City of Mist: Player’s Guide by Amít Moshe is a role playing game supplement published by Son of Oak Game Studio. This is one of the two core books for the City of Mist system, the other being the Master of Ceremonies’ Toolkit, an Apocalypse World Engine game.
The supplement is available as a PDF from DriveThruRPG for $19.95 or in printed form from sites such as Amazon. The PDF is the version reviewed although it was purchased at a reduced price thanks to a special offer. The PDF comes in two versions, one of them high resolution, and has 311 pages. One page is the front cover, three the front matter, two the Table of Contents and four the Kickstarter backers.
The Introduction is a single page on the idea of the game.
The Basics explains that City of Mist is a modern city where legends are real; the legends are reborn inside ordinary people making them Rifts, who live out modern versions of their legends, called Mythoi. Along with their legend, they still have ordinary lives.
1. The Lowdown starts by explaining that this section will cover the living legends of the City, the ordinary people who become involved in the clash of forces. The characters start by awakening, becoming Rifts, beings who have a past that they’ve lived before, their Mythos. The Mythoi are essentially stories or ideas, legends about people, places, powers and events. Awakening to their Mythos is different for every Rift, and the Rift a Mythoi manifests in may have little connection to the traditional idea of the Mythos in question.
Once awakened, the Rift goes mostly back to reality. It might seem like a dream but it’s quickly proved otherwise. The character then starts looking into their Mythos, and will also discover that the vast majority of people ignore, excuse or forget any legendary powers demonstrated in their presence; this is the effect of the Mist. The Mist only obscures legendary powers and, though not much has been written about it, some has. The Rift can then discover others like them, as their own powers make them somewhat resistant to the effects of the Mist, though not every Rift is awakened to the same degree; those who give in more to their Mythos are more resistant to the Mist and can manifest greater powers, though this causes problems with their personal life. The degrees are the Touched, Borderlines, Legendaries and Avatars, though these are not in-universe descriptions, nor are the differences easy to see. Rifts in the City are attracted to each other, though the reasons why will vary. Rifts are drawn to strange cases, and the characters will become part of a crew of Rifts. The City is the backdrop and it has many districts; a brief description is given of some which are covered in more details in the Master of Ceremonies’ Toolkit.
2. Who Are You? starts by saying that in the game the player takes the role of an ordinary modern-day individual in whom an ancient myth, legend or story has awakened. It looks at the Exposition Session, or Session Zero, which is where the initial details of the story are created collaboratively. There are four steps to this session; establishing the series concept, creating the characters, finalising the crew and playing “A Day in the life” which is a short piece of improvised gameplay for each character’s normal life. Two pages then have quick reference sheets for the Exposition Session and character creation.
The Series Concept looks at what the characters are going to be doing. It’s assumed that the crew is already familiar with each other, and deciding who they are, as a crew, will define the series. There are some examples of what the crew could be, with a series focus, what the characters are and possible cases for each. The City itself can be different too; not just the districts but its overall theme. Various different themes are given an overview. During the Exposition Session, players might add more details to the City. Finally, there’s an example series concept that has been fleshed out.
Character Creation covers the character creation process. It first explains that characters, objects, places and qualities are described using words rather than numbers, unlike most role playing games; the exception is the number used to describe the severity of a Status, which is covered in Working the Case. Characters are made out of four aspects, which are called themes, that describe either legendary powers, called Mythos themes, or their ordinary life, called Logos themes. Each theme has power tags, that are specific useful things, weakness tags, which are specific limiting things, and a Mystery or an Identity, which are questions or statements that motivate characters to act. Creating a character is a three-step process. How to fill out character and theme cards is next.
Step 1 is character concept, which is two questions to answer, the legend in the character, which is the Mythos concept, and their everyday life in the city, which is the Logos concept. Both of these concepts are explained as to what they are and how they affect the character, and an example character is described.
Step 2 is Choosing Themes. Characters have four themes, and the balance between their Mythos and Logos themes shows how awake they are; four Logos themes means they are a Sleeper, not a Rift, and four Mythos themes means they are an Avatar. A sidebar discusses how to play a character that is awakening. The different theme types for Logos and Mythos are explained. Though a Touched character may seem much less powerful than a Legendary, the game doesn’t revolve around absolute power measurements but narrative power. There are some character tropes, for Mythos and Logos themes, which are pre-made builds.
Step 3 is Themebooks. Themebooks are questionnaires that help the player put their character together. This starts by explaining what tags are, which are short descriptions that define the role of something in the game, and how the tag questions work for characters. Power and weakness tags are chosen through various questions. Mysteries and identities are questions and statements that drive characters to take action and there are details on how to choose these. There is a final section on themebooks on Character Relationships and Theme Improvements that is not used during character creation. Following this section are seven Mythos and seven Logos themebooks, each with a description, concept and power tag questions.
After character creation is finished, the players then need to focus on the crew. The crew also has a theme, with power and weakness tags. It’s possible for a crew to become the Rift of a Mythos. The crew themebook also has power and weakness tag questions, mystery or identity and improvements, and there are a number of quick start themes following. The relationships between the different members of the crew are determined and the final stage of the Exposition Session is a day in the life, which is the group playing a casual session bringing everything together.
3. Working the Case starts with two reference sheets that list the player rules. The Conversation explains that City of Mist is a conversation, but one with rules. When a character wants to take a significant action in the game, the rules are used to determine its outcome; the most common form of these is player moves. The rules define what an MC can and cannot do, and if a player misses a move, the MC can activate an MC move. The MC options are explained in this chapter whilst the moves themselves are explained in the MC Toolkit.
The game revolves around the story and the rules, and sometimes the language of the story is then translated into rules. The conversation itself is broken down into parts, like a comic book or a TV series. Actions are the smallest event that can happen, scenes are a defined period of time in a specific location, a cutscene is a scene without the lead characters, downtime is a significant period of time between scenes, a session is a single game session, a season is a linked series of sessions and a series is an entire story. During play, the MC can steer the story to a specific character by putting them in the spotlight; this can be momentarily shifted to other characters for various reasons. It’s advised to think cinematic when playing. Characters in the spotlight can make moves, which are the main part of the rules. How moves are used, repeating moves, linking them, postponing them and moves without dice are covered.
The Core Moves covers the fundamental moves of the game that will be used for the vast majority of actions. Character improvement can make some moves Dynamite! which adds a new possible outcome to the move. Characters can help or interfere with core moves. The eight core moves are then covered, with descriptions, outcome and Dynamite! as appropriate. There are four Cinematic Moves, which are moves that are the sort of thing that would be seen or done with a TV series.
Game Resources starts by looking at tags, which are a fundamental part of the game. Tags are descriptive and power tags are things that are helpful to a character; weakness tags are their detrimental counterpart. Tags can be burnt, making them temporarily unavailable in exchange for different advantages. Story tags are used to describe temporary qualities and independent objects, beings, concepts or effects in a scene. Crew and extra themes can also have tags. How to use tags is then covered.
Statuses are temporary conditions that are similar to tags, but also have a numerical value; 0 is no effects up to 6 which is lethal or permanently transformative. Statuses can represent physical, psychological, social, supernatural or mystical conditions and combat situations. The difference between tags and statuses is covered. Giving, taking, reducing and removing statuses, as well as how long they may last, are covered in this section.
As City of Mist is an investigative game, Clues are important to it. Clues can be gained and spent; they are given in numbers and a character can spend a Clue to learn something. Clues can also be banked. In other words, a Clue isn’t a fixed thing, giving details on something in particular, but a benefit you gain that can then be spent.
Juice is a character’s ability to shape what is going on around them by using their abilities, resources or allies. Juice can be gained and spent; it can be used to create a new story tag, burn a tag, give a status or reduce or remove a status. Juice can also be banked.
Secondary characters are those characters and beings that feature mostly on a character’s theme or tag, and are considered an extension of the main character.
4. Moments of Truth looks at character development, when they go through experiences that change them irrevocably. Players are the ones responsible for their characters’ development. The introduction is followed by a reference sheet.
Character and Crew Growth starts by explaining that Attention is the most basic form of character development, and is the growth from focusing on a specific aspect of a character’s life. Characters have an Attention track on their theme cards; Attention can be gained in several ways. When the Attention track of a theme is full, it resets and an improvement is selected. The same improvements can be selected multiple times. Crew themes can also gain Attention, and at certain points the crew may gain additional themes or replace existing ones.
Dramatic Moments explains that characters are forever balancing the Mythos and Logos parts of their life, and these aspects change based on their decisions. Characters always have four themes, that are in the beginning divided equally between Mythos and Logos. The number of themes never changes, but the balance between them can. Mythos themes have Fade, and when three boxes on the Fade track are checked, the character loses contact with that aspect of their Mythos. Conversely, Logos themes have Crack, and this results in them losing touch with aspects of their ordinary life. There are two moves that can be made, one for Mythos and one for Logos, that can make a difference to which element of the Rift’s character is in ascendance.
Characters are constantly changing, and at some points this results in an existing theme being replaced by a new one. The new theme is always from the opposite side to the theme lost; a Logos theme lost results in a Mythos one gained, and vice versa. This is a permanent change to a character, and a significant one, resulting in altered abilities and the lost theme creates a Nemesis, a problem related to that theme that still haunts the character. There is only one move that can permanently get rid of a Nemesis, Moments of Evolution. Crew themes can also be lost, and if they are not replaced with a new theme, the crew disbands. Nascent themes are aspects of a character’s life that are just starting to emerge, and are not quite as powerful as a standard theme. They can be replaced or lost just like a standard theme. They can also be evolved like a standard theme. Moments of Evolution is a move that can make a big change to a character.
Becoming an Avatar is the ultimate goal of a Rift’s Mythos, turning them into a living embodiment of their story. Avatars are essentially living gods in the City, but they are now little more than a vessel to serve their Mythos’ narrative. When the Mythos’ endgame is determined, it becomes their permanent Agenda. Avatars still have one last fragment of their original persona left. There are details on how to play an Avatar, how the MC handles the emergence of an Avatar and how an Avatar can cease to become one. When Avatarhood ends, the character may transcend, never to be seen again, or transcend to return as a new Touched character.
Another possibility is that a Rift may go the opposite way to becoming an Avatar and instead fall asleep once more. How to play a Sleeper is covered, as well as how they can be awoken again and the aftermath of such. Both becoming an Avatar and falling asleep are significant changes to a character. Finally, it looks at the life cycle of themes, as themes change throughout the game.
Extra Themes looks at additional resources or allies that a character can have. There are three different extra themes; Ally, Base of Operations and Ride. How to use extra themes is covered, then each extra themebook is looked at in detail. Each has a concept, power and weakness tags, mystery or identity and potential improvements.
Player Sheets has player moves, tracking cards, character sheet and the front and back of the theme cards that can be printed out.
Sample Playthrough is an example of gameplay.
City of Mist: Player’s Guide in Review
The PDF is bookmarked, though not as deeply as it could be. The Table of Contents is to a similar level of depth. Navigation is adequate. The text maintains a two-column format and appeared to be free of errors. There are a variety of colour illustrations, all of which look to be custom, including some comics. Presentation is good.
The Player’s Guide and the Master of Ceremonies’ Toolkit are a little too intertwined in places; there are parts that don’t make a lot of sense until the other book is read, and it’s difficult reading both at the same time. This does make understanding some things a little difficult, but overall the Players’ Guide should probably be read first by MCs.
As this game is primarily based on the Powered by the Apocalypse engine, it is a far more narrative game than many RPGs. There is dice rolling, but a lot of that is to determine the results of things that are still quite narrative in nature. Tags are a fundamental part of the game, and the part that will likely require the most study for those coming from crunchier games; they are not something that has a list of what they are but are something that can be created by the players or the MC and often on the fly.
The game concept itself is interesting, but characters also change a lot more in different ways than they do in other games, and it’s possible for them to swing from one end to another and back again; neither is necessarily better, though if they are too far to the Logos end of the scale, they lose all their Mythos abilities. They can still be played, but the manner of play is different. Overall, the game itself is a different one, set in a sort-of modern setting with fantastical influences that most people don’t notice, and with a different style of play. City of Mist: Player’s Guide can be found by clicking here.
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