We change systems a lot here at the Wargate, and it can be kind of hard to keep the rules about which games apply where all straight in the noggin. So, rather than present a tired review about a game book, Rulebook Ruminations plans to examine individual or sets of gaming books when and if they become relevant our community here.
In keeping with that maxim, today I'll be talking about The World of Darkness, White Wolf's core rulebook for the NEW World of Darkness, hereafter referred to as nWoD to differentiate it from the old line of books. The line was launched in 2004 with this rulebook, but it would take a long time before the nWoD really earned a place at our table. A lot of that was simply all the stigmata from the OLD World of Darkness (oWoD), like being emo or sucking in general.
Last year, some of you may recall the Wargate community went through the end of the oWoD, years after it had been published. Soon after, interest in the nWoD began to simmer and a lot of the new books were bought - now there are a ton floating around here! I think it's safe to say that the nWoD, due to a great many factors, is here to stay for quite some time.
First of all, the book itself is quite nice. The only thing that is a bother is actually using the manual in the game - how does a reference manual not have an index?? That said, the rules that this game uses are a HUGE improvement over the last iterations comprising the oWoD. It's still the Storyteller system, but man is it much meatier now.
This manual is sort of a generic horror game, with very little in the way of setting. Actually, there is nil for setting - the vignettes posed in the fiction portions of the manual are actually quite, well, generic...and I mean that in the best of ways. It is this quality of genericness that truly drew me to the nWoD, that the manual and rules can be extended to almost any genre or setting you can think of: Modern, Western, Apocalyptic, Fantasy...whatever. Just use your imagination to fill in the gaps and this engine will do whatever you want it to do.
The other supernaturals from the oWoD are presented in their own manuals. Vampires, werewolves, mages, the created, geists, changelings, and what not. The line that White Wolf has propagated was an intense draw as well - there is a plethora of fantastic sourcebooks for each of the supernaturals (as one would expect), but White Wolf really went the distance with the basic generic line that is simply The World of Darkness. Titles like Tales from the 13th Precinct, Armory, Second Sight, and the Book of Spirits make up the core line, and almost all of them are at least fascinating if not incredibly useful.
The rules themselves are not as ambiguous, and this is a definite plus for the mighty warriors here at the Wargate. The core mechanic has remained the same (dots in attributes equal dice in a pool) but getting results is actually a lot easier to understand. That's something you really have to think about if you regularly host different games all the time - the audience should be able to remember how to play it, if not the details.
Target number and number of successes needed have been fixed. On most actions a single success will work, but if you score five or more for an "exceptional success" the Storyteller may increase the magnitude of your reward. Likewise, "botches" aren't as much of a plague - the new system says any time you are sufficiently impaired by circumstance to have no dice in your pool, you may still roll a single die - but the chances of success are only 1 in 10. Likewise, there is a 1 in 10 chance of a "dramatic failure" - what we recall as "botches". Thus, the amount of terminal stupidity is quite minimized. In the oWoD it seemed like if you rolled more dice you were more likely to botch. Crazy.
This manual is quite cheap, also. It's a nice hardcover, and provides the basic rules for what are sure to be many campaigns here at the Wargate. If you want your own Wargate manuals, this is definitely one to pick up, and you can usually get them for $10 or $15 easy. Definitely recommended.
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