Is there a setting-free version of the new World of Darkness rules?

[RangerWickett]

My group is interested in trying out some new game systems, and I got the idea in my head of running a sort of stone age shamanism game using the Mage: the Awakening rules. But really, if anyone has looked at that book, it's not for the faint of heart, and it's certainly not geared toward playing a stone age character, what with all its talk about celestial towers and such.

Also, none of the players are familiar with the World of Darkness rules. As good as the nWOD rulebook is at evoking the mood and tone of its world, that world isn't the one I want to run. I'm curious if anyone here knows of, like, a pdf that just has the rules of the nWOD system, or a sourcebook from White Wolf with quick play rules, or something like that.

Mostly, I'm attracted to the dice pool and morality/willpower aspects of nWOD. One of my players rails constantly against the d20 as being too swingy, and he says that the D&D character creation rules are basically built to let you design a wide assortment of "wandering killers" rather than interesting characters.

Maybe there are different systems out there that have a dice pool and a ethos mechanic built in, but I'd prefer something relatively rules-lite, as opposed to highly detailed stuff like The Riddle of Steel. But if you have suggestions, I'd be interested to hear them.

Thanks.

 

[jdrakeh]

It's strange that you should mention this, as I emailed Malcolm Sheppard about his Opening the Dark rules last night. As I understand it, they were essentially a generic, open source, d10-based, pool system inspired by Storyteller. Unfortunately, they are no longer available.

There have been a few fan efforts at creating similar products, though I don't think any of them got past roughed out 'playtest' files (or none of them that I recall, anyhwo). I just did some pretty intensive Google searches and turned up nada in the form of generic-ish, d10-based, pool systems.

 

[Achan hiArusa]

The blue book "World of Darkness" core book is setting free except for the part about the ghosts. Its mainly just mechanics. If you want magic rules, the rules in "Second Sight" are much easier to use than those in "Mage the Awakening" and are more akin to oWoD numina. The various quickstarts have the basics of how the rules work in the front. I've used the corebook and "Second Sight" for my "Bughunters" game (it had a dash of Cyberpunk 2020, Transhuman Space, Call of Cthulhu, Traveler, and 2300 AD in it), but I'll probably adapt stuff from "Hunter the Vigil" if I can ever run it again.

Quickstarts: http://www.white-wolf.com/downloads.php?&category_id=6

 

[Kristian Serrano]

Maybe there are different systems out there that have a dice pool and a ethos mechanic built in, but I'd prefer something relatively rules-lite, as opposed to highly detailed stuff like The Riddle of Steel. But if you have suggestions, I'd be interested to hear them.

For a rules light system, you might want to check out Savage Worlds. It's $10 for a PDF or a hardcopy, and covers all genres.

 

[Voadam]

I haven't checked them out but I think there are quickstart pdfs for all the white wolf games that should cover the rule basics in a few pages without tons of world development.

 

[johnnype]

The One Roll Engine (ORE) might work well for you. It's a die pool system with a maximum of 10D10 rolls. Originaly appeared in GODLIKE but has more recently shown up in REIGN and Wild Talents. Before Wild Talents was published a free, generic form of the rules were floating around in pdf form in the Yahoo Group. Let me know if you can't find them as I might have a copy.

Is Tri-Stat dX a die pool system? It's been ages since I looked at it but it's also free and generic.

 

[Derro]

Is Tri-Stat dX a die pool system? It's been ages since I looked at it but it's also free and generic.

It's die-step, not dice-pool if I remember correctly. BESM was just d6 but you could change the dial for other settings.

Wickett: Take a look at Sorcerer. It's a d10 pool and is all about morality. This is a pretty different game. It's very n-word (narrative) but can make for some interesting play. Check out the demo. It's at the bottom of the page under The Apprentice.

 

[Wombat]

I am always fascinated by the Holy Grail Quest for the "ultimate generic system".

Me, I would prefer to have a set of rules that fit a setting, rather than forcing a setting to conform to a specific set of rules.

GURPS was the first "direct" attempt at this notion and it works up to a point, but ultimately the mechanics get in the way of the fun for me. NWoD is pretty flexible, but I doubt it would fit all settings. The same could be said for Over The Edge.