Something odd I just became aware of (WoD)

[Jd Smith1]

I've never had any interest in Word of Darkness, although I've thumbed through some of their books. Hunter, on the other hand, was a concept that worked for me, but I never had a need.

So recently my players mentioned interest in a modern campaign, which are hard to find, and I picked up a free copy of WoD's system to check out their rules.

The rules weren't bad at all, so I started reading reviews on the various versions of Hunter.

Then I checked Roll20, and was shocked to find that support for WoD was just one Vampire PC sheet. Keep in mind that Roll20 supports countless tiny niche games, and games with any following usually have 2+ PC sheet versions to choose from.

But WoD has just one, very basic, PC sheet.

That struck me as really odd. Has WoD really fallen that far out of favor?

 

[Mark Hope]

My group still plays it. Wrapping up a Ghost Hunters arc right now and prepping for the next instalment of our long-running Mage game. Paradox certainly seem to think it's still a going concern

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I think there are quite a few things going on here:

1) The ownership of the WoD is very balkanized/confused because Onyx Path are putting out stuff for the older lines, including updated versions of the older lines, but Renegade Game Studios are putting out the new 5E WoD stuff (including the new Hunter), and the IP is technically owned by Paradox Games. It's not clear which version of WoD/Hunter you're referring to here.

2) Renegade Games seem to only care about getting VtM on to VTTs. They also ideally want people to use a specific VTT. But again, they've only got VtM stuff up on it. They do have some stuff on Roll 20, but only for VtM.

3) It's not clear if Onyx Path even have a licence that lets them do VTT material (anyone know?). That said, the Foundry VTT has unofficial modules for their version of the WoD.

Thanks to basically being very misused/almost abandoned by CCP whilst they owned it, and Paradox not having a huge interest in WoD, it's certainly slumped in popularity over the last 15 years.

 

[Voadam]

My current face to face group has done two different campaigns of VtM20. I played a lot of VtM in the old editions before nWoD as well.

I love the lore and the character stats and powers but I really hate the system in practice, particularly combat splitting your dice between offense and defense. It is not a system I would particularly want to run.

I've gotten a bunch of WoD books, particularly with Onyx Path's 90% off sales through their 10-year anniversary promotions and enjoy them. I've used a bunch of WoD lore and concepts in my D&D games.

 

[Umbran]

That struck me as really odd. Has WoD really fallen that far out of favor?

I expect it is just that Roll20 is not the venue of choice for WoD players.

Specifically, WoD games don't generally need a map. These games lend themselves very much to "theater of the mind" play. So, folks I know who run WoD online generally do it in Discord, which has far better videochat than Roll20.

 

[Mark Hope]

I expect it is just that Roll20 is not the venue of choice for WoD players.

Specifically, WoD games don't generally need a map. These games lend themselves very much to "theater of the mind" play. So, folks I know who run WoD online generally do it in Discord, which has far better videochat than Roll20.

Yep. For our online WoD games, we don't use Roll20 at all (whereas I use it all the time for online AD&D). We use Zoom and just share images and files through that.

 

[aramis erak]

My sunday discord+gtove group doesn't use maps at all in their Exaulted FTF games, and wouldn't need them for online.

As with Umbran, I think the lack of support is simply that the typical group isn't using maps, and what needed illos are used can simply be either put in a shared folder on googledrive or dropbox, or even just dropped into thread.

One really only needs maps for either using the oWoD World of Darkness: Combat or the precursor standalone, Street Fighter: The Storytelling Game. Both "need" a hex grid.

it is, however, easier to go from gridded rules to non-gridded play than from no grids at all in rules to gridded play,

 

[MNblockhead]

Demiplane is developing digital content for Hunter: The Reckoning

Hunter: The Reckoning Nexus - Digital TTRPG Toolset

The Official Digital Toolset for Hunter: The Reckoning on Demiplane

app.demiplane.com

Currently I'm unable to access anything for it with my Demiplane account. I can't even unlock the core rulebook. So I guess it not not released yet. But you might want to keep an eye on it as they are building a D&D Beyond like experience for the system, with a character manager to be released this year. Demiplane includes a videoconferencing system with a in-chat dice roller. Still very alpha, but I assume that Demiplane will be the place for Hunter online play and digital content and character sheets.

You can get a community-created character sheet for Hunter on Role (Games) which will allow you to make dice rolls from your character sheet in the Role video conference. Role also have a very basic map and token functionality. It is a good platform for TOTM games with minimal map sharing needs.