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Hm, maybe a Mark type of thing as the class feature a la the Ranger? Spend a hope and make an attack, on success "when they deal damage to anybody but you, they must mark a stress; something else." One subclass around moving to marked targets, one around shielding allies or something?

There’s also the bit of how the interlocking systems (recovery + fear gain) and admonition to consider combat from its narrative weight + lack of initiative mean that you’re not doing the screen transition “Roll for Initiative” but just making an appropriate GM Move or showing how the world...

Are you setting up an adversary action via GM move and pivoting to one of the players and asking “what do you do?” Leaving the spotlight unfocused without a natural person to pick it up and a group who doesn’t want to step on toes is going to absolutely lead to drag and people going “oh no you...

It’s a counter. When you succeed it goes up, when you fail the failure side goes up or some other complication. It’s non-spatial except in the most abstract degree. A key (heh) difference between counter based iterative play and map-and-key style play is generally concrete and explicit goals...

Yeah. I think the key is probably the forward facing nature of this? Like "you will achieve this goal when you get to full" changes the context of how the players and GM interact with the obstacles? There's no hidden guesswork, your actions iterate or are insufficient to address the problem at...

One alternative to Map and Key that may fall under Event Based (maybe?) is the reliance on Clocks/Countdowns of a goal with GM fronted but player "method to tackle" obstacles that games like 4e Skill Challenges, some ways to play FITD games, and Daggerheart all posit as alternatives. The...

Also, thinking narrative first we’ve had two combats in a row now where the players taking out the clear leader meant a surrender/negotiation with the enemy. Because there’s no initiative order and the game keeps nudging me that way, it feels more natural and “allowed” to just grab the spotlight...

I'm really looking forward to running the Modern Urban Fantasy thing I've been putting together. Coming from more of the book side of inspirations (Rivers of London, Alex Verus, Twenty Palaces, Matthew Swift, October Daye, etc), been re-reading a bunch to get into the mindset of urbanized magic.

Id wish for a little more vs a "you get nothing" but that's easy enough to work around! Very good stuff.

I only have the PDF, two of my players bought the full set (one via KS), one has nothing and I gave them the PDF to help. The latter would be a target for a card set.

Are there guidelines for how players can discover/clarify the Motivations/Pitfalls?

The game Wicked Ones exists to create the play space of classic dungeon denizens doing the sort of stuff that would show up on a Hero’s Wanted poster. In fact, Adventurers are the scariest opponents they’ll face - showing up as a consequence of your actions and storming your stronghold/dungeon /etc.

Generally something leveraging an experience with potential downsides would come under "Reveal an Unwelcome Truth/Unexpected Danger" (the noble's bodyguard steps around him and peers closely at you, she seems to be narrowing in on that Azure Assassin tattoo you have), or "Use a PC's Backstory...

I don’t think the class unique bits matter for the first part so much, and for the second like I said given the amount of class customization and tactical play as the core expectation of this game player desire to learn and master your class is a baseline requirement of the game. I’d think your...

If classes have different ways they work, does it matter unless you're playing multiple classes at the same time? Edit: DS seems to be designed to appeal to people who want to do some serious customization and skilled tactical play with their characters, people who are going to want to learn...

Honestly the one thing "saving" the players the most has been the swingyness of the D20. I'm often rolling <8, and very few T1 adversaries can do much there. like I said, if you expect a "solo" to = "boss" and basically be "if the players aren't super on it they might all drop" you're going to...

I don’t think any DH class feels especially “glass cannon”-y!

The amount of people who have watched CR and never actually played D&D or just decided to try it is quite high. I had 5 of those in my late 2023 D&D game, and see them looking for a group constantly on the local LFG discord. If they can get DH registering with those folks (and seem to be)...

Also, add me to the "these combats can be pretty quick actually." On-balance/slightly above Bruiser + Skulk + Ranged x 3 vs my 3 players and we ran through it with some great color + a tag team + still learning abilities and such in ~15 minutes. We actually managed to do a "combat to end the...

The Homebrew Kit is fantastic, and also drills down into adversary design a lot more. You've got some great step-by-step considerations for scaling adversaries down now, how to conceptualize damage vs thresholds and such, etc. Edit: the Age of Umbra adversaries are interesting. Velk is...