City of Mist:
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January 2025 | by Dani | Header by Son of Oak
Tools & Resources | D&D and TTRPGs
Is it bad that I want to use a modified version of City of Mist at my table? Basically, I've been having a lot of trouble navigating statuses. They always seemed to snowball too quickly; you get a good hit on an enemy (or even better, buff one of your allies) and suddenly you've got +4 to basically all your rolls. And vice-versa, once they hit you, suddenly you've got -4 to everything! Overall, I was finding balancing very difficult. Meanwhile, I was reading about Monster of the Week and how it handles combat, and also wondering (in response to a discussion from the Worlds Beyond Number cast) whether it was even worthwhile merging the systems for physical and non-physical conflict as City of Mist does. All this lead me to creating this:
Besides minor variations to the moves, the main difference is how statuses are handled. Basically, all statuses simply grant +1 or -1 to your rolls (or rolls against you) when relevant; it doesn't matter where the status came from. This makes them identical to story tags, but whereas statuses apply to characters, story tags apply to the whole situation. Both of them last until they are no longer relevant.
Then there's injuries, which are just a particular subset of statuses that reflect threats to a character's physical health. In addition to imposing -1, they also come with a harm level, such that if all one's injuries sum to a harm of 8 or greater, they are considered either incapacitated or dead.
And, just so it's a bit more narratively appropriate, injuries of harm 4 or greater are considered grave injuries, and impose -2. Similar injuries combine, adding their harm levels together.
Another big change is the move Duke it Out (which is analogous to MotW's "Kick Some Ass"). It makes combat tougher but also a lot more straightforward to design and run. As a caveat to the whole "the enemy also attacks you" thing, it should be noted that if there's no conceivable way for them to retaliate (eg, they're surprised, they're too far away, they're unarmed, etc.), then they have no applicable power tags, and so inflict exactly 0 harm.
This is the version I'm implementing in this year's campaign.