City of Whispers was born Summer 2020, when I wrote the first draft of a PbtA game that emphasized the characters’ relationships with the city. My aim was to have those relationships woven into the fabric of the game. In that version of the game, the relationship came from shared tags. If a character and a neighborhood shared a tag, the player could buff their rolls.
Although the rules have evolved considerably since then this aspect remains. Evaluating tags to see what’s shared proved too cumbersome. Instead, players name the neighborhoods their characters have connections with. Additionally, there are mechanisms throughout the game where they can form new connections. Performing any City Move in a neighborhood where the character has a connection, the player can roll with advantage.
I’m largely happy with how this has been working in our play tests, but players sometimes forget their neighborhood connection. In running the game, I’ve also neglected to give characters a neighborhood connection at the outset.
In the next play test, during Session 0 we’ll make sure to define home neighborhoods and establish connections to them.
In the real world, when someone makes an impassioned speech in public or in the presence of other people, there can be consequences. The speech might agitate folks, causing tensions to rise or even boil over. The speech might deeply affect someone listening, sitting with them in a way they didn’t expect. The person giving the speech is likely hoping to see a change in the world, and might escalate when they do not see the change they’re hoping to see.
How does one represent these social consequences in a game? In some games, the if one character is affected by another, they owe a debt to that character or there’s now a stronger bond between them.
I avoided social currencies in City of Whispers because I felt the bookkeeping was too arduous. Also when I’ve seen this in other games, I sensed the players’ reluctance to engage with this mechanic. One thing that’s become clear to me, however, is that by using a currency, the players at the table are compelled to consent to the exchange. If you’re acting to put someone in debt to you, it’s important that the other player have a say.
Without such a mechanism, the current iteration of City of Whispers suffers a lack of built-in safety tools. Rules that encourage players to buy into a situation before it escalates means that the table doesn’t have to rely on “third party” safety tools to mediate these charged interactions.