White Wolf - Yes or no?

[EditorBFG]

It can be a big mess. I read through it all and then figured out how it will work for my game that I'm running and once I was able to do that the game was (and is still) very fun and one of my better campaigns.

Yeah, I think I came to the same conclusions.

And that's why it was a mess: we came to conclusions, but they were our best guesses. We had to sort it all out ourselves, rather than devoting that creative time and energy to running the game and exploring the setting.

This is why I am in favor of the new version being VERY different from the old.

That and the Peter Pan aspect was a thing for me. It was unclear whether the game was about childhood being wonderful and trying to recapture it, art as the font of creative energy, or medieval cultural values governing the creatures of myth in a modern setting. I found the last two possibilities much more interesting than tin soldiers coming to life or whatever.

 

[Crothian]

And that's why it was a mess: we came to conclusions, but they were our best guesses. We had to sort it all out ourselves, rather than devoting that creative time and energy to running the game and exploring the setting.

It didn't take long for me to do and now it just never comes up or hinders our creative gaming.

That and the Peter Pan aspect was a thing for me. It was unclear whether the game was about childhood being wonderful and trying to recapture it, art as the font of creative energy, or medieval cultural values governing the creatures of myth in a modern setting. I found the last two possibilities much more interesting than tin soldiers coming to life or whatever.

It can be any of those, a combination, or none of them. D&D can be many different types of games, too. But it just seems that for some reason with Changeling it confuses people and with D&D it's okay.

 

[ValhallaGH]

In my estimation the new Storyteller system is a different game, with a core system that is just plain bad,

I'm curious as to why you hold this opinion. If you'd rather not repeat yourself, or others would like to avoid the same, then I'd appreciate being pointed to an appropriate thread.

 

[EditorBFG]

It didn't take long for me to do and now it just never comes up or hinders our creative gaming.

Yeah, but I feel like clarity is a responsibility of any game writer, and that the lack of clarity in Changeling became a major flaw in the game.

D&D can be many different types of games, too. But it just seems that for some reason with Changeling it confuses people and with D&D it's okay.

D&D, I think, comes off as so modular every thing is more take it or leave it. Changeling's writing always seems like it is trying to help you "get" the atmosphere of the setting, presenting it as a unified atmosphere yet describing it in differing ways. I think that if the new Changeling presents a clearer delineation of a PC's human and fae sides, and details what the fae world is more explicitly in contrast to every day, mundane life, it can be a much better game.

Also, not to keep harping on the same point, but I think part of my issue was personal. I don't idealize my childhood, and in fact I think I enjoy adulthood more, and it seems like that places me outside of the original game's target audience. I am not knocking anyone who dug that aspect, but it was not my thing, and it didn't mesh well with the existing World of Darkness. The published adventures especially, in the main book and later, were rife with teddy bears game to life and how magical the guy selling balloons in the park was and monsters under the bed becoming real, and that really fell flat with me.

That said, as I mentioned above, some of the game line's best writers put together an alternate version, available for free on the web, called Changeling: the Celtic Cycle, the first part of a proposed project to tackle separate mythologies one at a time, without them all taking a back seat to European folklore. I think they were much more successful than the original book. Unfortunately, that project was abandoned before the other cultures were detailed, but it is probably still out there somewhere. It also had a lot of useful stuff for regular Changeling games (new Arts, new Kiths, etc.). I don't think I can recommend that version enough.

Also, I must admit that once the game switched over to Arthaus, I missed the color illustrations but everything else was vastly improved. Ironically enough, I think Mark Rein-Hagen, whose singular creative originality was so key to earlier Storyteller games, was part of the impetus that made Changeling go awry in its initial book. When Jacklie Cassada and Nicky Rea took the reins, there was great improvement, I thought.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I'm curious as to why you hold this opinion. If you'd rather not repeat yourself, or others would like to avoid the same, then I'd appreciate being pointed to an appropriate thread.

In a nutshell I feel that they over simplified an already simple system, and added a problem that I have termed 'Trading 10s' - when the defensive score is higher than the offensive score then the offensive character rolls one d10 looking for a 10 in order to gain a success. If both characters in the conflict have higher defensive scores than offensive scores they end up rolling dice looking for 10s all night long. While Willpower can be spent to reduce this problem it is in limited supply.

The old ST system had several variables that could be tweaked to adjust a conflict - Difficulty (the score that you need to beat) and number of successes. Having two variables allowed for tasks that were lengthy (requiring more successes), difficult (increased Difficulty) or both. Not so with the new system.

System wise I find that the 3rd ed. Vampire rules seemed the best balance, Botches were made a rare occurrence, but otherwise the core system remained unchanged.

The Auld Grump, who could not find the older thread to link to....

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Perhaps, they say a lot of things in the books and it is not all compatiable with what other books say. Many people; have different interpretations on it.

It is what is stated outright in the core book. No confusion there. There may have been some different interpretations in some of the early supplements - several were written before the game had even been edited, and had poor rules continuity. But if there was I have no recollection of it. When in doubt I default to the core book. (Much like the official stance on D&D.)

The Auld Grump

 

[TheAuldGrump]

This actually makes me happy, because there were a lot of things I liked in the old changeling, but overall it was confusing.

Seemings really were a big part of that. Was your fae self something you turned into, or were you that all the time and the human appearance was an illusion? Were chimerical items always invisible on your person, or only when you were your fae self? What about Treasures, which weren't chimerical? If your fae self had super-powers, why would you ever be in your human self? Did the Attribute modifiers of being, say, a Noble or a Troll apply when you were not in your fae mien? What was the difference between Noble and Commoner reincarnation?

It was just a big mess. Even several of the writers (Wayne Peacock, Deana McKinney, Buck Marchinton) thought so and put out their own web version, Changeling: the Celtic Cycle, which made more sense and was overall better than the real product but narrowed its scope to only Celtic folklore.

A new version, with big changes, would be good.

Your fey self was both real and something that you turned into - which is to say that your fellow fae could see your seeming, but mortals could not. Much like Hobbes from Calvin & Hobbes most folks would see a fluffy stuffed tiger, but those who could see the Dreaming would see a bipedal tiger.

However remaining solely in your fae seeming leads to madness, the human souls which you depend upon to maintain your existence in the real world being driven mad by the ever changing Dreaming. Both souls are required for a Fae to remain itself. Without a human soul to buffer the creeping disbelief and ordinariness (Banality) the fae soul is eroded by the overwhelming blandness of reality. So a balance must be struck. Faerie land is a nice place to visit, but you can't live there too long.

If by Noble you mean Sidhe reincarnation the major difference is that there is no human soul to protect against banality. Sidhe are not reincarnated - when they die they are gone. Ennobled commoners on the other hand reincarnate in the same manner as others of commoner stock.

I will admit that I have a difficulty with nearly all the fae in Changeling coming from British Isles mythology, especially since the Slavic faerie myths are at least as intriguing, with the line between fae and god blurred.

As an odd example of how to view Changeling see the movie Hook, where Peter Pan can no longer even remember his magic. (You can view Hook as an Unseelie fae 'rescuing' a Seelie fae from banality, if only so that he can kill Peter himself.)

The Auld Grump