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What Rises May Fall. What Has Fallen May Rise Again. So says the introduction to White Wolf’s new World of Darkness core rulebook. Certainly this is true of the WoD its self, which finally made good on its years of apocalyptic hype and actually ended. From the ashes of Gehenna/The Apocalypse/The Ends of Empire et al, the New World of Darkness has arisen.
This review assumes the reader has some familiarity with the old WoD, although I hope it will also be of use to those new to the line.
Unlike the old World of Darkness, where the gamelines were entirely stand-alone, in the new World of Darkness there is one Core Rulebook containing all of the important game mechanics, followed by supplements (or possibly sub-core-rulebooks, depending on what you want to call them) detailing Vampires, Mages and Werewolves. The theory is that this will stop people having to buy multiple copies of redundant information. I will reserve my opinion on whether I think this is a good idea or not until the end of this review.
First Impressions
The book is 222 pages, give or take, hardbound, with a cover illustration depicting a shadowed figure walking (or hobbling) down a lamp lit street. It’s pretty, atmospheric, and very World of Darkness. I wouldn’t have expected anything else. The artwork throughout is of a similar style and standard – heavy on the moody lighting and strange shapes in the shadows. It is divided into eight chapters: The Secret History (that is to say “Introduction”), Attributes, Skills, Advantages, Merits, Dramatic Systems, Combat and Storytelling. Pretty much all of this should sound familiar to people who have already played White Wolf games. Each one opens with a quote from some suitably highbrow source, usually only tangentially connected to the actual topic of the chapter. A particular favourite is the Attributes chapter, which opens with “For the Mind is its own place, and in itself / Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven”. What connection Lucifer’s speech from Paradise Lost has to the Attribute system I do not know.
Content
On to the main meat of the book then. I’ll be going through chapter-by-chapter, since I think that’s the easiest way to do things.
Chapter One: Introduction. I wasn’t terribly fond of the introductory chapter. It starts off discussing the setting, mixing out of character introductory material (the usual “what this game is about” text) with in character “excerpts” from various sources that I personally found a little confusing. I also felt that it was a little too cagey about the actual nature of the world. There was an awful lot of “there are things that lurk in the shadows” and precious little actual information. This is fair enough, for an introductory chapter, but lines like “Maybe the character you create will uncover some secrets of this shadowed world. Maybe he’ll become one of those secrets. Time will tell.” struck me as a little disingenuous. I don’t honestly believe that anybody is going to buy the World of Darkness Core Rulebook not intending to use it in company with one of the supernatural gamelines. The chapter ends with two page summaries of the rules, character generation, a glossary and task resolution. All of them are straightforward and sensibly laid out.
Chapter Two: Attributes. The Attributes system will be more-or-less familiar to all White Wolf veterans. You have nine attributes, divided into Social, Physical and Mental, three to each. New WoD goes further, labelling the attributes within those divisions as either Power, Finesse or Resistance. So strength is Physical Power, Wits are Mental Finesse and so on. I am honestly not sure if this is a good model for an attribute system, or an ad-hoc justification for their otherwise rather arbitrary seeming choices of attributes. Certainly I am deeply unconvinced by the idea that Intelligence can be defined as “Mental Power”, somehow equivalent to Strength for the Mind. On the other hand, I can see that these divisions will make it far easier to work out which attribute to use for which roll.
WW Veterans may also note that the Attributes have changed a little. Appearance and Charisma have been combined into Presence (and the Striking Looks merit), with “Composure” making up the Social Resistance slot. Perception has been replaced by “Resolve”. The Attributes chapter also includes rules for various aspects of task resolution where Attribute + Attribute is used instead of the old familiar Attribute + Skill. Examples of such tasks include Resisting Coercion, Memorising and Remembering, and Perception (now rolled off Wits + Composure).
Chapter Three: Skills. Skills in the New WoD are divided up into Mental, Physical and Social, just like Attributes. This certainly seems a lot less arbitrary than the old “Skills, Talents, Knowledges” division. The skill lists are pretty much what you’d expect from a skill list in a modern RPG. The Skills chapter is a long list of skills, along with some possible applications for them, and of course a bit of flavour text to demonstrate that skill in use. I personally feel that this chapter was somewhat redundant. If I know more or less what a given skill does (“Subterfuge is the art of deception”) and the basics of task resolution (“Roll Attribute + Skill or Attribute + Attribute, with extra dice for Good Stuff, less dice for Bad Stuff”) that’s pretty much all I need to work out how to use the Subterfuge skill. I don’t need an explicit breakdown of what every skill does on a Dramatic Failure, Failure, Success, and Exceptional Success. I certainly don’t need to be told that if I want to use the Subterfuge skill for Disguise then I roll Wits + Subterfuge and get +1 die if I have a fake ID. While some people might find it useful to be able to look up what Attribute/Skill combination is used for shadowing or working the black market, no rulebook is going to cover every eventuality that might come up in a game. You’re going to have to make it up eventually, so column-inches devoted to covering specific eventualities are likely to be wasted.
Chapter Four: Advantages. “Advantages” is the term WW uses for “Everything that isn’t an Attribute, Skill or Merit”. It includes Defence (see Combat, below), Health (you now have a number of Health Levels based on your Stamina, instead of just 7), Initiative (Combat again), Morality (Humanity by any other name), Size, Speed, Willpower, Virtues and Vices. Most of these concepts are either explained elsewhere in the book (and so also explained elsewhere in this review) or else are kept unchanged from previous editions. I do, however, consider Speed and Virtues and Vices to be worth comment.
The Speed advantage is based on your character’s Strength + Dexterity + Species Factor. It represents the distance (in yards) your character can move in a combat round. I cannot help but think that it bodes very ill for the game that the designers considered “how far your character can move, in yards, in a round” to be so vital to this “Storytelling Game” that it was worth having a specific formula for it.
Virtues and Vices, however, I really rather like. These basically replace the old “Archetypes” system of Nature and Demeanour. They score heavily over the Archetypes in that they are actually Archetypal. You choose, for your character, one Vice (From the Seven Deadly Sins) or one Virtue (From the Seven Heavenly Virtues). Every time you indulge your Vice you regain a point of Willpower. If you “validate” your virtue (that is to say, behave in a manner consistent with that virtue in a given session) you regain all your Willpower. This system looks like it will, if handled right, lead to some lovely examples of archetypal roleplaying, and represents the interaction between System, Setting and Game as it should be.
Chapter Five: Merits. The “Backgrounds” of the old WoD have been fully absorbed into the larger “Merits” system. This is extremely sensible. You no longer have the weird situation where you could spend 4 points on Allies or Contacts, or with the same 4 points buy a specific “Werewolf Ally” or “Black Market Contacts”. It’s more streamlined and more sensible. On the other hand I do take issue with some of the new Merits introduced in the book, in particular the Combat Style merits, and things like “Brawling Dodge” and indeed “Weapon Finesse”.
Now, I do understand that it is important to judge RPGs on their own terms. Yes, when I come to think about it, Two Weapon Fighting and Kung Fu have been really quite big parts of pretty much 95% of every White Wolf game I have ever been involved in. None the less, White Wolf insists that this is a Storytelling game, a tale of Stylish Horror. I refuse to believe that the ability of Kung Fu masters to do lethal damage with their hands is an integral part of a well-crafted Story.
Chapter Six: Dramatic Systems. This is your basic WW task resolution. The big changes are that you sometimes roll Attribute + Attribute, where no skill applies (this nicely circumvents the problem you so often get with Attribute-Skill games, where suddenly you need two sets of standard difficulties, one for Stat + Skill, one for Stats-only), and there are no longer any variable difficulties in the game. An 8 is a success, anything else isn’t. All circumstantial bonuses and penalties are dealt with by adding dice to, or subtracting dice from then main dice pool. I do worry that this could easily lead to some stupidly big dice pools, particularly if GMs are generous with the bonuses. Then again, some people like buckets o’ dice systems.
A particularly nice feature of this system is bonus dice for equipment. These apply to everything. You get bonus dice to your social skills for being well dressed or having appropriate props. This system should lead to people paying a lot more attention to minor details of their character, and that’s something that really could enhance Storytelling.
Once again, I rather feel that this section goes on too long. Once again, I don’t see how specific rules for breaking solid objects and stats for the acceleration of different vehicles really add to my Storytelling options. Even if I did want to run a thrill packed car chase, I can’t see how keeping meticulous notes about how many yards the things travel in a round, how much they can accelerate and decelerate, and so on and so forth, can do anything but slow things down and turn a dramatic scene into a bookeeping exercise.
They may call the chapter “Dramatic Systems”, but basically it’s generic task resolution mechanics. The one element of the system that genuinely does add to the drama of the situation is the Heroic Effort rule, whereby you can burn a point of Willpower for a +3 dice bonus to one roll, when it really matters (and only when it really matters). This is an excellent change from the old "automiatic success" rule.
Chapter Seven: Combat. The chapter on Combat opens as follows: “Where would Storytelling be without conflict? Storytelling is predicated on dramatic and entertaining events. The essence of drama is conflict, whether it’s a struggle with one’s own flaws, or an outward competition between characters. The most extreme form of conflict is combat.” I do not think any less of the Storytelling system for having a separate combat subsystem. It’s a rules-medium, generic task resolution system, and 99% of RPGs since the very beginning have had combat systems. I do object to the fact that they open their combat chapter with a paragraph about conflict. Conflict and combat are not the same thing. You can have conflict without combat, and you can even have combat without real conflict (in the form of pointless, arbitrary fight scenes). By allying the two so firmly, White Wolf do themselves a great disservice.
That being said, the actual combat system is a great improvement over the original, where every blow took four dice rolls to resolve (roll to hit, roll to block, roll for damage, roll to soak). You now just roll Strength + Skill + Damage – Defence, difficulty 8, doing one point of damage per success rolled. Simple, straightforward, elegant. However the system also includes specific rules for charging, moving in combat, grappling and blind fighting, all of which I feel add unnecessary complication to the system. The beauty of the core mechanic is that it’s simple. It promotes combat that is fast, bloody and brutal. The extra options will serve only to bog things down. If I am playing a vampire seeking to run down my hapless prey and introduce them to the Unholy Ecstasy of the Kiss, I don’t want to get bogged down in the minutiae that the full combat system brings to the game. “Okay, so he’s twelve yards away – damn I’ve only got a speed of 9, so I can’t make it this round unless I Charge, and then I’ll lose my Defence… ah sod it, I’ll do it anyway. What are the Grapple rules again? Strength plus Brawl, okay… and then he gets to make a roll to break it…”. It isn’t the kind of Story I signed up for.
Chapter Eight : Storytelling. This is the usual blend of perfectly good advice and spasm-inducing pretentiousness that many of us have come to expect from White Wolf. Once again they take great pains to insist that this is a role-playing game not a roll-playing game, a claim that would sound less preposterous if it didn’t come at the end of 188 pages of rules for rolling bucketloads of dice. Low point of the chapter must be the line “This might sound pretentious, but anybody who’s played roleplaying games long enough has experienced more than one epiphany, a moment when the game seems to become a living entity, a Muse dictating strange and wonderful things to the players.” A close second is “Don’t deride those who see gaming as a fun hobby (which it is), or those whose roleplaying stories don’t aim higher.”
The information in the Storytelling chapter is fairly decent “how to run a roleplaying game” fare. Their “Ten Commandments”, although grandly named, are basically very sensible guidelines for running a game. Involve Your Players, Work Things Out in Advance, Don’t Panic. The section on Advanced Techniques (flashbacks, flash-forwards – which they inaccurately call foreshadowing – and cutaways) could stand to be longer. As it is they mention the possibility, but don’t really go any further than that.
The chapter wraps up with “Antagonists”, which is basically some sample NPC stats, and a brief section on Ghosts.
Conclusion
The new model for the World of Darkness gameline was a laudable idea. Having one book for the basic rules frees up space in the other books, and will hopefully provide better value for customers in the long run. On the other hand an awful lot of the new Storytelling System feels like padding – a means to justify a 222 page hardbound rulebook. Over half of the book could easily go, with little loss in actual utility. Of the bits that are genuinely necessary, a fair few (the Storytelling chapter, character generation) are repeated in Vampire: the Requiem anyway. I’m not convinced that there is very much gained by devoting an entire book to the game mechanics.
Anyway, the ultimate question is: should I buy this book? It all depends on what you’re looking for.
If you’re a die hard White Wolf fan, then of course you should buy it – it’s the New World of Darkness. Chances are you would have bought it anyway (indeed, chances are you probably already have.)
If you’re a lapsed White Wolf fan who hasn’t played since second edition, or an established Masquerade player wondering if you should upgrade, then on balance, yes you should buy it. New WoD is all round better than Old WoD, while the core rulebook is a bit padded, it’s no worse than the accumulated detritus of Players Guides and Storytellers Handbooks that the Old WoD ran on.
If you’re a roleplayer who is new to White Wolf, who is looking for a stylish modern-day RPG with a not-too-complicated system, that it will be easy to find a player base for, then yes, you should buy this book.
The only people who should not buy this book are people who actually want a game that encourages Story and Character over Stats and Skills. For all its high claims, the World of Darkness fails to deliver on this point. What you’re getting here is a generic task resolution system, much like GURPS. That’s not a bad thing for an RPG core rulebook to be, but don’t expect it to be anything more.
