Customer Reviews

The World of Darkness

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Let me begin by saying that I have never read or played any of the World of Darkness games before now. I suppose that is a good thing, since I won't be comparing WORLD OF DARKNESS to any previous incarnations. As I understand it, this book has no analogue from the old World of Darkness; this book, the WORLD OF DARKNESS Storytelling System Rulebook, collects all of the mechanics for playing World of Darkness games so that none of the other gamebooks are cluttered with repetitions of the rules. While some people see that as a cynical marketing ploy to sell more books, I see it as a brilliant marketing ploy to sell more books. The core rules, WORLD OF DARKNESS, describes the mechanics and flavor of playing a mortal, regular human in a horror game. Judging from fan response, the "mortals" game has been a big hit, with supplements such as GHOST STORIES, MYSTERIOUS PLACES, and ANTAGONISTS to help new storytellers develop their chronicles, with other mortals books like ARMORY and SECOND SIGHT to add more depth to playing mortals. WORLD OF DARKNESS is more than just a collection of rules; it is its own game line.

In case you are new to White Wolf games (as I was a few months ago), the systems are designed around telling a story rather than war gaming. You can tell (or play in) a good story no matter what system you use; it really depends on the players and the StoryTeller (ST). WORLD OF DARKNESS is, however, designed and packaged around the concept of telling a story or acting out a drama. The book opens with a fictive narrative which helps set the mood. Each chapter opens with a short story or segment that serves to ispire the ST and players. And most interesting (to me), each attribute and skill is explained by a short horror snippet to serve as an in-character example. It's very well done and should be employed by every game system for the clarity it provides.

The great portion of the book is spent on building a character, as this information is used when building and playing supers in VAMPIRE, WEREWOLF, and MAGE. You start by developing a character concept and then explains choosing your attributes, skills, and merits. You choose a virtue and vice to define your character (from the 7 heavenly virtues and 7 deadly sins), calculate your health and willpower, and set your starting morality. For those who, like me, never played this system before, let me explain how these work. Your health has 3 levels: bashing (bruising damage), lethal (cutting and tearing damage), and aggravated (supernatural or really horrific damage). If you have more bashing than health points, it turns to lethal damage; too much lethal turns to agg. If all your bashing points are full, you pass out; full lethal is bleeding out, full agg is dead. The different wound levels are interesting to me. Willpower is also a fun idea - you can spend a point of willpower to add 3 dice to the pool that you roll (which is roughly 1 success). Willpower isn't easy to get back, but sometimes you really need to pass your check.

There's a section on the ordinary mechanics; what you roll in what situation, how to contest someone else's actions, etc. The chapter on combat is well explained with good examples. And there's a good chapter on how to tell a dramatic story (as opposed to one that falls flat?). It outlines the components of a good story, the pacing, and sample antagonists. There is a good description of ghosts as antagonists. And at the end is one page on XP.


Things I particularly like about WORLD OF DARKNESS:
1. Every player can use everything in the book. There is no big section on spells that is useless to fighter-types. In this sense, the book is very immersive because I don't compartmentalize as I read.

2. Every attribute and mechanic has an in-game example of how to use it and how you might interpret successes and failures. Much better than some systems that left me wondering how to actually roll the dice.

3. Willpower - for when you just ABSOLUTELY have to make your roll.

Problems in WORLD OF DARKNESS
1. The morality mechanic needed more explaining. This is probably the least understood aspect of the book.

I really can't reccommend WORLD OF DARKNESS highly enough, either as a game or as a standalone book. It is highly flexible, well-explained, and has a vivid atmosphere.

Although most of the old players of the World of Darkness settings might argue that the system is overall unimpotant to the game, my group has always been interested in the game system and its relation with the roleplaying. And I must say, unfortunately, although we always loved the Vampire setting and overall mood of the World of Darkness as a whole, we always felt that the system was not very well thought in some aspects, specially combat and characters balance. Also, it was hard to do certain things in the game, as many times there wasn't enough explanation about important actions in most roleplaying games, like the use of vehicles, social interaction and so on. And thus, we migrated to Gurps (I know, not the best for roleplaying, but still more balanced in terms of system). Three editions of Vampire the Masquerade came out, and they all felt the same.

Now, I find that the new World of Darkness brought, in this first book, a deep concern in game mechanics, as well as with mood and organization of the information available. I couldn't be more pleased.

First off, of course, the changes on the system. Relevant and necessary changes were made, making the game more realistic and controlled. It finally makes some sense! You can add situation modifiers without making it impossible or too easy to perform any task. Combat is more realistic too -- now, if you're any good, you get to actually hit your foes, not only suck because they all got Dex 4 + Dodge 4.

Still about the system, now, unlike the old editions, there IS a core rulebook with all basic system mechanics. Because so far, they always had to repeat themselves in all settings, with pages and pages of rules they should have concentrated in a single book to start with. This grants the system mechanics the space it actually demands, making it possible to suggest rules to, for example, chasing someone in a car, or seducing another character.

The atmosphere of the game is still incredibly well shaped and introduced by some of the best horror/grungy/mistery tales ever written. It's not just more of the same fantasy work anyone could write (and don't get me wrong, I love the medieval fantasy setting). The stories told in this book can actually keep you reading and reading.

So, we got here an effort to make a better system, a good one, though without complicating it -- after all, WoD players don't like to have to memorize hundreds of pointless tables -- and without losing the old breath-taking atmosphere. It's all the game needed all these years, in my opinion.

On a side note, the artwork in this book is some of the best you'll ever see in any book. It's beautiful. I feel this kind of book needs decent art to show exactly how the setting feels, and they took the care here.

Finally, I must say, this book is a must-have. You don't see this mix of atmosphere and game mechanics in most games. If you're a roleplaying gamer, and specially if you're an old WoD player, have a look on it, and try not to fall in love with it.

When I heard that White Wolf Games was going to re-invent their classic "World of Darkness" game line after a little over a decade, I, like many others, was concerned that the new game lines and setting wouldn't measure up to the original "World of Darkness" and the classic games it produced, such as Vampire: the Masquerade, Mage: The Ascension and Werewolf: The Apocalypse.

I was pleasantly surprised with the World of Darkness core rulebook, primarily because the "Gothic-Punk" setting which was the hallmark of World of Darkness 1.0 because it so deftly summed up the mood of the world as we ended one millennium and began another, has been replaced with a more natural, interesting (imo) and realistic setting, which is much closer in spirit and context to the "ordinary" world in which Stephen King spins his supernatural stories, and in the core rulebook, there are nods to Mr. King in a couple of chapters.

Also, because there's no "metaplot" like there was with World Of Darkness 1.0, anyone who wishes to play the game can create stories which have their own unique flavor and style. With the focus on "everyday" horror, instead of a metaplot, the stories which can be told within the new World Of Darkness will be much more enjoyable.

The rules (including the use of dice) are more streamlined and comprehensive, and makes it easier to play mortals who are introduced to this "other world" through various experiences with the supernatural which are detailed in two other WoD 2.0 books which I recommend -- GHOST STORIES and MYSTERIOUS PLACES. This streamlining of the rules, especially when it comes to the use of dice, makes the game much easier to play, and even manages to silence those annoying "rules lawyers" -- the people who have to quibble over every little rule in the game -- because the rules for combat, health and overall character development are clearly defined and simplified enough for anyone to follow.

I agree that the "Morality" chapter needs a bit more work on it to make it a little clearer, especially when you apply it to a specific character and/or situation which the character may find himself or herself in, but overall ... I like the new "World of Darkness", and I recommend the core rule book highly.

This is the restart of the World of Darkness, and it starts with a bang. Wheras previous WoD books drove away anyone who was not intrisically interested in playing a Vampire or Mage or Werewolf, etc., this book is useful for anyone who is sick of the d20 system. This book is designed in order to create human characters, which can later be turned into vampires or werewolves or mages. The Storyteller system works, and now anyone can feel free to use it. Everything is codified so that all the various groups can more easily intermingle, and the combat system is speeded up.

Definitely recommended.

I have been playing rpgs all my life, but have always stuck to more traditional games like Dungeons & Dragons. Many of my friends have been playing WoD for YEARS and yet I have always steered away from it, thinking "Well that's just that weirdo goth game for vampire fans gone overboard"....

Lately, however, I have become increasingly disgruntled with the new revisions of my cherished "tradtitional" rpgs, and how these revisions seem to detract from the heart of telling an immersive, atmospheric tale. More and more, I just want a game where I can stretch my imagination both as a player as well as a GM... a game where the focus is NOT primarily on the rules and centered around things like damage types and effect types and creature types and what THIS weapon can do with THIS effect against THIS type on a third Tuesday if the moon is full and the defender is on higher ground with THIS bonus and and holding an item with THESE modifiers if he's at THIS health level and has just eaten fish. Basically, I have become sick of limitations and the need to memorize those types of rules.

This past weekend, a good friend of mine asked me if I would help him create plots and stories for his upcoming Changeling game, and I thought "Oh great... White Wolf WoD again...."

But for the sake of humoring him, and a willingness to at least TRY something new, I picked up the World Of Darkness core book, this "Blue Book" as the fans call it, and grabbed a copy of "Changeling: The Lost" to go along with it.

Forget about "Changeling" for now... I thumbed through this "new" WoD core book, and I honestly feel like I can never go back again! I became hooked almost immediately, before the point where I had yet read a single rule! Twenty-plus pages into the volume, and I was still reading the various snippets of story hooks and idea-inspiration and atmosphere without so much as rule 1, and it was totally refreshing just to see an rpg book DO THAT!

And as I began to read more and more, further into the book, something happened which I did not expect. Although I was doing this as a favor to a friend, for a specific setting (Changeling)... I began to see the possibilities for this game as an AMAZING stand-alone game without the need for the "Genre/Setting" books such as Mage and Vampire.

As a stand-alone book, the rules embody the simplicity I have been craving lately from an RPG, combined with the simple premise of "imagine your everyday real world but the supernatural exists" which has opened role-playing doors to endless possibilities for a TON of things I have always wanted to try!

Wanna run a "Silent Hill"-esque tabletop campaign for a couple of friends one evening? GO AHEAD! This WoD book and its optional handful of non-"Vampire/Werewolf" supplements allows you to do that!
Wanna take a player or two through a couple of stories inspired by the TV show "Supernaturals"? DO IT!
"Cthulu" campaign float your boat? Dive right in!
Indiana Jones? Check! That's right goth fans, I just said "Indiana Jones"!!! The Indy series of films has always been centered around "what if the supernatural existed and left behind some artifacts"... and that is a premise which lies at the very heart of what this WoD book is all about! Just TRY to deny it!

The cool thing about the "NEW" World Of Darkness, based on what I have been hearing from those I have talked to about it, is that the core book has become a "genre/setting" all its own! Whereas "Vampire" and "Werewolf" and "Changeling" allow you to become those types of creatures, the blue book and its own branch of supplements explores the role of players as humans, mortals... so in a way I guess it's like adding "Human" to that list of monster-inpired genre books.

Overall, I have given this book its five-star rating just from the sheer limitless possibilities it opens up, and the simplicity of the rules which I have been missing and craving lately... a simplicity which allows the STORY to breathe and unfold without a dozen "check the book for that rule" moments.
Perhaps an old-school WoD fan would give the book less of a rating, citing things like "they changed THIS and ruined THAT and the new method of THIS is just unneccessary!"...
But as a player/GM totally new to WoD and what it offers, I am looking at it strictly from the standpoint of how refreshing it is as compared to what I have been stuck with lately and what I have been craving from an rpg, and this World Of Darkness "blue book" delivers in spades!

I played the old WOD setting and I'm well familiar with how many of the core books for the different game settings often repeated rules for character creation and then often had clunky or difficult cross-over rules and handling. The old setting is great in many ways.

But I love the new system and new WOD even better. While I can see many nods and similarities between the old rules and the new ones, there are just as many differences and the best advice for someone who thinks themself a vetern player of the old games, treat this as a new setting and new rules to learn.

This is your corebook, with stream lined rules for making a mortal character and fairly easy to remember rules once you've made the time to read through them.

I also feel I should note that the combat system is lethal, running in, half cocked without a plan gets you killed. This isn't D&D with instant magical healing and experience rewarded for how many monsters you kill.

And with the stream lined rules, its easier now to stick with and do just a straight mortal game, or buy the core rules for Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, ect. and implement them for game play.

So if you want to play for story and drama with maturity and an experience system that rewards that, this is the game to get and pick up. If you want points for killing monsters, power and loot, then stick with D&D.

This is White Wolf's generic system book for its various product lines stuffed with system rules.

The system is much more solid then the previous storyteller system. Rolls are difficulty 8 with modifiers to the dice pool. Even when you shouldn't be able to go for something you can roll one die but risk dramatic failure. Borrowing from some systems there's also a 10-again re-roll rule.

Players familiar with DC Heroes will recognize the much more streamlined approach to abilities in the three catagories: power (attacking: intelligence, strength, presence), finese (agility: wits, dexterity, manipulation), and resistance (defense: resolve, stamina, composure). These are in mental, physical, and social columns, respectively. If you want a good looking character, (Previous Appearance ability) that's a Merit. Backgrounds are now called Merits too. A standard starting character begins with 7.

I like it. Alot. The only reason I gave it 4 stars is I feel it could have been thicker with what shows up in books such as Armory. Lowering the final cost-per-page for the buyer.

Now, I was a little freaked out when the words "New World of Darkness" came out on White Wolf's page(and in many more rpg sites especially). First of all, I thought, "Wait, we just went through TOJ, the Apocalypse, and what's described as the END of the World. What's up?" So, without going into too much more explanation about how I had presumed the new setting was /post/ apocalyptic, let's just say I made a mistake.

The brand new World of Darkness, as described by WW(and co.), is "another version of our universe in which the paranormal exist and where evil things" lurking, vampires, yadda yadda...Anyway, what you get is the basic setting: conspiracy and crime reign lead by the hand of corporate megalomaniacs who upsize the profit and downsize the conditions of countless metropoli so that they have effectively erased the middle class. The sun never shines and gothic people cry every day.

So why the "new" WOD? What was wrong with the original World, and more importantly, what can this new World offer that the other lacks? Well, the answer, in a number of ways, is simple. For one, the new campaign has a streamlined set of rules. For those that played the old WOD, roll Dodge and Soak no more. A new statistic is added called Defense which subtracts from your opponents Attack roll! Another handy fix is the elimination of botches, for when things just BEG to go horribly wrong. These are just a few examples of some of the changes in the whole rolling category.

Aside from the dice-rolling aspect, which White Wolf still detracts as semi-necessary, alot of roleplaying aspects have been changed too. More specifically in Vampire: The Requiem. Now, don't say I'm getting off subject(or off product), because to live in a world of the supernatural, you can't /just/ have mortals and their clingy souls. But then again, humans got a better wrap compared to some of the monsters WW sets up. For instance, the total number of clans has been cut from near 13 to 5. And it seems as thought production was in a hurry, so the designers just smooshed them all together. Maybe that's a bit exaggerated, but looking over the clan descriptions(as part of the VtR preview), alot of the traits seem alike. Ventrue weakness covers gaining mental abnormalities. Gangrel no longer gain animalistic features on frenzy(at least there's a frenzy). And Mekhet(Assamite 2.0) don't get darker as they age. Not to mention, saying goodbye to sect wars...no Sects! So alot of the interesting and distinctive qualities of the game were left out, and it's a little bit depressing. What can you expect from a horror game? Hopefully, the company will be able to produce more media to make the setting more spicy, but as for now, it's like they dropped us back on 2nd Edition.

That's just me though. I miss my Malkies...Oh well, White Wolf has still done their job, and it's still my favorite setting. So to conclude my review I give World of Darkness and the whole line of the new WOD a 4 out of 5, because not only have they delivered their product in a tight, good-looking format as usual, but because they've also remembered the content and their beginnings.

Ive been playing the wold of darkness for almost four years now and its an amazing game with real depth and meaning. Imagine what it would be like if suddenly you found out that monsters were real and that they were all around us? Thats what this game is about, an everyday mortal learning that they are not alone in the world and even worse, they arent at the top of the food chain.

At first it can be a confusing system, espcially if you're used to d20 or some other dice system but its likely the easiest to learn and the easiest to master of any system I've ever played. Character creation is quick as long as you have a steady idea in your head and there are no classes or other elements to pigeon hole you into a single role. Character development is slow but not so slow to make it meaningless.

If you're looking for a realistic horror style game you should definately pick this book up and if you dont have someone to play with in your area then feel free to join our World of darkness site at [...] we would love to have you

At only 222 pages long, this White Wolf sourcebook is the best they have to offer.
It has the basic stats and mechanics, storytelling advice, antagonists, merits, derangements, and enough flavor text to give you great ideas. It's not without it's flaws, however, something that's more relevant to experienced rpers than those just thinking about starting roleplaying.

First, White Wolf's M.O. White Wolf rpgs are famous for letting you play the antagonist/supernatural/demigod. They were first and foremost(at least in the case of World of Darkness) about making supernaturals playable and interesting, and only second if at all about the mundane aspects of the characters lives'. This all changed with this book, one core sourcebook to unite them all, which also emphasizes mortals and low-level storytelling that was missing in the old World of Darkness.

Second, the World of Darkness itself. It is a twisted shadow of our world; think of it as one of the parallel universes on Doctor Who or Sliders, only this world is a dark, twisted place where the Cthulhu would be right at home, in which things we cannot see or deliberately subconsciously ignore prey upon our bodies and souls. Delicious horror tropes indeed, and though the approach is sometimes too formulaic, it's easy to see why World of Darkness is so well-liked with this book. The main supernatural gamelines are Vampire the Requiem, Werewolf the Forsaken and Mage the Awakening, although there are many more limited run series out as well. The cosmology includes multiple reflections of this reflection of our world, such as a spirit realm that reflects hostile or beneficient actions and is policed by the half-spirit Werewolf clans, or the skinlands, a place where all unfulfilled ghosts hang out, or the supernal realms, from which Mages draw their power.

Third, the mechanics. The WoD uses a D10 system, in which you have a target number and a pool of dice and roll to try for a certain number of successes. For example, suppose you are an experienced burglar trying to lockpick a car door without tools. This might net you a difficulty of 7, since experience might translate into a +1, and no tools might be a -1. So, on your dice pool(which is calculated by a relevant attribute plus a relevant skill, say, Larceny plus Dexterity) you roll that many dice and count up your 7's or above. 10's are normally rerolled as a reflection of an exceptional success. You have three basic types of stats and skills, physical mental and social. This is a big improvement for me over having something like say, rifts, where cooking(while not in the same category), is around the same skill level as demolitions. You also have merits to choose from, and possible derangements. The damage types are better explained in another review, so I'll leave it at that, with one exception. The one downside to all these mechanics is the core sourcebook is seriously lacking in equipment. For that you need the two armory books.
The merits are all extremely well-done, and while I wish there were more of them, particularly in the mental category, they should all be useful to your players at one time or another.

Willpower: use this attribute to reroll critical actions, ignore wounds, and othere useful heroic feats.

Downsides to the Mechanics:
The morality system blows. To put it simply, it would have been better served as a sanity system, which is I think what they were aiming for anyway, as you gain derangements as you lose morality. This is a flaw in all WoD books, and can be extremely stifling for experienced roleplayers if you use it as the book intended, especially since you can't commit murder of any kind without dropping to morality two or three on a scale of 10, and you drop from 10 for selfish thoughts. It seems to me designed, along with the virtues and vices, to punish players for playing anything other than benign, mother teresa-esque characters of enlightened charitability. So, what I recommend is, use it as an alignment system ala D&D: your players start their characters at a chosen Morality score and it stays there, unless they drastically change their actions to reflect a new Morality score. For instance, in my campaign the players' hitman with honor stays at 3 since he does murder people, but doesn't have to roll vs a derangement every time he takes a hit job either.

Also, the skillset, while offset by specialties, may be stifling for players of super exhaustive rpgs such as GURPS, as there are only a handful of base skills to specialize from.

Fourth: Summary
While the World of Darkness is by no means an exhaustive, play anything-you-want rpg like GURPS, and has some problems, particularly with the morality system, I heartily recommend it to all those who enjoy the specific genres and settings it represents. Play in our world, only darker, and enjoy a dark mystery campaign as you unravel the secrets of the world of darkness piece by piece, only to feel your hope and sanity slipping away as well.

What this is: A masterfully done take on genres such as Gothic horror, dark mystery, and so on, with a detailed and specific set of settings to enrich your campaigns. The dot system(rolled with D10's) and the limited skillset AND the one-roll combat are all designed to facilitate storytelling first and foremost(if you, like me, like more meat to your combat, contact me and I'll email you what I have for beefing up combat) and only interact with the mechanics of the system second.

What this is not: this is not a "Gamist" system like Dungeons and Dragons, wherein it's all about using the system to defeat difficult monsters and tests and acquire loot, and this is not a universal system like GURPS , wherein all genres and character types are represented.

This is a very specific gameline to supernatural horror and I would heartily recommend it to those who enjoy that genre of gaming.