Our World of Darkness game has been over for a few weeks, but I wanted to take a moment to talk about our game and the systems that were used. There was a little confusion over the direction the game took, which I personally think was both very different from any WoD game I've ever played and the best one I've had the chance to take part in.
The Book of Spirits is almost indispensable for any WoD game, including any of the "supernatural" type games such as Vampire, Werewolf and Mage. In the book are chapters on how people view the spirit world - which is almost universally incorrect. Most of the first part of the book focuses on how spirits are perceived by various folks, and how their backgrounds and prejudices can affect what they believe. A good portion of the book is given over to these ideas and the notion that it should be similar with players.
The Spirit World is detailed and they give a lot of examples on spirits themselves. Not ghosts, mind you - that's different. The Spirit World is the world just beyond ours, while ghosts linger in the Twilight of our world - the invisible part. Confusing? Not really - the Twilight is part of and within our world, while the Shadow (Spirit World) is like a twisted reflection that's connected to our world. It can be confusing in game, because spirits in the material world usually manifest in the Twilight - that is to say, they are invisible. Therefore, it can be very easy to confuse ghosts and spirits.
Understanding the layers of the world is important, but only to the Storyteller who must process everything. Except for certain Mages and Werewolves, no character in the game is going to understand exactly how the spirits work, since the spirit lore required is not really possessed by anyone. Be warned, however. This can lead to confusion around the gaming table, which is bad. When starting from scratch, it's best to go lightly at first - until your players realize what they are dealing with isn't the normal sort of ghost or goblin.
Spirits can be defeated, but usually not physically. They are not your normal antagonists or allies, and once players realize they can't apply "pressure" to the "head" you'll have a neat story where they find the spirit's weaknesses and bans. They are simply too strange and alien to be handled by your player's normal attitude of "shoot first and don't bother with any stupid questions".
Bans are special weaknesses that have to be exploited by your players, and due to their abstract nature can be very strange and powerful. This is pretty much the best way to gain power over a spirit. One ban in our game belonged to the spirit Dust-Eyed Coyote. The players (who didn't know this at the time) had to reveal the knowledge that they had been tricked by the spirit, and exactly how they knew. Doing so would bind the spirit to answer three questions, as his special powers had to do with the realm of secrets.
You can really get creative with spirits and their bans, and make them part of the plot and setting rather than just setting up enemies to be destroyed. Not that spirits can't be destroyed...but it's fairly complicated when you know nothing of the individual spirit.
Inside the book is a treasure trove of cool stuff and nifty ideas, and not a whole lot of "crunch". This feature alone makes it usable in any game, since it would be very easy to take ideas from this book and apply elsewhere. Most of the new WoD books that aren't the basic rulebooks tend to follow this design philosophy - and it's great.
However, I think this book gives a great basic "setting" for mortal characters. The Spirit World can make any sort of horror game playable with the WoD rules, because as Storyteller you can do anything you need to with spirits. There's a real flavor to this setting, and one I've decided to exploit for my Western setting. In fact, I pretty sure all the WoD games I run for mortals will be set in the Old West, with the Book of Spirits firmly in hand.
This is without a doubt one of the best WoD books I've ever read, and it will pretty much be used in every single game I run in that system.
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