Secrets of the City

Secrets of the City is a role-playing game set in a city filled with cults, rituals and musty old books. It departs from other role-playing games in many ways.

The first of which is that instead of a class, characters select an “advantage”. They make their own advantage from a list of categories like talent ( eg. con man), Skill ( Chemist), possession, and others. They use this to give them advantage powers, which are like class abilities. There are no levels or experience.

The next is the combat system. Actions take a certain number of seconds and when the seconds are up, it happens at the end of the second. You can pick from a list of actions or make your own. You can either guess at how long the action would take, or you could do it in the air and time it. Characters in this role-playing game are fragile just like people in the real world. The characters are not supposed to just try to kill things like in other role-playing games; neither are Game Runners (GR) supposed to put something in their way just to kill.

The last major difference is that there are no adventures. The GR makes a story or situation with something like cults abducting people or a plan to summon a demon. The GR then is either “passive” and improvises with the information he has prepared while the characters follow their own plan or “active” where he gives the characters things to get them into the story. When the story has ended after a few gaming sessions, it is over; unless the players and GR want a sequel or want to use the characters and the city over again.

I find that an adventure in a role-playing game consists of a series of places to go and things to exchange attack roles with. The actions of the players affect nothing; they will go to each event and talk, attack or solve some kind of simple problem. I hope you enjoy my attempt to break away from this.


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