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White Wolf's World of Darkness

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It truly is amazing how Scion 2e has improved on the traditional White Wolf/Onyx Path layout by putting Mechanics before Character Creation so you actually know what the fuck is worthwhile to build if you want to be a fighty character or a talky one. I still am adamant Setting chapters should follow Mechanics and Character Creation (which Scion doesn't do), but whatever, at least it's better than it was before.
 
SunnySprings said:
It truly is amazing how Scion 2e has improved on the traditional White Wolf/Onyx Path layout by putting Mechanics before Character Creation so you actually know what the fuck is worthwhile to build if you want to be a fighty character or a talky one. I still am adamant Setting chapters should follow Mechanics and Character Creation (which Scion doesn't do), but whatever, at least it's better than it was before.
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I dunno, it feels like putting setting last kinda, like.

It just feels kinda iffy because it makes the world you're in feel like the last priority to me. On a practical note, tons of games sell themselves more based on an interesting setting then mechanics so amazing they're the showpiece of the book. And personally I suspect when people have tabletop moments they love, the mechanics are really important to them, yes, but they're not the framework by which they interpret them.

It's not, "This one time I rolled a 20 on a d20 and did a cool and awesome thing" it's, "This one time I was trying to convince someone of something and I rolled a 20 and I made up a story about an Ardvark attacking a city and they believed it, and then two sessions later it turned out the King had heard it and believed it too!"

Or etc. So, I dunno? But I do get the point about mechanics coming first in theory, though there's also some minutae that's not always necessary before character-creation? Like, you don't need to read in-depth Fall Damage rules before making a character, but you *should* actually know what all the bits and pieces of character data actually mean, yes.
 
The Laurent said:
I dunno, it feels like putting setting last kinda, like.

It just feels kinda iffy because it makes the world you're in feel like the last priority to me. On a practical note, tons of games sell themselves more based on an interesting setting then mechanics so amazing they're the showpiece of the book. And personally I suspect when people have tabletop moments they love, the mechanics are really important to them, yes, but they're not the framework by which they interpret them.

It's not, "This one time I rolled a 20 on a d20 and did a cool and awesome thing" it's, "This one time I was trying to convince someone of something and I rolled a 20 and I made up a story about an Ardvark attacking a city and they believed it, and then two sessions later it turned out the King had heard it and believed it too!"

Or etc. So, I dunno? But I do get the point about mechanics coming first in theory, though there's also some minutae that's not always necessary before character-creation? Like, you don't need to read in-depth Fall Damage rules before making a character, but you *should* actually know what all the bits and pieces of character data actually mean, yes.
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Ideally you should put the basic details of the setting and the core mechanics in the introduction, then go into detail in the character creation, mechanincs ad setting sections.
That way your new players have a rough idea of what the game is about and how it's played before getting overwhelmed by nitty-gritty details.
 
Flare said:
Ideally you should put the basic details of the setting and the core mechanics in the introduction, then go into detail in the character creation, mechanincs ad setting sections.
That way your new players have a rough idea of what the game is about and how it's played before getting overwhelmed by nitty-gritty details.
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Yeah, your elevator pitch should explain enough of the world and the driving conflict that players can make informed decisions. Your setting chapter should then provide a deep dive and plot hooks.
 
FourthWall said:
Yeah, your elevator pitch should explain enough of the world and the driving conflict that players can make informed decisions. Your setting chapter should then provide a deep dive and plot hooks.
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I'd add that you should also put your core resolution mechanic in the pitch, even in simple terms. That helps new players calibrate their expectations about playstyle and speed of play.
 
SunnySprings said:
It truly is amazing how Scion 2e has improved on the traditional White Wolf/Onyx Path layout by putting Mechanics before Character Creation so you actually know what the fuck is worthwhile to build if you want to be a fighty character or a talky one. I still am adamant Setting chapters should follow Mechanics and Character Creation (which Scion doesn't do), but whatever, at least it's better than it was before.
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I don't think this is really an improvement because White Wolf games were never about their mechanics, they were always about the setting and themes. Putting the reason people play your thing up first is probably not a bad idea. Like, nobody discusses oMage or nMage or nVampire or nChangeling because of the mechanics.
 
MJ12 Commando said:
I don't think this is really an improvement because White Wolf games were never about their mechanics, they were always about the setting and themes. Putting the reason people play your thing up first is probably not a bad idea. Like, nobody discusses oMage or nMage or nVampire or nChangeling because of the mechanics.
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Are you sure? I see a *lot* of people talking about oMage mechanics. :V
 
MJ12 Commando said:
I don't think this is really an improvement because White Wolf games were never about their mechanics, they were always about the setting and themes. Putting the reason people play your thing up first is probably not a bad idea. Like, nobody discusses oMage or nMage or nVampire or nChangeling because of the mechanics.
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I do, so I can dunk on them.

And it's not like Scion 1e had rules or anything, so you always want to lead with the New Shit. :V
 
I've been skimming the Onyx Path forums and I noticed some stuff about the possibility that werewolf 5th will be taking cues from the LARP rulebooks? I was wondering if historically LARP rulebooks influence the main books?
 
Mosshadow95 said:
I've been skimming the Onyx Path forums and I noticed some stuff about the possibility that werewolf 5th will be taking cues from the LARP rulebooks? I was wondering if historically LARP rulebooks influence the main books?
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IIRC One of the big LARP guys from the nineties got deep into the Dev-team, which is exactly why V5 was such a garbage fire.
So you had better hope that that "possibility" was just people talking out of their asses.
 
SunnySprings said:
I thought they got rid of that dude for being responsible for the Chechnya disaster?
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Yeah, but like I said, he already screwed up V5 and I don't know how much influence he had on the remaining crew.
The Laurent said:
I'm not seeing the parallel? Or, like. Between LARPing and garbage fires.
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There isn't one in general, it's just that....here, this guy explained it much better than I could;
AshenFox said:
Yep. I know of no less then 10 people I've met since I became more disconnected from active WoD play that have said basically the same thing.
IE: "I would love to run an Thing: The Descriptive game, but I can never figure out HOW to even do that. It feels like I read for a hundred pages and don't get any actual mechanics for running the game, which are kind of necessary to running the game."

This is, by far, the ultimate failing of White Wolf and Onyx Path and one that is reinforced a lot by certain members of the community who tend to get vocally bent out of shape whenever anyone starts trying to make the game into a game and not improve theater / free form RPing. Much like how, from what I understand, when the group working on Exalted 3E asked for input / feedback on various things their feedback included that a majority of Exalted fans HATED the Infernal Exalted. Which was super strange to them considering past info seemed to indicate that they were, in fact, quite well liked. Turns out, all those indications of being well liked were a hugely vocal minority shouting down everyone else (while wanting to literally outclass every other exalted by getting to be more powerful then anyone else and basically act like giant douche nozzles the whole time with no consequences because 'we're demons, so it's fine'). Though some products are better then others.

But yeah, the books are an extension of this problem which has its roots way far back in WoD and the crowd that congregated around it who prefer free form RPing / Improve Theater to anything with mechanics that require you to roll a dice or anything else really for that matter. Because those mechanics that required those things require you to spend time doing them rather then RPing and especially with combat or larger groups this can slow activity to a crawl. I believe I've recounted my experience of showing up to a game, RPing for like 15 min, leaving for 10, and coming back and then getting to sit around waiting for the remaining literally HOURS of the LARP session because someone decided they were going to try to kill or kidnap everyone in the room with their team of herculean ghoul world class luchadores.

This, I feel, is also part of why the rules for Masquerade V5 changed the way they did. Swedish Dracula, Vampire LARPer King Extraordinaire /s, was the one in charge. Which is why a variety of things changed, the main example of which off the top of my head being feeding. Now instead of tracking points, every time you use a power you have to roll a dice and the outcome determines whether you get hungry again or not. Which sounds like a good mechanic for a LARP... on paper. Until you realize that now rather then, "I activate X." then handing the number of beads you were given at the beginning of the night over, it's now a constant amount of rolling. Meaning it slows stuff down even more. Meaning people will want less powers to be used unless they don't require the roll. Almost like someone who only loves LARPing / Improve Theater specifically looked for the way to look like they were moving the game more forward to be more streamlined by were actually trying to push it even further away from any kind of dice rolling / game mechanics system...
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That's a completely ridiculous narrative. Not only is the diatribe about Infernals mostly wrong, there's no dice in the kind of LARPs that Martin Eriksson plays in the first place, it wouldn't be a good mechanic for a LARP and saying that it slows anything down is only true in the magical vacuum where you ignore the streamlining of the rest of the system. Even if it did slow down, it would still be negligible in comparison to the speed-up from the much more streamlined and standardized system. It's true that there is LARP influence from Nordic LARP, but it is visible in how the blood system works (which was first tested at a LARP in Poland) but that entire post is just conspiratorial nonsense looking for a scapegoat to blame.
 
Eh, the typesetting and font choice make it annoyingly hard to read. Maybe I should cough-up the dead tree book, but those are expensive.
 
Yeah Infernals were and are super popular in concept, people just got fucking sick of how they were the only things anyone would talk about, both in fandom and official releases afterwards.
 
like,

Imma keep it real with you, this:
IE: "I would love to run an Thing: The Descriptive game, but I can never figure out HOW to even do that. It feels like I read for a hundred pages and don't get any actual mechanics for running the game, which are kind of necessary to running the game."
This is, by far, the ultimate failing of White Wolf and Onyx Path and one that is reinforced a lot by certain members of the community who tend to get vocally bent out of shape whenever anyone starts trying to make the game into a game and not improve theater / free form RPing.
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made me audibly go "Bwuh?" which is the onomatopoeia equivalent of "???". Like what? What WoD are we talking about where the issue has been too little crunch? 1e WoD games back in the 90s I guess? Every single WoD game I've ever seen has had if anything the exact opposite problem.

Sure some games can be confusing to run but on the whole there's like... a lot of really intuitive accessible stuff. V5. V:tR. C:tL. Geist 2e. M:tAw both editions. W:tF. Both cores of CoD.

I genuinely do not comprehend how people bounce so hard off the books.
 
mothematics said:
like,

Imma keep it real with you, this:


made me audibly go "Bwuh?" which is the onomatopoeia equivalent of "???". Like what? What WoD are we talking about where the issue has been too little crunch? 1e WoD games back in the 90s I guess? Every single WoD game I've ever seen has had if anything the exact opposite problem.

Sure some games can be confusing to run but on the whole there's like... a lot of really intuitive accessible stuff. V5. V:tR. C:tL. Geist 2e. M:tAw both editions. W:tF. Both cores of CoD.

I genuinely do not comprehend how people bounce so hard off the books.
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I do! This is the complaint of someone who doesn't actually want to run a game or read a book. They like the idea of running a game, but don't actually have the patience or brain for it. So when they can't learn everything they need to know in an afternoon or two, they blame the book for being obtuse, rather than accept that if you want to run a game, you have to do a fuckton of reading and preparation.
 
Kaiya said:
I do! This is the complaint of someone who doesn't actually want to run a game or read a book. They like the idea of running a game, but don't actually have the patience or brain for it. So when they can't learn everything they need to know in an afternoon or two, they blame the book for being obtuse, rather than accept that if you want to run a game, you have to do a fuckton of reading and preparation.
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To be fair, WoD games are a bit harder to GM for, due to the large amount of non-combat challenges and the fact that enemies don't come with convenient ratings saying what level characters they can fight.
 
notanautomaton said:
To be fair, WoD games are a bit harder to GM for, due to the large amount of non-combat challenges and the fact that enemies don't come with convenient ratings saying what level characters they can fight.
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Sure, and that's a complaint I have when I run Storyteller system games, it requires a lot of effort, even moreso than D&D tends to. It becomes stupid and evidence of laziness, though, when the person is complaining about hundreds of pages of "this is the setting and the conventions and the inspirations" and can't be bothered to look at the table of contents to see what chapter the mechanics are is.
 
In fairness, that assumes that the chapter for mechanics is labeled properly.

Not that I disagree with your overall point, mind you. Just that actually finding information in the book is harder than it needs to be.

EDIT: I think I might have misread the conversation, so never mind. Ignore my dumbass.
 
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