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In GtSE, players play people who have died, and have been brought back to life by a type of ghost called a Geist. This does not come without a price though, as they must share their entire being with the Geist, and often spend as much time confronting the spirit world with their new companion. Brought back into the living world, these characters, or Sin-Eaters, become mediums for spirits and have to deal with matters of paranormal activity. Supposedly, Geists are the rarest of all World of Darkness supernaturals, and their communities, or Krewes could number from two to two hundred.
Character creation is one of the best in all of White Wolf’s games in my opinion. In typical World of Darkness style, two main “classes” define your character. In Geist it’s how you died, and how your outlook on life has changed. This is an interesting mechanic, as it’s very subjective to the character. One could classify their death as a car accident as a misfortune, or a murder depending on circumstance. I also love that Geist creation is apart of the character creation as well, as one could have a famous ghost bound to them like Jack the Ripper, or something more symbolic like a swarm of insects with a painted mask of beauty.
I’m also a huge fan of how the powers of the game work, as it seems to be a mix of Werewolf: the Forsaken, and Mage: the Awakening. Core powers are called Manifestations, which cover abilities like death, the elements, or technology, characters access these core powers through Keys. Keys dictate how you use Manifestations as Keys give access in different ways, like controlling the different Manifestations, or cursing them. If I had a character with the technology Manifestation and the Control and Silhouette Key, He could control machines around him, and also hide them. Each Manifestation-Key combination is a separate power that has varying levels of effectiveness. Starting out, character creation gives you three dots in Manifestations and two dots in Keys, this has the possibility for six powers of varying power scales, Which is a bit overwhelming for new players, as they have a good amount of powers starting out. When play testing, about half the time was spent going through the sheer number of powers that we had available to us. Characters also have ceremonies that they can inact, akin to Werewolf the Forsaken.
Here is an important face about Sin-Eater Characters: They can’t die. When maxed out on damage, Sin-Eaters fall unconscious and rise the next morning with a wax mask on their face of someone they know who died in their stead. When I state this to people during demo games at conventions, I get some mixed reactions. Some people think it’s a cool touch, while others start to get upset that their Malcovian Elder that took over a Larp one time isn’t so bad ass in comparison, and start to blame White Wolf for power creep. (True Story.) There is a balancing factor, that every time a character comes is denied a final rest, their synergy stat is reduced by one and their maximum possible synergy is reduced by two. Synergy is how well you and your Geist buddy get along, the higher it is the less you two talk about your feelings over a carton of rocky road ice cream, and the more often you two fight internally. In short, if a Sin-Eater dies repeatedly, they go crazy and become an unplayable monster.
The mechanics for the game are solid, but there is one flaw that makes me lose interest in the game; There isn’t enough struggle with the Geist. When a Sin-Eater is created, a deal is brokered between a human and a ghost of unearthly coolness. Vary rarely in the game, do Geist motivations come up, and in a party it rests on the Storyteller to play all of the character’s Geists, which could get unruly at times. Most players will not bother with creating motivations for their Geist, as it’s only a suggestion in the rulebook. I think that if they put mechanics on the Geist, that would solve some of the issues, but as it stands it requires work for players to care about their ethereal buddy. It also stands that their is very little reason for Sin-Eaters police the spirit world, other than shutting up the really annoying ghosts that bother them. Archetype and The power stat play into this, but again it takes alot of work to get the characters to care.
Overall I am a fan of Geist: the Sin-Eaters, I think the game takes an interesting look at death, and the mechanics are very solid. The game fits right into the existing World of Darkness line perfectly and would make a fine addition to any existing game as, Sin-Eaters make wonderful villains for other WoD game lines and would frustrate any party to learn that the big bad villain legitimately doesn’t die.
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