Anybody care for an alternative to World of Darkness?

[VelvetViolet]

Prior to the White Wolf games, we used to play Nightlife. I remember enjoying it at the time, but I'm not sure how well it would hold up now if I was to revisit it.

Another (more current) option is Liminal.

Nightlife basically has the same premise as Vampire, but with more diversity in character options. They’re not all recycling the same quasi-Ricean template.

I looked into Liminal. I like it, but I would like to explore multiple settings with different takes on monsters. Something in the vein of American Vampire (the comic) and What We Do In The Shadows.

Urban Fantasy includes two subgenres... one is the "Reawakened diversity" model, championed by Shadowrun. I can't really recommend that mechanically, but the setting is great. Another "in your face" is Castle Falkenstein, a slightly retro 19th C steampunk Urban Fantasy. One can also put the long OOP oWoD relative Street Fighter in this category, tho' it can be played either way... I like the streetfighter setting and the rules play well enough. I'm also fond of CF, but many dislike cards.

The other, epitomized by oWoD, nWoD, Dresden Files, Forever Knight, Buffy/Angel, Army of Darkness, and Night's Edge, and the slightly retro urban fantasies Ghosts of Albion and Vaesen (19thC). GURPS Horror can easily be used to do any of those, as well.

Of those, FK lacks a game. But FK can easily be done with WoD... but they're all one clan. I want to say oWoD Ventrue.

Buffy, Angel, Army of Darkness, and Ghosts of Albion are all fully intercompatible games (unisystem light), so the lack of threat provision books for GoA and Angel is answered with the one for BTVS. Dead tree is 'spensive, but the PDFs seem to have some form of evergreen status with Fox, and they're still up for sale on DTRPG. Note for experienced GM's: This version of Unisystem is "No GM Rolling..." ... the players roll to hit NPCs, and to dodge the NPC's chosen attacks; the NPC doesn't roll to hit, and just uses a dodge score against the player's To Hit. All 4 games do this; if you want to roll for NPC's, remember to subtract 6 from all NPC ability scores...

Ghosts of Albion is "early Victorian age" and is fairly similar to BTVS in tone, but without the overt restriction of slayers needing to be female. I'm not familiar with the books nor shows, just the game. Note that Amber Benson (played Tara on Buffy) was involved with development of the game.

I like Unisystem light, and buffy/angel is a good combo.

Night's Edge is a setting for the Cyberpunk RPG. (ISTR 2013, but I used it with CP2020) Wasn't as good as VTM for me. Dead tree is frightful, but again, it's up on DTRPG for cheap. I'd only recommend it for diehard Interlock system fans.

I think I’m gonna go for a systemless setting to keep my options open. I do like the idea of having players roll all the dice, because I don’t like rolling more than strictly necessary.

If anybody wants to hear my ideas for settings and worldbuilding, then let me know.

 

[Fenris-77]

Fire away sir. World building is always fun to chat about.

 

[atanakar]

What I would prefer is something like D&D, except for urban fantasy. Lots of different character options and a variety of campaign settings. An OGL to promote community creations. I would have to invent something like this from scratch. Is anybody else interested in something like that?

Modern AGE does Urban Fantasy very well and it is a toolbox system. A setting less system. For someone who likes D&D it is very easy to get into. I use the Companion Book and the Threefold Setting Book to create my own urban fantasy campaign.

The free quick start will give you an idea of the system :

DriveThruRPG

www.drivethrurpg.com

No community OGL yet but they are thinking about it. Covid-19 slowed everything down.

 

[VelvetViolet]

Fire away sir. World building is always fun to chat about.

Okay, thanks.

I’ll start with vampires. What I wanted to do, inspired by Feed, was give GMs and players complete freedom in designing their vampire strains. Longevity, appearance, weaknesses, powers, etc. If you want to play the comic American Vampire, or the setting of the old RPG Nightlife, or Lost Girl, or What We Do In The Shadows, etc, then you can. I’m not going to limit everything to a Ricean-inspired template. If you want to play vampires as demons mimicking human form, then you can. Succubi that feed on emotion, or possessed corpses, or hungry ghosts, etc.

But beyond that, there are also splats and secret histories. World of Darkness is popular in part because of its comic book-esque backstory, which led to many buying the books just to read the lore, and its high school cliquish character options that players used as templates. That aspect isn’t present in other urban fantasy that tried to compete with World of Darkness.

I was going to go further and write a modular multiverse, where organizations could be cherry-picked depending on my mood at the time while writing that particular world, then crossover if desired. Under the OGL, others could tell their own stories with the same tools and make new tools of their own. Sort of like the Cthulhu mythos, I guess. An actual mythos, with all the contradictions that entails.

EDIT: I'll post some specific ideas for organizations later.

 

[VelvetViolet]

Okay, ideas for vampire organizations and bloodlines.

So a bloodline is a group of vampires who descend from the same progenitor. Where progenitors come from is variable: a pact with Hell, a curse, stubbornness in the face of death, sheer bad luck, etc. That's assuming the vampires are ex-humans, which isn't necessarily the case. For example, incubi and nekomata are demons who assimilate into human society. A vampire's bloodline generally determines their superpowers and weaknesses, but it doesn't determine their personality.

There are many different possible organizations with different goals. Some are akin to fraternities, others to philosophies, political parties, religions, vocations, etc. As with mere muggles, vampires may have affiliation or rapports with several different groups based on their personal development.

For example (and these are very general examples):

• The vampire supremacists believe that vampires should rule the world. They see muggles as nothing more than cattle, pets at best.
• The orthodox predators believe in hunting muggles as prey, rather than draining harmless amounts of blood like parasites. They treat the hunt as a sacrament and prefer to hunt worthy prey because they believe that they consume the soul along with the blood.
• The adversaries believe they were placed on Earth by God (or whatever ones believes in) in order to tempt mortals into sin and punish them when they fail to resist.
• The guardian angels style themselves as vigilante superheroes, protecting the weak from the wicked or more paranormal threats like demons or abuse of magic.
• The cleaners consider it their sworn duty to conceal evidence of the paranormal from the public, both for practical reasons and more esoteric beliefs (e.g. revealing magic reduces its potency). Most vampires already try to minimize exposure, so if you've crossed the cleaners then you've really screwed up.
  • Depending on the setting, there may be a paranormal phenomenon that causes most muggles to forget, dismiss, rationalize, and/or misunderstand the paranormal. In this case, the phenomenon does not protect vampires from law enforcement and muggle authorities can cause massive disruptions for vampires without realizing their nature. Thus, the cleaners hunt down those who attract such attention if law enforcement cannot deal with them, as well as preventing muggles from accidentally disrupting their affairs.

If I had more time then I could try adding cultural baggage. Right now these are simple tropes, I guess.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

In terms of making your setting distinctive, I have to say that what you described for vampires in post #14 can be done in pretty much any toolbox system (HERO, GURPS, etc.). Your subsequent post, OTOH, tightens things up a quite a bit.

I’m thinking if you really want to give your setting a distinct flavor but still deliver flexibility, you’re going to have to make CERTAIN definitional boundaries set in stone. I mean, I can imagine a creature that subsists on draining the energy of sound and color, leaving things behind that are more drab and boring, but is it a “vampire”, or is it something merely analogous to one? Convergent evolution, as it were.

 

[VelvetViolet]

In terms of making your setting distinctive, I have to say that what you described for vampires in post #14 can be done in pretty much any toolbox system (HERO, GURPS, etc.). Your subsequent post, OTOH, tightens things up a quite a bit.

I’m thinking if you really want to give your setting a distinct flavor but still deliver flexibility, you’re going to have to make CERTAIN definitional boundaries set in stone. I mean, I can imagine a creature that subsists on draining the energy of sound and color, leaving things behind that are more drab and boring, but is it a “vampire”, or is it something merely analogous to one? Convergent evolution, as it were.

That’s a good question. To be honest, that’s an issue of linguistic drift. If Bunnicula is a vampire and Marceline is a vampire, then why not... whatever that thing you mentioned is?

Here's a quote from American Vampire that may be relevant:

The term "vampire" is a colloquialism. A word by common folk that we have adopted here at the VMS out of laziness. "Abomination," the proper term, is mercilessly adaptable, as is that black bloodline.

 

[VelvetViolet]

Here are some more ideas for organizations and beliefs:

• The atoners: the flipside of the adversaries, the atoners believe they were cursed by God (or whoever they believe) and must perform good deeds to save their souls.
• Technophiles: a relatively young school that bases itself around the intersection of information technology and the paranormal. Although technosorcery (casting magic through the internet) is widespread, the most advanced technophiles have developed "techgnostic" magic that can hack reality as if it were The Matrix. For them, cyberspace is a real place that you can visit... and things from cyberspace can follow you back to Earth.

 

[Stormonu]

how about:
Dimensionalists: these believe that the feeding originates from another, nihilistic dimension. By pact, symbiosis or curse, they believe feeding is channeling lifeforce into this alternate dimension where it is consumed and/or remade by alien entities. "Channellers" of this belief believe (either rightly or wrongly) that if they co-operate, their place on the other side will preserved by these entities and they will join them in a place of honor when all life has been leeched away.

 

[VelvetViolet]

how about:
Dimensionalists: these believe that the feeding originates from another, nihilistic dimension. By pact, symbiosis or curse, they believe feeding is channeling lifeforce into this alternate dimension where it is consumed and/or remade by alien entities. "Channellers" of this belief believe (either rightly or wrongly) that if they co-operate, their place on the other side will preserved by these entities and they will join them in a place of honor when all life has been leeched away.

Reminds me a bit of how in AD&D the vampires existed on both of the energy planes and preserved themselves by feeding energy back to it or something, as well as some internet theories about how all undead are portals to the negative plane or something.

It's a pretty interesting concept, all things considered. "Draining" is normally one of those things that writers take for granted, but the idea that there's more to it than simple consumption is ripe for exploration.

I don't think the name fits very well, tho. How about "Philosophy of Thaumatophagy"?