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Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="cybertalus" data-source="post: 2134318" data-attributes="member: 4400">A D&D Player Steps Into The World of DarknessUntil a few weeks ago my total experience with The World of Darkness consisted of owning (and reading once, but never playing) Mage: The Ascension, and playing in one session of a Vampire: The Masquerade game where the GM had us play versions of ourselves and then proceeded to turn our characters into vampires based on rather shallow readings of our personalities.  After the Vampire session I ran screaming back to the safety of D&D and have rarely ventured outside it since.I don't have a regular gaming group right now, but I am involved in a gaming club that meets for a three hour gaming session each week and runs month-long mini-campaigns.  When one of the club members announced she was going to run a game using the new World of Darkness with all mortal PCs-- no werewolves, vampires, or mages-- I was intrigued.  I'd heard good things about this new World of Darkness, and here was someone offering me a chance to try it without having to play a monster.  If I didn't like it, the game was only five weeks long.  So after a little hesitation, I signed up.  Boy have I ever been glad that I did.The first week was getting to know the other players, explaining the rules system, and character creation.  I was the least experienced World of Darkness player present, as everyone else had played in at least one game under the old system.  Tabitha, the GM, explained the system well, and although I had a few questions, there was nothing so foreign that it took me more than a few minutes to grasp.  Tabitha provided a page of setting information, which immediately inspired an idea for a character, and in I'd say less than ninety minutes, Danny Thoreau was conceptualized, fully statted up, and would've been ready to play if I hadn't had to leave a half hour early that first night.  Character creation probably would've gone even quicker, but there were only two books to share among six players.I was surprised that without character classes or even suggested archetypes how many of our characters wound up falling into clear D&D archetypes.  Jim's character Kyle was the classic D&D thief: stealthy, smart, patient, and able to easily get past any lock.  Sherry's Lee (short for Leandra) was a self-defense expert who demonstrated her prowess in both martial arts and gun play, although Lee was anything but the brainless fighter of D&D stereotype.  Except for being a weak combatant, my character Danny was a classic ranger.  Kathy's Takumi, Steve's Twitch, and Tommy's Aaron were less obvious fits for D&D stereotypes, although Takumi could be broadly described as a monk.  Aaron was the quiet intellectual type who came through with a major answer after taking off to do some research on his own.  Then there was Twitch, the somewhat shell-shocked, gun-toting war veteran, who tended to react violently to loud noises and sudden movements.After I left the first night, the other players did get in some role playing, and Tabitha asked me to arrive a bit early the next week to help finalize some stuff and set the stage as seen from Danny's perspective.  Once the session began and the characters began interacting I was immediately struck at the amount of role playing going on.  The GM never said that she wanted to run a role playing heavy game, and certainly never set down a table rule of anything said was assumed to be said in character unless stated otherwise, but for the most part that's how we interpreted things.  It was great.Moreover, Tabitha did something I've been trying to get my DMs in D&D to do the entire fifteen years I've been gaming:  incorporate elements from my character's background into the story.  Now in a short campaign like this, that's no small request, but she did it with my Danny and Sherry's Lee as well.  Even better, when I bought a copy of the rulebook, incorporating things from the characters' backgrounds into the story was one of the GMing tips listed right there in the book.  If that was ever in the D&D Dungeon Master's Guide I sure missed it, because I'd have loved to have pointed it out to a lot of DMs over the years.I really enjoyed the game, and when the five weeks were up I was definitely left wanting more.  I don't think I'm ready to change my mind about Vampire just yet, and even Werewolf doesn't hold much appeal for me.  Mage still intrigues me, but offer me another chance to play World of Darkness with all mortal PCs, and I'll be all over it.How much of my enjoyment of the game was down to the GM and the other players and how much is down to the system I can't say for sure.  I'm inclined to think Tabitha, Jim, Kathy, Sherry, Steve, and Tommy deserve the lion's share of the credit, but I can't deny that the system seems to be consciously designed to attract certain types of gamers to it.  As a D&D player I strongly lean toward role-playing rather than combat, and The World of Darkness seems to be designed specifically for that preference.As to the game system itself, I find it to be simple, yet elegant and flexible.  It doesn't get in the way, but it's there when you need it.  Aside from the rules, the book is full of flavor text, consisting of brief interludes and longer pieces that I can only describe as short stories, which help GMs and players to get into the mood of the game.The book is printed in black and white, with art styles ranging from drawings to nearly photo realistic.  The typeface used for the rules portions of the text is easy enough to read, but the short stories sometimes deviate into difficult to read fonts that I feel sacrifice a bit too much legibility in favor of ambiance.I feel the need to alert people who might be sensitive about such things that The World of Darkness is probably not for younger gamers.  In the section on Derangements there is artwork depicting a nude woman.  Her pose does not strike me as sexual in any way, but seems instead designed to illustrate the general concept of Derangements without depicting a particular one.  The flavor text also makes occasional use of words which aren't allowed on American television.  Further, many of the themes addressed in the book are of a somewhat mature nature.  While it is certainly possible to play the game without touching on such themes, their presence in the book is something to keep in mind.In my opinion the most broadly useful section in The World of Darkness book is the chapter on Storytelling.  Although there are some sample NPCs, the bulk of the chapter is all about creating mood and setting, and most importantly telling stories.  The chapter covers the structure of stories, techniques for telling them, and provides useful suggestions for sources to use as inspiration.  There is advice on how to manage overly shy players as well as the strongly outgoing ones who sometimes tend to dominate things.  In contrast with D&D's rather dryly technical DMing advice about Challenge Ratings, Encounter Levels, and treasure payouts, The World of Darkness book's Storytelling chapter is all about how to tell stories.  If someone were creating a Game Mastering 101 course, this chapter would make excellent material to use as a textbook.Overall I enjoyed my foray into The World of Darkness, and under the right conditions I'll be glad to go there again.  Still, I have always thought of myself as a D&D player more than a gamer in general, and that hasn't changed.  The things I learn and see in The World of Darkness will be things I bring back to D&D.  Things may never be quite the same again in my D&D games, and if they're not, I consider that to be a very good thing indeed.</blockquote>

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