Rehabbing WoD, but keeping it's spirit

[Lago PARANOIA]

So, quick poll everyone. If you were going to reboot the WoD line but you could only pick five broad spheres/splats/thematic concepts which ones would you choose and why?

Mine are:
[*] Vampire. You have to have vampires. Vampires are the rockstars of the monster kingdom and make the sweetest villains ever.
[*] Werewolf. Werewolves aren't as cool as vampires but they do have game and a strong hold on pop culture. Keep.
[*] Mage Witch. Also a classic movie 'monster'. We go with Witch instead of Mage, to narrow the thematic concepts and draw in the goth/emo/Wiccan crowd.
[*] Prometheans. The classic Frankenstein's Monster archetype isn't enough to support a splat line, but when you throw in additional AIs like Snatchers and Hal 9000s and Terminator droids and Aliens-franchise androids you might have something.
[*] Changelings. Fairies are enchanting and frightening and even both at once depending on the writing. It needs to be rewritten in such a way to scrub out all of that Pooka crap but I think you might have something once you do.

[virgil]

I'd probably go for Vampires, Werewolves, Ghosts, Deep Ones, & Changelings. The Witch certainly has it's appeal, don't get me wrong; but I'm personally enamored with mages closer to those found in Frank's Doubt.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Why do you think that those five splats should be in to the preference to other splats? For example, while you could probably spin a lot of stories out of hidden intelligences and civilizations buried deep in the ocean, their memetic power in contemporary pop culture is pretty weak despite what CoC fans will tell you.

[Username17]

If they have to be modeled on the WoD splats as presented, I think my choice would be Vampires, Skinshifters (note: not Werewolf, Skinshifters), Hedge Wizards, Wraiths, and Mummies. That's a kind of weird list, but those are the guys who could actually play nicely with others and have Being Human type adventures together.

Given the actual opportunity to make After Sundown, I ended up choosing Vampires, Lycanthropes, Witches, Leviathans, and Animates. I wrote much of a book about why I chose those ones, and I am going to finish writing the second one (of course, the second one is going to have optional rules for playing a Demon and a Fairy, but such are expansion books and their expanded conceptual space horizons).

If I was in charge of specifically rebooting the World of Darkness line to make a new new World of Darkness, my flagship titles would be Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, Changeling, and Hunter. Of those, really only Vampire would look that much like the original in terms of cosmology and shit. Those are the most popular book lines, and that's pretty much the end of it. But of course, Werewolf, Mage, Changeling, and Hunter all went way out of their way to be grossly unplayable with Vampire (or just: at all) in both new and old World of Darkness versions, and you'd have to rewrite them to the reality that they are Vampire expansions and must be played and playable alongside and within Vampire.

-Username17

[TheFlatline]

I'm actually kind of surprised you'd pick Changeling. It hasn't been done well and I'm having trouble thinking of a pitch line that sounds appealing.

[RadiantPhoenix]

I'm actually kind of surprised you'd pick Changeling. It hasn't been done well and I'm having trouble thinking of a pitch line that sounds appealing.

"Have you ever wondered why your parents seem so different from you? Read this and find out!"

[Lago PARANOIA]

What RadiantPhoenix said. The pitch of 'ditch your humdrum life and travel to a brand new world where immaturity and imagination runs free that you're allowed to opt out of anytime but nonetheless slowly become addicted to your fantasy world while and your loved ones attract malevolent fey attention' is a pitch that you can simultaneously get small children, disaffected college students, and 40-year old alcoholic divorcees to sign up for AND get a lot of horror mileage from.

[hyzmarca]

As the Ars Magica thread demonstrably showed, people can't really agree on what would happen if reality had one alternate paradigm. If everyone has a different reality paradigm they are attempting to explain, you're really just playing solipsism the game. Which is what Mage was, of course. It was a game about being a solipsistic douche who describes their own ideal world to other people who do not and can not understand what the fuck they are talking about.

I would argue that all paradigms are lies. (Well misinterpretation). None of the mages are right about how reality works because their paradigms are ultimately pointless. It doesn't matter what they believe because their magic works in spite of their beliefs.

The Spheres, on the other hand, are probably (but not certainly) part of the underlying reality because they're shared by all mages across all paradigms and function the same no matter the mage's paradigm.

The result is that mages are about the same as the Sleepers, really. A Virtual Adept writes a magic program, but he's really using sphere magic and there's nothing innately magical about computer programing. Same with any other mage.

The Sleepers, likewise, use Sphere magic all the time without knowing it, which is the basis for the "Consensual reality, which isn't reality at all. Its just everyone using sphere magic all the time without being aware that they're doing so."

[Username17]

I'm actually kind of surprised you'd pick Changeling. It hasn't been done well and I'm having trouble thinking of a pitch line that sounds appealing.

It hasn't done well. But it hasn't done as badly as say, Wraith (which got canned four years before the cWoD tent got folded). It was never one of the "big three," but I think it's clearly the fourth or fifth most popular line. What's above it? Demon? Mummy? Immortals? Street Fighter?

The five splats that got ported to Dark Ages were Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, Hunter (called Inquisitor), and Changeling (called Fae). That's because those were the top selling lines, and that's what they made the 13th century revamp around. The drop off from the top three to the fourth and fifth lines is pretty big, but the drop off between those lines and truly niche products like Orpheus is greater still.

So bottom line: if you had the World of Darkness license and you were making a new new World of Darkness and trying to get books into actual stores, your five lines would be: Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, Hunter, and Changeling. Obviously you'd want to present a version where you could play mixed coteries and there wasn't institutionalized pedophilia, but those would clearly be the titles on the five main splat books. Also, they would be colored Red for Vampire, Brown for Werewolf, Purple for Mage, Blue for Hunter, and Green for Changeling, because reasons.

As for making a pitch for Changeling, you're obviously going to have to do something different from oChangeling (where you play a loli sex goddess) and nChangeling (where you play a recovering sex abuse victim). I suggest that you'd play an actual Changeling. I know, crazy, right? You find out that your parents aren't your real parents and that you're actually a fairy sleeper agent, who has been sent to the mortal world to be raised by unsuspecting mundanes because that way you are able to exist normally in the mortal world for an unlimited amount of time, as opposed to Arcadian fairies who get only brief periods on the mortal world before they phase back to Arcadia. So you have no memory of the fairy court and might actually be loyal to your adopted family, but your biological parents (and the people they are affiliated with) want you to get involved in some crazy Arcadian court intrigue now that your fairy powers are starting to come in.

So you get to do ugly duckling / secret princess stories and you have a built-in reason why Earth's history seems to be unaffected by this set of supernatural politics.

-Username17

[Lago PARANOIA]

Should World of Darkness arrange future books like they've been doing? That is, with each splat being its own core rulebook rather than having one basic core rulebook expansion splats build off of?

[virgil]

Why do you think that those five splats should be in to the preference to other splats? For example, while you could probably spin a lot of stories out of hidden intelligences and civilizations buried deep in the ocean, their memetic power in contemporary pop culture is pretty weak despite what CoC fans will tell you.

If you focus on their Eldritch roots, I think the pop-culture advantage is real. I've heard it somewhere, but Werewolves struggle with rage issues, Vampires with their need to draw upon others to survive. The emotion touched upon with Deep Ones could be Regret, where they realize that they their earlier behavior (eons past) was monstrous.

[RadiantPhoenix]

Should World of Darkness arrange future books like they've been doing? That is, with each splat being its own core rulebook rather than having one basic core rulebook expansion splats build off of?

It seems obvious to me that the first rulebook should be playable right out of the gate, with no extra buy-in. (i.e., you don't need to buy two books to play)

I'm pretty sure that nobody wants to play ordinary mortals, so that leaves two choices for the "basic book":

• Vampire, because it's the big one
• Hunter, because it seems likely to be the closest to a "baseline", and like it would benefit the most from having a bunch of content for "ordinary mortals"

EDIT: Scratch that, I'm pretty sure Vampire has to be playable all by itself, so it has to be completely self-contained.

Further, people probably don't want to flip between books.

Thus, you're going to have a common set of "mortals" rules that's reprinted mechanically identical in every book. It might also be available as a free PDF on the website.

[Prak]

I think it depends on what you consider "ordinary mortals." A version of WoD where the core book allows you to play Dean and Sam ripoffs would probably at least be popular enough to get people to buy your core book and hold on for the first Splat to be released. Also, you could be somewhat money grubbing and release your Core and first Splat either simultaneously or very close together. Given that most of your system is in the Core and the Splat is just there to give people the rules for and society of one specific monster, the Splat could even be relatively cheap.

[RadiantPhoenix]

Don't let people be in the position of having bought a $10 "new edition of Vampire", and then discovering all too late that they have to buy a $50 "mortals" book to actually play it. That's not a good kind of surprise.

Instead, there's a $10 "Mortals: World of Darkness Base Game" with the base rules, and a $50 "Vampire: the Obligatory Subtitle" book with the rules for playing Vampires, as well as oodles of cool stuff for Vampires. It might even come with a free copy of "Mortals"

EDIT: Fuck, you might even be able to go all fancy and put a physical slot in the "Vampire" book that you can actually slide the "Mortals" book into so the "Vampire" book can "bite" the "Mortals" book!

[Prak]

I'd much rather make a $20-30 Core Book which includes "Mortals and everything that's done to them that doesn't make them immortal" (thrall, ghoul, etc.) and a $20-ish Vampire book.

Edit: I'd probably include the Imbued hunter rules in the core book, because they have some powers, but they're still mortal, thinking about it.

[TheFlatline]

I'd much rather make a $20-30 Core Book which includes "Mortals and everything that's done to them that doesn't make them immortal" (thrall, ghoul, etc.) and a $20-ish Vampire book.

Edit: I'd probably include the Imbued hunter rules in the core book, because they have some powers, but they're still mortal, thinking about it.

You just described nWOD.

Right down to the pricing structure.

Then they decided fuck you they'll charge 40-50 per book and all the splat books are hardcover because hardcover costs more.

[TheFlatline]

I'm actually kind of surprised you'd pick Changeling. It hasn't been done well and I'm having trouble thinking of a pitch line that sounds appealing.

It hasn't done well. But it hasn't done as badly as say, Wraith (which got canned four years before the cWoD tent got folded). It was never one of the "big three," but I think it's clearly the fourth or fifth most popular line. What's above it? Demon? Mummy? Immortals? Street Fighter?

The five splats that got ported to Dark Ages were Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, Hunter (called Inquisitor), and Changeling (called Fae). That's because those were the top selling lines, and that's what they made the 13th century revamp around. The drop off from the top three to the fourth and fifth lines is pretty big, but the drop off between those lines and truly niche products like Orpheus is greater still.

So bottom line: if you had the World of Darkness license and you were making a new new World of Darkness and trying to get books into actual stores, your five lines would be: Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, Hunter, and Changeling. Obviously you'd want to present a version where you could play mixed coteries and there wasn't institutionalized pedophilia, but those would clearly be the titles on the five main splat books. Also, they would be colored Red for Vampire, Brown for Werewolf, Purple for Mage, Blue for Hunter, and Green for Changeling, because reasons.

As for making a pitch for Changeling, you're obviously going to have to do something different from oChangeling (where you play a loli sex goddess) and nChangeling (where you play a recovering sex abuse victim). I suggest that you'd play an actual Changeling. I know, crazy, right? You find out that your parents aren't your real parents and that you're actually a fairy sleeper agent, who has been sent to the mortal world to be raised by unsuspecting mundanes because that way you are able to exist normally in the mortal world for an unlimited amount of time, as opposed to Arcadian fairies who get only brief periods on the mortal world before they phase back to Arcadia. So you have no memory of the fairy court and might actually be loyal to your adopted family, but your biological parents (and the people they are affiliated with) want you to get involved in some crazy Arcadian court intrigue now that your fairy powers are starting to come in.

So you get to do ugly duckling / secret princess stories and you have a built-in reason why Earth's history seems to be unaffected by this set of supernatural politics.

-Username17

So basically you play the Cylon sleepers in the BSG reboot.

Okay I'm totally on board for that.

[Prak]

I'd much rather make a $20-30 Core Book which includes "Mortals and everything that's done to them that doesn't make them immortal" (thrall, ghoul, etc.) and a $20-ish Vampire book.

Edit: I'd probably include the Imbued hunter rules in the core book, because they have some powers, but they're still mortal, thinking about it.

You just described nWOD.

Right down to the pricing structure.

Then they decided fuck you they'll charge 40-50 per book and all the splat books are hardcover because hardcover costs more.

Yeah, there's no reason to charge that much, and about the only reason to do hardcover is because of that peeling thing soft cover does.

I can't imagine writing $50 worth of Vampire material, at least not for a single book.

[TheFlatline]

I'd much rather make a $20-30 Core Book which includes "Mortals and everything that's done to them that doesn't make them immortal" (thrall, ghoul, etc.) and a $20-ish Vampire book.

Edit: I'd probably include the Imbued hunter rules in the core book, because they have some powers, but they're still mortal, thinking about it.

You just described nWOD.

Right down to the pricing structure.

Then they decided fuck you they'll charge 40-50 per book and all the splat books are hardcover because hardcover costs more.

Yeah, there's no reason to charge that much, and about the only reason to do hardcover is because of that peeling thing soft cover does.

I can't imagine writing $50 worth of Vampire material, at least not for a single book.

It's the same amount of material that the edition that was selling 6 months previously was charging 30 bucks for.

The writing was so atrocious that we got a 200 page "rulebook" plus the 3-400 page vampire book and the vampire book still managed to not particularly have more content than the oWOD vampire core book had in it at roughly the same page count.

I don't get how you strip out the entire rule system out of a book, keep the same page count, but don't cover substantially *more* ground. That's some serious bloat right there.

[BoxCrayonTales]

Prak, what makes this different from playing the official world of darkness, classic or new, or any of the heartbreakers?

While your intention is to create a spiritual sequel to the world of darkness, that is not what you are doing in practice. Ignoring the stupid white wolf terminology for a moment, your splats are pretty much copies with a few minor tweaks here and there. You have missed the spirit of the games completely.

Vampire was not about the story of Cain and Abel. Werewolf was not about binding spirits. Mage was not about splitting your soul. Those things are mechanics, but they are not the core ideas of the games. The core of the games are metaphors for different aspects of humanity.

The core idea of Vampire was personal horror. This has nothing to do with horror movies or being scared or any nonsense like that. Personal horror is horror at one's own actions. Vampire PCs commit terrible acts and this where the personal horror comes from: the players are horrified at the depths to which their characters have sunk to achieve their goals.

The core idea of Werewolf was savage horror/fury. The PCs are deeply in touch with their savage natures and this makes it hard for them to integrate with normal society. They put their friends and family at risk because a single loss of control could send someone to the hospital. So they associate with their own kind, who are less at risk.

The core idea of Mage is freedom versus control and the temptation of power. Do we sacrifice our freedom for a little security, or do we fight for the right to free speech and freedom of religion? If we had the power to do whatever we wanted without consequence, should we? Do we have a responsibility not to?

The core idea of Ghost (Wraith's original name) is the refusal to give up. The PCs have lived through tragedies only to see things that crush their hearts on a regular basis. But through it all they refuse to give up and fight for life. But in order to live, they must let go of the past and move on to a brighter future even if it deeply hurts to do so.

The core idea of Fairy (Changeling's original name) is that you should never let go of your dreams even if life tells you otherwise. Sure, the world may suck and you are probably doomed to a monotonous job, but your dreams, curiosity and wonder are what make it all bearable.

Of course such an artsy premise is lost on most players and the writing was shitty, but that was the original thinking when the games first came out.

[Prak]

Dude, the last time I actually talked about the splats, rather than trying to set you straight about WoD Demons, proper source material for same, or a basic idea of how I'd do the books was three fucking days ago before a visit from a woman I don't get to see nearly enough that day and an inspiration for a d20 campaign started percolating in my head and an interview for a new job this morning and shopping for clothes for said interview.

How the hell could you know what I'm doing in practice when I haven't had time or attention to fucking do anything in practice for three days!?

[hyzmarca]

There's two reasons to have the core seperate from the splats, both of them financial.

First of all, it forces people who want to play your game to buy two books, hypothetically this doubles your sales. I say hypothetically because there are people who would buy one book but don't want to buy two.

Second of all, it keeps the page count down. When you're putting books on physical store shelves every time you don't reprint the core rules at the front of a book the printer charges you less, and that's a good thing.

This is really freaking important if you're paying for every single unit up front. Shaving ten or twenty pages off is savings. And if your core rules are 300 pages long, yeah. An 800 page rulebook would be unpublishable so splitting makes sense.

The latter is less of an issue in the modern age with PDF releases and print on demand but it does slightly raise the price is a POD book.

Though you still have to recoup your initial costs (what you paid your freelancers and editors, basically, if you're using PDF publishing) So an 800 page book is probably still unpublishably long, though for a different reason.

[momothefiddler]

Don't let people be in the position of having bought a $10 "new edition of Vampire", and then discovering all too late that they have to buy a $50 "mortals" book to actually play it. That's not a good kind of surprise.

I still think this is a very important point.

[TiaC]

Nowadays, why wouldn't you put your core rules in an SRD?

[RadiantPhoenix]

Don't let people be in the position of having bought a $10 "new edition of Vampire", and then discovering all too late that they have to buy a $50 "mortals" book to actually play it. That's not a good kind of surprise.

I still think this is a very important point.

Shrink-wrap a copy of the "Mortals" book to the inside of the front cover of the "Vampire" book, and the "Werewolf" book, and...

Nowadays, why wouldn't you put your core rules in an SRD?

You could do that.

A lot of people will still really want a dead-tree copy.