City of Amber vs See You, Space Cowboy...
Compare City of Amber and See You, Space Cowboy... side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, and more.
| City of Amber | See You, Space Cowboy... | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy, Horror | Scifi |
| Tags | Urban Fantasy, Rules-Light, Career-Based, Investigation, Mystery, Noir, Atmospheric, Roll to Cast, Deadly, One-Shot Friendly | Rules-Light, Anime, Noir, Player-Only Rolls, One-Shot Friendly, Mission-Based, Character-Driven |
| Core Mechanic | Roll d100 (2d10: one die chosen as the tens, the other as the ones) and try to roll under one of four Stats: Vitality, Willpower, Agility, or Cunning. Skills, situational advantages, or assists let the player roll twice and take the better result; disadvantages take the worse. Three Saves (Fear, Magic, Body) resolve the same way. Failed rolls, entering combat, and casting spells each add Stress; reaching 10+ Stress drains Vitality or Willpower and adds a Consequence, and a critical Save failure forces a Panic check against current Stress. | When attempting a Break (a discrete action like a fistfight, hack, persuasion, or repair), the player rolls a single Trait die (a d6, d8, d10, or d12 assigned to that Trait at character creation) against fixed thresholds: 4 or below fails, 5–9 partially succeeds, 10 or above fully succeeds. If the player has a relevant Talent (an open-ended specialty written by the player, like 'Picking Pockets' or 'Plays Drums'), they add a d4 to the roll. Failing a Break grants Juice, a token that can be spent to reroll all dice on a future Break (partial successes become failures on rerolls); rolling the maximum on the unmodified Trait die also grants Juice. The Bandleader (GM) never rolls dice: they choose the stat and thresholds, then narrate outcomes. |
| Dice | d100 | d4–d12 |
| Complexity | Low | Very Low |
| Availability | Paid | Paid |
| Runnability | 3 of 5 book tools | 4 of 5 book tools |
| License | All rights reserved | Proprietary |
| Third-Party Publishing | Not yet researched | Not yet researched |
| Publisher | Chrome Dog Games | Tidal Wave Games |
| Year | 2026 | 2022 |
| Languages | English | English |
| Best For | Groups who want a 1940s urban fantasy with horror undertones, where ordinary New Yorkers awaken to a hidden city of orcs, fey, and shades and pierce the illusion that keeps everyone else asleep. Built for one-shots and short campaigns driven by investigation, magical awakening, and dread. | Groups who want a fast, cinematic bounty-hunter game in the vein of Cowboy Bebop or Outlaw Star, tuned for one-shots and short 'season-length' campaigns. Best for tables that enjoy improvising scenes and sharing director-style narrative authority with the GM. |
| Highlights | Amber level (1–10) is a double-edged progression: rising levels unlock new perceptions and career abilities (eventually including the power to command Grays), but falling to 0 reverts a character to a mindless Gray and hitting 10 retires them from play permanently. The Stress/Panic/Consequence cascade is the mechanical heart of the horror: failed rolls and entering combat each add Stress, hitting 10+ drains Stats and locks in a long-term Consequence (Haunted, Catatonic, Amber Dread, and nine others), and a critical Save failure forces a Panic check against current Stress. Career-gated magic means the same 20-spell list works differently across Careers: Street Wizards cast directly from randomly rolled spells, Artists bake spell effects into physical objects anyone can trigger, and Vagabonds redistribute Amber at personal cost. The Anchor (a mundane personal object worth two starting Amber points) makes every character's connection to the ordinary world a mechanical vulnerability. | The Bandleader (GM) never rolls dice: players' Trait rolls resolve every contested moment while the GM chooses the stat, sets thresholds, and narrates outcomes. Talents are open-ended specialties players invent at character creation (e.g., 'Yeet', 'Picking Pockets', 'Plays Drums'), each adding a d4 to relevant Breaks for one of the four Traits. Required Bonds, Debts, and Regrets at character creation give every Outlaw a personal arc: clearing a Debt permanently upgrades the Talent die from d4 to d6, and resolving a Regret grants a once-per-session auto-success on a chosen Break. Procedural bounty generation pulls from tables for Threat Level, Charges, Demeanour, Modus Operandi, Specialized Gear, Appearance, Hideout, and Complications, supporting pickup play and improvised scenarios. |
| Considerations | Setting is locked to the City: characters cannot leave, and the GM improvises everything beyond its borders. Career and Kindred lists are fixed with no guidance for homebrew options. Magic is heavily gated to Street Wizards; other Careers receive one or two minor spell-like abilities at most. The 49-page rulebook is rules-light by design and leaves substantial setting detail, adventure structure, and faction development to the GM. | Mechanically minimal: no character classes, no skill list, no advancement track beyond clearing a Debt or resolving a Regret. Pacing assumes one-shots or short season-length campaigns; long-term progression is not structured by the rules. The Bandleader-rolls-nothing approach puts improvisational load on the GM to interpret narrative outcomes for every Break, since opposed-roll resolution does not apply. Setting is anchored to a specific 23rd-century solar system with 1990s-era consumer technology and no alien species; using a different backdrop requires reskinning the planet writeups, bounty charges table, and name tables. |