World: The Darkness (Something: The Something Questions) [Archive]

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Raistlin1040

2010-07-03, 04:43 AM

Hadrian_Emrys

2010-07-03, 04:57 AM

The Rose Dragon

2010-07-03, 05:21 AM

Well, what is your problem with Exalted, exactly? If it's the theme or mechanics, World of Darkness is exactly the same. If it's the power level, it's nowhere as ridiculous as the internets would have you believe. If it's the setting, you may like World of Darkness.

Vampire: The Requiem (and new World of Darkness in general) mostly has more streamlined mechanics, which might or might not be better for you, and a more streamlined setting, due to the number of splatbooks released, than Vampire: The Masquerade (and classic World of Darkness). The default setting of World of Darkness is a modern world, but there are splatbooks for Wild West, the Middle Ages and the Roman Empire (the one with Caesars, not the Holy one).

It is easy to understand the basics of, but ridiculously difficult to master the intricacies. It uses the Storytelling system (compared to the classic's Storyteller, which is what Exalted uses a modified version of). It requires about three dozen d10s to play without switching dice around, but you can probably make do with 15 (10 is the maximum dice pool your attributes and skills will give you, and 5 is for the bonuses you might accrue during the game).

On RPGNow.com, the .pdf's are very easy to get, and the World of Darkness is the most popular RPG in my country, so it should be easy to get from most gaming stores.

There are rather large differences between the expectations of D&D and WoD. D&D expects you to be heroes or villains that are larger than life. WoD expects you to be tragic figures that are trying to survive in a world that is intrinsically hostile to most everyone in it.

That said, I suggest starting with Werewolf: the Forsaken, rather than Vampire: the Requiem, if you go with new World of Darkness.

EDIT: Meanwhile, try Unisystem (made popular by All Flesh Must Be Eaten, but also contains Witchcraft, Conspiracy X, Terra Primate, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel RPGs and so forth) and give Mutants & Masterminds a chance, as those two are my two favorite RPG systems. I mostly answered questions about World of Darkness because that's what you asked, but I can't help but pimp out those two systems to everyone who wants to play non-D&D games.

Ashes

2010-07-03, 05:30 AM

So...I've been thinking about branching out to other systems, other than just D&D 3.5. I don't quite understand GURPS, despite reading through the core book once, I have heard good things of Mutants and Masterminds, but I'm not sure about it. I've heard of Exalted and went "Hell to the no" in twelve seconds. Call of Cthulu seems interesting, but a bit pointless (You die. Eventually, you die). I own the core 3 books for 4th Edition D&D, but it's just not my thing. I used to play WoW, and without having played it, it seems like that, which isn't bad, but it's not what I want from a tabletop game.

First of all, let me applaud you for getting into new systems. I really like variety, and like almost all of the systems you mentioned (I haven't played Exalted, though). World of Darkness is, however, one of my all-time favourites. The new World of Darkness (nWoD) that is (I'll get into that later.)

I'll split up your posts and address the points one by one. I'll focus on Vampire, as that seems to be your main interest.

One things I've heard about, but never really got a read on from people, is the World of Darkness stuff. I know there was a Vampire: The Masquerade video game, that I played once or twice and enjoyed. I was told that I would like WoD because I like 80s Goth music (The Cure, Sisters of Mercy, Bauhaus, etc. Still, it seems a bit stupid to profile someone's taste in gaming based on their taste in music), but I just don't know very much about it.

Okay, the weird thing about this, is that it might actually be true. People who play WoD are often more of the "alternative" crowd. Especially if you appreciate the aesthetics and moods of the music, as well as just the sond of it. Goth culture does have quite a place in WoD.

I know that there is Vampire: The Masquerade, and some update called Vampire: The Requiem (I think it's an update? Might be a splatbook, not sure). So, basically I'm looking for a few things.
Vampire: the Masquerade is part of the Old World of Darkness (OWoD). It's a setting that incroporated Mages (Mage: The Ascension), Werewolves (Werewolf: The Apocalypse), Vampires, Wraiths (Wraith: The Oblivion), Demons (Demon: The Fallen), Hunters (Hunter: The Reckoning), fluffy man-Rabbits and other shapechangers (Werewolf: The Apocalypse again), fairies (Changeling: The Dreaming) and so on and so forth. All of the game lines had a huge metaplot built into them, that basically centered around the end of the world for different causes, and after following that storyline for about fifteen years or so, they ended all their game lines, in a line-spanning event. Which I think is a good thing, because as you might understand, fifteen years of storyline and supplements brings quite a bit of bloat.

After the end of the world, White Wolf launched the New World of Darkness (nWoD) which, to being with incorporated the big three, Vampire: The Requiem, Werewolf: The Forsaken and Mage: Awakening.
For this edition (of Vampire, at least), they decided to completely leave out metaplot, to the point that in any world, how history has been affected by vampires, and even the creation myth of vampires, is up to the Storyteller (DM). So, in your game, you decide if vampires are decended from Adam & Eve, from Space, from a curse of God, or whatever. The system of nWoD is pretty much objectively better than oWoD. I've seen quite a few people convert the old setting to the new system, just to use it.

The setting, feel and theme of the game, however, are a matter of taste. I greatly prefer V:TR to V:TM. This is very mch because of the focus V:TR puts on your group's and characters' roleplaying. V:TM had Good Guys (Camarilla) and Bad Guys (Sabbat) as factions, and put most of the politics of the game into your clan, that is, which kind of vampire you were created as. And there were A LOT.

In V:TR, there are five clans, and five political factions (as well as unaligned). To me, that makes it possible to actually choose where your character belongs, and how he thinks, regardless of clan. It adds diversity, so not all members of a clan, think, act or are even capable of the same things. I think it makes your characters a lot more different and inidividual. I'm sure someone will give an explanation of the merits of V:TM in a bit. I can't however, as I really don't like the metaplot, and I think the rabble-scrabble of clans is silly.

If you have more questions, I'll answer them to the best of my ability.

1) What kind of game is it? I've heard there's other stuff besides Vampires, like Wizards of some sort (not interested) and Werewolves (possibly interested), but what is the setting like? Is it oldstyle Victorian sort of setting, or is it more like modern urban fantasy? Am I going to be playing in the English Countryside, or will I be taking the Subway in New York City?

The default setting for both V:TM and V:TR is a modern metropolis. However, you can put your vampires anywhere you please, from a backwoods village to Mexico City. There are supplements available for setting it in different times as well. OWoD had an entire game line titled Dark Ages, for playing in the dark ages.

2) How does it play? Is it the d20 system, and if so, are there any major changes from D&D I should know about? If it's not d20, is it easy to pick up and easy to play?

(This answer is only applicable to nWoD)

WoD is a so called Dice Pool system that centres around d10s.
Your character's abilities are measured in a number of dots. So, for example, if you want your character to shoot a gun, you take his Dexterity score, and add together with his firearms score.
Let's say he has three dots of Dexterity and two dots of Firearms. His Gun has a damage rating of two. You then roll seven (3+2+2) dice. Every die that rolls an 8, 9, or 10, is a success. If you roll a ten, you get a success, and roll the die again (Ten-again). You can keep doing this.

So let's say that our shooter rolls like this: 3, 5, 6, 2, 8, 8, 10. You then roll the ten once more. It comes up a 9. You then have four successes (8, 8, 10, and the 9). You deal four damage to the guy you're shooting. There are other modifiers such as armor and stuff, but they just subtract the number of dice.

If the guy you were shooting, had body armor with an armor rating of 1, you'd only roll six dice.
Very simple system.

3) Is it easy to get? Amazon is probably an option, but in general I like to help out my FLGS. From what I've seen, they stock 4e D&D, sometimes Pathfinder, some Warhammer, but I don't remember if they have World of Darkness.

Very easy. I haven't been to a gaming store, where they didn't stock WoD. It's the next-biggest game after D&D.

4) I am the DM of my gaming group, and I have 5 or 6 years of D&D experience (not even counting my 2e experiences with video games), but my players are all D&D newbies, with anywhere between 3 and 10 sessions with me. Our campaign has a long way to go, so they will learn more D&D, but if I wanted to play a World of Darkness campaign with them, would they find the new mechanics easy or would they be frustrated?

If they're into the mood and setting of the game, they'll pick it up in a single session. It's, as I said, really easy.

5) Any misc. information.

Vampire is not D&D. You shouldn't play it like it is. In my group, when we play Vampire, we are not a party. Actually, more often than not the players work against each other, in order for themselves to come out on top. The World of Darkness (the setting) is a very cynical place, and it feels better if the characters are as well.
Remember that you aren't playing nice guys. You're blood-sucking, predatory monsters.
Not that you have to be all RAWR, but just remember that there is a reason none of the clans or factions are described as LG paladins.

Oh, and one more thing: Don't overdo combat. A bit is fine once in a while, but it quickly gets tedious. The fun thing about Vampire is the scheming, talking, and above all, the roleplaying.

Thank you for your time and effort in replying.

You're welcome. I hope my post was of use to you. Happy gaming :)

Kurald Galain

2010-07-03, 05:35 AM

Call of Chthulhu is better than you think: it's quite possible for your character not to die and go insane instead

Vampire: the Requiem is a very different game than Vampire: the Masquerade; the latter was discontinued and replaced by the former. While both involve vampires (duh) the settings are very different.

What kind of game is it? Well, it is a roleplaying game where you play a vampire. The game focuses more on social interaction than on combat (because combat has the tendency to get your character killed, and you don't want that). You try to balance your human side with the Beast Within (because you need to drink blood, and you might freak out and kill your family if you're thirsty) and you try to get ahead in vampire politics, or take revenge on your enemies, or take over the town and rule that.

The setting is right now, although a variant exists for the middle ages, and there's no reason why you couldn't play it victorian.

There's also other games in this setting, such as Mage: the Ascension; Mage: the Awakening; Werewolf: the Apocalypse; and Werewolf: the Forsaken. Again they come in pairs, an old one and a new one, that really are radically different.

It plays very, very easily. Anyone can make a character in five minutes, it is easy to pick up and play, and it has absolutely nothing to do with the d20 system. In fact, for novice players, it is much easier to pick up than any version of D&D is.

It's easy to get in any decent store and the internet.

jamroar

2010-07-03, 06:08 AM

One difference of note of NWoD from OWoD is its more modular nature.

Whereas the old core Vampire the Masquerade book was a standalone game, the core Vampire the Requiem splatbook is a supplement to be used with the base (New) World of Darkness rulebook which can also be used to run generic horror as non-supernatural mortals. The other NWoD lines (Werewolf, Promethean, etc.) are also supplements to the core game, which is to say you need to get at least the nWOD core book and the core splatbook of the line you're interested in to play.

Project_Mayhem

2010-07-03, 06:12 AM

1: VtR is the newer version. Many a VtM player has expressed a strong dislike for the new setup, but I feel that there is plenty of fun to be had with both the setting and the mechanics. There are mortals (see victims), hunters (mortals with supernatural tricks for taking down non-humans), mages (see broken power gaming), vamps, lycans, changlings (fey tainted mortals), and the promethean setting (think Frankenstien's monster, only poisonous to their environment).

Aww man - you missed the point. Mage isn't broken at all. It's not supposed to be balanced. That's a design feature. Also - the levelling factor that every time you cast a powerful spell there's a good chance that reality eats you.

And you totally forgot Geist - People who died and were bought back by a ghost thing.

Tiki Snakes

2010-07-03, 07:01 AM

The base WoD book is very good in it's own right as a tool for running quite a variety of modern games. I personally suspect it has many uses beyond 'general horror'. At it's core, it has a quick and convincing way of mapping out a person, and character generation really is that simple. You can do 90% of it using just the character sheet, infact. You only really need to check the books when you get to the merits, (Basically feats).

It's going to be similarly quick with the other books, though the various ones do add all manner of extra stuff due to the extra capabilities or changed natures of the characters in those situations.

Note; The World of Darkness take on werewolves has quite a lot of odd new age stuff crammed in there, with them being soldiers of nature or something vaguely along those lines. It's certainly not the direction that I would innately expect to go with a book themed around werewolves, but it's certainly worth having a look the Wiki pages, perhaps. The important things when choosing the various WoD books you intend to get, is to consider what type of games you'd like to run.

Oh, and there are several books that give you what you need to run their setting in different parts of the world, including an only slightly lulzy british setting book. (Aparently we are infested with Werewolves. Who knew?)

Iceforge

2010-07-03, 07:01 AM

One things I've heard about, but never really got a read on from people, is the World of Darkness stuff. I know there was a Vampire: The Masquerade video game, that I played once or twice and enjoyed. I was told that I would like WoD because I like 80s Goth music (The Cure, Sisters of Mercy, Bauhaus, etc. Still, it seems a bit stupid to profile someone's taste in gaming based on their taste in music), but I just don't know very much about it. I know that there is Vampire: The Masquerade, and some update called Vampire: The Requiem (I think it's an update? Might be a splatbook, not sure). So, basically I'm looking for a few things.

Vampire the Masquerade was a stand-alone game published by White Wolf which was within their "World of Darkness" franchise.

Basicly, in the old days (or not so old days, but before newest version of things) the World of Darkness games was a series of stand-alone games which shared a gaming world, the 3 primary stand-alone games within the franchise was:

Vampire the Masquerade
Werewolf the Apocalypse
Mage The Ascension

The games shared the same gaming world, but was not actually meant to be played together, so balancing was not done between the different games, and instead, if you played "Vampire the Masquerade", there was mechanics and system for running Werewolf monsters which differenciated from the Werewolves from the "Werewolf the Apocalypse" book
This old franchise is now called "Old World of Darkness"

Then they decided to update their franchise and make it possible and balanced to mix and match the various playable races.
This newer version is usually called "New World of Darkness"'
If people make a thread and does not specify if it is oWoD or nWoD, there is no usual for which they mean, it seems pretty random, which can generate some confusion.

The First book in the new version is simply titled "World of Darkness"
The "World of Darkness" books function as a Core Rulebook, which is required by all the various other publications, so sort of the "Players Handbook", but by itself it only gives the rules for playing mortals, which has also become a much more viable option in nWoD than it was in the oWoD

Then once you got the "World of Darkness" core book, you can buy supplementary books, like "Vampire the Requiem", which then contains the additional rules and systems for playing a vampire in nWoD.

And it should be much more balanced, so you could in theory have a group with 1 player as a vampire, another as a werewolf and the third as a mage, if that was fitting for your game.

Now on to your questions:

1) What kind of game is it? I've heard there's other stuff besides Vampires, like Wizards of some sort (not interested) and Werewolves (possibly interested), but what is the setting like? Is it oldstyle Victorian sort of setting, or is it more like modern urban fantasy? Am I going to be playing in the English Countryside, or will I be taking the Subway in New York City?

I have mainly played the oWoD, and in the oWoD, Vampire the Masquerade focused on modern urban settings, but in the nature of each book being a stand-alone game, they also published "Vampire The Dark Ages", which takes place in an oldstyle Victorian setting, if you want it to do.

I was personally more attracted to the modern urban setting, so I do not know the setting of Vampire the Dark Age very well, so hopefully someone else can give you details about that.

White Wolf as a production company does things differently than WoTC, and a lot of their books focus on fleshing out and explaining their standard setting, so while DnD does not assume any setting, the setting is highly in focus in all White Wolf games.

Due to that, custom settings for White Wolf games is much less used than just sticking to the already detailed standard setting, in which the mayor organizations and their influences and goals are fleshed out in a lot of detail, but always so vague that there is a lot of room for the Storyteller to adjust it to his liking.

It is a hard balance White Wolf attempted between not making everything set in stone and giving enough detail without it being too vague, but in my honest opinion, i think they hit it right on the nail a lot of the time

2) How does it play? Is it the d20 system, and if so, are there any major changes from D&D I should know about? If it's not d20, is it easy to pick up and easy to play?

No, it uses its own D10 system, and you only use 10 sided dice when playing any White Wolf games (at least in the oWoD, but I am pretty sure (99%) that it's still same system in nWoD

In oWoD, Vampire the Masquerade, you had 9 attributes, divided into 3 catagories (physical, social and mental), which contained different specific attributes
Physical: Strength, Dexterity and Stamina
Social: Charisma, Manipulation and Apperance
Mental: Perception, Intelligence and Wits

In addition to those, as a vampire, you also had 3 catagories of Abilities, named Talents, Skills and Knowledges, where some examples would be Dodge would be a Talent, Driving would be a Skill and Science would be a Knowledge

And your vampire powers, which set you appart from mortals, was called Disciplines, which worked a bit different than the standard system, but I will give some more detail.

Now, in all your stats, you would usually have a ranking between 0 and 5 (in Attributes, you always had at least 1, except if you was a Nosferatu Vampire, which had 0 apperance, because they are just THAT ugly)

When attempting a task, the standard system was 1 Attributes + 1 Ability had their scores combined to a dicepool, which you then rolled against a difficulty (standard being 6, but at Storytellers judgement to decide if this task was more or less difficult than a standard challenge), you then rolled your dicepool and counted the number of dice which was equal to or above the difficulty, subtracted the number of 1's on your roll (negative success) and had a result, which could basicly be 1 of 3 options:

# of success: If you had 1 or more positive success when summing up all the dice of your dice pool, for instance if you rolled 4 dice against difficulty 6 and rolled 2, 6, 7, 3, then you would have 2 successes
The number of successes would generally dictate how well you successeded at your intended action
Failure: When you did not roll neither successes nor 1's OR when you had as many or more 1's as you had successes, for instance with 4 dice against difficulty 6, all the following rolls would be failures:
2, 3, 2, 5 = no success at all
1, 4, 2, 7 = equal number of successes and negatives
1, 1, 1, 8 = More negatives than successes, but still at least 1 success
A failure means you do not succeed, but nothing bad happens, really, with a gunshot, it is just a miss
Botch: = If you rolled 1 or more 1's, but had no success, for instance rolling 1, 4, 1, 3 would be a botch, as there are two 1's and no dice ended up 6 or more.
A botch means things goes really bad; This is not just a failure, but something goes horribly wrong: Your gun jams, explodes in your hand, your car drives off the edge of a cliff during a hard turn.
It can even be a success but with something bad happening afterwards, at the storytellers discretion, for instance if you are jumping from 1 building to another, maybe you make the jump, but land on the back of somebody that breaks your fall. You look around and realize you jumped right into the center of a movie style gangland assassination

Depending on the task, an ability is coupled with an attribute, and it is not always the same attribute for the same ability.

For instance, with science, If you are trying to think of something helpful on the spot, it would be a science+wits roll, as wits is your ability to think on the spot, while it would be science+intelligence, if you are working on it in a lab.

Disciplines work differently, as the ranks in disciplines gives your various abilities and it is not always coupled out of it's own rank.

For instance 2 ranks in the Disciplin Presence in Vampire the Masquerade, gives you the power to terrify someone with simply looking at them. You do not roll your Presence score at all through, but instead you roll your Charisma (social Attribute) + Intimidation (Talent ability).

Some Disciplins rely on a combination of abilitys and attributes, while others give passive powers with no dice rolling and yet others require actual rolls of the disciplin score. All of which is detailed out under each rank of each disciplin.

3) Is it easy to get? Amazon is probably an option, but in general I like to help out my FLGS. From what I've seen, they stock 4e D&D, sometimes Pathfinder, some Warhammer, but I don't remember if they have World of Darkness.

nWoD should be easy to get your hands on.

oWoD, not so much

Sure, it is easy to find on Amazon, not in your FLGS, and be ready to pay 100$ for just the core book for Vampire the Masquerade.
It's been out of print for years and is still quite a popular system with a lot less copies flying around than DnD3.5, so the prices are insane.
My book is basicly falling to pieces due to misuse (got it when I was 15 or 16 and foolishly let friends borrow it with almost no restriction, and teenagers dont treat borrowed property that nicely), and while it is still my favourit system, I am not going to spend the money to get a new core book, as living overseas, finding someone who will ship a copy here and paying the shipping fee easily means 150$ for just a single book with no guarantee that it is actually still in absolute mint condition as I would require.

4) I am the DM of my gaming group, and I have 5 or 6 years of D&D experience (not even counting my 2e experiences with video games), but my players are all D&D newbies, with anywhere between 3 and 10 sessions with me. Our campaign has a long way to go, so they will learn more D&D, but if I wanted to play a World of Darkness campaign with them, would they find the new mechanics easy or would they be frustrated?

The mechanics of Storyteller games is basicly much simpler and easy to learn for new players, and usually everybody will have big grasp on them within 1 or 2 sessions, as basicly you when they declare what they want to do, then it is upto you, The Storyteller (White wolf term for DM) to declare which attribute and which ability they are going to be using, so basicly all the players need to focus on, is what they want to do, then be able to add 2 numbers between 1 and 5 together, pick that many dice, roll them and check how many are equal to or above the difficulty number that you told them (or 6, if you did not say a difficulty)

The only thing that can be a bit harder and not so straightforward is the initiative system, as it works fundamentally different than initiative in DnD.

The first stage is the same, as everybody roll for initiative (D10 + the Sum of their Dexterity and Wits score), giving a standard player anywhere between 3 and 20 in initiative.

Then you line up initiative as you would in DnD, lets say you got 3 players, player A, player B and player C, which are facing NPC D and NPC E

Player A rolls 6 initiative
Player B rolls 4 initiative
Player C rolls 12 initiative
NPC D rolls 7 initiative
And NPC E rolls 12 initiative

Now firstly, you got 2 with same initiative: This is settled by comparing their Dexterity and Wits score, and the one who had the highest sum of those 2, goes first, so Player C had 3 dex, 4 wits, for a total of +7, and NPC E had dex 3 and wits 3, for a total of +6, so Player C goes before NPC E.

So initiative order is

Player C
NPC E
NPC D
Player B
Player A

So far, this is much like in DnD, and MANY play storyteller games just as DnD would now, and have player C do his thing, then NPC E and so on, but that is incorrect, at least in oWoD, might be different in nWoD.

In oWoD, you have player A declare his intended action first. He is going to punch NPC D
Player B then declares he is going to shoot NPC D with his pistol
NPC D is going to spend his entire round dodging incoming attacks
NPC E is going to shoot player B
and Player C is going to tackle NPC E

Now, NPC D got an advantage on Players A and B, as he knew they were attacking him, so he choose to try and avoid their attacks.
NPC E used his advantage to shoot player B, who had already declared he was going to be shooting
Player A used his advantage to declare he wanted to tackle NPC E and try and prevent him from shooting player B in the process.

You can always try and abort a declared action to take a defensive action (dodging, blocking and parrying) instead, but this requires a successfull roll and is not a sure thing.

Now the Storyteller directs the action based on declared actions:

During this, you will have to call out the following rolls from players:

Tackling is Strength+Brawl,
Aborting an action is Willpower
Shooting is Dexterity+Firearms
Punching is Dexterity+Brawl
Dodging is Dexterity+Dodge

No difficulties are callled, as they are all difficulty 6.

5) Any misc. information.

Hope I did not make it sound complicated, as really, the Storyteller system is very simple and easy to run and play, i hope you will be checking it out, but I cannot vouche for how great the nWoD system is, as I have exclusively played oWoD, mainly due to nobody I know wanting to try or play nWoD (same deal as why most I know still play DnD3.5 rather than DnD4th)

Thank you for your time and effort in replying.[/QUOTE]

Thank you for thanking me in advance, hope it is going to be helpful

Satyr

2010-07-03, 07:10 AM

If you have the chance to get one of the old core books, don't waste any time or money on the NWoD. The rules may be a bit more streamlined, but the setting is dumbed down so much that it basically answers the question if you can lobotomize a book.

Even better: Get Witchcraft (http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?manufacturers_id=10&products_id=692&it=1&filters=0_0_40050_0&manufacturers_id=10), as a free download and enjoy the Unisystem. Similar setting, but better rules. And you know, free.

The Rose Dragon

2010-07-03, 07:20 AM

Similar setting, but better rules. And you know, free.

Well, the free book doesn't really explain the setting a lot, so if you really want to get into it, you still have to buy more books. It is a fantastic game, though, and the setting is really not that important as Unisystem is infinitely adaptable to most things (except for superheroes - I never quite figured out how to do that).

Also, I disagree that new World of Darkness is dumbed down compared to the classic World of Darkness. Classic WoD went on for much longer than new WoD has and had many, many more supplements to explain the setting. I'm not exactly a huge fan of either game, but new World of Darkness is not nearly as bad as Satyr thinks. Each line has a widely different theme and feel than the older version, though. Vampire: the Masquerade is much darker than Vampire: the Requiem, while the opposite is true for Changeling lines. If you go in expecting the classic versions of the game, you will be disappointed (but you haven't played the classic versions, so you don't really have that). Approach them on their own merits and flaws.

Fouredged Sword

2010-07-03, 07:56 AM

I would start a DnD group in a Werewolf: the Forsaken, or Hunter: the Vigle rather than a vampire game. I would pick based on them likeing high level or low level DnD.

If your players like High level DnD then Werewolf is awsome. It has all of the nice roleplaying of nWoD, but it is the one setting that your characters can get beat the tar out of and get up to do it again the next day. It's a lot more forgiving of the clasic DnD attack it mentality. Also it is more team driven than vampire with the party being, normaly, a pack.

If your players like low level DnD games Hunter may be your bag. It has lots of cool stuff, but you are basicly mortal. You hunt things that are not. Your party may die your first game, but it is fun. This is the game for all of those skeaming players who keep trying to break the game in DnD. It gives them a world that lets them attempt all that crazy stuff you never let them pull of in DnD.

Finaly Mages deserves a honerable mention. It is the only game that I have ever DM'd that had my players talking across the time streem to someone in the past. Half the conversation was overheard by a group of other mages, but becuse the overhearing happened at a time before the second half of the conversation. All they saw was a old archmage talking to himself and didn't know where the other half of the dialog was. the archmage knew this would happen so he was criptic to the players.

The archmage died the first sesion of the game. He was the only reason the players survived to save the world. He meddled with the future from the past to keep them alive. Time magic. Get more than 5 dots and the game gets very, very confuseing. In a good way, just watch your players close.

Terraoblivion

2010-07-03, 08:32 AM

I would also strongly express my disagreement with Satyr on whether nWoD is dumbed down compared to oWoD. In general i would say that nWoD is a more mature and serious game than oWoD. Where the older version spent most of its time and energy on advancing a metaplot and giving intricate details to the interactions of various factions struggling for control of the Earth, the new version is much more intimate. There is no big, developed cosmology and history with thousands of pages written about it, instead there is a constant focus on the psychology and themes embodied by the specific type of supernatural being in question. It focuses on what it means to be a vampire, what the experience of having to suck the blood of living humans to survive is like. On what kind of beliefs and ideologies that such beings might develop to explain their condition and avoid either succumbing to bestiality or guilt and carrying on living.

The other major consequence of avoiding the metaplot is that choice, especially choice for the GM, is emphasized much more. When there are no millennia old elders controlling their descendants, every society of vampires can develop in radically different fashions. While the same five political factions are expected to be present they can develop in radically different fashions depending on what interests the GM and the players. Having the faction known as The Carthian Movement consist of Neo-Nazi skinheads wanting to organize the local vampiric society along ethnic lines is quite different from having them consist of vigilantes who see it as their duty to enforce as gentle predation as possible. This also means that the sourcebooks take a form much more like a toolbox than a set of exposition like in oWoD, on one hand requiring some more work of the GM in setting up, but also more freedom to tell a story that interests you. It also saves you from the feeling that White Wolf is trying to play your character for you, that i often got in oWoD.

If you do go for World of Darkness, i'd personally recommend looking into the Changeling line. While it is grim and depressing, it is also colorful and varied, allowing for not only a great deal of freedom but also greater variety in what you encounter. Also the books are in my opinion the prettiest and best written in all of WoD, new or old.

comicshorse

2010-07-03, 08:32 AM

Posted by Ashes

After the end of the world, White Wolf launched the New World of Darkness (nWoD) which, to being with incorporated the big three, Vampire: The Requiem, Werewolf: The Forsaken and Mage: Awakening.

And my favourite Changeling:the Lost

Analytica

2010-07-03, 08:57 AM

jamroar

2010-07-03, 11:24 AM

Most of people have said makes a lot of sense. I would just point out one thing explicitly, though it is probably self-evident: each game line assumes that the supernatural creatures are hiding from humanity, even where they might be secretly controlling it or preying on it.

That reminds me. One other thing, the World of Darkness (http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/13/13400.phtml) core rulebook for nWoD should not be confused with "Monte Cook's World of Darkness (http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/13/13404.phtml)" also published by White Wolf, a oneshot d20 game with a post supernatural apocalypse take on the setting, which has otherwise no relation to either of the WoD lines.

Raistlin1040

2010-07-03, 03:41 PM

Terraoblivion

2010-07-03, 04:02 PM

1. No class or level equivalent. Even the alignment and race equivalence you presented is a bit iffy, though not completely off the mark.
2. And getting all the books is only for manic collectors with lots of time and money. In general i'd recommend picking a line, getting the main book for that and then look up what various sourcebooks add and pick them up based on what you find important or interesting. No need to try to get the books for all the different lines, you aren't really expected to cross them over that much. Might be worth it if you want, say werewolves, to be very important but are running a Changeling game.
3. I'm not that much of an expert, but again it depends. I have personally enjoyed the books dedicated to individual factions a great deal, while i found the bloodline books for Vampire to be pretty meh. In general what to get depends on what you want, rather than any specific ones being vital. One note, tough, Fall of the Camarilla is an addition to the Requiem for Rome alternate setting and not likely to come in handy unless you play a game set around the fall of the Roman Empire.

The Glyphstone

2010-07-03, 05:23 PM

be careful if you intend to start off mixing the settings, because while the rules do mesh for compatibility, they can be hard to make work together. For a quick example - Werewolves, Changelings, Sin-Eaters and Hunters can all function effectively, but Vampires can only operate at night, and Mages often spend hours or days at a time doing extended ritual spells. The only one that's really hard to integrate into a mixed-supernatural party is Vampires really.

SurlySeraph

2010-07-03, 05:49 PM

1. No exact parallels, but your supernatural template (Vampire, Werewolf, etc.) is like race, there are sub-divisions in it that are like class but more flexible (clans for vampires, tribes for werewolves, etc.), there are usually social/ ideological divisions that provide access to some powers as well, and it's all skill-based.

2. Definitely not worth it. If you want to create creatures from most of the other books as NPCs, Hunter has simplified rules that are helpful.

3. The only splatbooks I've really used are Armory and Armory: Reloaded, which are decently helpful but not unexpendable, so I can't comment much. I'd say read the reviews before getting more splatbooks. There are also a few splatbooks that add new supernatural templates that are useful mainly for NPCs but potentially playable, such as Slasher (horror-movie-style killers), Immortals (variously undying things), and Antagonists (revenants, plus various completely unplayable monsters).

The different supernatural types aren't quite all on the same power level, but there's a wide range of power levels for all of them. In general Mages are more powerful than everyone else, Geists are a bit more powerful, Werewolves and Changelings are next, and Vampires are about the weakest, mainly because of the "can't go outside during the day and dies to fire" bits. However, there are plenty of exceptions.

Also, summaries:

Vampire: The Politician
Werewolf: The (Spirit) Police
Mage: The Irresponsible Rich Guy
Geist: The (Ghost) Social Worker
Changeling: The Independent Contractor (who was abused as a child)
Hunter: The Vigilante
Promethean: The Unpopular Minority

Analytica

2010-07-03, 06:11 PM

There are benefits to remaining within one game line only, because the setting (the culture of each supernatural race as well as their laws in some cases) assumes you probably do so. However, if you downplay interaction with other supernaturals of the same type (i.e. vampires vying for favour in the local vampire ruler's court, rival werewolf pack turf wars or the like) it should be no problem.

Another option is to begin with a group of mortal characters, (apparently) without supernatural connections. Build up their group mechanics, maybe they are relatives, colleagues or friends. Have them deal with some mundane issue. Then, begin to break down their lives by increasing creepiness of some supernatural sort. Eventually, they may find themselves transformed into vampires, or forced to realize they actually were werewolves, mages or changelings all along. This is the personal horror angle.

Really, the sections in the books on how to storytell are excellent and should be able to give you lots of useful ideas. I recommend the core WoD book. Then I recommend the Vampire core book (if only because I prefer that game). I also liked Inferno, Book of Spirits, Immortals and Book of the Dead, as well as the Ancient Mysteries book for Vampire. But the core books should really be all you need. Everything else is just things you could add in if you want to.

Raistlin1040

2010-07-03, 06:18 PM

Okay, so playing in one game is probably for the best, but not the only way to play. I like that idea of Personal Horror, with each player realizing what they really are, but the Rule of Awesome in me still thinks a party of a Vampire, a Werewolf, a Changeling, and a Hunter would be pretty awesome. If the story finds a way to allow it, do the mechanics support it? I think I'm pretty creative and resourceful as a writer, so I think I could find a way to work it all in well, but is the power gap something like "Mages are Wizards, Geists are Sorcerers, everyone else is a Warblade/Bard/Beguiler" or is it more like "Mages are Wizards, Geists are Warlocks, everyone else is Complete Warrior Samurai"?

Juhn

2010-07-03, 06:25 PM

In terms of balance, Mages are up there, but from what I've seen Geists are flat-out broken. They're about as powerful as mages, get to come back to life no less than four times and have no supernatural weaknesses (like every other major line has. Fire/Sunlight for Vampires, Silver for Werewolves, Paradox [the Abyss trying to eat you when your magic is too obvious] for Mages, Fire [again] and Disquiet [the world itself and all the people in it utterly reject you because you are something that should not be for Prometheans, And iron for Changelings ). For reference, Prometheans (the next toughest line) have the two weaknesses mentioned (disquiet is REALLY harsh) and they get to come back [i]once.

But no, I'm not bitter at all about WW making Geists superpowered god-beings instead of the low-power psychopomps I was promised, why do you ask?

In terms of power, from what I've been able to figure out, it goes:

Geists>Mages>Prometheans (but again, they have a LOT of weaknesses that probably overpower their strengths) >Werewolves>Vampires>Mortals.

I haven't played enough Changeling to know where they fit in.

As a note on Mage and being "Wizards", I was initially off-put by Mage because I figured "if I wanted to play a Wizard, I'd still be playing D&D". Mage is a lot better than it looks at first glance, and is now currently my favourite gameline. However, it's very complex, and generally takes a while to get a feel for it. If you're playing Mage, you're definitely going to want a couple of supplements along with the corebook. This is not the case with the other lines.

I would heavily suggest against mixing gamelines in your first game. Vampire is rather low-power and can be good to get you used to the system, though I've always had a hard time making it interesting.

Terraoblivion

2010-07-03, 06:33 PM

Well, the more you know about physics the deadlier mages get. Being able to transmute stuff into things that will yield massive explosions is quite effective. It is of course counterbalanced by paradox, but that has been made less lethal than in oWoD, so often it is worth it if the alternative is dying. In any case, with enough XP, knowledge and ingenuity mages can do anything which is more than what the rest can say.

Semidi

2010-07-03, 06:33 PM

Alright, so you have convinced me that this is my type of game. If the Classic game is going to be hard to find (ESPECIALLY with all the splatbooks), I think I'd rather go with the New game out of ease and balance (because I can mix and match stuff, right? Like, out of my current party, I see one girl playing a vampire, one girl playing a Hunter or Changeling, and the boy playing a werewolf). So thank you all for answering my questions. Sorry if I sound like an idiot, but I just want to know what I'm getting into, and what to expect.

1) So, this is probably my most noobish question, but what exactly are D&D parallels? So, for Vampires, it seems like clan would be race, faction would be alignment, but is there a class system, or just a skill system? What about a level system?
2) Is it worth it to try and get all the books? On Wikipedia, I don't feel all that interested in the Geist: The Sin Eaters or Promethean: The Created lines. Even Mage: The Awakening is a little iffy. If I want to play with Vampires, Werewolves, Changelings, and possibly Hunters, what do I need?
3) Apparently, there are also splatbooks for each game. Just from the Vampire page, there is stuff like "City of the Damned: New Orleans", which seems exposition-y, "Fall of the Camarilla" which seems like a module, and "New Wave Requiem" which seems like a setting change. How much do these things add to the game, if you have them, and are there any (among any of the games) that are integral, in your mind.

Once again, thank you all so much for replying. It's hard to get into a system when nobody you know plays it, so you guys are a big help.

A few things to note, despite technically mixing well (using the same basic rules), mixing and matching supernaturals may not be the best thing for your game. For instance, a vampire, changeling, and hunter can do **** all with investigation and such if there's a mage in the party with any degree of skill with Spirit, space, or fate arcanum. Similarly, if there's a werewolf in the party, all other combat centered folks will be sitting on the sidelines or getting owned by things that would challenge a werewolf.

Anyway...

1) Parallels with D&D: Well... you get XP in both games... But you don't get XP for fighting monsters ('cept in Hunter: The Vigil). You get it for making progress in plots, roleplaying well--that sort of thing. Also, there are no big levels gauging power. Rather you spend XP into specific skills, stats, merits, and supernatural powers. This leads to a high degree of customization. Also, it means that a character with 10XP on his sheet can quite possibly murder the face off of a character with 150XP if the 10XP character is built for Combat and the 150XP character is not. However, the 150XP character will no doubt be more useful outside of combat were the 10XP character will be all but useless. (140XP in nWoD is HUGE).

Also, forget about classes and everything like that. Each supernatural creature is divided into flavor subsections. Each flavor excels and different things. For instance, Vampire, two flavors of vampire are Gangrel and Mekhet. Gangrel tend to be good at survival and combat whereas Mekhet are more ninja scholars. However, because of the nature of the system, this is not always the case.

Also, covenant (political or religious affiliation) in vampire, should not be thought of as alignment. I mean, some covenants tend to be more evil than others (Lancea Sanctum and Circle of the Crone in particular), but a member of the Carthian Movement can be just as evil or more so.

2) Books

Get what you're interested in. To play Changeling, Vampire, Werewolf, and Hunter, you'll need each of their base books. (Note: Hunters are basically normal humans and do not require the Hunter: The Vigil books. However, if someone is actually going to play a hunter, I'd recommend Vigil as it introduces rules and such which make hunters powerful).

3) Splats

You basically have the right idea. Vampire: New Orleans is basically a settings book. New Wave: Requiem is a book if you want to set your chronicle in the 80s. Fall of the Camarilla and Requiem for Rome are modules and settings documents for if you want to put your game in Roman times (I'd look into this as both are put together very well).

I'd pick up the books on a case by case basis once you start playing. If you're playing a vampire game and are a Mekhet Invictus, then picking up the Mekhet Clan book and the Invictus covenant book are pretty good ideas.

So yeah, not important, but pretty cool. I'd read the reviews first though as a lot of nWoD books are pretty crap. Some are excellents... but yeah. Some are horrible.

Juhn

2010-07-03, 06:34 PM

Yes, Mages can be really, really scary. I recommend against putting a Mage in a mixed group pretty much ever.

Of course, I'm running a Genius (fan-made gameline where you play mad scientists) game, and Geniuses can probably give Mages a run for their money in the power department...

Beelzebub1111

2010-07-03, 07:40 PM

I like Genius: The Transgression. A fan-made, but totally awesome game involving MAD SCIENCE! From "Dr. Insano" to "Doc Savage"

http://sites.google.com/site/moochava/genius

The Glyphstone

2010-07-03, 07:42 PM

Genius is made of awesome and win. Is anyone still working on playing/improving it? The site where it's hosted hasn't been updated in years.

Beelzebub1111

2010-07-03, 08:12 PM

Okay, so playing in one game is probably for the best, but not the only way to play. I like that idea of Personal Horror, with each player realizing what they really are, but the Rule of Awesome in me still thinks a party of a Vampire, a Werewolf, a Changeling, and a Hunter would be pretty awesome.

If you do that, though, you're asking for intra-party conflict. If I recall...Werewolves see vampires as unnatural abominations and servants of the Wyrm. Vampires are tied up in politics and die without drinking the blood of mortals, something that the Hunter won't take too kindly to (as it's basically his job to kill the other three). Changelings I don't know much about, but they are pretty much sociopaths with no concept of other people's emotions.

Analytica

2010-07-03, 08:30 PM

If you do that, though, you're asking for intra-party conflict. If I recall...Werewolves see vampires as unnatural abominations and servants of the Wyrm. Vampires are tied up in politics and die without drinking the blood of mortals, something that the Hunter won't take too kindly to (as it's basically his job to kill the other three). Changelings I don't know much about, but they are pretty much sociopaths with no concept of other people's emotions.

A lot of all that was dropped when the new game lines were made.

As for character balances etc. Really, the system is flexible enough for you to make roughly any character concepts you want using any of the game lines. They are also mechanically fully compatible.

For my part, I really dislike the new Mage. All the other games got better in the revision, but Mage went from a toolbox-type game where you could just grab any arbitrary occult concept (Victorian alchemist? Voodoo priest? Spirit medium? Hermetic demon-binder? New-age healer?) and just play them like that into something where you basically are learning and exploiting the secrets of Atlantis. I much prefer using Thaumaturgists and Psychics (from the Second Sight book) and Purified (from the Immortals book) and just dropping Mage completely. Others probably see this differently. It is also true that the Mage rules (in D&D terms) give them Wizard-like flexibility which no other supernatural has - the rest are all more like Sorcerers.

Generally though - build concepts first (mortal or supernatural), then see how they can be realized within the system. All of the supernaturals also scale in power depending on how many points are put on them (meaning that vampire elders can also be pretty scary). Also note that the game does not intend for anyone to optimize for combat. Or rather, you should optimize for combat exactly to that extent that this fits the idea of the character. It makes sense for an adventurer to primarily be good for that. It makes less sense for a municipality administrator who discovers that she transforms into a hideous beast with evil instincts one night when the moon is full. While the latter character should and does have combat abilities, they will only be part of her identity.

Juhn

2010-07-03, 08:33 PM

Genius is made of awesome and win. Is anyone still working on playing/improving it? The site where it's hosted hasn't been updated in years.

Actually, it was updated a couple weeks back, and Moochava (the guy who wrote the game) is quite responsive to questions.

Mage went from a toolbox-type game where you could just grab any arbitrary occult concept ... and just play them like that into something where you basically are learning and exploiting the secrets of Atlantis.I'm gonna have to disagree strongly with this (but then, I lean strongly toward the Free Council's "Atlantis is irrelevant" views anyway when it comes to Mage).

Terraoblivion

2010-07-03, 08:42 PM

New Mage is indeed about exploration, but more of the great unknowns and weird things that fall through the cracks of reality than about Atlantis. Sure the mages have the origin story of Atlantis and the hubris that took place there and so on, but it's just that, an origin story. Even a lot of non-Free Council mages consider it allegorical and couched in myth and not really relevant in a daily sense. Ultimately what matters to mages is that the world is incredibly weird and often dangerous and there is so much for them to learn about to understand it. Frequently also to quarantine because it is dangerous, but that comes with the world being weird and things that just break reality slipping into it.

And, ummm, Beelzebub, you're talking about oWoD as opposed to nWoD. No Wyrm in nWoD and Changelings have the full range of human emotions, though generally stunted and broken by severe PTSD.

Beelzebub1111

2010-07-03, 09:24 PM

And, ummm, Beelzebub, you're talking about oWoD as opposed to nWoD. No Wyrm in nWoD and Changelings have the full range of human emotions, though generally stunted and broken by severe PTSD.
So I am...So I am...I suppose that hunters aren't the rebirth of the Solar Exalted anymore? But they DO hunt the supernatural still...right?

Juhn

2010-07-03, 10:35 PM

But they DO hunt the supernatural still...right?

Depends on the Hunter, and it depends on the Supernatural. Some hunters are quite content to leave certain supernaturals alone, provided that they aren't preying on people. By and large, though, yes.

JaronK

2010-07-04, 12:10 AM

Having just gotten started with Mage: The Ascension, one thing struck me: the tone in the books is extremely bizarre. There's a very strong aspect of "never let your players do anything you don't want them to do, and always throw out the rules in favor of making the plot go the way you want. Power gamers are evil." There's a reason they call it a "Storyteller" and not a "DM" as the game is built for railroading your players into your story, not creating a realistic world for people to play around in. Many rules come down to "whatever the storyteller says goes" and they regularly tell you something to the effect of "this power is broken and overpowered, so smack down your player if they use it in a broken way."

It's actually a really annoying elitist philosophy of gaming that basically assumes anyone who plays their character effectively is an evil person and clearly not roleplaying. It's basically a raging Stormwind Fallacy. This can be annoying.

Also, a lot of times the rules are just incomplete or terribly laid out. Hopefully this has changed in the new edition, but the old one had such gems as the Meditation skill saying "see page 111 for uses of this skill" except it says that on page 111 (and no, there's no uses listed anywhere near that page). Other fun things include rules being discussed all over the map for a single thing (good luck trying to find all the uses of Quintessence, it'll take a LOT of cross referencing) and rule mechanics being left entirely to the storyteller (they say there's a way of counterspelling without knowing all the spheres you should know, but don't give any rules for it... they just say "this is more of a roleplaying mechanic" and leave it at that.

Ugh.

JaronK

Raistlin1040

2010-07-04, 05:17 AM

The Rose Dragon

2010-07-04, 05:25 AM

In a way, he's right. Storyteller systems are mostly about telling a fun story, not playing a fun game. If it makes the story better, you're supposed to cheat. A given example is if a PC dies due to a series of bad rolls even though you had things in mind for him, you can let him live... in a way, as a vampire's ghoul slave, known only to his character and not the others, and make it into a part of the story. You can let him die, of course, but you shouldn't unless it adds to the story.

I only played Hunter and Vampire in the classical World of Darkness, but it feels more like a theater with rules instead of a game with a story. It is a different approach than D&D (and a better one, in my opinion), and the rules mostly support that, even where they don't tell you to ignore them outright.

Raistlin1040

2010-07-04, 05:30 AM

Well, described like that, it sounds better, but I think the most fun part of DMing in practice, as opposed to sitting a dark room for hours designing plot hooks, is seeing how the players react to things in unexpected ways. I've no problem with a set story with a beginning, middle, and end, but there still has to be room for the players to get to those points in their own unique way.

Chineselegolas

2010-07-04, 05:48 AM

World of Darkness is a story telling game, where as DnD is a dungeon crawl game. Sure they can be run differently, but that is where they excel at.

The setting is whatever you choose it to be, most of it is set for modern times, however is adaptable enough to fit in other timelines. Power levels change with different times too, in a time where swords are used, vampires are weaker, werewolves are stronger. And taking the Subway is always good fun in a WoD game, going into the dark tunnels, who knows what has chosen them as a home

The mechanics are quite odd to start with, but once you get the hang of everything being a test pool of stat + skill, become easy enough, and while there are given pairings for many tasks, it being a story telling system, as the ST you can change them as it goes. Trying to hide in a crowd, dex + stealth to duck behind people. Or manipulation + streetwise as they weave around people bumping and causing a fuss behind them.

As for running the story, you basically have city with stuff happening around them, very sand box capable game. Course you can have meta plot and minor plots leaping out.

Edit:
When I want to roleplay, WoD, when I want to rollplay, DnD.

comicshorse

2010-07-04, 08:42 AM

FatR

2010-07-04, 09:27 AM

What kind of game is it? Well, it is a roleplaying game where you play a vampire. The game focuses more on social interaction than on combat (because combat has the tendency to get your character killed, and you don't want that).
"You know, this game is all about Anne Rice-an vampiric drama, and angst, and... wait, its that f#$%ing katana in the equipment list?"

Also: while oWoD combat was quite lethal, nWoD combat is padded sumo. Until someone starts throwing outroll-or-lose powers.

It plays very, very easily. Anyone can make a character in five minutes,
If you don't care about being effective, yes. If you do, the character creation is extremely fiddly, with tons of number-crunching, forward-planning and possible trap choices. Particularly if you play a game where the starting characters are somewhat capable (both versions of Mage, old Werewolf, some others).

FatR

2010-07-04, 09:31 AM

In a way, he's right. Storyteller systems are mostly about telling a fun story, not playing a fun game. If it makes the story better, you're supposed to cheat..
A question: what the heck system is supposed to do with that? You know, GMs can railroad, cheat and use fiat in DnD too. These practices do not magically become more wholesome when you switch to playing Storyteller. Neither their possibility should be taken into account when evaluating Storyteller mechanics (which suck in both versions, with the new one being worse, in my opinion).

Kurald Galain

2010-07-04, 09:36 AM

If you don't care about being effective, yes. If you do, the character creation is extremely fiddly, with tons of number-crunching, forward-planning and possible trap choices. Particularly if you play a game where the starting characters are somewhat capable (both versions of Mage, old Werewolf, some others).
It strikes me as very difficult to make a character in Werewolf that's not capable in combat :smalltongue: I've honestly never seen any WOD player do number-crunching for character generation.

Likewise, it's probably not possible to make a Mage character that can't do magic. If you feel the need to optimize, that's a wholly different thing, but still there aren't nearly as many traps as D&D has.

The Rose Dragon

2010-07-04, 09:58 AM

A question: what the heck system is supposed to do with that? You know, GMs can railroad, cheat and use fiat in DnD too.

GMs can't do anything in D&D. D&D has DMs instead. :smalltongue:

The post I was responding to had nothing to do with the mechanics and everything to do with presentation of the game. You might have entirely missed that part.

D&D (and to a lesser extent AD&D) tells you: "These are the rules of the game. In case the rules prove insufficient, the DM's word determines the outcome." Storyteller tells you "This is how you tell a story. In case there is a conflict that you cannot solve otherwise, here are some rules you can use to reach an impartial solution." Both are games about telling a story, but the approach they have to explaining it is wildly different from the other's.

If you feel the need to optimize, that's a wholly different thing, but still there aren't nearly as many traps as D&D has.

Of course not. In Hunter: the Reckoning at least, there are many, many more. :smalltongue:

Juhn

2010-07-04, 11:27 AM

Anyone able to respond to JaronK? I mean, that is old World, and I think I'm a pretty fair DM in general, so I don't think I'd be like that anyway, but I find it hard to believe a rule system would be so ironfisted about one person controlling the story.

I've never really noticed this tendency in nWoD. nWoD has a tendency to assume that you and your players are mature, responsible people who know not to break the game.

Analytica

2010-07-04, 02:23 PM

I'm gonna have to disagree strongly with this (but then, I lean strongly toward the Free Council's "Atlantis is irrelevant" views anyway when it comes to Mage).

Re: World: The Darkness (Something: The Something Questions)
New Mage is indeed about exploration, but more of the great unknowns and weird things that fall through the cracks of reality than about Atlantis. Sure the mages have the origin story of Atlantis and the hubris that took place there and so on, but it's just that, an origin story. Even a lot of non-Free Council mages consider it allegorical and couched in myth and not really relevant in a daily sense. Ultimately what matters to mages is that the world is incredibly weird and often dangerous and there is so much for them to learn about to understand it. Frequently also to quarantine because it is dangerous, but that comes with the world being weird and things that just break reality slipping into it.

Our mileages vary. :smallsmile:

I guess I probably play/storytell Mage: the Ascension differently from the way it was written, though. Preferably no globe-spanning organizations, metaplots, or even common theoretical ground, morality or culture for the mages. Ideally, a mage that believed that she was a Christian preacher granted power by angels to smite demons would never realize her powers had anything in common with those of the Golden Dawn kabbalist, or the wiccan, or whichever. Looking through the books, perhaps the designers did intend less of this, and more of common Spheres, unique "mage culture" and battle between Traditionalists and Technocrats.

When the line was relaunched, I had hoped for a change in the same direction as Vampire - no origin story, almost no common culture or society, just individuals and groups making up their own explanations, tied to real-world religion and occultism only. In my opinion, Mage: the Awakening goes in the other direction; possibly we disagree on how far. While it has developed since then, and arguably is an easier game system to arbitrate, it isn't what I personally hoped for. Second Sight, on the other hand, was almost precisely what I hoped for.

But this might be derailing the thread. I recognize there are those elements you point out as well, and if it is a game you enjoy, then more power to you. :smallsmile:

It's actually a really annoying elitist philosophy of gaming that basically assumes anyone who plays their character effectively is an evil person and clearly not roleplaying. It's basically a raging Stormwind Fallacy. This can be annoying.

I guess there are many ways of playing each game. When I do World of Darkness, I want to make the most of the setting being "real world", so that the supernatural or horror elements appear in greater contrast. Because of this, aspects that reduce my feeling of recognition of it being "the real world" that are not conscious departures from it, such as the introduction of the supernatural, detracts somewhat from that experience.

Building a character around extreme effectiveness in some respect, such as combat, to such degree that the character has few other capacities, makes sense only for a character with a background that supports this. I am not saying it cannot or should not be done, but except in very specific circumstances, it may be hard to justify. If the goal is to experience what happens to a fully fleshed-out living or undead person, effectiveness becomes important only to the degree that said person behaves effectively. Characters who do irrational and stupid things because of stress, or fear, or love, or because they actually are messed up, might not be effective, but if the goal is to see what their experiences are like, in some cases they shouldn't be. Of course, the goal might equally well be to experience what life is like for a completely rational problem-solver.

Perhaps we are talking about different things, though? I might not fully understand what you mean by effectiveness.

Kurald Galain

2010-07-04, 02:26 PM

ninja_penguin

2010-07-04, 02:41 PM

Actually, it was updated a couple weeks back, and Moochava (the guy who wrote the game) is quite responsive to questions

Thank you so much for mentioning this, I was planning on running Genius in a month with my real-life group, and this will make things run a little smoother.

Juhn

2010-07-04, 02:54 PM

Thank you so much for mentioning this, I was planning on running Genius in a month with my real-life group, and this will make things run a little smoother.

Yeah, it actually says on his site that he would prefer you to get in touch with him if you plan to run the game.

As a word of advice, I'd excise the parts of Epikrato 5 that let you start running around deleting Axiom/Arcana/Discipline/Gift/etc and Inspiration/Gnosis/BP/PU/etc dots, because that kind of flagrantly violates the whole standing policy of "supernaturals cannot mess with other supernaturals' natures" that the nWoD has going.

Actually, Epikrato in itself is probably the worst-laid-out Axiom. Still decent, but it needs a bit of an overhaul.

Our mileages vary. :smallsmile:Yeah, not saying you're flat-out "wrong" or anything; just that we disagree.

I will however point out that the Atlantis monomyth is not nearly as omnipresent as a lot of people seem to think (most people do indeed play with the whole idea of Atlantis far, far in the background, viewed as little more than a morality story or convenient myth by most.) The whole Atlantis issue comes up on the White Wolf forums about as often as "Are Monks really that bad/why don't people like ToB" threads pop up on this forum, so if you're looking for alternatives you could check into one of those. Various people have suggested ways to excise Atlantis entirely, as well. Just ignore the oMage/nMage flamewars that tend to flare up.

Of course, if you're perfectly content to just not use Mage at all and stick to the stuff in Second Sight, then all power to you. Whatever works for you my friend.

Analytica

2010-07-04, 03:29 PM

I will however point out that the Atlantis monomyth is not nearly as omnipresent as a lot of people seem to think (most people do indeed play with the whole idea of Atlantis far, far in the background, viewed as little more than a morality story or convenient myth by most.)

Sure, and particularly so in later books. :smallsmile:

JaronK

2010-07-04, 03:37 PM

I think what Jaronk is saying may apply to the Mage system ,which always had terrible problems with people being unable to agree what the powers actually did and much game-breaking use of powers.

From my experience of V:TR and Changeling:the Lost I can't say I've ever found that ( apart from the poor lay-out, that is a perenail problem)

Indeed, I'm only talking about Mage, which is the only one I've actually played with (and the oWoD version, no less). But there are a lot of cases where they outright tell you to cheat, or say that an ability they just wrote is overpowered and the Storyteller should make sure the player doesn't use it that way (why make it like that in the first place?). Sure, it can be played in a more sandbox way, but the rules are clearly designed for railroading (storytelling) and sometimes it's actually hard to adapt them, since there's places where the rules actually say something like "the storyteller can decide how this mechanic actually works." That's really annoying to run into on the fly, when what you really want is a workable mechanic that, if necessary, you could adapt.

Some quick examples to demonstrate the point:

"The rules... aren't necessary for everyone... when they don't make sense, change them. If you don't like them, ignore them. Never give them more power over your story than you have. To put it another way: Don't ever let the rules get in the way of telling a good story."

"The Golden Rule... The most important rule of all, and the only one truly worth following, is that there are no inviolable rules. This is your game."

Meanwhile, the game never properly defines the difference between coincidental magic and vulgar magic without witnesses (evidently generating a gun in your pocket that you just happened to find there is coincidental, but generating money in your pocket is vulgar... why?), has a counterspelling mechanic that is roughly described (you can counterspell without knowing all the spheres... somehow) but never finished and just says "this is more of a role playing mechanic" and over and over says "the storyteller gets to say how ability X works."

This is not to say that the world isn't interesting, or that the game lacks value. But in the end, you can really tell that this is about one guy telling a story that other people get to have parts in, as opposed to one guy creating a world for the players to make a story in. Since I'm a classic sandbox style player who believes it's the players that make the story, and the DM who facilitates the story, that rubs me the wrong way.

With all that said, I do like the simplicity inherent in the system, and the style of magic is incredibly fun to play with. So there's lots of potential here. It would have been nice if they'd gotten a few of those rules lawyers they evidently hated so much and had them look over the rules to clarify them and improve them.

JaronK

Terraoblivion

2010-07-04, 03:46 PM

How are those examples remotely elitist? The "they" means the rules, not the players. It just means that plot and narrative takes precedent over game mechanics, hardly the same as saying the GM should railroad with an iron fist.

Juhn

2010-07-04, 03:59 PM

Indeed, I'm only talking about Mage, which is the only one I've actually played with (and the oWoD version, no less). But there are a lot of cases where they outright tell you to cheat, or say that an ability they just wrote is overpowered and the Storyteller should make sure the player doesn't use it that way (why make it like that in the first place?). Sure, it can be played in a more sandbox way, but the rules are clearly designed for railroading (storytelling) and sometimes it's actually hard to adapt them, since there's places where the rules actually say something like "the storyteller can decide how this mechanic actually works."This does sound really annoying. I can, however, tell you with confidence that I've never encountered anything like this with Awakening.

Meanwhile, the game never properly defines the difference between coincidental magic and vulgar magic without witnesses (evidently generating a gun in your pocket that you just happened to find there is coincidental, but generating money in your pocket is vulgar... why?), has a counterspelling mechanic that is roughly described (you can counterspell without knowing all the spheres... somehow) but never finished and just says "this is more of a role playing mechanic" and over and over says "the storyteller gets to say how ability X works."Both of these things were also fixed in nMage, from what I've been told (I never actually played oMage). I've heard a lot of people say how much simpler the Covert/Vulgar distinction is, as well as the counterspell rules.

Also, sandbox is entirely doable in nMage. Using your Supernal powers to explore the (much wider than you thought while Asleep) world around you is a lot of the fun of Mage.

Analytica

2010-07-04, 04:17 PM

"The rules... aren't necessary for everyone... when they don't make sense, change them. If you don't like them, ignore them. Never give them more power over your story than you have. To put it another way: Don't ever let the rules get in the way of telling a good story."

"The Golden Rule... The most important rule of all, and the only one truly worth following, is that there are no inviolable rules. This is your game."

The way I read it, this needs only mean railroading if the Storyteller is the only person telling the story. If you interpret these quotes (and I think that is how they are intended) as applying both for the (main) Storyteller and for the players (although possibly not to the same extent), I feel they are most conducive to sandbox gaming, which is also my experience in general of oWoD Mage.

This is not to say that the world isn't interesting, or that the game lacks value. But in the end, you can really tell that this is about one guy telling a story that other people get to have parts in, as opposed to one guy creating a world for the players to make a story in. Since I'm a classic sandbox style player who believes it's the players that make the story, and the DM who facilitates the story, that rubs me the wrong way.

Again, in my experience, the effects tend to be the opposite. I read such phrases as telling me, as a (main) Storyteller, to invite players to go beyond what they strictly can do by the letter of the rules, as long as it remains within the spirit of the rules and the theme of the story. I read it as stating that, if a player wants to do something not explicitly stated as possible, but within the guidelines, I am recommended to allow it.

SurlySeraph

2010-07-04, 04:18 PM

In terms of balance, Mages are up there, but from what I've seen Geists are flat-out broken. (etc.) They're about as powerful as mages, get to come back to life no less than four times and have no supernatural weaknesses (like every other major line has. Fire/Sunlight for Vampires, Silver for Werewolves, Paradox [the Abyss trying to eat you when your magic is too obvious] for Mages, Fire [again] and Disquiet [the world itself and all the people in it utterly reject you because you are something that should not be for Prometheans, And iron for Changelings ). For reference, Prometheans (the next toughest line) have the two weaknesses mentioned (disquiet is REALLY harsh) and they get to come back [i]once.

I don't agree, but I see where you're coming from. Where Geists are strongest is not in versatility (Mages can out-versatile everything), investigation (Mages again, though they're automatically great at murder mysteries), combat (Werewolves, vamps with Claws of the Beast, and anyone with Aikido win melee. Geists don't get a source of melee aggravated damage, and their ranged agg damage is very expensive and pretty feeble), or social arenas (their mind control abilities are pretty meh and they have much weaker built-in social networks than other types of supernaturals), but in that they can optimize to be really hard to kill.For example, Grave Dirt Caul *** + Grave Dirt Shroud ** = tons of armor, easily.
And death is only a temporary obstacle, though if you can find them soon after they wake up they're screwed, and if you can kill them once you can almost certainly keep killing them until they go insane from Synergy loss pretty easily. Other than Masks from the Slasher book, which are flat-out unstoppable by anything except tons of multiattacks, it's hard to get tougher than a well-built Sin-Eater.

Plus Geist powers are pretty poorly balanced against each other. There's no reason to take the Rage pretty much ever, Boneyard is awesome, most of Primeval is weak while most of Industrial and Stigmata are great, etc.

Also: while oWoD combat was quite lethal, nWoD combat is padded sumo. Until someone starts throwing outroll-or-lose powers.

Unless you've got multiattacks and/or are doing aggravated damage. Combat Marksmanship can be pretty damn scary.

It strikes me as very difficult to make a character in Werewolf that's not capable in combat :smalltongue: I've honestly never seen any WOD player do number-crunching for character generation.

Likewise, it's probably not possible to make a Mage character that can't do magic. If you feel the need to optimize, that's a wholly different thing, but still there aren't nearly as many traps as D&D has.

I've seen a bit of WoD optimization, mostly to illustrate the point that a mortal with a sniper rifle can kill damn near anything. Plus some Mage optimization for knowing everything and kicking reality in the groin, and some Geist optimization to illustrate how you can make Sin-Eaters really hard to kill.

FatR

2010-07-04, 07:44 PM

It strikes me as very difficult to make a character in Werewolf that's not capable in combat
In the new Werewolf its ridiculously easy, because physical melee attacks blow in nWoD, and nWeres get very little in the terms of You Lose powers or upgrades that are useful not only in melee. Also, as a starting nWoD character you have very little power to spread around in general. In the old Werewolf things were better, but making a character that could deal with basic enemy grunts without a serious risk of dying still was nontrivial.

Likewise, it's probably not possible to make a Mage character that can't do magic.
It's not possible to make a DnD character that doesn't know how to fight. Whether he is competent in it is another question. So it is with Mage characters and magic.

If you feel the need to optimize, that's a wholly different thing, but still there aren't nearly as many traps as D&D has.
That's just not true. For example, in nVampire you can buy the Discipline that makes people your mind-slaves for the same cost as the Discipline that gives a very tiny bonus to survivability, or the Discipline that mind-controls only animals and not even that well.

Semidi

2010-07-05, 03:45 AM

Here's the thing with nwod: there is optimization here--but for what? Since someone has already mentioned it, dominate, resilience, and animalism all cost the same. Animalism may seem like a waste compared to dominate (animalism allows you to effectively dominate animals whereas dominate allows you to mind control humans). However, someone with animalism is an amazing spy and can make your life a living hell (you can't use dominate if you're in frenzy!). Similarly, resilience is amazing for combat characters. Vampires have some of the easiest access to more health levels than most sheets have on them.

What I mean to say is that, in the World of Darkness games just about everything has there place.

However, there are clearly ways to optimize. This revolves around character creation points. It's far more effective to min-max character creation points and then fill in the gaps with XP. This is missing the point though. You're supposed to be making characters that represent actual PEOPLE in the world--not aberrations. This is one of the big differences from a D&D like setting--you're PC character is built exactly the same as an NPC. Mortals are built the same as mortals. Vampires as vampires. You're making a character to play in a story. If you're playing to win, you're playing the wrong game.

D&D is usually a series of combat encounters. The World of Darkness setting is supposed to be a story with mechanics to adjudicate how that story turns out.

Terraoblivion

2010-07-05, 09:01 AM

I'm probably going to regret this...but FatR, is there anything you don't hate? Or is it just that your dislike for White Wolf is so great that it is the only thing that motivates you to talk? Since i have literally never seen you talk about anything other than why you think their games suck.

Juhn

2010-07-05, 11:46 AM

In the new Werewolf its ridiculously easy, because physical melee attacks blow in nWoD, and nWeres get very little in the terms of You Lose powers or upgrades that are useful not only in melee. Also, as a starting nWoD character you have very little power to spread around in general. In the old Werewolf things were better, but making a character that could deal with basic enemy grunts without a serious risk of dying still was nontrivial.I've seen people torn apart in melee combat in nWoD quite easily. Werewolves have access to relatively hefty regeneration, and every werewolf ever also has access to Father Wolf's Gifts. You want to tear things apart in melee combat? Take four dots in that.

Kesnit

2010-07-05, 01:28 PM

That's just not true. For example, in nVampire you can buy the Discipline that makes people your mind-slaves for the same cost as the Discipline that gives a very tiny bonus to survivability, or the Discipline that mind-controls only animals and not even that well.

Not true.

Making people your "mind slaves" (I assume you mean permanently) requires 4 dots of Dominate and requires you to be a specific clan (Ventrue) or a bloodline that gets Dominate. It also takes a long period of time (weeks in-game), and there is a chance of failure, which can negate all the successes you have gained.

For 1 dot of Resilience, you get a tiny bonus to survivability. A lot cheaper than the 4 dots of Dominate, and you can keep buying dots to get even more survivability.

As for Animalism... At one dot, you can talk to any animal that you can make eye contact with. (Useful for spying or recon.) At two dots, you can make the animal obey you. (No need to put yourself in danger - just send an animal to do it.) Three dots works the same as 1, but for multiple creatures. 4 dots (which is the comparison I assume you were making to Dominate 4) allows you to take control of an animal, which can be done in a matter of seconds (not weeks). However, you have complete control over that animal. At 5 dots, Animalism allows you to put other Vampires in or out of frenzy. And if you put them in frenzy, they cannot attack you.

Also note that each clan gets 3 Disciplines, so choosing to take Resilience does not mean you cannot also take Dominate (Ventrue get both), or that taking Animalism means you have to forgo combat (Gangrel get Animalism and Protean).

eepop

2010-07-05, 02:00 PM

I would say that World of Darkness is definitely a game worth trying out. Its a far cry from being our primary game, but it does do some things well and we like having it around when we want to run a short campaign upon some theme which it does well.

I would caution against throwing a whole lot of money at it until you are sure you want it to be a primary game though. To do the game like you suggested would mean buying like 6 books to cover everything. Thats a hefty sum. I would suggest starting with just the core book, and then one "Something: The Something". If you are liking that, next I would definitely suggest the Armory book, it is exceedingly well done. If you are still going strong after a couple months, then its time to think of branching out into other "Something: The Something"s.

I'd also say that you probably want to give 4E an actual play through sometime, it doesn't "read" well, but it does play rather well. And even if it turns out to not be your thing, there are lessons to be learned from it about how to make your gaming more enjoyable even under other systems.

I am all about trying out games that approach gaming from different angles. WoD definitely approaches gaming from a different angle than D&D. If WoD doesn't fit your desires, I would suggest trying out "Burning Wheel" and "Alpha Omega".

JaronK

2010-07-05, 02:00 PM

The way I read it, this needs only mean railroading if the Storyteller is the only person telling the story. If you interpret these quotes (and I think that is how they are intended) as applying both for the (main) Storyteller and for the players (although possibly not to the same extent), I feel they are most conducive to sandbox gaming, which is also my experience in general of oWoD Mage.

The references about bending the rules are always directed only at the storyteller, and they outright tell you to take down min maxers who try to abuse the rules or otherwise do what you don't want ("Storytellers should be cautious with this Flaw, not allowing players to create min-maxing Technocrats..." "(Pick one ability... that will be important to your character in some fashion. Your storyteller will know if you do otherwise, and he has nasty ways to make you pay."). If it applied to the players too I'd agree, but they always expect the Storyteller to twist the rules to keep the players down (and within the pregenerated story), not help them out.

Now, a good DM can totally just fix that and play it in a way that doesn't do that, but the attitude in the books just irks me.

JaronK

Heliomance

2010-07-05, 02:44 PM

One thing to note about WoD, though: the rulebooks are all a sprawling morass. They are invariably laid out really badly, with unhelpful indices, and finding the bit you want can take a fair bit of guesswork.

That said, it's quite obvious that the books are written by gamers. They demonstrate a sense of humour, and have spotted the obvious abuses that powergamers might think of (Iron Heart Surge, to give a D&D example) and frequently put in rules along the lines of "if you abuse this, Bad Things will happen".

Analytica

2010-07-05, 04:28 PM

The references about bending the rules are always directed only at the storyteller, and they outright tell you to take down min maxers who try to abuse the rules or otherwise do what you don't want ("Storytellers should be cautious with this Flaw, not allowing players to create min-maxing Technocrats..." "(Pick one ability... that will be important to your character in some fashion. Your storyteller will know if you do otherwise, and he has nasty ways to make you pay."). If it applied to the players too I'd agree, but they always expect the Storyteller to twist the rules to keep the players down (and within the pregenerated story), not help them out.

Now, a good DM can totally just fix that and play it in a way that doesn't do that, but the attitude in the books just irks me.

It seems we interpret both the overall message and individual passages differently. This is not unexpected. Since I expect neither of us have the time or interest to hunt down the designers to ask them if they meant it this way or that, I suggest we agree to disagree in this case. :smallsmile:

Saph

2010-07-05, 04:54 PM

The references about bending the rules are always directed only at the storyteller, and they outright tell you to take down min maxers who try to abuse the rules.

oWoD Mage gives you a fantastic amount of flexibility and power. The price for that is that it relies heavily on GM adjudication. Mage does not work if you play it with a min-max attitude - it's not what the system's designed for.

In this specific case, the two quotes you've picked out are both concerning Flaws that make you worse or handicapped at one particular thing. What they're basically saying is "A Flaw has to actually have an effect on your character. If you try to get free points by taking a Flaw which technically is a weakness but is actually irrelevant, you're going against the spirit of the game and the GM's entitled to screw with you." Which is fair enough.

I've played oWoD Mage before, and it can be a huge amount of fun. Being able to pull off literally any magical effect you can think of allows for the most creativity I've ever seen in a RPG. It does require a very good ST though.

Kurald Galain

2010-07-05, 05:22 PM

oWoD Mage gives you a fantastic amount of flexibility and power. The price for that is that it relies heavily on GM adjudication. Mage does not work if you play it with a min-max attitude - it's not what the system's designed for.

For that matter, most RPGs do not work if you play them with a min-max attitude. Even D&D is dubious.

tbarrie

2010-07-05, 07:22 PM

As a note on Mage and being "Wizards", I was initially off-put by Mage because I figured "if I wanted to play a Wizard, I'd still be playing D&D".

That's the weirdest misspelling of "Ars Magica" I've ever seen.

Ravens_cry

2010-07-05, 07:35 PM

The only thing I don't like about World of Darkness is, to be honest, the emphases on the darkness in the world. Even G:tT, whose concept I love above all others, likes to get all dark and depressing in the fluff, when you could be playing Sparks in a gaslight fantasy setting.

Kalirren

2010-07-05, 07:48 PM

A few more comments to throw at the OP;

1) WoD is a setting (or a family of them, even more precisely). d10 is a system. If you don't like the system, don't throw out the setting, and if you don't like the setting, don't throw out the system with it.
2) Games run in d10 systems, in general, I have found to have more diversity in terms of themes and focuses than games run in d20. The first WoD/d10 game was Vampire, and its theme was "bestiality v. humanity". Over its multiple editions, Vampire's focus has itself changed. A lot of political stuff was added in 2nd edition, for example. But the d10 system is itself very flexible for addressing many kinds of themes and contexts, and can support a very wide range of settings and various levels of commitment to any theme. All of what you've listed, medieval through modern, real world or not, is possible to play under d10.
3) Mixed-supernatural games are generally hard to run. While technically possible, because essentially any d10 system is more or less compatible with any other, I wouldn't advise it, especially if it's your first d10 game. d10 games work best when the players are all the same sort of supernatural; that's the way they were originally conceived, and there's at least two reasons why it works better that way:
a) At least in oWoD, the supernatural communities themselves are fairly self-contained. I personally expect any WoD/d10 game I join to emphasize the PCs' relationships and positions within these unique supernatural communities. This becomes much, much harder when you have to run PCs from more than one of these communities. Granted, seeing as your players are new to WoD, if your players don't expect that and you don't choose to emphasize it either, there's not so much of a problem, and I can see it working much easier.
b) While the core abilities are mostly identical, the systems for supernatural powers for each class of supernatural (vampire, werewolf, mage, changeling) are each and all different. Not all of them are easily intercompatible. And while the d10 systems are rarely written for balance anyway, I still wouldn't want to tweak that black box system myself, and I certainly couldn't see myself doing it without the prior experience with WoD/d10 that I already have.

If I were in your position and wanted to run a mixed-supernatural game in a WoD setting, knowing that my players were already familiar with d20 but not with d10, I would run the game under the Spirit of the Century system instead. It would be easier, more familiar, and would put them all more obviously on the same system footing.

Fouredged Sword

2010-07-05, 08:32 PM

The idea of a DM fait is not new to nWoD, nor is it a creation of thiers. In DnD it is called "rule zero" and the "rule of cool". The basic need for a DM to control a game is a requierment, also there is a need to let the players do awsome stuff. As the ST of a nWoD game, you need to feel free to TELL THE STORY. Try not to break the rules too much, but the game is so freeform that there is a lot of wiggle room for creative players to do stuff that the game has no clear rules for. You need to not just say no, but try to make things posible.

Don't get caught up in the darkness of the game unless that is the way you want to go. I have had funny humor baised changeling games. I have had a mages game that the players ended up ruleing the city after three weeks of awakening. The tone is yours to play with. Don't forget that. The default fluff is so dark sometimes that it makes me want to sigh and put the book down, so I just ignore it.

Also, if you play mages the awakening, and I do like the game alot, you need to remember that time is the biggest resorce a mage has. If you don't give them a clock you will have a hard time makeing them feel chalenged.

Juhn

2010-07-05, 11:49 PM

That's the weirdest misspelling of "Ars Magica" I've ever seen.

Well, the "still" in my sentence kind of precludes my having meant Ars Magica. Also, that sentence was specifically referring to my not having known at the time that Mage works nothing like the game in question. From what I know, Mage and Ars Magica share the freeform-magic design philosophy.