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thedeadflag · 4 years

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Hey, question, I've only ever heard of Vampire the Masquerade, but are there other World of Darkness games? 'cause I know there are other supernaturals, like changelings, and mages and werewolves, and I'm curious if you have to play another game to play those creatures, or if they are just NPCs, or something else. Also, if there are multiple games, are they compatible? Could I play a Changeling, from the changeling system (if there is one), or a werewolf (from it's system), on a VtM game?

There’s a whole bunch of other games, yeah.

I know the old head evangelists might hate me for saying it, but you should check out the ‘Chronicles of Darkness’ era of WoD games. The “Old World of Darkness” games can also be found for cheap, generally, but IMHO the rules are wonkier and don’t really align too well with the kind of mainstream TTRPG dynamics we’re seeing today in DND 5e, Pathfinder 2E, V:tM v5, etc.

I loved Chronicles (or, New World of Darkness, as I knew them back when they were released) for the gameplay dynamics that were ahead of their time. They scrapped a set-in-stone universal lore for a more modular approach that a lot of the main WoD fanbase hated, but I loved how plug and play things got to be. Sure, it was imperfect, and you had to do a bit of a feeling out process to make it work, but you could mix and match. I ran a few WoD campaigns mixing in Vampires, Werewolves, Changelings, Hunters, Ghosts, etc. and it wasn’t too hard to figure out after a few attempts at finding a method for balancing and gearing the player group to a certain tone and understanding of power differentials (as in, human mortal hunters tend to be waaaaay more vulnerable and weaker than supernaturals)

Chronicles has a generic system core book, World of Darkness. It then branches out into specific supernatural core books to expand upon the system. If you’ve ever played Monte Cook games like Numenera, or any of the FATE Core-related games, you’ll be familiar with this sort of approach. Essentially, if you know the WoD rules, you can jump into just about any of the other source books without much difficulty, and won’t need much time/effort to get things up and running.

In oWoD, and in newer editions of Vampire and whatnot, there’s no way to really accomplish that that’s not through massive homebrew edits, and it would require tossing the basic lore in the trash (in which case, why even go with oWoD/classic since that’s what it has going for it and nothing else). V5 is new, so while Werewolf is on the way, and probably Changeling and Mage afterward, the older settings are where you’ll find the diversity and capability for what you’re looking for.

And FWIW, it’s easy to get the best of both worlds. You can grab some of the lore from the oWoD books (I did a lot of this in my campaigns), and use the mechanics of Chronicles/nWoD.

One thing to note, though, as an exception:

Do NOT merge Mage with any of these. Yes, it’s possible, but Mages are game-breaking in multi-source games even when people don’t try to make it that way. There’s no real way around it. Vampires and Werewolves in the same group? Yeah, that can work, there’s a sub-book or two with balancing details specifically for that, I think it had to do with a Mexican locale/setting. Adding CHangeling in on top of Vamps and Werewolves could prove a little trickier, but that’s more in a narrative sense, so you’d really want to be comfortable with all the source materials so you’d know how to manage all of those threads.

But it’s 100% possible to run multi-source games, and the game system makes room for that.

I recommend checking out:

Chronicles of Darkness/World of Darkness (important to understand the core mechanics and the spirit of the system)

Vampire: The Requiem (if you want to run a vampire character, you’ll need this)

Werewolf: The Forsaken (ditto for werewolves)

Changeling: The Lost (ditto for changelings)

Hunter: The Vigil (if you want to run hunters, or even just have organized mortal antagonists facing your coterie of supernaturals, make sure you read this so you’ll know how to manage those)

Also, watching L.A. by Night on youtube for a few episodes (or the Twin Cities by Night podcast, or the Seattle by Night liveplay also on youtube) could give you an idea on the feel of the game, if you’re unfamiliar.

And if you feel it’s a good fit for you, I suggest grabbing up some of the additional material within each subset, because they expand a lot lore-wise and add in funky new stuff in a bunch of those extra books. Lots of fun stuff to play with. Some of those books are still restricted to 1st edition Chronicles vs the newer 2nd edition, but the meat of the system didn’t really change much (if you’re familiar with D&D, think 3rd edition vs 3.5e), just how morality’s handled, merits, and a few other mechanics. Not much in terms of a workload/effort level when it comes to managing crossover balancing, just something to be aware of.

Best of luck,and feel free to hit me up with any questions if you have them!

#nWoD #chronicles of darkness #world of darkness #ttrpg #long post #Anonymous

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