World of Darkness

World of Darkness
RPG published by White Wolf
Rule System	Storyteller System
Authors	Bill Bridges, Rick Chillot, Ken Cliffe and Mike Lee
First Publication	2004
Essential Books	The World of Darkness (corebook)

Cover of the nWoD core book

The World of Darkness is an RPG published by White Wolf that focuses on deep roleplaying and, depending on the specific sub-game, horror. The setting can only be described as the modern world, but worse in every aspect. Every creeping suspicion you have is probably true, and the world is dirty and corrupt as we often make it out to be. In recent years, specifically with the release of the new ruleset (the Storyteller system) the line has been trying to avoid the old Gothic feel for which it was known (specifically with Vampire: The Masquerade) in favour of a slightly more traditional form of horror. This has manifested in many ways, but most explicitly in the detail that the supernatural isn't quite as omnipotent as it was in the previous incarnation. In addition, the new World of Darkness is more of a unified setting than the old World of Darkness games; while in the oWoD each game was meant to be played separately (with possibly conflicting fluff) with no central core book, nWoD fits more cleanly together and attempts to balance each game against the others.

The nWoD core book gives an overview of the system and is designed to deal with normal human beings in horrific situations that may or may not always be supernatural in nature. This has little established fluff, making it the most malleable for Storytellers (the in-game term for GM; abbreviated as ST).

The System

The basic system in both the new and old World of Darkness revolves around a dicepool of d10's. Your dice pool consists of a number of dice equal to your relevant ability score plus your skill and other relevant modifiers.

In oWoD, the Storyteller sets the difficulty for each roll depending on the circumstances, with the default being a difficulty of 6. A success is a roll of that difficulty or higher (6 or above, on most rolls). A roll of 1 is called a botch. Every botch cancels out a success. The net number of successes determines how well you succeed, with one success meaning that you are barely able and a greater number indicating better achievement. When you get zero net successes (if you get no successes or if your 1s cancel out your successes, or if you get at least one success and more ones than successes), you fail the roll. When you get zero successes and at least one 1, you botch-- a critical and spectacular failure. If you have a specialty in either your attribute or ability that is relevant on the roll, you may reroll all 10s to gain extra successes, and rolls of 1 on these rerolls do not count.

In nWoD, a success is an 8, 9, or 10, and 10s explode. A critical success is made when you get five or more successes. Instead of altering the target number of the roll, difficulty and circumstances increase or reduce the number of dice in the pool. When your dice pool is reduced to zero or less, you get a chance die. You roll the die normally, but only succeed on a ten (which still explodes) and if you get a one you get a critical failure. All other rolls are called simple failures.

Game Lines

Old World of Darkness (oWoD)

• Vampire: The Masquerade

The original World of Darkness game. Covers playing vampire characters in the modern day World of Darkness. It gains its title from "The Masquerade", an in-game set of rules and guidelines dictated by the Camarilla sect in an attempt to keep the mortal populace unaware of vampires and their influence on society.

It is heavily influenced by gothic imagery and by a variety of different vampire mythos, including the romanticised version of the vampire popularised by Anne Rice. As a result the game attracts emos like flies to shit.

• Werewolf: The Apocalypse

Second game to be released set in the World of Darkness. The game covers playing werewolf characters known as Garou. It gains its title from one of the major antagonistic themes in the game where supernatural forces of corruption are attempting to bring about the Apocalypse. Unfortunately the game didn't do much in the way of discouraging the antics furries get up to when roleplaying anthropomorphic animals so it is well known for attracting undesirables.

• Mage: The Ascension

Player characters in this game come from a variety of backgrounds, both mortal and immortal and are unified by the fact that they all practice magic of one form or another. Magic is defined by the game as a force that can shape reality with the willpower, belief or special magical techniques of the user. It is commonly agreed on /tg/ that this version of the Mage gameline is superior to its New World of Darkness counterpart.

• Wraith: The Oblivion
• Changeling: The Dreaming

Otherkin, the game. Seriously. The characters are fairy souls 'trapped' in human bodies to survive in the cold banal world. Someone else explain this better, I can't.

• Kindred of the East
• Hunter: The Reckoning
• Mummy: The Resurrection
• Demon: The Fallen
• Orpheus

New World of Darkness (nWoD)

Principal Games

• Vampire: The Requiem
• Werewolf: The Forsaken
• Mage: The Awakening

Limited Release Publications

• Changeling: The Lost
• Promethean: The Created
• Hunter: The Vigil