White Wolf's World of Darkness

[The Laurent]

The best guess I have for what he might have been saying was something like 'How would it thematically work as something close to a recognized Werewolf game if the 'Werewolf' could become a bird next time they change? The answer being 'it couldn't, it'd be its own thing' though if you wanted to preserve some of the separateness or invoke some of the modern Werewolf myths without actually doing them (similar to how Werewolf invokes old myths without actually tying in with them) you could have certain animals be almost their own 'fields.' Like it takes entirely different sets of skills to be able to turn into a giant flying Raven-man or whatnot than it does to turn into a wolf-man, and so it'd be like saying to a botanist "You're a scientist, right? Make a particle collider for me."

But honestly, I'm completely guessing at what Revlid was talking about, so I might be addressing a concern he's not raising.

 

[Omicron]

I would add that the things I outlined above are the reasons why Werewolf Gifts, whether Forsaken or Apocalypse, will always feel weird and out of place to many. Having that kind of spiritual bag-of-tricks magic would be perfectly in line with traditional theriantrope myths, given their witchery undertones; it feels weird in Werewolf because it purposefully avoids being a game about those myths - while giving werewolves that kind of power anyway. The result is jarring.

It's like if you made a Zombie Apocalypse setting based on the modern interpretation of zombies - either as walking man-eating corpses or mindless virus infectees - and then you made voodoo magic (and no other magic) real in that setting. And then gave the most powerful of zombies voodoo powers. Yes, zombie mythology originates in voodoo myth - but modern zombie 'mythology' has jack shit to do with that, and when you combine the two it comes off as nonsensical.

But honestly, I'm completely guessing at what Revlid was talking about, so I might be addressing a concern he's not raising.

Click to shrink...

Joke aside, Changing Breeds is one of the most widely-derided and ruthlessly mocked nWoD books. It may not be the worst - though it may indeed be - but it's still pretty terrible and hilarious.

 

[The Laurent]

I would add that the things I outlined above are the reasons why Werewolf Gifts, whether Forsaken or Apocalypse, will always feel weird and out of place to many. Having that kind of spiritual bag-of-tricks magic would be perfectly in line with traditional theriantrope myths, given their witchery undertones; it feels weird in Werewolf because it purposefully avoids being a game about those myths - while giving werewolves that kind of power anyway. The result is jarring.

It's like if you made a Zombie Apocalypse setting based on the modern interpretation of zombies - either as walking man-eating corpses or mindless virus infectees - and then you made voodoo magic (and no other magic) real in that setting. And then gave the most powerful of zombies voodoo powers. Yes, zombie mythology originates in voodoo myth - but modern zombie 'mythology' has jack shit to do with that, and when you combine the two it comes off as nonsensical.
Joke aside, Changing Breeds is one of the most widely-derided and ruthlessly mocked nWoD book. It may not be the worst - though it may indeed be - but it's still pretty terrible and hilarious.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, I never would have guessed he was providing me with the title of a book rather than, like, saying random things.

Also, that's a very insightful way to explain it, saying it that way it makes total sense.

Trying to move the topic at least somewhat from Werewolves, what's your favorite and least favorite splat, and are you looking forward to/dreading it being put into 2e?

I suppose that's also a general question for anyone reading the thread in terms of what their expectations and hopes are in that regard.

 

[TheLastOne]

For the nWoD, favorite is a toss up between Prometheus and Changeling. Least favorite is Mage - it's honestly boring, which is the worse sin a game can commit. I would yank Intruders, Encounters with the Abyss and use it in a better game, though.

Dreading.... None of them, really. I'm not that invested in the new line, and I can always use old books if they screw something I like up.

 

[The Laurent]

For the nWoD, favorite is a toss up between Prometheus and Changeling. Least favorite is Mage - it's honestly boring, which is the worse sin a game can commit. I would yank Intruders, Encounters with the Abyss and use it in a better game, though.

Dreading.... None of them, really. I'm not that invested in the new line, and I can always use old books if they screw something I like up.

Click to shrink...

Hmm, interesting! I've been meaning to read Prometheans sometime soon, maybe I should. I've been getting multiple recommendations for it and I keep on putting it off, but I really have no excuse.

For myself, I'm a little worried about Changeling 2e even though it won't affect me, and don't know enough about the other Splats to be able to say, "Yep, this is my least favorite alright."

By the way, if you're interested in Changeling: The Lost I have a Quest running using it that's well underway by now.*

*Shameless plug, I admit, but topical.

 

[notanautomaton]

For the nWoD, favorite is a toss up between Prometheus and Changeling. Least favorite is Mage - it's honestly boring, which is the worse sin a game can commit. I would yank Intruders, Encounters with the Abyss and use it in a better game, though.

Dreading.... None of them, really. I'm not that invested in the new line, and I can always use old books if they screw something I like up.

Click to shrink...

I'm dreading Mage personally. It's such a boring game that I use it to put myself to sleep. How did they make a game about reality warping , magic, and wonder boring?

Also, in nMage they make a lot of references to researching ancient lore, tribal traditions, and Atlantean ruins looking for mystic wisdom, but does it ever give any sort of mechanical benefit for doing this?

 

[Omicron]

Trying to move the topic at least somewhat from Werewolves, what's your favorite and least favorite splat, and are you looking forward to/dreading it being put into 2e?

Click to shrink...

I love Vampire and Changeling to bits. I started RPGs with Call of Cthulhu, and I ended up writing vast swaths of homebrew for Exalted and talking about it a lot online, but the core of my roleplaying experience has always been Vampire: the Requiem with a side dish of Changeling: the Lost.

CtL was aces thematically and in terms of its setting, which was a really fascinating take on the concept of fae, Arcadia and all that jazz, but it had some mechanical issues that I would chalk down to a lack of rigor. I am... cautiously optimistic about their Second Edition, because post-GMC the nWoD is kind of weird, showing very strong mechanical rigor in places and then in others reverting to the old "who cares about crunch, we're not rollplayers dur dur dur"attitude of the firm, so I'm not sure what to expect? I found Blood and Smoke to be mostly stellar work, though, so I'm hopeful.

I like the theory of Mages but I could never be interested enough to play them. Something about the way they play puts me off. My least favorite splat would have to be Hunters, though - I think they're very good work, but they're just not what I like to play in general. I could take part in a Hunter game, because even where I like it least I still freaking love nWoD, but I'm not really interested in their development, and am mostly indifferent to what will happen to them in 2e.

 

[TheLastOne]

I'm dreading Mage personally. It's such a boring game that I use it to put myself to sleep. How did they make a game about reality warping , magic, and wonder boring?

Also, in nMage they make a lot of references to researching ancient lore, tribal traditions, and Atlantean ruins looking for mystic wisdom, but does it ever give any sort of mechanical benefit for doing this?

Click to shrink...

You can get experience points earmarked for raising Gnosis or one of your Spheres, or you might find rotes or other such treasures. It's... actually ok. I would have liked something more like how Nobilis does it, where you acquire points towards a project, and that project can be 'raising a skill' or 'learning a secret' or 'binding your enemy in chains made of it's own lies and throwing it into the sun to burn forever.'

I think that kind of system would work better for a mystically focused game, rather then a straight experience system. It's a genre where as much energy should be spent on a one off ritual as on mastering the secrets of fire, and it isn't mechanically supported in the least for anyone not an archmage. But at least they made an effort.

 

[The Laurent]

I love Vampire and Changeling to bits. I started RPGs with Call of Cthulhu, and I ended up writing vast swaths of homebrew for Exalted and talking about it a lot online, but the core of my roleplaying experience has always been Vampire: the Requiem with a side dish of Changeling: the Lost.

CtL was aces thematically and in terms of its setting, which was a really fascinating take on the concept of fae, Arcadia and all that jazz, but it had some mechanical issues that I would chalk down to a lack of rigor. I am... cautiously optimistic about their Second Edition, because post-GMC the nWoD is kind of weird, showing very strong mechanical rigor in places and then in others reverting to the old "who cares about crunch, we're not rollplayers dur dur dur"attitude of the firm, so I'm not sure what to expect? I found Blood and Smoke to be mostly stellar work, though, so I'm hopeful.

I like the theory of Mages but I could never be interested enough to play them. Something about the way they play puts me off. My least favorite splat would have to be Hunters, though - I think they're very good work, but they're just not what I like to play in general. I could take part in a Hunter game, because even where I like it least I still freaking love nWoD, but I'm not really interested in their development, and am mostly indifferent to what will happen to them in 2e.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, Hunter's not everyone's cup of tea. I really like the way they go about it in what I've read of them, though I haven't had a chance to try out how well it all fits together, mechanically, for instance. And, I can kinda see what you mean by lack of rigor, in my Quest I'm borrowing bits and pieces from fan add-ons to help flesh out the magical system a little bit and increase the number of Contracts available without losing the flavor. I do think, with its lack of a world-wide cosmology it's a lot easier for there to be "Random contract the book doesn't know about" or "Random court that just wasn't mentioned" in terms of fan-made content.

Unless the lack of rigor was outside the magic-system? I was assuming that's what you were commenting on, since some things like Goblin Vows could have used their own chapter since there's a lot packed into some of those things that isn't unpacked. It still works, of course, but could use explicating. And it'd be hard for me to think of another area that could be described as lacking rigor in terms of mechanics, since I think Seemings and Kiths work well, Clarity is harsh, maybe too harsh, but at least isn't un-rigorous, and so on...

 

[Aaron Peori]

If someone gave me fat gobs of cash to reboot Werewolf as a World of Darkness product I would probably take both the theriantrope and bestail Hollywood mythos and have them both exist in the same template.

The way I'd do this is have the history, tradition and culture of the "werewolf" characters be all those old classic witchery and skin changer myths. Then I'd say Something Went Horribly Wrong.

And not, Something Went Horribly Wrong thousands of years ago in the vague mysts of pre-history. I'd have it happen now, like, within living memory. Up until midway through the 20th century they were theriantropes, skinwalkers and shapeshifters who gained power through ancient rites and bargains with spirits and all that fun stuff.

Then Something Went Horribly Wrong and now they find themselves transforming into mindless, reckless, violent beasts. Nobody can pin down exactly what went wrong; the blame has been placed on everything from the Hiroshima bombing to the Moon Landing to chemtrails to whatever conspiracy related nonsense you care to name. Worse, the condition is spreading and nobody has any idea how. Some random people just Change one day, becoming werewolves that quickly go completely out of control unless some of the old gaurd, who have found ways to slow down (but not stop) the degeneration grab them and teach them what they need to know. Sometimes mortals, when exposed to werewolves, seem to pick it up. Nothing so common as just a bite causing it, though that is often related. The condition seems to be more insidious than that, more unnatural. Just seeing a werewolf running around risks spreading it. The only sure way to prevent infection is to kill every witness.

So the themes of the game would be collapse and fall and the desperate struggle to hold onto your identity and culture. I'd make it a metaphor for the 20th century in general, how the spread of Euro-American culture has appropriated and absorbed and destroyed cultures around the world. It's less about the personal horror of vampire, and more about not just losing yourself to the beast and instead having everything you love and cherish and respect turn against you or be destroyed and corrupted. It's about Dehumanization. It's about genocide.

I'd steal a bit from the oWoD version of Demon and have every power have two modes; the Old Mode which was about the witchery and balance and spiritual awareness and a Monster Mode where the power has been corrupted and turned violent and destructive and more powerful. I'd have players able to choose which mode they used, but have a certain point based on your Morality stat where using the peaceful, nice version of the power simply becomes impossible.

 

[Hydroplatypus]

Recently loyalists in changeling the lost have been on my mind, after they were vaguely mentioned in @The Laurent's quest. How warped must their worldview be to willingly serve their keepers? Thought about it a while and wrote a Changeling one shot about the idea. Might get around to writing more later, if I get any ideas.

 

[EarthScorpion]

Recently loyalists in changeling the lost have been on my mind, after they were vaguely mentioned in @The Laurent's quest. How warped must their worldview be to willingly serve their keepers?

Click to shrink...

The Doctor's Companions are Loyalists, abandoned by him when he gets bored of them, all of the secretly longing to go back with him. He shows up in their lives sometimes, ruining everything but giving them the rush and then he flies off again in his magic box.

So is the Changeling who's allowed to remain free as long as they pay a tithe of children - one a year, on Easter Day - to their master.

Loyalists can be very understandable - and very human - indeed.

 

[The Laurent]

I find it a very interesting approach, the idea of a True Fae playing literal god (or rather Angel of a land of milk and honey) and deluding people through their sense of religion into becoming rather Mad Loyalists.

Honestly, I might make at least the *idea* of one of the True Fae doing something like that canon.

I mean, Canon for my Quest. I have no power to make White Wolf declare a random thing on the internet canon.

 

[cmwatford]

My favorite game line in NWoD is Mage. Unlike a lot of other people here I found the material fascinating and never boring. It's basicly "Platonic Philosophy the Game: With Wizards" and I love it.

My least favourite would be Vampire but not due to the game itself. There's lots of good stuff there, or so I hear. I've never been able to actually read the damned core book as the font, background, and writing style combine to form a perfect storm of migraine inducement such that I'm unable to give the book a proper read through. That and the idea of playing as a social and literal parasite just puts me off.

 

[The Laurent]

My favorite game line in NWoD is Mage. Unlike a lot of other people here I found the material fascinating and never boring. It's basicly "Platonic Philosophy the Game: With Wizards" and I love it.

My least favourite would be Vampire but not due to the game itself. There's lots of good stuff there, or so I hear. I've never been able to actually read the damned core book as the font, background, and writing style combine to form a perfect storm of migraine inducement such that I'm unable to give the book a proper read through. That and the idea of playing as a social and literal parasite just puts me off.

Click to shrink...

Platonic philosophy is nice, but why no love for Aristotelian philosophy?

*peanut gallery*

And yeah, I know someone who complains about the writing style of Werewolf. Not necessarily the font, but the first criticism I heard of Werewolf from anyone was from him talking about how juvenile and sex-obsessed some parts of it seemed, like, "By the way, they're horny monsters and have lots of sex, have we told you they have lots of sex?" Not sure if it's a valid complaint or not.

 

[Revlid]

Also, in nMage they make a lot of references to researching ancient lore, tribal traditions, and Atlantean ruins looking for mystic wisdom, but does it ever give any sort of mechanical benefit for doing this?

Click to shrink...

Yes, but it's a tiny little submechanic tucked away in an obscure gamebook called the nMage core.

nMage is great, it just took a while to build up steam - the core book was bereft of detail and excitement in some vital places, but that's because the space was occupied with laying solid mechanical foundations for what developed into one of my favourite nWoD games.

 

[The_Reptile_]

I like nMage a lot, but I shamefully admit I runt into a problem in regards to What Do I Do For My Campaign? My GM sense doesn't really work well on the whole Personal, Localized Game Session that modern fantasy games like Mage does.

 

[AkatsukiL13]

The big issue of the early books of the NWoD Big Three, Vampire, Werewolf and Mage, was that they were a reaction to their OWoD counterparts rather than their own thing. When it comes to the OWoD my favorite lines are Vampire, Mage and Wraith yet when I first picked up VtR and MtAw I was disappointed in them. They just came off as dull and less interesting than the previous versions. It wasn't until years later that the lines started getting interesting, in particular I rather like 2E VtR and most of the things they've done with it.

Here's my rating on the NWoD lines, from worst to best:

Promethean: the Created: an interesting line but just one that never gelled with me.
Demon: the Descent: again, interesting but just not something I like.
Mage: the Awakening: I want to like this more but I just find it dull compared to Mage: the Ascension.
Werewolf: the Forsaken: I haven't gotten 2E yet but I do like the 1E just a touch over Werewolf: the Apocalypse.
Mummy: the Curse: A solid enough line but some aspects of it just doesn't sit with me.
Hunter: the Vigil: While I do have a fondness for Hunter: the Reckoning and the various hunter groups in the OWoD, HtV makes for a really solid game.
Changeling: the Lost: This is hands down the best Changeling game White Wolf ever made.
Vampire: the Requiem: Originally this was sitting between Mage and Werewolf but a lot of the latter books and the 2E book and its changes have pushed it up into something much, much more enjoyable.
Geist: the Sin-Eaters: The second original NWoD line, one that doesn't have a direct OWoD counterpart, and this is for me the best NWoD line out there.

 

[MJ12 Commando]

Mage: the Awakening is definitely more of a game about asshole wizards, which probably came as a shock to everyone when Mage: the Ascension was a game about philosophical knife-fights and political flamewars (sometimes literal). Vampire is the only oWoD game which really meshed well with the actual mythos of the thing they were making a game about, which is why Requiem and Masquerade are more similar than either of the other Big Three books are to their nWoD counterparts.

 

[Vindictus]

You know I always figured that White Wolf had been spoofing "Therianthropes" in oWerewolf, and hadn't really given much thought to the game otherwise.

 

[Revlid]

Geist: the Sin-Eaters: The second original NWoD line, one that doesn't have a direct OWoD counterpart, and this is for me the best NWoD line out there.

Click to shrink...

...how?

I like Geist as an idea, but it is far and away the weakest nWoD splat in actual terms. I can't say its powers are unsuited to its themes, because I don't know what those themes are. It essentially doesn't have any. "I guess kind of Dead Like Me?" is not a narrative core. Its "Y-splats" look like someone tidied up and published early notes on what sort of factions it could maybe have. The absolute best thing about it is its Underworld, which I stole and barely reskinned for an Exalted game, and your characters have no reason to go there.

 

[Ridiculously Average Guy]

You know what WoD needs? Pokemon, I mean Lords: The Great Game.

 

[MJ12 Commando]

I personally really like nDemon, or Daemon as they really should have called it. I mean the best part about Daemon is that it sounds like they're going with pretentious Latin but then when you read the book it makes total sense.

It's got its huge problems with playing in the nWoD, namely that it steps on a fuck of a lot of toes (a Daemon can get a lot of tricks that only mages do, while being able to beat ass nearly as well as a werewolf, play social games nearly as well as a vampire, disguise themselves in a way I don't think any other splat has the capacity to) and its mechanics are not the best, but thematically, the idea of playing rogue Agents in basically the Urban Fantasy version of the Matrix is incredibly amazing.

And it's White Wolf coming full circle, even. The Matrix is basically a oMage game with the serial numbers filed off, nDemon is a Matrix game with the serial numbers filed off.

 

[The Laurent]

I personally really like nDemon, or Daemon as they really should have called it. I mean the best part about Daemon is that it sounds like they're going with pretentious Latin but then when you read the book it makes total sense.

It's got its huge problems with playing in the nWoD, namely that it steps on a fuck of a lot of toes (a Daemon can get a lot of tricks that only mages do, while being able to beat ass nearly as well as a werewolf, play social games nearly as well as a vampire, disguise themselves in a way I don't think any other splat has the capacity to) and its mechanics are not the best, but thematically, the idea of playing rogue Agents in basically the Urban Fantasy version of the Matrix is incredibly amazing.

And it's White Wolf coming full circle, even. The Matrix is basically a oMage game with the serial numbers filed off, nDemon is a Matrix game with the serial numbers filed off.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, I really like it, but I also agree that it's honestly almost its own thing, stepping on toes in a thousand different ways, including a Cosmology that (even more than the others from what I know) would be a hard fit with the other splats, though I was tickled pink with an idea someone came up with to explain something.

The Hedge, you know, that thin barrier between Arcadia and earth? It's to keep the God Machine out of the business of the True Fae.

 

[Vito Scaletta]

Anybody here fans of Vampire: The Requiem and Changeling: The Lost? I've considered doing a forum RPG of the two gamelines together. We'd use the old First Edition rules as I do not own the new version of Requiem and Changeling hasn't got a 2e version yet.

One thing to take note of in my games, I really don't like the Strix in a modern setting, and from what I understand VTR 2e makes the Strix the focus of the game. I mean, in Requiem For Rome, the Strix kind of worked, but I think they should not have been put in the modern setting for Requiem. So in my games, assume the Strix don't exist.