, Crime, High Society, etc.). What Skills and Domains you have is based on a combination of your Class, the Durance you served, and any that are gained from abilities you select. Most starting PCs will have 2 or 3 of each, but may pick up more with Advances. So when you roll, you'll be rolling between 1d10 and 4d10. You keep the highest roll, with tiers of success based on the result (10 is a critical success, 8-9 is a full success, 6-7 is success with stress, 2-5 is a failure, and 1 is a critical failure).
Stress is the equivalent of Hit Points, although it is explicitly not "meat". You have 5 Resistance Tracks and when you take Stress, it gets applied to the relevant track. They are: Blood (physical harm), Mind (mental harm), Silver (financial harm), Shadow (harm to anonymity/secrecy), and Reputation (social harm). As you accumulate Stress, the GM will roll 1d10 and if the roll is under your current total Stress, then some of your Stress turns into Fallout. This is when the narrative Stress becomes a specific drawback. The severity is based on the total Stress you have, the higher the more severe. When you take Fallout, you reduce a corresponding amount of Stress. So if you have 6 Stress in Blood, and the GM rolls a 5 on the Fallout roll, some of that Stress converts to Fallout: Broken Leg and you have the appropriate penalties going forward until you can somehow remove the Fallout.
Your relationships with your Bonds can also take Stress and face Fallout. This Stress is tracked separate from that of the PC. When a Bond helps you out, they usually will make a roll of some kind, and they'll take Stress accordingly. In any session where a Bond takes Stress, the GM will roll at the end, and see if they get Fallout. If they do, they're going to be at risk in some way for helping the PCs. They may put unwanted attention on you, or they may be arrested or forced to betray you, or worst of all, they may be taken from their home and shot in the street. This element of the game is one I haven't yet seen in play after only one session, but it seems an interesting point of tension. You can use your Bonds as a resource to further your goals, but at what risk? It really seems to play with the themes of the setting quite well.
I really like this system, and the five different Resistances and Bonds give the GM a lot of different ways to complicate things for the PCs beyond just physical harm. It's also a very dangerous system for the characters as they can easily find themselves with a good amount of Stress quickly if things don't go their way. Luckily, there are ways to reduce Stress, either class abilities that are similar to like Cure spells in D&D, or through a Refresh action. Each class has a specific trigger that allows the character to Refresh, and clear some Stress. They're all keyed to class specific themes or ideas. For example, the Bound class (a kind of masked vigilante type) has the Refresh: Bring a criminal to justice.
The game takes a lot of burden off the GM as far as tracking status and the like. By default RAW, the game suggests that the GM track each PCs total Stress, but I opted not to do that. When there's something measurable like a tally or a track, I prefer players know where things are at so they're making informed decisions. I try not to just let things boil down to being only numbers, though, which seems to be the concern expressed in the book, so I wasn't too worried about my decision. NPC stats are simple and boil down to a few bits, mostly how much Stress they can take before they're out, and how much they deal to a PC. That's it...it's light in the best way.
Overall
Having only played one session, I have to say so far I like the game quite a bit. The rules are easy once you grasp the basics, and the characters are simple and take only a few minutes to make. If you're the kind of person who needs to read every possible PC ability before making a character, then you'll want to maybe read a bit of it ahead of starting play, but you should hold off on making a character as that's meant to be a group activity. One criticism I can think of is that the classes are so tied to the lore that it can be a bit tricky to know enough to make a character. This can be mitigated by doing character generation as a group, and going over some of the basics. By the time my group and I had discussed the classes, they had a pretty good sense of the setting, actually.
The other criticism is a minor one, and that's how details are organized in the book when it comes to referring in play. The rules are all easily accessible (they actually fit on a few pages entirely), but the setting info is less easy to find. But really, not challenging in the grand scheme of things.
All in all, the setting is evocative and detailed, but also loose enough for every group to make it their own. The mechanics are interesting and the classes and abilities are dynamic. Play is very player focused, though the GM still has a good deal of input. We had a really good first session with only a couple of minor kinks that I think were easily addressed. If you've been thinking about giving the game a try, or if you want something that takes some familiar concepts and twists them in new ways, then I'd strongly recommend it.