The Inside Scoop on Gaming

The Guildbooks have always occupied an uneasy place in my library. They've got an equal mix of information that I do need - like the way that the social structures of the afterlife are organized, the way that the economy works, and just what it's flat-out like - with information that I neither need nor want, like extended histories that don't really go anywhere, recountings of events that don't differ significantly from similar accounts in other books, and a lack of specific details that I wish that the book had included. In short, I doubt their utlitiy most of the time.

However, the siren song of Bitch Spend-Your-Money-Foolishly always rears its head, and I've wound up with a few of them. They're surely not complete wastes of time; but they''re designed for people who want to play as members of various Guilds. This amounts to very few people, surprisingly enough. To boot, the focus has been removed from the Guildbooks in recent books - the Mnemnoi Guildbook is going to be the last in the series, and even it isn't even going to merit its own book; it'll be included in Ends of Empire, or so I've heard I've even heard that the authors of Wraith itself didn't want to do splatbooks for the game, but were forced to do so by the higher-ups. I wouldn't know if that's true, but it explains one or two things.

However, the Spooks and Oracles guildbook actually has a lot of good information in it. The Spooks are mostly ex-Mafia types, most of whom aren't averse to breaking a leg or a neck when the Cause demands it. The Guild itself is about as illegal as they come, selling black-market Pathos and trying as hard as they can to keep the majority of wraiths out of the grasp of Oblivion. Some of them work to ensure that threats crossing the Shroud are dealt with; others do their best to keep the Fetters of others safe and sound. Behind the criminal veneer of the Spooks is a dedication to what they call the Cause - the intent to keep every wraith that they can out of the grasp of Oblivion. If that means that they have to break a leg, or throw somebody into a Nihil, or Harrow somebody so many times that they fall into Oblivion for keeps, they'll do it. They're not fanatics, but they're not angels, either.

Unfortunately, the book's material is split all over the place. For example, only a single chapter details the exact nature of the Spook hierarchy and how the various ranks within the Guild are set up, and the different factions within the Guild. The next chapter deals with a long and useless history of the Spooks, including what they did during the Breaking of the Guilds - I.E, nothing - and how they came to be. There's a little bit of useful information, including one or two seeds for an adventure, but it's ultimately just wasted space. There's enough information to extrapolate into some adventures, but it's difficult to delve into it without having to plow through acres of mush.

I miss the detail that I'm getting in, say, the Guide to the Technocracy, which I'll review as soon as I finish it. In that game, there's specific game effects for figuring out what your status is with your superiors, how much money and equipment you can get, how close you are to the rank and file, how loyal you are and so forth. In Guildbook: Spooks, there's only details about the hierarchy of the Spook guild. Sure, I can extrapolate, but why not put that information into the book?

Now, the new uses for Outrage - which allows you to inflict blows on the physical world from the afterlife - are interesting, and provide for some steering rules. Stopping bullets, reversing the direction of moving objects, creating irresistable forces and immovable objects, bringing Relics into the real world - good stuff all around. Almost all of it is geared towards pragmatism and functionality; were I playing Wraith, I'd definitely invest a few points in some of the alternate uses of the Arcanos. Most of the artifacts are also quite useful, like the explosive Barrowbombs, or the Fetter Boutinneires that let you keep an eye on your Fetters.

Character templates are also useful, at least for getting a better handle on what the Guild is like. They fortunately deviate from the standard Mafia types enough to give a good idea of what the Spooks are like. I'm not sure why the Harrowsmith, whose job is to torture people until they talk, wouldn't be getting Angst hand over fist; but then again, Wraith isn't a game focused on good and evil so much as it is on history and being vs. nothing. And the famous people within the Spooks Guild isn't bad either, including a private detective whose last case went extremely sour and a baseball player - Mickey Doyle - who makes it his business to foul up a particular team whenever he gets the chance.

The Oracles guidebook is a lot better - not so much in terms of content, but because the lack of a coherent goal on the part of the Oracles fits the sweep of information that the book has. The Oracles are literally able to read into the future to a limited degree; however, the method of their scrying can occasionally be mighty creepy. Some of them, for example, don't mind grabbing a wraith and carving him up in order to figure out what the future holds - nasty stuff. Others constantly prophecy doom in an attempt to warn people of the coming apocalypse - the Sixth Great Maelstrom, which has been building for years. (Probably already has broken, if the rumors are true.) There's a lot of information about how the Oracles channel their scrying into particular projects, like a wraith-built labyrinth where an obssessed Oracle writes down and organizes every scrap of scryed information that he has. There's the La Belle La Fayette, a wraithly steamboat where Gamblers - a particular subset of the Oracle guild - work their trade. And there's the Doomsayers - not to be confused with Doomslayers - whose outlook is bleak, at best. (Marvin, from "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" was apparently an influence.) There's a few prophecies for examples as to how prophecies work, comparing the real-life outcome to the particulars of the prophecy, which is going to be useful for when you need to make prophecies of your own.

There's a new Arcanoi, which allows you to adjust fate so as to mess other people up; there's some interesting merits, like Justin, the Nick of Time, a wraith who shows up to help particular wraiths whenever they're in trouble. The character templates are interesting - one of them is even a Game Master, which is a fairly funny in-joke. (He's got a copy of Vampire: The Masquerade as a fetter, if you can believe that.)

Ultimately, are the books worth buying? It depends. I would ask players if they want to be Spooks or Oracles first. As settings for Wraith Storytellers, they offer more insight to the Guilds, and therefore into the rest of the surreal world of Wraith. They're useful for players who want characters with a specific purpose, rather than cleaning up the mess that they left behind in the real world.

I want to recommend these books more than I am. The Spooks book is a masterpiece of style, with lovely black and white illustrations that remind me a lot of Frank Miller's "Sin City" - and some of them, like a naked woman and two children squaring off against a lioness and two cubs in a Roman colesseum, are truly creepy. (What it has to do with Wraith and/or Spooks, I don't know.) With some imagination, the Spooks could be even better than they are. And the Oracles are essentially all about the future, at the expense of the present. It's an interesting theme, but it goes too far into the mechanics of being an Oracle and not enough hard stuff for players to cut their teeth on. I just don't think that there's enough meat here to recommend this book.

Style: 4 (Classy and well done)
Substance: 2 (Sparse)

Guildbook: Spooks + Oracles
Author: Mark Cenczyk and Dawn Kahan Category: game Company/Publisher: White Wolf Line: Wraith Cost: $18.00 Page count: 148 ISBN: 1-56-56504-666-8 SKU: WW6305 Capsule Review by Darren MacLennan on 08/21/99. Genre tags: Modern_day Historical Horror Gothic	The Guildbooks have always occupied an uneasy place in my library. They've got an equal mix of information that I do need - like the way that the social structures of the afterlife are organized, the way that the economy works, and just what it's flat-out like - with information that I neither need nor want, like extended histories that don't really go anywhere, recountings of events that don't differ significantly from similar accounts in other books, and a lack of specific details that I wish that the book had included. In short, I doubt their utlitiy most of the time. However, the siren song of Bitch Spend-Your-Money-Foolishly always rears its head, and I've wound up with a few of them. They're surely not complete wastes of time; but they''re designed for people who want to play as members of various Guilds. This amounts to very few people, surprisingly enough. To boot, the focus has been removed from the Guildbooks in recent books - the Mnemnoi Guildbook is going to be the last in the series, and even it isn't even going to merit its own book; it'll be included in Ends of Empire, or so I've heard I've even heard that the authors of Wraith itself didn't want to do splatbooks for the game, but were forced to do so by the higher-ups. I wouldn't know if that's true, but it explains one or two things. However, the Spooks and Oracles guildbook actually has a lot of good information in it. The Spooks are mostly ex-Mafia types, most of whom aren't averse to breaking a leg or a neck when the Cause demands it. The Guild itself is about as illegal as they come, selling black-market Pathos and trying as hard as they can to keep the majority of wraiths out of the grasp of Oblivion. Some of them work to ensure that threats crossing the Shroud are dealt with; others do their best to keep the Fetters of others safe and sound. Behind the criminal veneer of the Spooks is a dedication to what they call the Cause - the intent to keep every wraith that they can out of the grasp of Oblivion. If that means that they have to break a leg, or throw somebody into a Nihil, or Harrow somebody so many times that they fall into Oblivion for keeps, they'll do it. They're not fanatics, but they're not angels, either. Unfortunately, the book's material is split all over the place. For example, only a single chapter details the exact nature of the Spook hierarchy and how the various ranks within the Guild are set up, and the different factions within the Guild. The next chapter deals with a long and useless history of the Spooks, including what they did during the Breaking of the Guilds - I.E, nothing - and how they came to be. There's a little bit of useful information, including one or two seeds for an adventure, but it's ultimately just wasted space. There's enough information to extrapolate into some adventures, but it's difficult to delve into it without having to plow through acres of mush. I miss the detail that I'm getting in, say, the Guide to the Technocracy, which I'll review as soon as I finish it. In that game, there's specific game effects for figuring out what your status is with your superiors, how much money and equipment you can get, how close you are to the rank and file, how loyal you are and so forth. In Guildbook: Spooks, there's only details about the hierarchy of the Spook guild. Sure, I can extrapolate, but why not put that information into the book? Now, the new uses for Outrage - which allows you to inflict blows on the physical world from the afterlife - are interesting, and provide for some steering rules. Stopping bullets, reversing the direction of moving objects, creating irresistable forces and immovable objects, bringing Relics into the real world - good stuff all around. Almost all of it is geared towards pragmatism and functionality; were I playing Wraith, I'd definitely invest a few points in some of the alternate uses of the Arcanos. Most of the artifacts are also quite useful, like the explosive Barrowbombs, or the Fetter Boutinneires that let you keep an eye on your Fetters. Character templates are also useful, at least for getting a better handle on what the Guild is like. They fortunately deviate from the standard Mafia types enough to give a good idea of what the Spooks are like. I'm not sure why the Harrowsmith, whose job is to torture people until they talk, wouldn't be getting Angst hand over fist; but then again, Wraith isn't a game focused on good and evil so much as it is on history and being vs. nothing. And the famous people within the Spooks Guild isn't bad either, including a private detective whose last case went extremely sour and a baseball player - Mickey Doyle - who makes it his business to foul up a particular team whenever he gets the chance. The Oracles guidebook is a lot better - not so much in terms of content, but because the lack of a coherent goal on the part of the Oracles fits the sweep of information that the book has. The Oracles are literally able to read into the future to a limited degree; however, the method of their scrying can occasionally be mighty creepy. Some of them, for example, don't mind grabbing a wraith and carving him up in order to figure out what the future holds - nasty stuff. Others constantly prophecy doom in an attempt to warn people of the coming apocalypse - the Sixth Great Maelstrom, which has been building for years. (Probably already has broken, if the rumors are true.) There's a lot of information about how the Oracles channel their scrying into particular projects, like a wraith-built labyrinth where an obssessed Oracle writes down and organizes every scrap of scryed information that he has. There's the La Belle La Fayette, a wraithly steamboat where Gamblers - a particular subset of the Oracle guild - work their trade. And there's the Doomsayers - not to be confused with Doomslayers - whose outlook is bleak, at best. (Marvin, from "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" was apparently an influence.) There's a few prophecies for examples as to how prophecies work, comparing the real-life outcome to the particulars of the prophecy, which is going to be useful for when you need to make prophecies of your own. There's a new Arcanoi, which allows you to adjust fate so as to mess other people up; there's some interesting merits, like Justin, the Nick of Time, a wraith who shows up to help particular wraiths whenever they're in trouble. The character templates are interesting - one of them is even a Game Master, which is a fairly funny in-joke. (He's got a copy of Vampire: The Masquerade as a fetter, if you can believe that.) Ultimately, are the books worth buying? It depends. I would ask players if they want to be Spooks or Oracles first. As settings for Wraith Storytellers, they offer more insight to the Guilds, and therefore into the rest of the surreal world of Wraith. They're useful for players who want characters with a specific purpose, rather than cleaning up the mess that they left behind in the real world. I want to recommend these books more than I am. The Spooks book is a masterpiece of style, with lovely black and white illustrations that remind me a lot of Frank Miller's "Sin City" - and some of them, like a naked woman and two children squaring off against a lioness and two cubs in a Roman colesseum, are truly creepy. (What it has to do with Wraith and/or Spooks, I don't know.) With some imagination, the Spooks could be even better than they are. And the Oracles are essentially all about the future, at the expense of the present. It's an interesting theme, but it goes too far into the mechanics of being an Oracle and not enough hard stuff for players to cut their teeth on. I just don't think that there's enough meat here to recommend this book. Style: 4 (Classy and well done) Substance: 2 (Sparse)

Guildbook: Spooks + Oracles