r/rpg•
lowkeyhost1

Recommendations for an urban fantasy - not narrativist, accessible for new pleayrs

Game Suggestion

I'm trying to decide which rpg I want to play. The tl;dr is I'm looking for a "Monster of the Week", urban fantasy-style, not too narrativist, accessible for newcomers, and with PCs seeming somewhat powerful.

About the group

Group is mostly new to RPGs, maybe some have played a few games of D&D in the past. I'm going to GM: I've played before, mostly as a player, and mostly D&D, and I'm not very confident as a GM. It's likely to be a one-shot, although I'd love it if the players decided they would want to play again.

I'm choosing between a few systems:

Monster of the Week

Has the strongest link genre-wise. It also is a very simple set of rules with clear moves for new players. However, I'm not in love with the "narrativist" nature of the game: For example, I don't think players would enjoy intentionally acting on wrong information under "Read a Bad Situation". Similarly having listened to a few episodes of the Critshow, there are moves where the player can shape the fiction beyond their character (e.g. "Oops!"), which doesn't really vibe with me - and also I worry about my ability to come up with something satisfying as the GM.

City of Mist

I think this also matches pretty well genre-wise. I like that this lets all the players have a little more superpower to themselves; and the rules seem to be less narrativist in the sense that moves still seem focused on what the players do rather than collaborative story-telling.

On the downside, I've heard that people can find the tag system difficult. It seems intuitive to me, but maybe that's an indication I'll find it even harder to explain to the new players.

Savage Worlds

A game like ETU seems somewhat on-genre, although the characters seem less powerful than I'd ideally like. On the positives: the game is not narrativist, and there's pre-written adventures making it easy to jump into. On the other hand, the mechanics of "whiff and ping" and volatility from exploding dice seem like they'd make the game less satisfying. The mechanics also seem a tiny bit harder for players to learn.

I've really enjoyed the Wildcards ETU actual play, and it seems they hand out re-roll tokens a lot, and I feel like this would help to make the game more fun for the players who like optimising resources - assuming they're able to pick up the rules and think through the odds.

GURPS Monster Hunter

I've seen this posted about a bit when looking at past posts. However, the system seems intimidating. Happy to hear from people who've run it for new players. I'd be interested in a "how to get started playing GURPS Monster Hunter quick" intro if one exists.

Call of Cthulu

This is fairly out-of-genre, so probably not a good fit. I'm also not sure if the players would enjoy stuff like the insanity mechanics or feeling less powerful. The rolling system seems simple, but the character sheets always seem a bit detailed (and effortful to build).

However, the pre-written adventures seem great with excellent mystery-solving, although I'd still plan to adapt it to a modern day setting with modern day characters.

I don't know much about Pulp Cthulu but from what I read the characters still don't have supernatural powers.

Posted May 28, 2026, 10:46 AM UTC

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