WoD Tips

[tstewt1921]

I'm going to be running WoD for my group and I'm going to base it loosely on the show Supernatural, I'm having my players start off as normal humans, nothing special or anything to that extent.

Any tips as far as running the game, should it be more of a railroaded story line or should I leave it more sandbox giving them things to do here and there?

Any other tips would be extremely helpful as I haven't run the system yet, I've read the books so far so I've got a decent grasp on how everything works.

[One Tin Soldier]

Which system are you running? There's Old WoD Hunter, New WoD Hunter, and Chonicles of Darkness core that would all more or less fit what you've described, and they all have their differences.

[The Jack]

Sandbox the heck out of it, but make it so that their are other actors out their with their own agendas doing things that are proactive if not subtle. Others will invade the players space if they're not instigating and could be perceived as a threat.

The fun of WoD is it's dynamism. Stories will abound when someone does something just ever so slightly wrong (or right) and clever instigation makes the world turn... though maybe not for the better.


If you run OWoD
20th edition's probably the best to pick up. Prior editions are good too.
There's a lot of good lore, and some stuff that seems arbitrary makes a lot of sense when you get deep enough into it (Some of it is just arbitrary)


Oh.
Look up Hermetic and Gnostic Theory. Just the simple wikipedia pages will tell you a lot about the underlying philosophy of the settings as a whole and how several factions work

[Kurald Galain]

Any tips as far as running the game, should it be more of a railroaded story line

...nope.

Railroading is not nice.

[Morty]

Which system are you running? There's Old WoD Hunter, New WoD Hunter, and Chonicles of Darkness core that would all more or less fit what you've described, and they all have their differences.

Yes, there's really quite a few things "WoD" could mean here.

[One Tin Soldier]

...nope.

Railroading is not nice.

I'm gonna disagree with you here. I don't think tst means railroading as in "this is the story you all are going to follow, and any deviation will be punished and brought back on track," but rather "this is the monster, these are the scenes that the party should follow, coming to this climax."

Sandbox games are often good for the monster-focused games like Vampire because those characters inherently have a lot of agency and a lot of ability to make plot happen on their own. But monster-of-the-week Hunter or Mortals games are inherently reactionary. Plot usually depends on the storyteller characters instead of the PCs.

Which I suppose is some of my advice to you, tst. Follow your source material. Embrace the monster of the week format. It works for a reason.

[tstewt1921]

I'm not to sure exactly which edition, the books that I'm working with right now is the Core World of Darkness book and then the Armory for all their weapons and such, I didn't want any of them to be supernatural beings at the start but let that happen later with in the story for those that expressed interest in becoming something for example, I have a buddy that wants to become a mage, two that want to be werewolves, and another that wants to be a hunter. Which it will all happen slowly but surely they will get access to those things.

[Willie the Duck]

This might be a little outdated, since I stopped with the end of the original line ~20 years ago. However, my advice for any WoD is: do not feel obliged to include everything the books say is in the world in your world. There is so much... just, stuff (all kinds, from types of creatures to individual clans/traditions/othernamesforgroups to metaplots to subplots to... just stuff... that it can often drown out one's ability to tell the story of the actual PCs being played by your physically present players, and those are the people who need to take top priority. Find a comfortable slice of the universe, start the players going along, and then add stuff as needed. If your Supernatural investigators don't find out until 'season 2' that there are more than one type of supernatural creatures, that's fine. If they don't find out that there is a werewolf society (much less whether it matches the books) until season 3, fine as well. If they don't find out that they exist in a world of talking great danes and stoners who can eat a whole sandwich in one bite until season 13...

[Morty]

I'm not to sure exactly which edition, the books that I'm working with right now is the Core World of Darkness book and then the Armory for all their weapons and such, I didn't want any of them to be supernatural beings at the start but let that happen later with in the story for those that expressed interest in becoming something for example, I have a buddy that wants to become a mage, two that want to be werewolves, and another that wants to be a hunter. Which it will all happen slowly but surely they will get access to those things.

Sounds like you're working with 1E nWoD. The core book and Armory let you play mortals, so you'll need the separate books for being supernatural or hunters. However, mixing different gamelines in the same party is not easy for new GMs and players to pull off.


This might be a little outdated, since I stopped with the end of the original line ~20 years ago. However, my advice for any WoD is: do not feel obliged to include everything the books say is in the world in your world. There is so much... just, stuff (all kinds, from types of creatures to individual clans/traditions/othernamesforgroups to metaplots to subplots to... just stuff... that it can often drown out one's ability to tell the story of the actual PCs being played by your physically present players, and those are the people who need to take top priority. Find a comfortable slice of the universe, start the players going along, and then add stuff as needed. If your Supernatural investigators don't find out until 'season 2' that there are more than one type of supernatural creatures, that's fine. If they don't find out that there is a werewolf society (much less whether it matches the books) until season 3, fine as well. If they don't find out that they exist in a world of talking great danes and stoners who can eat a whole sandwich in one bite until season 13...

This doesn't really apply to nWoD as much.

[RifleAvenger]

Sounds like you're working with 1E nWoD. The core book and Armory let you play mortals, so you'll need the separate books for being supernatural or hunters. However, mixing different gamelines in the same party is not easy for new GMs and players to pull off.I mean, tier 1 Hunters are essentially just mortals with a few extra merit options and the ability to Risk Willpower:

Risking Willpower, as updated in Mortal Remains
1/Scene, choose two of the following:

Add 3 dice to your pool.
Exceptional success on 3 successes instead of 5, or an extra damage on damaging actions.
Upgrade to 9-again, or 8-again if you already have 9-again.
Remove 10 again on contested actions against your action.

If the action succeeds, you don't lose the willpower point, and in fact restore a point (not to exceed your maximum). You also get a practical beat (or experience, seeing as you seem to be on 1st edition rules). Failure results in an automatic dramatic failure, and grants 2 practical beats (or 1st ed experience) instead of 1 normal beat (or 1st ed experience). If for whatever reason you didn't want to pick up Hunter, where the different experience type is used for a special mechanic called Tactics, you could just have it be normal beats/experience.

@OP I would recommend picking up Hunter: The Vigil still. Not for the PC's necessarily, but because it provides a slimmed down way to model supernatural creatures at a power level more appropriate for mere mortals to face off against (and has summaries of most supernaturals in one place, so you don't need to invest in all the game lines).

EDIT: Also, 100% agree with advising you against mixing different groups if this is your first dip into the system. ESPECIALLY if some of the party want to be Mages. Mages are one of the hardest splats to mix without relegating other party members to supporting cast, because they're so versatile, can break vulnerable plots with ease, and can be hilariously powerful if the setting can't hold them accountable to their actions (or even if it can, to an extent). Like, I love Mage as a game, but it takes a lot of work and GM experience just to get a dedicated Mage the Awakening game to work and stand up to the incredible degree of agency players have as Mages. It's exponentially more work, and a heaping helping of Session 0, to get Mages to work in a mixed group (even if you've got an X-factor in the Chronicle that nerfs Mages or greatly buffs non-Mages).