What do you think about The World of Darkness

[LuisCarlos17f]

I love the lore and the factions, although Wraith: the Oblivion is too grimmdark. And if you add too many supernatural creatures the setting becomes something like a Jurasic Park for Universal/Hammer Film monsters. My favorite is Mage: the Ascension.

I have bought several tiles of the 20Anniversary and I think these are a must-have for TTRPG collectors.

About the rules, the fights are too slow when you have to throw too many dices.

 

[AverageMojito]

I'll second the posts that said WoD, especially Vampire, its most popular game, is a cool scenario idea with bad implementation. The system had nothing to do with the proposed theme of the game, and by the Revised (3rd) edition, even the designers shifted the tone to a nocturnal wargame between factions.

The morality system was supposed to help emulate the theme and genre, but it fell short in every aspect (especially with the Paths). The newest morality system (5e) is superior in every way.

That been said, I have fond memories of our games back in early 2000s. Nostalgia aside, I'd never play that system again. V5 is a much more enjoyable experience.

Other than Vampire, I've played Werewolf, and the mess of the system aside, it's a solid game. I guess you can't go wrong with a pack of werewolves hunting weird things in the night (and day). Perhaps the new edition can make it more justice.

 

[Umbran]

Mechanically, I felt that the NWoD was an improvement in almost every conceivable way.

As a Mage player, not so much. The Morality track in NWoD Mage basically had you having to make morality checks with any relevant use of magic... which means that if you did what the character was designed and supposed to do, you'd find yourself up on the short end of the morality system in short order. Penalizing a character for doing the thing the system is designed for them to do is a pretty big flaw.

 

[Umbran]

What do you think about the world of darkness? Which version do you like the best and why?

The absolute best TTRPG campaign I ever played in was Mage: The Ascension. But that was both because of the system, and despite it. You have to have the right sort of players and GM to make it really sing.

 

[AK81]

I prefer Hunter the Vigil over everything else, plus you can add on God Machine, Inferno and a few others to get a coherent game.

Can you tell me a bit more about Hunter the Vigil? How does it play? How's the atmosphere?

 

[AK81]

Can you tell me a bit more about Hunter the Vigil? How does it play? How's the atmosphere?

Sorry, I see I asked you about this topic already.

 

[AK81]

For people who have played both, do you prefer the 5th edition of WoD or CoD 2e?

 

[Bill Zebub]

I encountered the World of Darkness after 2nd edition AD&D stopped being fun in the 90's. It was this deep, rich setting full of lore and mysteries, and I found it tragically cool.

The rules were utter garbage, of course, and I've never encountered a more frustrating, poorly written game in my life (I could debate Fantasy Craft, but that game's problem had more to do with terrible formatting than the rules themselves being arcane- for the most part).

The different Clans of vampires were cool, even if some of their concepts were...built on shaky ground ("We're the vampires from Bram Stoker's Dracula!" "We're the vampires from Nosferatu!" "We're Set-worshippers from the Hyborian Age!" "We're a bad take on Muslims/Romani!" "We're werewolves in every way but werewolves are also a thing!" "We're vampires that like art!" "We're vampires that like money!" "We're vampires that are CRAZY!").

The core Clans mostly share powers, which is neat, but hit the splatbooks, and everyone has a unique power that you can't have unless you belong to that group.

Despite using the same rules as a base, crossovers were a bloody mess (pun intended), when a starting vampire has three weak powers and a starting werewolf can turn into a wolf man and double their strength and deal unsoakable damage to anything that moves!

Then of course, even though everyone is supernatural, they create "magicians" who have every conceivable magic spell and can break the game in half.

Then, suddenly, they turned around and said "all that lore? Forget it! All those mysteries? Here's the answers! Oh and the world is ending!"

All to sell us a new game, suspiciously like the old game, but different for reasons. I'm sure that sounds familiar!

If you want to try it, I'd seek out the 20th Anniversary editions. The rules are still a bit...obscure...but it really captures the best parts of the original setting.

The 5th edition tries to insist that vampires are actually weak, have to worry about cops and drug dealers, find that using their powers suddenly makes them unable to use their powers, but still has ancient vampires running everything behind the scenes.

I mean, if you're playing a game about vampires, you should at least feel like you're more powerful than the Scooby Doo gang, but that's just my opinion.

I’ve never played those games, and still am not interested, but great review. I laughed.

 

[Cadence]

Played in a few V:tM 2e games and one that also had mages and werewolves. Some of the most fun I've had gaming, but the storytellers were awesome. (I ran one or two too for a bit, but it's not as in my wheelhouse for that as D&D).

Now this thread is making me wonder if any folks in my current groups ever ran and would do so again.

 

[Voadam]

I have played in a couple long-term VtM games and love the world and lore and concepts but the system is way outside my wheelhouse for running games. Judging enemies for an expected challenge in a combat seems particularly tough. Still I have bought and own a ton of books for WoD. I have stuck to slipping WoD concepts into my D&D games.