Urban Shadows 2e Tabletop Review – Why Everyone is Talking About It

Urban Shadows 2e Book Review is where Urban Shadows 2e brings a fresh take on narrative-driven tabletop RPGs, blending political intrigue with supernatural tension in a world where alliances shift as fast as power does. But is it the right game for your next session? In this review, we break down its mechanics, storytelling depth, and whether its unique approach to urban fantasy makes it a must-play or just another RPG vying for attention. Read on to discover if Urban Shadows 2e is the experience you’ve been looking for.

Urban Shadows 2e Book Review Pros:

• Beautiful art and colors.
• Hardback book.
• 320 pages.
• The book uses a large text size and an easily readable font.
• The pages are of a high calibre, and for me, it allowed me to easily add my post it tabs without damaging the pages.
• Uses a system inspired by the Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA). This system is common for collaborative and relationship-building games.
• Political Urban Fantasy RPG.
• The opening story section sets the scene of what it’s all about and who is out there.
• It’s all set in the modern era.
• The book has been written and broken up in such a way that you can read a few chapters to get the gist and then just jump around chapters as and when you need it.
• The city the game is set in is split into four circles, each having its own perspective on the politics, but also houses set characters and types of characters – Mortalis, Night, Power, and Wild.
• Sessions are called episodes, and this helped keep the game going as the GM, as it had clear, identifiable breaks.
• Has very slight nods to famous books and TV shows on the characters and scenarios.
• The game prides itself on opening up the game world to everyone, it incorporates queerness, gender, and any way in which you identify yourself or your character. They don’t beat you over the head with it and instead just let you know it’s there.
• Two six-sided dice (D6) minimum are needed for play.
• A pen and paper are recommended for notes and doodles.
• The game is best experienced with four to five players and one MC. I managed a game with only a couple of players, and it was fine, had to cut back on some situations, but it’s totally fine.
• The MC (The master of Ceremonies) is in charge of the game, makes the story, adheres to the rules, and is basically the Games Master for the game.
• The website supplies a lot of additional materials like maps, photos, etc, amd it is free and comes in PDF.
• Urban Shadows has a presence on Roll20 and Foundry, so you can, in essence, play online.
• Each circle in the city has a cool logo unique to it.
• I like how a player can go between circles as their character changes and how it really mixes the game up.
• Aside from the circle, you can also form or join factions. The easiest way to say this is you can stumble across a werewolf pack or a bunch of vampires. Again, it’s another layer that you need to be mindful of.
• Status, like in real life, has a lot going for you. Go up the ranks and earn more status to hold power over lower characters and people, or build up a reputation through your actions.
• Debt plays a massive role in the game, and it’s not just about borrowing money; it also includes blood, favours, and magic as debt. Basically, if you scratch my back, il scratch yours is the mantra.
• I really appreciated how much the book gave clear examples and multiple ones at that to help every type of player, and they really made it easier to grasp concepts and ideas.
• The book has clear boundaries and breaks between sections that again make it easy to quickly look something up or cross-reference.
• Mortalis is a group of people who believe they can skirt both worlds, and you have different traits on how they do this, like traffickers, defenders, or investigators. Two worlds are at play here: you have the mundane world where people are just people and they don’t really care for or believe in the supernatural world, and then you have the world of shadows where the supernatural see mortals as the enemy.
• Night is a group that is night dwellers, so think werewolves or vampires, they only believe in the supernatural world, and even that is a threat to them.
• Power is the group to call the magic snobs, they have arcane and cults to control people and try to seize power from others using the mind and magic more than brute force.
• The Wild people are outsiders; they have a foot in each type of group and try to stay under the radar. The scary part is they still have Faerie and imps, trolls, and more in their group.
• What is so helpful is that they have in the book bios for characters, people you can encounter, and not only can you scan it quickly to be knowledgeable, but it also has a load of pre-made questions and facts that really help bring the character to life instantly.
• The game rules are flexible enough that allow you to make custom actions and rules, and they even give guidance on good practices for this.
• Urban Shadows uses a unique corruption system where characters earn corruption points by embracing or dabbling with their darker tendencies or making morally questionable choices. As these points build up, they shape your character progression and attitude, motives, etc, and add depth to the narrative, pushing you to grapple with the ethical consequences of your actions amd choices.
• I really love the supernatural element and how you can craft these games of humans and the supernatural, as it’s so open-ended.
• There are playbooks for each playable archetype, and it is like a character manual. Each player needs one, even if they have the same archetype, no sharing.
• The use of colour in the book text in particular helps show what is rules are and what is to be said aloud or kept in your head at that time.
• A handy quick list of what you were is in the Appendix, which has brief outlines on the flow of the game and the rules and steps.
• You get all the rules, info, and scenarios for making short game sessions or longer ones that can go over multiple sessions and have things like taking over factions and land.
• Has an attached ribbon bookmark.

Urban Shadows 2e Book Review Cons:

• If you are new to this game engine, then it may take some time to grasp it.
• I found it’s a game that was a lot more daunting initially.
• You will need to visit the local library or stock up on your printer ink before attempting to print off the sheets and snippets of the book.
• With so much open-endedness, the rules start to matter less, and I always felt like I was forgetting something, or that, because I have no real boundaries, I could go too far.

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Urban Shadows:

Official website.

Developer: Magpie Games

Publisher: Magpie Games

Store Links – 

Magpie Games Store