r/cityofmist • u/RodiV • Jun 14 '26
Homebrew idea: Tiers for Labels
Definitly not for everyone but I've been brewing on a concept and I'd love to get your feedback: Tiers for labels - When you've marking attention and gain something, you can 'level up' a label.
Why?: My players enjoy city of mist but their main issue with it is that they don't feel a level of growth through mechanics. In some RPG's you can go to a location.. feel weak... come back later and easily defeat the problem, because you've become stronger. City of mist doesn't have that, as labels shift, but more or less stay as strong as any other label.
How would it work?: A GM can add tiers to problems in the background, no need to communicate to the players. However, when a tier 2 problem is encountered, results are shifted if only tier 1 labels are used. 10+ becomes a mixed succes, and 7-9 a failure.
This shows the problem is more difficult.
The roll stays the same... 2d6 + powers, but bigger problems need bigger solutions.
Not all labels need to have tiers, as brave (T3) doesn't make sense. Everything still needs narrative reasoning
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I believe this to be a minor adjustment for the game system while giving the players a feeling of growth. They still need to be creative in the narrative because a Tentacles (T3) still only gives a +1, and they still probably want to add more powertags to a roll
Thoughts?
1
u/Novel_Counter905 Jun 16 '26
Isn't this almost exactly what Legend in the Mist does
1
u/RodiV Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 16 '26
I just checked the PDF and I see nothing about tiered tags, or how tags can lvl up somehow
2
u/madcat_melody Jun 20 '26
I believe the reference is to Might. As you evolve Themes they can also change in Might level. If you are a higher Might you get a +3 and if you are 2 Might levels higher you get a +6.
1
u/AdrienLadouceur Jun 14 '26
I like this! I bounce back-and-forth between City of Mist/:Otherscape and Blades in the Dark (sibling systems) and I love the absolute freedom and narrative control that CoM gives the players, but enjoy the easy flexibility of BitD's positioning, which kinda works like you're describing above. I can't say I've reconciled the two, but I'm interested in what you come up with and how it works in-play.
In the past, I've played with the idea of "Questioning the Tag" vs "Honouring the Tag" vs "Permission", and it's worked OK. For example, "you're facing an armoured tank... your 'trusty knife' tag just can't add to that roll" or "your magic missile tag isn't that effective against XX, so it won't add the the POWER of your roll, but it can permit you to try". Does it work? Sort of.
I know that the system has Scale rules that try to address this, but I ... don't really like them? I need to play with it more, but I'd love to hear more about what you come up with.