World of Darkness Core Rulebook

Caution: Edginess may be sharp.

Most people who get into tabletop role-playing games start off with Dungeons and Dragons. Of course, anyone can start with any tabletop game if it catches their interest, or if their friends make a really interesting game. My first outing in the realm of Improvised Acting with Rules was a game of new World of Darkness. It was a campaign the group called "London Fog," which took place in Victorian England. I played a character who attempted to study the occult arts in a manner similar to that of a science– and I had been brought in to help an investigation to track down a succubus. Our investigation brought us to the apartment of an occultist known only to us as "Bernie," who stumbled on our intrusion stark naked in front of a demonic altar hidden in his apartment.

This was my welcome to the World of Darkness, a universe like ours, save for the fact that secrets are deeper, shadows are longer, the monsters are real, and even they have something to be afraid of. I have decided to take off my nostalgia glasses and take a closer look at this game, and see how it holds up in as objective a manner as can be managed for a review of a tabletop RPG. I will be examining it in terms of its its character creation, gameplay mechanics, the setting, and the storytelling.

Character Creation

First, we examine the new World of Darkness' character creation systems. New World of Darkness has what can be called concept-based character construction, in which the players first choose who the character is as a person before choosing the quantifiable statistics. The way one chooses a concept is to sum it up in a 2-3 word description of the character. For my London Fog character, this would be "Logical Occultist." From there, the player chooses attributes (intrinsic traits like intelligence or strength) and skills (specific fields that would have been trained for) by assigning points to each that would fit in with the concept chosen. Merits are also chosen to supplement the character further with traits that may not necessarily be covered by skills and attributes, such as disposable income, contacts, or some manner of extra perception.

Included in all of this is the virtue and vice system, using the seven holy virtues and seven deadly sins to outline a character's higher assets and baser tendencies. While any given character can be possessed of multiple virtues and multiple vices, these would be the ones that most clearly define the character as a person. However, liberties had to be taken with the interpretation of each of these qualities to make them more universal and to give them more opportunities to be expressed beyond the obvious. On one hand, there's the interesting interpretation of virtues such as charity and vices like gluttony, but on the other hand, these are terms that may need to have been expressed more simply– maybe someone assigned to the vice of Wrath may not necessarily be violent, just impatient and short-tempered.

I personally really enjoyed the concept-based character design, though its biggest flaw is that this system is a bit difficult for new players to understand. Any attempt to introduce new players to this game's character creation should be done with the GM (game master, or the host), or with someone else who's already done this before. However, it's a very involved character creation system that places a great deal of emphasis on who the character is rather than what they are. I honestly recommend that the GM keep a dialogue with the players during character creation anyway, so it's not too big of a loss to have them on tap to help clear up misunderstandings.

Character Creation: 8/10

Mechanics

New World of Darkness is a very mechanics-light game, and it encourages taking liberties with it as far as what might make for a more compelling story. It uses a D10 (10-sided dice) system which has players roll pools of D10s based on the dots for the traits assigned to the action (If you have 3 wits and 2 composure, you roll 5 D10s). It has 8s, 9s and 10s as successes, and if you were to roll one of these in a pool, your actions would generally be a success, unless the roll is contested, in which case your successes had to be greater than the successes of the contested roller. The Willpower Trait also allows for characters to occasionally add dice to a pool when they feel like their character would strive harder to achieve a particular goal, and willpower can be restored if a character acts in accordance with their virtue or vice in a particularly dangerous or otherwise detrimental manner– virtues restore willpower when done as a detriment to one's self, and vices restore willpower when done as a detriment to others in the group.

For character advancement, World of Darkness has no leveling system to speak of, but it does award experience points at the end of game sessions which can be spent as currency on every trait that the character could possibly want to advance. Costs in the straight game are pretty steep in the face of how much XP is offered at the end of most sessions, and you can only purchase the next dot each time.

If it sounds confusing and unnecessarily complicated, that's because it is. The point system leaves a lot to be desired.

As I discuss the game mechanics, there's a certain issue that hangs over this topic like a shroud, a controversy that virtually everyone who's even ever heard of nWoD brings up: the Morality system.

Pictured above: Threshold sins for each rating.

On the surface, it's pretty harmless. It's a scale that measures a character's moral standards based on a number. The higher you are on the scale, the higher your character's personal moral standards; the lower on the scale, the more heinous acts the character considers permissible. You start at 7, which is what's perceived as the average person's moral stance.

Where we have trouble is how the scale fluctuates. The morality scale will degrade on occasion when a character has performed a heinous act and feels no remorse for it (whether the character feels remorse is determined by a dice roll). With this degeneration of morality may also, on occasion, come a derangement– mild for the first derangement, and severe when subsequent degeneration invokes another derangement. Here's a list of the derangements from the book.

Wait... Are those mental illnesses?

 

The problem a lot of people have with the morality system is that this is the only way a character can have a mechanically-recognized mental illness. While it is possible to acquire these conditions as a result of high-stress situations, this system, to some, comes with the implication that people acquire these mental illnesses because they have low moral standards. While one can certainly exhibit behaviors like these after performing such acts, and even have symptoms of some of these conditions as a result of post-traumatic stress, I need to emphasize that committing these sins is the only way in-game to acquire these conditions. Clinically, that's not how it works in real life, and there are many who find it insulting to those with mental illnesses. You don't just suddenly start having a neurotransmitter imbalance after you shoplift a 7-11.

In the other World of Darkness games, this is thankfully rectified by having the system be revised for each supernatural creature, and in The God-Machine Chronicle, the morality system is finally changed to the Integrity system, which refers to the character's mental stability rather than their moral standards, and is broken not by sins, but by breaking points that indicate instances of immense stress for the character. This is probably one of the only things I will say in favor of The God-Machine Chronicle, but I'll get into that more when I actually discuss the revised core rulebook. The point is, the morality system was a mistake, and thankfully, the publishers have recognized this mistake and have made efforts to correct it.

Because it's a mechanically light game, World of Darkness isn't necessarily ruined by its weak and sometimes questionable mechanics. However, the very fact that these systems are here and have to be revised by the player troupe does not play well in its favor. The occasionally confusing nature of the rules attached to some of the systems and the rather sluggish character advancement may be off-putting to some players and serve as a negative mark against the game, but not necessarily a damning one.

Gameplay Mechanics: 7/10

Setting

Of course, half of almost every tabletop RPG is the setting. What kind of universe does this game take place in, or, in some cases, what kinds of universes can this game take place in?

Most tabletop games will go for one of three approaches for making a compelling setting: either a clearly-defined universe that's so rich in detail and in lore that it's enjoyable to be immersed in it, a game that establishes boundaries through thematic elements and certain guidelines that give every GM's game a unique identity, or, in some cases, like in GURPS, a system where the only boundaries are the mechanics. World of Darkness goes with the second option and it succeeds in spades.

nWoD is a storytelling game first and foremost, and the exact details of the game world are left up to the GM. As a person who often ends up GMing games, it gives me a great deal of relief that I'll almost never have to match fact-checking against my players and spend painful hour after hour flipping through the book to verify someone's claim.

It allows me to really expand my horizons and do as much with the game as I want to, and to interpret any of the more ambiguous aspects of the universe however I want with little, if any, fear of contradiction. To top it off, having it be set in the modern world helps give the game a great deal of authenticity, especially if the GM sets the game in a place that they actually know about, and also modify it to give it the necessary push to go from familiar hometown to harrowing new world of horrors. Not quite perfect, but the settings get far better with later nWoD games.

Setting: 8/10

Storytelling

The final, most important element of any tabletop RPG is its storytelling. It's the whole point of this exercise, isn't it? Improvised acting, semi-improvised storytelling, and if you can't do anything with it or if you end up telling the same story over and over again, it's only an okay story, and everyone gets sick of it, it really diminishes the experience. Of course, for the purposes of measuring its potential for storytelling, we must see what it's able to do within the confines of its mechanics, character creation, and its setting to see just what this baby can do.

Thankfully, this is something new World of Darkness excels at. Provided a dark spin on it and the ability to fit into our world in one way or another, there's almost no story beyond the scope of this game, and the opportunities only grow from there with every new game that comes out. The whole premise of this game is that it's a storytelling game, with a massive emphasis on the effective use of literary elements, such as theme and mood, describing the creation of a campaign and the participation of a game in terms of making a movie or writing a book, which is actually a pretty apt comparison for role-playing. This game gives you the tools through which you can help build a good story, and every element present allows for a unique, entertaining gaming experience. If ever there was a game that exemplifies the potential of simply working within a given premise and allowing for a great deal of freedom within fairly loosely-defined boundaries, it's nWoD, and I feel like that only becomes clearer with every game I either GM or play in.

Storytelling: 9/10

Total Grade: 77.5% C

The new World of Darkness Core Rulebook, by itself, is a pretty solid role-playing system. While its mechanics leave something to be desired, its character creation is involved and compelling, it makes for a very expansive setting that gives every game its own identity while still remaining a World of Darkness game, and its potential for great Storytelling is phenomenal by virtue of the fact that it places so much importance on literary elements. While it hardly has the best to offer, even within the new World of Darkness line itself, it's certainly a great start for your journey into role-playing. The fact that it gives a premise to work in and allows for so much freedom on the part of both the GMs and the players makes it a great candidate for someone's first RPG experience, and something that I, even as a veteran, love to go back to again and again.

 

The Sacred Credo.

The retrospective will continue with a look at Vampire: The Requiem, the first of the Supernaturals to be released. Until then, see you next time, and Timere Defectum!

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