World of Darkness 2.0... Rulebook First Impressions (essay)

[ADGBoss]

World of Darkness Rule Set: First Impressions

Well under pressure and duress from my SO I decided to have some friends pick up the new WOD2 and Vampire Requiem from Gen Con (which I could not make this year).  She is a big fan of White Wolf and it's WOD1 games and being the dear sweet guy I am... well you get the picture.

So my friends brought the books home and tonight I finally got the chance to peruse the WOD2 rulebook and see for myself.  I would love to review every game that came out and frankly I think I could have spent $55 on some Indie games and been much better pleased but as a matter of being up on the latest thing in the mainstream part of the hobby, it was not a bad purchase.

I intend to run at least one session of Vamp: Req and probably more now that my group nixed Eberron before we even gave it a second look.  Eberron itself is not bad it's just well not different. Nough said.

So I took some time and went through the rulebook, seeing what had come out of the hard work and brain trust over at White Wolf.  I must admit that my initial impressions are not favorable at all.

Appearance

Well decent to damn nice production values.  Same pseudo creepy artwork, naked Goth girls and many, many people with guns. Nice but nothing really stood out as thematically new.  That is to say the artwork is well done and pleasing and even occasionally evocative but it seemed... well not very well placed, almost like they stood back and threw darts to find which page to put it on.  Remember though this is my first impression and it could be every piece of art has a very good reason to be where it is.

Quite a bit of font changing to try and differentiate sidebars etc... I personally am not a big fan of many fonts but the layout is overall well done and some people do like lots of different fonts and sizes.  So that is not so much a criticism as much as it is a "there it is."  

One complaint I have and I complain not because White Wolf is the only criminal in this (and I may very well do it myself someday) but it drives me nuts. The Obligatory Character Sheet bleeds down into the binding, is not perforated that I can see, and is basically useless to photocopy.  I hated it when I worked at Kinko's when Goth girl came and had me copy from the book. Oy!  Well it was not her fault of course, PDF's were not as prevalent in those days.  Still how about a perforated tear out page (heaven forbid) OR (gasp) a CD! They give 'em out free for God's sake in some magazines.

Last word on Appearance: The Index LOOKS useful.  This was a critique I heard quite a bit about the WOD1 books so I add it hear as a mention. Indeed, the Index, though small, may actually help you find things in the book.

(Dead) Meat & (Rotten) Potatoes

To really get a good idea of this you have to start with Chapter 8.  Chapter 8 is titled "Storytelling" and although this IS a Storytelling game (it is cause well they tell you it is) the Chapter itself is only 13 pages in length.  Ok that is a little white lie.  The Chapter technically is roughly 20 pages or so.  It is the last Chapter in the book and bleeds into... the uhm well, Index.  There are no Appendices to speak of.  However, the actual stuff that explains how to run a Storytelling game is rather small.  Most of these 13 pages deals with Story. Now this is not, story mind you but Story.  How to tell a Story. The Meaning of a Story. You get the picture.

So what's my beef with the small Storytelling section? Well the book is roughly 220 pages in length and 13 pages is a paltry 6% of the book.  Take away the 10 to 11% of Obligatory Fiction (get to that later) and that leaves you with say 73% of rules and minutia (art, Index, etc).  Well you say, Sean you fool it IS a Rulebook.  Yes that's true it certainly is a Rulebook.  Yet let's take a closer look at this.  We can start with Page 188, Chapter 8, fourth paragraph down.  I Am quoting this verbatim from the book and am hoping I remember enough about footnotes not to get in trouble. J
   " And that brings us to Storytelling.  Many role playing games are more concerned with rules and statistics then the drama created within the game.  Some people call those roll-playing games since they're more focused on dice rolling than role-playing.  Storytelling certainly provides for a simple and consistent set of rules, but it seems more then just dice rolls. And character sheets.  Storytelling is about drama, the wonder of a make-believe tale told by the players..."
   "...Unlike child's play or corporate role playing, Storytelling can strive to be an art form." (The World of Darkness, Storyteller System Rulebook, Pg 188.)

Are they kidding? The book goes on to warn people not to "...get lost in an Ivory Tower..."(The World of Darkness, Storyteller System Rulebook, Pg 188.)  Ivory Tower? Corporate Roleplaying? I wonder if I could sue them since I have been using the term Corporate Gaming for some time now. I was probably not the first one either and it's really not a big deal but that's hardly the point.  White Wolf is the epitome of Corporate roleplaying.  The entire Rulebook is chock full of telling you when and where and how many dice to roll! That's approximately 185 pages of rules cocnerning DICE not DRAMA.

Again, ok it's a Rulebook after all. Ok I can accept that except the focus of these rules is Combat.  Combat has it's own chapter.  Experience has 1 page, front side.  That's right now front and back but front, stuck back on page 216-217 (the Experience section is on two pages but barely has enough text for one full page). It is stuck between Skinrider (an antagonist) and Optional Rule – Character Flaws.

So from this once through I can report confidently that WOD2 is about blowing people's brains out, occasionally killing people in other ways, and using your cool supernatural powers, possibly to kill people.  If you are running a Doom RPG, then I think WOD2 is perfect.  I honestly believe that.  It has gore, nasty beasties, and rules for killing.  It does not bode well for Vampire and sure as hell does not for Werewolf, which I am sure will add plenty more ways to kill someone.  

If this is not Corporate Roleplaying, or in my own terms, Corporate Gaming Model, then nothing is.  It's gaming hypocrisy at it's worst since White Wolf has no moral qualms making money off of "corporate roleplaying" which I think can be safely translated as D&D / D20.

So what are my first impressions? Well WOD2 is drek. Pretty drek but drek none the less.  Yeah some of the words are new but it's the same game, which is not such a big deal.  I do not have a problem with sticking to what works, I do have a problem when, from their Ivory Tower, they are still telling me this is a game about Drama and Not about Combat.  


Sean

[Albert of Feh]

Corporate hypocrisy aside, is it possible that more of the details on drama are being reserved for the individual setting books? I always got the impression that, despite the common system and atmospheric similarities, Vampire drama is not the same as Werewolf drama is not the same as Mage drama, and so forth. While your points on system design are certainly valid, I'd be more curious to see a reaction to the complete game (Vamp, in this case) than just the system document.

[sirogit]

I'm highly curious if this sort of thread is fitting for Actual Play.

-----

I would disagree with your description of corporate gaming. White Wolf is a hell of a lot less "corporate" then D&D/D20. They're more corporate then nearly every one else. But they're still less corporate in to D&D/D20, which is a considerable chunk of the market.

What they're not, is Indie, as defined by the Forge, which is to say, creator-owned. I think its a very wonderfull definition because It's relatively exact: There's an Indie, there's a not-Indie, and it isn't so much a case where there's different gradients as odd exceptions.

But they never claimed to be indie, and I don't see why you should penalize them for setting their own standard of what "corporate" gaming is. I also don't see why you're shocked that they're repeating the same line that the old WoD game had, which is, "Here is a game which is slightly less combat-oriented and slightly more story-oriented than D&D, its the shit."  They never, ever gave the slightest indication that there was something wrong with their attitude, so why assume that they would want to change it?

I also don't think that you can say that rules-coverage equates to game focus. For instance, in Chess there's alot more rules about castling than there are about controlling the center of the board, but the latter is a far more important aspect of play.

[DannyK]

There was a big to-do about this on RPG.net, in which someone pointed out that "corporate roleplaying" probably refers to those awful skits they make you do in sensitivity training.   That sorta makes sense, as WWGS is the second biggest company in the industry and would otherwise be criticizing itself.

As a White Wolf fan from way back, I'd love to discuss the revised game mechanics in the RPG theory section (it smells like Fortune in the Middle to me), but this is not the place.

Danny

[MPOSullivan]

i don't tihnk this is the correct forum for the review (as it is technically a capsule review and not from "actual play") but i do jsut want to pop in and say that the system really doesn't work for what it thinks it is.  the game would be wonderful for a Hellboy RPG but it just straight up clunks when it comes to the moody, dramatic style it seems to be going for.  More time spent on constructing narrative and rules that actually supported a sense of storytelling rather than in-depth stats on the way to kill shit really kinda killed my enthusiasm for the game.  I will be buying the new Mage as i hope that it might hold a candle to the old, but i won't be running Vampire anytime soon.

though a Hellboy game could be fun...

[Jack Aidley]

Still how about a perforated tear out page (heaven forbid) OR (gasp) a CD! They give 'em out free for God's sake in some magazines

This may not apply to other countries, but certainly inthe UK if you include a CD with a book then it becomes subject to VAT, adding 17.5% to the price. That could be why no RPGs include a CD.

[ADGBoss]

About having the review here: If Ron or Clinton want to move it to a more appropriate thread, that's fine but since I intend to run a game of Vampire the Requiem and this is the first step in that process. I feel that it's very important for Actual Play to include the entire process.  Yet like I said if it gets moved that is fine too.

Albert

Like I said these were just first impressions and yes absolutely I am going go through the Setting book and see how that works with the Rulebook. It may very well be that there is some synergy there.

Jack

Yes that certainly is a good issue you bring up and the Char Sheet IS available online but a company with that much gaming experience I think could have found an imaginative and inexpensive way of providing a decent character sheet to the player WITH the game.

Sirogit

Honestly I think you are way off.  Completely way off. Saying White Wolf is not as corporate as WoTC is like saying that Burger King is not as corporate as McDonalds. In fact White Wolf perfected the Supplement Treadmill and while their system and content is different then that produced by WoTC, their methodology is not one bit different.

Now for some that may not be a bad thing.  However, I find it hypocritical and insulting for them to critiscize corporate roleplaying (which I am still of the opinion is a direct smack on D20 et all), in the same paragraph tell their players not to get in an Ivory Tower, and all this knowing full well that they are pulling in cha-ching over their own D20 products which the company is heavily invested in.  In fact, to take this a step further, the whole premise of re-inventing WOD2 can be I suspect traced back to the success of 3rd Edition D&D.  "Hey it worked for WoTC and I bet it can work for us..."

As for critiscizing them for not changing their ways? I am not doing that at all or at least not meant to. They can design games any way they wish. They certianly are successful from a business point of view, but from the level of a Player I do not yet find anything to recommend that anyone sell their old WOD books and start playing in the WOD2 era.

As for actual Play, I already have 1 Player lined up for a few sessions and will probably end up with 2 or 3 more.  Will keep you posted.

Sean

[Walt Freitag]

One more time: WW's mention of "corporate roleplaying" is not a dig at roleplaying games published by big(ger) corporations. It is a reference to role playing used in training exercises by corporations. Something which, they apparently have reason to believe, many of their potential readers have experienced and might tend to associate the term "role playing" with.

As in, "Joe's going to be the irate customer complaining about a missed service appointment, Anne you be the customer service rep and show the group how you'd handle the call."

As DannyK pointed out, sensitivity training is probably the most widespread form of corporate training that generally uses role playing.

- Walt

[ADGBoss]

One more time: WW's mention of "corporate roleplaying" is not a dig at roleplaying games published by big(ger) corporations. It is a reference to role playing used in training exercises by corporations. Something which, they apparently have reason to believe, many of their potential readers have experienced and might tend to associate the term "role playing" with.

As in, "Joe's going to be the irate customer complaining about a missed service appointment, Anne you be the customer service rep and show the group how you'd handle the call."

As DannyK pointed out, sensitivity training is probably the most widespread form of corporate training that generally uses role playing.

- Walt

Walt I would respectfuly disagree. With a target audience of teen boys many of whom have never been in a suit let alone a corporate office I have my doubts that it is referring to that.  Especially in the conext of the entire paragraph and section where the quote occurs.  I do not believe that there is ANY correlation between corporate training and wanting to play role playing games.  

Then I have been wrong before in my interpretation of writing and possibly my interpretation here is way off. Could be, maybe who knows.

Sean

[Walt Freitag]

It's not the executives in the suits who are most often subjected to corporate training, it's the minions (including the teenage boys) in the colorful uniforms. But in any event, role playing exercises for employee training is what the phrase "corporate role playing" (or "... roleplaying") means. Go ahead and Google "corporate role playing" and "corporate roleplaying" if you don't believe me. It's not a frequently used phrase, but to the extent that it's used at all, that's what it means. ("Corporate gaming" yields more mixed results, some referring to morale building or training exercises used by corporations, and some referring to the casino industry.)

Either WW is using the term in an unprecented way, to make the absurd and demonstrably false assertion that the tabletop role playing games created by rival companies cannot strive to be an art form while their own games can, or they're making a simple and generally true assertion about corporate roleplaying as everyone who already uses the phrase understands it. To infer the former and then use it as the basis for charges of hypocrisy, borders on bashing, in my opinion.

- Walt

[Scripty]

Getting back to general impressions of the new WoD books (beyond whether or not WW is corporate or if that is even what they meant in the blurb about corporate roleplaying), I had some very mixed impressions about the books. First off, my favorite (of all time) Vampire version was 2nd edition. Before clanbooks and mega-massive metaplot, I just really dug V:tM2e. Then, White Wolf showed me (and painfully) just how good they were at sucking the lifeblood (just kidding) the money out of me.

Much like this new edition, V:tM2e was low on metaplot when it first came out. There were somewhere between 7-9 clans and things like the Sabbat were mysterious, new and scary, not the whack-a-mole slaughterfest it would become years later. Most of the clans still had an air of the unknown about them because, well, clanbooks hadn't come out at $20 a pop to explain all the little details of the setting.

I think that's what a lot of people are grooving on with the new Vampire: the Requiem. IMO, it really is V:tM2e with the serial numbers filed off. It's taking us back to the day before we knew who killed Tremere or the name of every Salubri in existence.

Granted the systems are now unified across the board, with Vampire, Werewolf, Mage and Wraith using the exact same system instead of similar versions of the same system. That can only be a good thing, IMO. But it does sound like it could become an all-out monster mash too, with "coteries" or "parties" consisting of techno-mages, gangrel, and werewolves (probably demons, ghosts and fae too) I could see where the horror becomes a sort of Nocturnals-ish fantasy trip.

That said, the V:tR book was real purty. Some of the art really caught my eye in the way that Christopher Shy's early stuff did. ADG didn't seem keen on it, but it was my favorite part of the book.

But most everything else I saw was very familiar. Sure, some disciplines got shuffled around and some clans got renamed. But, for the most part, I saw it as the same-old, same-old.

Essentially, the Daeva = how the Toreador really played out in most games with which I was involved, the Mekhet are reminiscent of the Setites (but just different enough), the Nosferatu are unchanged (except for some Discipline shuffling) and the Ventrue and Gangrel are back as well (with what I would consider relatively minor tweaks system-wise).

There's a lot here that hit my nostalgia buttons. And a lot that I think people will recognize or remember. The Camarilla are gone. But we have the Cathians now. There's the Ordo Dracul but also a serious copyright infringement on the screenplay for F.F. Coppola's "Bram Stoker's Dracula".

So, in a nutshell, things are different but not that much. Not as much as I had expected from all the raves and wonderments on other forums.

There's a lot that's been cleaned up with the ST system. But it's still an attempt to model physics in a game whose stated focus is Story (with a capital "S"). And if they can keep it metaplot-free, then I think White Wolf will keep the current fanboys happy.

But a few things have sent up more sirens in my head on this.

1) One of the earliest releases for their game line is a novel about the new WoD, specifically written in the V:tR setting. I have never, ever, in my life encountered a game publisher who publishes fiction in their chosen setting (save, maybe Pagan) that doesn't have that fiction tied into the game's setting publications somehow.

2) At the other FLGS in my area, an employee who happens to be participating in some area playtesting of the new WoD LARP (No, it's not the Jason guy I mentioned in the Connections forum. Entirely different FLGS.) assured me that the reps he knew from WW said the metaplot would be back, but different this time. "Back, but different..." "Back, but different..." Sorry, channeling JFK for a moment there. Now, he could have inside info or he could be full of bunk. I only give him creedence because he had signed copies of both the nWoD and V:tR (which were signed in blue ink, if you must know) and seemed pretty authoritative in his knowledge. He also seemed quite pleased that there was going to be a metaplot. I think some people will be, too.

3) The really kewl "clans" in the new V:tR, IMO, are the bloodlines. I thought the Morbus sounded neat. But there's a whole slew of bloodlines that are only mentioned in name. To get the rest of the skinny on them you'll have to (...wait for it...) buy a supplement. And I'm certain we'll see splatbooks for each of these bloodlines within the next few years.

Despite myself, I'm still a White Wolf fan. They've parted me from far too much money than I could have possibly afforded to give them. But it's sort of like a bad relationship. I keep going back for more expecting something different and winding up with more of the same.

I can't fault 'em though. They are going to make money. A lot of money, I think, off this line. But three years out, it will be the same as it was 2-3 years ago. Only those of us who saw it coming will be about $500 to $2000 wealthier than those that didn't. Gotta hand it to 'em, WW is good at making money.

But I see this as a sort of "2-steps forward, 1-step back" for White Wolf. In my Dreamlands, Wieck and Co. bought/licensed the Sorcerer system from Ron Edwards to create a brutally beautiful game of real drama and horror and took up Jared Sorenson's Vampire LARP system to do the same for their MET.

But that's my Dreamlands. I'm awake now and the wolf is still white, albeit a bit shinier after the summer rain.

Those are my impressions of it. Anyone else?

[ADGBoss]

Scripty

1) I agree it is real purrty even though the art seems off to me somehow. Overall though it is an impressive layout.

2) Meta-Plot. Frankly I do not mind meta-plots, I think they can be fun and keep an interest in a game.  OTOH if you are just using Meta-plot as a excuse for pouring out another 96 page book, that seems a bit useless to me. I know though that some people hated the Meta-Plot for any number of reasons.

3) More Supplements? Of course because the game is designed to NEED more supplements.   That is how the CGM (Corporate Gaming Model) goes. The basic system and / or setting is tantalizingly incomplete so that new rules and setting can be added in later on, for $20 a pop.


Sean

[Scripty]

1) I agree it is real purrty even though the art seems off to me somehow. Overall though it is an impressive layout.

Yeah, I agree. I wasn't trying to be argumentative or anything. I just wanted to share my own impressions of the nWoD releases. I felt I could do so here without engendering the hatred of all those who hold it to be a really great game.

2) Meta-Plot. Frankly I do not mind meta-plots, I think they can be fun and keep an interest in a game.  OTOH if you are just using Meta-plot as a excuse for pouring out another 96 page book, that seems a bit useless to me. I know though that some people hated the Meta-Plot for any number of reasons.

I don't mind metaplot, either, up to a point. FFG's Midnight has done a good job with metaplot, thus far, IMO. It's sort of there to use but no one really has to. This may very well be the direction that WoD is going. I don't know. I dislike metaplot only to the degree that it interferes with a group's creativity. In that, I think every group will be different. Some would've found rummaging around in the bowels of the oWoD to be a blast. I found it very restrictive. Much of the time rules-lawyering and canon-lawyering went round and round, IIRC. IMO, White Wolf was guilty as heck of just creating a fictional world and allowing gamers to fiddle around in the periphery. I see that as around the horizon for this version as well. I could be wrong though. I personally would enjoy the game more if I were.

3) More Supplements? Of course because the game is designed to NEED more supplements.   That is how the CGM (Corporate Gaming Model) goes. The basic system and / or setting is tantalizingly incomplete so that new rules and setting can be added in later on, for $20 a pop.

And I don't mind this either, up to a point. However, if I find myself having to buy book-after-book-after-book just to play or run, I'm going to be frustrated. Taking over as ST of the local LARP a few years back took two months of studying White Wolf's metaplot (reading the Clanbooks, The Storyteller's Handbook, various guides, etc.). I think that's a bit much just to take over running a game.
Besides, I prefer the way Ron handles supplements. They actually add to the game, not to the learning curve. But WW has always made money by milking as many supplements as it can out of a line. I knew one guy who owned nothing but WW books. He had pretty much every one. It was a library (I'm not kidding). But he pretty much owned "nothing but WW books". I'm just not looking forward to the "have-to-buy" clanbooks, bloodline books, guidebooks, etc. It's like having to go through basic training all over again. Yuck. That said, I may or may not buy into the new WW. From what I've heard of the new LARP, it sounds a little over-complicated and, well, silly. But it's still in playtesting. I'm certainly going to flatly refuse to buy umpteen splatbooks just to keep a game current with canon this time out. I no longer have room in either my study or my bank account for another line of WW books.

[Callan S.]

Err, Corporate roleplaying isn't just sensitivity training.

When I was trained in the call center, we had to do 'roleplay' after the training to practice the act of taking the call and handling it right.

If you've ever practiced doing something you were just trained at work, its basically corporate roleplay. So it's pretty common...as will be the missinterpretation WW is saying something about bigger RPG corporations, from the look of it! >:)

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

All right, I'm moderating.

Guys, just drop the corporate role-playing issue. Let it go. I think Sean was a bit over-enthusiastic about pegging the term how he interpreted it, but that is no reason to keep wringin the term's neck, one by one.

I also think Sean is right on target in his critique of the Corporate Game Model (as he has defined it in a previous thread), and that White Wolf is demonstrating this model in full in their current, and in my view rather transparent marketing/design strategy.

This thread is a good opportunity to examine whether the game itself rises above its (by some outlooks) grubby origins. Let's not miss the opportunity by getting into "my uncle did corporate role-play training" and "corporate role-play training bit my sister once" or anything similar.

Best,
Ron