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Early in 2004, White Wolf, after promising for years that its game lines would end in an apocalypse, finally brought about Gehenna/Apocalypse/the Reckoning (etc.) in its Time of Judgement series of books. This allowed the staff to start things fresh, creating a new World of Darkness with a new version of the old Storyteller System. One of the much-requested changes was to put the core rules of the system into a single volume so that each game line wouldn't have to print redundant game info. Thus, what is now called the Storytelling System has its own rulebook, simply titled The World of Darkness.
The Book
The book itself is of very high quality. It's hardcover and pages are bound in seven places at the spine, not glued in. The artwork within (including pieces reproduced on the back cover) is grey and indistinct, but in the horror setting, this is an advantage, and it captures the desired tone well. The front cover of the book shows a person walking down a cobblestone road, lit only by streetlights behind. The picture is so blurry you can't even tell if the person is male or female. You don't know what's going to happen next. At top is the title in disjointed font: "The World of Darkness." The cover does a very good job of conveying the setting to the game buyer. It says: "This is our world. It's really dark here."
Introductory Fiction
In addition to a Prologue of a hired investigator trying to piece together occult events through sketchy information, the entire Chapter 1 is devoted to a "Secret History" of similar in-character accounts of the supernatural (meaning there's no real reason why they couldn't have ditched the Prologue or bundled it in with the Chapter 1). Nevertheless, the material is interesting in that it presents the World of Darkness from the mundane mortal's perspective, 'outside looking in.' You don't know how many "feral" species really exist. The man in white who has ruled a Massachusetts village since Puritan days may be a vampire, but it's hard to tell. They don't come out and *say* it. This creates a very interesting vibe, very much like The X-Files, where you knew some kind of strangeness was going on but never knew the whole truth of it. This also means that you could take the book as is and use it to create similar situations using only mortal characters. Vampire: The Requiem and the other game lines present the 'insider's view' from the monsters' perspective.
[From here, VtR refers to Vampire: The Requiem, VtM refers to the old Vampire: The Masquerade, and oWoD and nWoD refer to the old and new Worlds of Darkness respectively. Thus those terms are also short hand for the old Storyteller system and the new 'Storytelling' system in this rulebook.]
The Basics Chapter 1 technically ends with a summary description of the Storytelling System rules. As in oWoD, normal characters have their natural Attributes rated on a scale of 1 to 5 dots. Any Skills they have are likewise rated from 1 to 5 and paired off with relevant attributes (e.g. Dexterity+Brawl) to perform actions (e.g. hitting somebody). The main difference between Storytelling and either the oWoD games or variations like Exalted or Aberrant is that the 'difficulty number' to hit is always an 8, and penalties and bonuses are applied to your dice pool, not to the target number. This is complicated by some other new factors. Rolling a natural 10 is called a 10 Again, allowing you to keep rolling that die for a success (8, 9, or 10, which would allow you to roll again until you quit rolling 10). And while the nWoD has eliminated the dreaded 'botch' that made 1s take away any successes, there is still a chance for fumble or 'dramatic failure'; given the number of penalties that could be applied to a roll, it is quite possible that you could end up with one die or less in your dice pool. In that case, you still get to make a chance roll of one die, but it only succeeds on a natural 10 (although it gets the 10 Again benefit and could thus do more than one success). However if that FIRST die roll comes up '1' (not counting re-rolls after a 10 Again) that ends up being the same thing as the old Storyteller 'botch' (i.e. the GM gets to screw the character).
Character Creation
There is also a brief glossary of game terms and a discussion of character creation, referencing future chapters on Merits, Skills and other factors. Of course, characters who are vampires, werewolves or mages will have to consult the relevant game books to add on to their characters; based on VtR, the character created with this book is a 'basic template' that gets added onto if one is making a supernatural. (Obviously one is not born and raised a vampire, and the text seems to indicate that no one in the nWoD starts out as a werewolf either.) In character creation, a basic mortal starts with one dot in all Attributes and gets to prioritize between Mental, Physical and Social stats, similar to oWoD, however PCs only get 5,4 and 3 dots for each category (whereas mortals in the old system got 6/4/3 and supernaturals got 7/5/3). Furthermore, the fifth dot in any Attribute costs two dots, meaning that to have any stat at 5 it has to be in your Primary category AND you have to devote all 5 dots to it (starting with 1, using three to get a 4, then your last two points to get 5) which also means the character will be a substandard 1 with the other two stats in the category. Characters have a similar Mental/Physical/Social priority with Skills, getting 11/7/4 points to spend on their preferred categories. As with Attributes, the fifth dot of a Skill costs two points at character creation. The main difference between the categories is that Physical and Social abilities only have a -1 die penalty if used "unskilled," but Mental Skills (including Computer, Law, etc.) take a -3 for unskilled use. All characters get three Skill Specialties, which add +1 die to a relevant Skill (if you have 3 dots in Drive and specialty in Motorcycles, you'd get 4 dots when driving a cycle). They do say that you could add more than one specialty to the same Skill and buy more later with experience, so that indicates they can be cumulative (i.e. if I had Drive with specialty in Stunts AND Motorcycles, I'd get +2 with stunts on a motorcycle). Characters also get 7 dots in Merits, representing various non-Skill abilities, described fully in their own chapter. They're most similar to 'Backgrounds' from oWoD games. Note that there are no customization/"Freebie" points. That's what you get.
Attributes Chapter 2 focuses on Attributes. As in the old system, they're 9 traits tiered into 3 categories of Mental, Physical and Social Attributes. The difference is that they're also organized to represent 'Power' (efficacy) 'Finesse' (skill) and 'Resistance'. Thus these traits in the Mental category are Intelligence for Power, Wits for Finesse and Resolve for Resistance. Compared to oWoD, Strength/Dexterity/Stamina are as they were, "Resolve" serves much the same function as Willpower did, the old Perception Attribute is now a separate function of Wits, and "Composure" is the Social Resistance Attribute. Appearance does not exist, but the "Striking Looks" Merit can add to your Social rolls in appropriate situations.
The interesting thing about this is that the use of Power/Finesse/Resistance seems to parallel the old MEGS/DC HEROES game and its use of 9 Attributes likewise tiered into Physical, Mental and Mystical, and horizontal categories of Acting Value (Finesse) Offensive Value (Power) and Resistance Value. Doing the same thing here makes it easy to remember which Attribute is for what. (This was something of a problem when figuring out which tasks called for Charisma and which for Manipulation, for instance.)
Skills
Chapter 3 lists the various Skills of the game. These, like the descriptions of the Attributes, go over the use of tools to gain dice pool bonuses (and circumstance penalties to dice pools) and what happens on a dramatic failure or an exceptional success (roll with five or more successes). This section is kind of a mixed bag. Some skills get a lot more detail than others. For instance, they mention that athletic shoes provide a +1 bonus to Athletics/Foot Chase, but don't go into any detail on Science. (So much for using this game to model CSI.) As another example, they go into great detail on the use of Persuasion Skill for Seduction, with a two-stage process involving physical attraction (Presence+Persuasion in a contested roll vs. target's Wits+Composure) and an extended and contested social contest with the seducer rolling Manipulation+Persuasion vs. the target's Wits+Composure, with each roll taking 10 minutes of time and the seducer requiring twice the target's Resolve in successes, with the target requiring twice the seducer's Presence; the first person to roll the required number succeeds, meaning either you score (if the seducer wins) or get shot down (if the target wins).
[It's at this point that I shake my head again at all those people who think that HERO System requires too much math. "Your character has a Seduction Skill of 13-? Roll 3d6, if you get 13 or less, you score."]
Maybe that emphasis on Seduction over Science is indicative of a "role play, not rollplay" attitude, but in that case I think one would be LESS inclined to use heavy rules for situations that ought to be roleplayed or fudged for dramatic effect anyway, and wouldn't handwave away the stuff that DOES require some detail for the GM to convey to players.
Advantages
Chapter 4 covers game "Advantages" which are what other games might call "figured" or secondary traits. In this game, Willpower is the sum of Resolve+Composure (the Mental and Social Resistance Traits). Health is the sum of Stamina and Size (human characters have a Size of 5 and average Stamina of 2- thus as in oWoD most characters have 7 Health boxes but could have up to 10). Initiative is the sum of Dexterity and Composure and is added to the roll of a d10 to get your character's initiative rating for an entire combat scene. Defense is either your Wits or your Dexterity, whichever is lower; this trait subtracts from an attacker's dice pool in combat and represents how hard you are to hit. Speed is your species factor (5) added to your Strength and Dexterity; most people with 2 in each stat get a Speed of 9. Speed is how many yards you can move in a combat turn and still perform an action (you can 'go noncombat' and run at double Speed if you do nothing else).
This chapter goes into some detail on Willpower and on another stat called Morality. Morality is basically the same thing as Humanity in VtM (it's still called Humanity in VtR). And while loss of Humanity has specific game effects for vampires, all characters need to preserve their Humanity/Morality or risk gaining mental Derangements (clinical disorders) as they try to cope with or rationalize their sins. The thing is that as one's Morality becomes more elevated (or debased) one's standard of immorality changes, meaning that the more moral you are, the more "tempted" you will be and the more degeneration checks you have to make. However, the sins themselves are on an objective scale, and the more heinous a sin is, the less dice you roll to preserve your Morality. For instance, a normal character has Morality 7. A saintly character with Morality 10 would need to check simply for "selfish thoughts" or hurting someone's feelings- but she'd get to roll five dice. A normal character wouldn't feel so guilty, but he would have to check for petty theft, rolling four dice in that case- as would the character with Morality 10. A callous character (Morality 4) could commit most crimes without remorse, but would need to check to commit premeditated murder. In this case, he'd only roll two dice, as would the other two characters if they decided to murder for whatever reason. Also important: If a character loses a Morality point, his new Morality rating is the dice pool he uses to resist getting a Derangement. Thus, as a character commits more sins, he becomes more callous to the world and needs greater provocation to lose Morality, but if he does, his lower Morality also means he has less mental resilience to handle the guilt. The chapter does mention that a character could regain Morality with experience points, or possibly gain a "free" point back with true selflessness, but in either case that requires appropriate roleplaying. If this occurs, the character loses the Derangement he gained earlier. It is of course possible for Morality to go up and down, and interestingly enough, the writers give PCs the option of either keeping the "old" Derangement they got if they lose Morality again or choose a new one appropriate to the case. The former case reflects a certain pattern of behavior; the latter reflects a person who moves on from old experiences.
Willpower works differently from the old system. Rather than spending a point to get an automatic success on a dice pool, spending a point adds +3 to a dice pool for "heroic effort" (p.132) or only two dice to make a Resistance roll (p.133). Why the different modifiers in each circumstance? Beats me. As in the old game, Willpower is regained through roleplaying certain character traits. In the oWoD they were called Nature and Demeanor, but in Storytelling the traits are Virtues and Vices. The difference is that standing up for your Virtue in a difficult situation allows you to regain all spent Willpower in that game session, whereas indulging a Vice that will get you into a difficult situation regains one Willpower point that scene (reflecting the idea that Vice is the 'quick fix'). Note that these terms are deliberately based on the old Christian Virtues (Charity, Faith, Fortitude, Hope, Justice, Prudence and Temperance) and Seven Deadly Sins (Envy, Gluttony, Greed, Lust, Pride, Sloth and Wrath).
This may be the best game-mechanic chapter, in that it presents an interesting system for enforcing the game's style of roleplaying.
Merits
Chapter 5 details the Merits of the nWoD, not counting game-specific ones like Status in a vampire Clan. Like Attributes and Skills, these are grouped in Mental, Physical and Social categories. Again, these are best compared to the old game's Advantages, including traits like Status and Resources (wealth) and including what the old game used to call Merits that you either had or you didn't, like D20 Feats.
To me, this chapter is another mixed bag. For one thing, Languages are now a Merit, not a Linguistics skill, and you have to spend three (of your precious seven) Merit points to speak a foreign language at full fluency. That's not *nearly* as cost effective as, say, the one-dot Fresh Start (which allows you to sacrifice an action to change your initiative rating, which then applies in every subsequent combat turn). Apparently in the new World of Darkness, everyone goes to American public schools that can't even teach English well, let alone another tongue. The Physical Merits also include the equivalent of Martial Arts (called 'Fighting Styles'). It's worth noting, in comparing this section to the later Combat chapter, that the Fighting Styles are the only means of being able to perform multiple actions in a hand-to-hand combat.
Dramatic Systems, aka the rules
Chapter 6 is called "Dramatic Systems" and for the first half of its length goes over the basics of the Storytelling system, meaning it says exactly the same thing that the book said in pp. 32-39, only in heavier detail. This also includes modifiers for teamwork, the concept of an 'extended action' over time, a contested action (character vs. character skill roll) or even an extended and contested action (e.g. a foot race, or the aforementioned seduction attempt).
This is also the chapter listing the game stats for various mundane objects in terms of Size, Durability ('armor rating'), and Structure points (Durability+Size). For example a 2x4 board is Size 3, Durabilty 1 and Size 4, meaning it takes 1 point of damage off any roll made against it and needs 4 successes through Durability to get destroyed. Vehicles are written up in a similar manner, including stats for Speed (technically on the character scale, but much greater scores, with mph listed in parentheses). This section also details what it takes to blow out a tire, how much cover you get from a car door, what kind of damage occurs in a collision and so on.
Combat
Chapter 7 deals with character combat, and with the effects of combat and non-combat injuries. A combat turn is three seconds (remember, an Average Joe with Speed 9 gets to move 9 yards walking or 18 running in one turn). As mentioned before, you roll initiative once at the start of the combat, and you're stuck with that roll for the whole scene (unless you have the 'Fresh Start' Merit). Combat itself is familiar in Storyteller terms but is streamlined down to a 'one-roll engine': The attacker takes his relevant Attribute+Skill dice pool and subtracts the target's Defense rating and any armor value of the target, plus or minus any other modifiers (like target cover) that apply. Any successes on the resulting dice pool are damage to the target's Health points (or Structure).
Multiple attackers subtract from your Defense value (-1 for every attacker above the first) and you don't get Defense vs. high-velocity projectiles (bullets) at all. Your best 'defense' in that case is finding cover.
Two points are worth making here: 1. There is no defender 'soak roll' or soak value, other than worn armor. Thus there is no benefit to a high Stamina (even when taking 'bashing' damage) other than having more Health boxes and taking longer to fall unconscious or dead. 2. Even though the heavier armors subtract from Defense value, being "hard to hit" (Defense) is still ultimately cumulative with "soaking the damage" (armor) because they are basically the same trait... as in good ol' D&D. Of the two, armor is better, as it applies vs. multiple attackers and firearms.
Again, the game specifically disallows multiple attacks, unless you have the relevant advanced Fighting Skill Merit, or you have a full-auto firearm, in which case the game goes into some detail as to what you can do with a burst. I have to believe this is deliberate to avoid letting PCs run wild, but as much as this rule (and the 'no Defense vs. firearms') seem to emphasize realism, neither this game nor the old WoD were too stringent in that regard, and in either case "realism" is not always the same thing as "making the mechanics needlessly difficult for the players to grasp or their PCs to survive."
Furthermore, while firearms are king in this game, as they probably should be, you have to waste an action to draw a weapon in the first place, by which time the other guy could kill you. Again, realistic, but not fun. My advice for players is, wear flak jackets and/or riot gear, carry a submachine gun everywhere you go, and buy the Quick Draw Merit if you must conceal it in a holster.
Health and Injury
After a list of weapons and armor, Chapter 7 deals with 'States of Being', namely what damage is and what it does to you. As in VtM Revised, the game defines three types of damage: bashing (punch/concussion damage that heals one Health box per 15 minutes), lethal (cutting/invasive damage that heals one point per two days) and aggravated(especially critical injury that heals one box per week). As a character takes damage boxes, the Health boxes are marked off from left to right; as the damage goes toward the rightmost box, it imposes 'wound penalties' for actions. If your character takes his last box in bashing damage, he has to make (unmodified) Stamina rolls to stay conscious. Taking the last box in lethal damage means the character is mortally wounded and will soon be dead.
Note that it is possible to take all three kinds of damage in a fight. In this case, the more severe type of damage starts at the left and 'pushes right' existing damage (e.g. a character who's taken 6 boxes of bashing damage and then takes 1 box of lethal has a total of 7 boxes damage; if he only had 7 Health to begin with, he has to make saves vs. unconsciousness). If the track is full, additional damage 'overlaps' to the more severe category, so in this case further damage, even bashing damage, gets overlaid as lethal. If a character has all his boxes filled with lethal damage, any further damage is marked as aggravated (or a mortally wounded character will suffer 1 aggravated damage box per minute without medical attention). Once all boxes are filled with aggravated damage, the character is dead. In most cases, aggravated damage is the "Achilles Heel" that can quickly kill a supernatural (silver vs. werewolves, for example). In the case of mortals, aggravated damage represents truly critical injury that takes weeks and months to heal, if possible. Note that because of the way damage 'carries' from one category to the next, it is quite possible to beat someone to death with bashing damage, given enough time.
The chapter also lists some of the non-combat injuries a character might suffer from disease, starvation, drug use or the like. These are expressed abstractly in terms of Health boxes or sometimes dice pool penalties.
Storytelling
Chapter 8 is a GM/Storyteller chapter giving advice on how to convey the proper theme and mood for stories in the gloomy World of Darkness. Much of the advice is fairly general, but still useful. Specifically, introducing mundane characters to the "World of Darkness" means that it is best to introduce PCs to the secret truth slowly. Again, a parallel to The X-Files is probably the most useful example, especially if the game is centered around mundanes who STAY mundane. However, the chapter assumes that the Storyteller is using the "initiation" as the origin for a Vampire, Werewolf or Mage character (what Vampire calls 'the Prelude' before the character is made a monster). This sets up a few story ideas for "initiated" mortals, and a few game stats for animals, normal NPCs (non-combat characters presented with their best Skill dicepools, combatants like policemen getting fuller write-ups) and Monster Hunters. There's also a fairly big section on Ghosts, who get their own traits (Numina for ghostly powers and Essence to power them). Note that since they're listed here in the "generic" book, and the section specifically says that ghosts cannot increase their lost Morality dots ('A ghost cannot grow or improve, only decline over the course of time') the setting seems to imply that the ghost is exactly that, a spiritual 'echo' of the person... in any event, it doesn't seem like they're considered proper subjects for a new version of Wraith.
Finally, the book briefly goes over how to award Experience Points (costs for improving traits are already given on p. 35). Also, as something of an afterthought, Flaws (as opposed to Merits) are detailed. With Storyteller permission, a PC might get *one* Flaw during character creation, which benefits him only by earning a bonus XP in a session where the Flaw handicapped the character. Old WoD veterans might recall that the old system had Flaws of various types allowing for various awards of Freebie Points in character creation. While that system (in conjunction with Merits) was critiqued for "Twinking" or "min/maxing" characters, I liked it a lot more than the new approach, which gives the same game value to Hard of Hearing, Lame (only one foot disabled) and Crippled (both legs disabled).
SUMMARY
I think I like the potential of the new World of Darkness (as an unexplored, generic 'occult' setting) a lot more than I like the actual game system in The World of Darkness. I like the fact that they try to make combat a 'one-roll engine,' but the results break down fairly quickly (for instance, they need the 'chance roll' to compensate for how easily penalties reduce the average person's chance of success to less than zero). And as clunky as old Storyteller could be, I think the system was better fixed by the oWoD Revised editions, and by the Exalted and Aeon Continuum games, than by the new system, which creates its own set of new weaknesses and complications. The main thing that Exalted and Aeon didn't solve was the "buckets o' dice" problem with the dice pool system, and the Storytelling system exacerbates the problem the way those games do (by just adding more dice as bonuses).
Still, you need this book if you want to run the new Vampire and related lines, and again, it is of high physical quality and depth, especially for 20 bucks. Ultimately it depends on how big a White Wolf fan you already were. If you *need* to play a monster in the new World of Darkness, get this book. If you just want to play a mortal hunting the monsters, it's not a bad book for establishing mood... but there are better systems to use, like Call of Cthulhu/Delta Green.
Style: 4
The book earns high marks for its physical quality, its use of grey, evocative artwork and its advice on setting a properly mysterious mood.
Substance: 3
On the other hand, the rules system, while serviceable, is not an improvement on White Wolf's earlier versions of Storyteller.
