Game Reactions: Spire - Shadow Operations (One-shot collection)
Link: https://rowanrookanddecard.com/product/shadow-operations-a-spire-one-shots-book/?v=7885444af42e
Eleven one-shot missions for the Spire roleplaying game.
[Quick note, Iâm never concise in these, but I waffle a *lot* at the start here. If youâre already comfortable with Spire and are just curious about Shadow Operations itself, you can skip to after the Waylandâs Forge link.]
Spire is âa fantasy-punk RPG about rebellion, brutality and oppressionâ by Rowan, Rook and Decard. Shadow Operations is a collection of 11 one-shot scenarios to play with Spire. If youâre not familiar, the game is set in the titular city, a mile-high construction of unknown origin. Itâs run by the aelfir (high-elves), while the PCs are drow working for an organisation called the Ministry, who the aelfir would call terrorists. The game itself is a d10 dice pool mechanic that RRD call the Resistance system. Itâs close to a FitD/PbtA style, âfiction firstâ setup, with graded levels of success depending on the dice roll. Fails (or compromised successes) result in characters marking âstressâ against a relevant âresistanceâ. Whenever stress is marked, a check is made for âfalloutâ, or some concrete consequence, e.g., taking fallout to your Blood resistance might mean that you have a broken leg. The more stress you build up, the more likely fallout is, and the worse it will be the higher the stress is when it hits. Thatâs a whirlwind tour, but in short - itâs a great system, for me itâs just about the perfect level of crunch. Itâs way less restrictive and crunchy than a D&D, but still gives enough of a framework to support players (and GMs) who might struggle with a very rules-light system.
On top of that, the world (and the art in the core rulebook, wowsers) is fascinating. The âfantasy-punkâ label makes sense once you start reading, as it combines classic fantasy creatures with more modern elements like factories, trains and so on. Good touchpoints might be Dishonored or Arcane. There is an abandoned train network that was designed to manipulate space-time itself, and has left behind a seemingly infinite labyrinth of tracks and stations. Underneath the city is the Heart, which there is a whole other game dedicated to. The Heart is organic, or magical, or maybe technological, but itâs definitely messed up, has a tendency to drive people beyond the bounds of sanity, and possibly created the city of Spire. There are âmega-corvidsâ that can be used for travel. Thereâs a distant war with gnolls that receives armies from the barracks near the base of Spire, and returns corpses and injured soldiers. Speaking of corpses, there are ghosts, and also people who can commune with the dead. Thereâs an intelligence housed in a crystal that is recruiting âfollowersâ⌠or something, I canât fully remember that bit. Needless to say, thereâs a lot of lore. Itâs a really cool world that is not the same old shit youâve seen a thousand times, and offers a lot of opportunity to be creative. Itâs also a lot to try to take in, especially as a GM whose players will probably need to ask a lot of basic questions about how the world works, what their characters would know etc. In fairness, thereâs a lot of world detail in the core book, and quite a few supplements that add more, but also a lot still left undefined, and explicit permission (even encouragement) from the authors to make up whatever sounds good for your game.
That latter point is appreciated, and I certainly have made use of it. Iâve played a single one-shot of Spire, and then last year GMâd a mini-campaign (about 8 or 9 sessions) using the âSnuff Out the Sunâ scenario provided in the quickstart. I was winging it a lot, and making up whatever felt best at the time, and it went great. I was running it for 2 players, both from my regular D&D group. We all started TTRPGs with D&D in 2020 (guess why!) and Iâm predictably the nerd that got super into the whole scene and branched out from D&D itself. Iâm the primary force behind us ever playing any non-5e games, much to their chagrin at times. With some scheduling conflicts, Iâd suggested setting up a secondary weekly slot for these 2 players, that gave them a chance to keep playing, in return for letting me experiment with other games. Spire was the first game weâd really played that was fundamentally different to the D&D approach. Up to then weâd played Cyberpunk Red, Mork Borg, Cy_borg. It took some time for the players to adjust to things like no, weâre not using roll20, you donât have HP, there are no maps for tactical combat, and yes, itâs ok that I just asked you to tell me what your relationship is with this new NPC, you can pretty much do what you want within reason, and we are making this story up together as we go.
Honestly, it took time for me too. Iâve been used to D&D-style adventures that broadly know where the characters need to go and how they will need to solve the situation theyâre dropped into. Spire is more of a âplay to find outâ game, which I absolutely love! Iâm also not always the best improviser on the spot, so itâs a challenge too. The quickstart scenario gives you a cast of characters, a list of locations, and a goal, and wishes you luck. Players need to prevent a religious zealot from ascending to a seat of power. My players skulked around, gathered information, curried favour, bribed, and generally politicked their way through. My partner, by contrast, had fought the city guard and kidnapped the archbishop within 2 sessions! [Side note, thereâs something so interesting in that split, where my videogame/D&D background players expended every effort and ounce of wit they had to avoid any potentially dangerous situation, clearly retaining a primary goal of keeping their characters safe at all times.] This is all great stuff, but had made me very curious about how to introduce more adventures/missions, and especially how you might write more for the game. So when I saw Shadow Operations, I was eager to pick it up.
Quick shoutout, I bought this (and two other Spire supplements I may post about) on a trip to Waylandâs Forge, an excellent RPG/boardgame shop in Birmingham. I love the place, and if you ever get the chance, you should visit: https://www.waylandsforge.co.uk/
Wayland's Forge
Shadow Operations itself then, contains 11 standalone, one-shot scenarios for Spire. Each is by a different writer, but all have the same construction. Thereâs a pitch, suggestions for useful classes, a list of key characters with descriptions, a series of locations, a few suggested scenes, a few âpropsâ, an explanation of the scenarioâs twist, and a suggested reward for successful completion. Just like Snuff Out the Sun, there is not a linear sequence of events, youâre being handed a toolkit that, at its best, can facilitate any of a number of fun stories for your group. If youâre curious about the âtwistâ - for most of the stories it is a literal twist, i.e., the straightforward mission pitched to the players gets a complication, some sort of rug pull like âthat NPC youâre here to rescue actually defected and left of their own free willâ.
Itâs a fun structure, and for the best examples, it gives the GM a great framework with interesting characters that have multiple conflicts going on and no clear right or wrong, but a few obvious paths that players could take. These Feral Saints is the last of the scenarios, where a âhallowâ (a reincarnated drow saint) is walking around a lower level of Spire, performing miracles and gaining followers. Not all is quite as it may seem, as youâd expect, and there are multiple characters with their own agendas and (understandable) motives. My brain exploded with possibilities reading this one, and Iâd really look forward to running it.
Powderkeg is another favourite, setting up two rival pubs that are both allies of the Ministry, and on the brink of open violence. Your players need to find a resolution that works out well for their organisation. Does that resolution need to benefit everyone else involved? Not necessarily. Again, there are a handful of strong characters with different motives, that would likely react in interesting ways to any attempted interventions the players make.
These scenarios, as well as a few others, do exactly what I need as a GM - give me sufficient scaffolding that I can kickstart the players into action, and have the world push back in fun ways, without struggling to look up or invent a ton of lore along the way. Those scenarios above are both, at their core, fully comprehensible to anyone familiar with human stories of any kind. The rich, unique lore of Spire is a creative bonus, not an impediment.
Some of the others donât meet the same level, for me. Where thatâs the case, itâs always because I feel like I donât have enough to go on. If youâre a strong improviser, and like to invent a lot during play, or your players are particularly good at collaborating to construct the world and story as they go, you might feel differently.
As an example, House of Leaving is set in a place called the Infinite Library, which has only a couple of paragraphs describing it in the core rulebook. A researcher found important information and has disappeared. The answer to the mystery is very simple, the cast of characters is small, and the number of people who know the answer to the mystery (and can tell the players) is even smaller. Just the name Infinite Library sounds great, and you have a lot of scope to build out the story, but the amount of concretely useful detail in the scenario could be delivered in a couple of sentences. I think my players would draw a blank on how to get started, and I wouldnât feel confident enough that I could help them, or throw up interesting obstacles once they got going.
Similarly, The Last Train is set in the Vermissian, the abandoned train network that exists partially outside reality. I love this part of the world-building, but it gets very abstract whenever itâs mentioned. The objective here is again quite simple, and there isnât a great deal in the scenario as written to complicate it. Iâd hesitate to run this one, and if I did, Iâd feel a need to put in a lot of prep work to give myself more characters, locations, and events to pull from, as well as more setup and guidance for the players.
Overall, I really like this approach to writing âadventuresâ, in contrast to the worst of the stereotypical D&D adventures that are very linear rollercoaster rides for the players. Forgive my videogame background, but this is Stalker rather than Call of Duty, for example. That said, it is a mixed bag at times, as itâs a very fine line to walk between being too prescriptive and not giving GMs enough to work with. If youâre a Spire fan though, and want some inspiration for your future games, itâs definitely worth picking up.
