White Wolf, what the hell?

As a lover of both World of Darkness and Exalted, you would think that I would love the publishing company, White Wolf. In truth my relationship with them is very hit and miss. I love their games, don't get me wrong. Some of the Old WoD stuff wa sub-par, and I think nWoD has a much better feel to it. Also, Storyteller 2 is a much better system than Storyteller. On the whole though, I love all the games of their that I've played. So why do I not like them so much?

Mostly, it's their arrogance. White Wolf can be incredibly pretentious at times. Just read the storytelling chapter of Changeling: the Lost and you'll see that in a hearbeat. Look at this section of it:

Imagine an artist's palette, first of all, a color-box from which you, as Storyteller, will "paint" your chronicle: the locales, the characters, the weird quests and dream-remembered promises. Don't consider the actual colors yet, though. Instead, think about the properties of those colors. Imagine the bleak, painterly neutrals of the Hedge and the sharp, dry-brush edges of the thorns. Imagine the oversaturated, high-contrast variety of colors present at an august Court function. Imagine the textured patinas of a lost artifact unearthed, an untarnished metallic luster yielding into verdigis, or perhaps the luminous nacre of a pearl plucked from between a dead man's chalky fingers.

What the hell does that even mean? Seriously, it's pretentious wank that tells you nothing in practice about how to GM a game of Changeling. (Incidentally, I wouldn't mind so much if Changeling wasn't in all other respects a fantastic game, probably my favourite of the nWoD line). So yeah, White Wolf can be arrogant as hell at times, but this takes the gold in stupid things that they've done.

The basic idea is that you send in your copy of the DnD Players Guide, and they send you a copy of Exalted in return. In itself, it's not a bad idea, especially seeing as 4th Edition is coming out soon. If they can drum up a big of interest in Exalted on the side, more power to them. It's the way that it's phrased that really annoys me. You're supposed to graduate to a better level of roleplaying.

Now you won't find me arguing that DnD is better than Exalted. I prefer Exalted, to be honest, but they're different beasts entirely. DnD is high mortal fantasy, with mortal characters in a fairly generic fantasy world. It is by no means a bad game, indeed I love it. Exalted is Epic level immortal fantasy. Your characters are, for want of a better word, gods. They are gifted with the power of deities, and capable of truly earth-shattering feats. It's at a much higher power level than DnD, and comparing the two in this fashion is simply not something that you can really do.

People who like DnD aren't necessarily going to like Exalted, and White Wolf have basically shot themselves in the foot by saying 'come and play a better game, leave those plebs who play DnD behind, what do they know?' The sort of person who would think like that is not the sort of person I want to play tabletop roleplaying games with.

That's not to blast those people who would make the swap because they are moving up to 4th edition anyway, I have nothing against them, and that's a good way to get yourself a little extra out of the bargain. But people who would make the swap solely in order to feel superior to DnD players, which seems to be what this deal is implying, you aren't welcome in my games, ever.

Now I'm sure that this has been in the works for a while, but they have done it at a truely, spectularly disrespectful time, considering that Gary Gygax only passed away last tuesday.

Shame on you White Wolf. Your games are great, we know, but stop being so arrogant about it.

EDIT: People of various forums are now suggesting that this move was done with their tongue firmly within their cheek. If that's the case, then I apologize profusely to White Wolf. Either way, I think it's pretty tasteless, but not so malicious as I thought it was.

But you're still pretentious!

The World of Darkness- Session Four

So with news that the Doctor was stable, our three heroes head home to sleep. In the morning, a full-scale investigation is scheduled of his computer. Not much is found, except for some map co-ordinates revealing the location of a small village about thirty miles outside of London called Greensville. Known for being quite pretty and near a set of caves that was a tourist destination until some people died there about thirty years ago. Surely this bared investigation!

Meanwhile, scientists work on the serum that they found, identifying all of the key components but one, which refuses to be identified under any scientific tests. Doctor Johns, meanwhile, lies comatose in a bed in the discrete lab of Parasol Corp.

Hopping into various cars, they sped towards Greensville as fast as they could, arriving in time for a pub lunch in the Fox and Goose. However, raised voices with angry locals, and repeated insistance that they will go into the caves eventually forces them to flee to a friendlier pub, the Green Dragon Inn, so named for an old folk legend. Here they find out that the other pub is a haven for members of a group called the Julian Society, a supposedly benevolent organisation dedicated to the improvement of the village.

After lunch, they head off to the caves, spending a little time looking around the tourist section. They get a little bit of information. The first cavern is open to the public, and while they can't be prohibited from entering the rest of the caves, it is not advisable, they will need breathing apparatus, and the management can not be held responsible blah blah blah. Breathing apparatus is summarily requested from London, and soon it arrives. Time to enter the caves.

The walls are dripping with water and covered in fungi and moss. Samples of all are taken. Progressing through the cave reveals something odd, there is a door set into one of the walls, with the sound of screaming from behind it. It is quietly opened, and a man is calling for help, chained against the far wall, behind what looks like an altar that would neatly sluice blood into a small basin. He screams at them to unchain him, and some fiddling around with lockpicks gets him out. He thanks the heroes. Meanwhile, exploring one of the pools of water, Thrace finds a secret tunnel which leads into a small bedroom, not the sort of thing you'd expect in a cave. He steals the small battery lamp that's there.

When he gets back, sounds are heard of people approaching. The heroes hide, but the intruders notice that their captive is missing and run over. Throwing a rock into a nearby pool, Thrace distracts them for a critical few seconds, enabling them to get the jump on their opponents, using his own time to capture one of them and use them as a bullet shield. Their new friend, William Kursus, goes first, running at one of the thugs before his knife can be drawn and delivering a sucker punch to the gut. Fisher moves in to combat another...before pepper-spraying him to the face. Thrace notices a gun on the hip of one of the men, and fires, his fine-tuned military reflexes serving him well as he hits the man in the gut. The various thugs, shocked from this initial offensive, scatter and attack various groups. The one who had been shot is woozy, but still manages to score a glancing hit, shooting Fisher in the shoulder. One of them struggles with Kursus, and another attacks Thrace with his knife, but misses and slices his own friend's shoulder open. Finally, Burns, hiding behind the altar due to his lack of weapons, calls out that the men should surrender.

Kursus scores a devastating hit, flipping the thug over his shoulder and leaving him unconcious on the ground. Thrace shoots the man with the knife, hitting him in the arm and causing him to drop his knife. Fisher runs over to the woozy man with the gun and similarly manages to score an excellent hit, kicking the man backwards. His head hits the wall, and he slumps down, either unconcious or dead. The man in Thrace's grasp rips free and runs for the gun that his companion dropped, but the other man with the knife attacks. However, Thrace steps to the side and the knife cuts nothing but air. Burns agains repeats the offer of surrender, but the thugs refuse, shouting out that their sacred spot has been defiled and there can be no mercy.

Kursus captures the thug running for the gun, pinning him from behind, allowing Fisher to deliver several punches to the stomach. Meanwhile, Thrace plays a game of cat and mouse with the knife-man, moving from cover to cover firing off shots. This game ends when he steps out and delivers one final shot to the head, killing the man instantly. The last man is swiftly knocked unconcious. The man who had been pepper-sprayed is subjected to a brief interrogation in which he reveals that he is part of the Julian Society.

Making good their escape, the heroes head out of the cave and take their samples back to London. The doctor has woken, and an interview with him reveals that he manufactured the serum for an unknown paymaster, and that he himself was doing it in a purely disinterested pursuit of knowledge. The missing ingredient definitely comes from the caves, and shows up on all of the samples they brought with them. Clearly the connection between the serum, the cave and the Julian Society bore further investigation...

TO BE CONTINUED...

New purchases

I recently ordered 2 new World of Darkness books from Amazon Marketplace. The first is their newest WoD game, Changeling: the Lost. This I have wanted for a while, and the number of positive reviews from everywhere sealed the deal. I didn't like the original Changeling game, its focus on capturing childhood innocence at the expense of anything resembling maturity smacked of Michael Jackson, and didn't sell the game at all. I never actually played it, but just looking through the book made me feel uncomfortable.

The other book I bought was the new splat book, Midnight Roads. It's about characters who travel, and basing campaigns around them. I shall have to work it into the Chronicles of Storge somehow.

The World of Darkness- Session Three

Scarpering from the scene of the crime, the three unlikely heroes make their way back to various places. Eventually the rendevous at Parasol, and discuss what they know. A strange drug is in production that makes people go insane and wild, and then quickly die of a heart attack. The most recent test subjects were people abducted from an insane asylum. A report comes on, which talks about the events of the warehouse, and mentions that there were people trapped in the building, who were swiftly rescued by the police. Cursing at the lack of insight from the cops, Fisher calls his contact, who tells him that the people bribed their way out of the situation. Clearly the Met is corrupt from top to bottom. He mentions that the escapees from the asylum were probably abducted with the help of an insider. Clearly this bore investigating.

Organising a tour of Bedlem Asylum is easy, they simply show up at the gates and request one, which starts about half an hour later. It is initially led by Dr. Crick, a rather high-strung woman who wastes no time in starting arguments with our heroes about how much more seriously they should take mental illness, and asking them not to pry into questions of security. Eventually she gets annoyed, yells that she has work to do, and leaves them in the care of the much kindlier Dr. Johns, who takes them to the third floor. While in the course of the tour, he is clearly shifty at some of the questions they are asking about security, repeatedly asking them not to pry into things that weren't their business.

Eventually, he leads them into an empty ward, and then immediately turns, locking the door behind him with them still in the room. Calling back over his shoulder, he points out that he told them not to pry. The door across from them starts to be pummeled from the other side, and there are yells and calls from the other side. Thrace tries to unlock the door, eventually unpicking it, but not before the other door bursts open, disgorging several rage-infected inmates into the room. Fisher engages in a little fisticuffs with one of them, but neither are able to do much to the other. Thrace calls for them to leave, backing out into the corridor. Burns climbs onto one of the bed, while one of the inmates claws at his legs. Stunningly acrobatically, he leaps over him, kicks off his back and lands running for the corridor. Meanwhile, Fisher backs away and makes for the corridor as well. The inmates chase them in, but the first three to do so is met by a flurry of pepper spray from Thrace. They fall to the ground, apparently trying to shred their own faces to stop the pain. The next one suffers chemical burns when Burns empties a CO2 fire extinguisher at him. Finally, Fisher manages to jam the door closed and they make a run for it, carrying one of the flailing people with them.

Having to stop to unlock another door, they are soon accosted by an orderly, who they cajole into helping to carry the body. He helps them down a fire escape and to their car, before they throw him out of the car and speed off. In the rear view mirror, he can be seen taking a note of something. They speed to Parasol, stopping only to change the plates. The body is taken to one of the more clandestine labs for dissection, and an autopsy report is hastily put together, which doesn't say much that they didn't already know.

However, they have a lead, and the techie is put to work finding everything he can about Dr. William Johns. In the meantime, a safe-house is organised, as the heroes are now wanted for abducting an inmate of a local asylum. Some of them go for changes of appearance, while Burns is confident that an extravagent false moustache will throw off the persuit.

That night, they stake out the house of Dr. Johns, whose address had been uncovered by the techie. He is still clearly awake, and can be seen moving around upstairs. They stealthily move in, and start looting the downstairs. A comedy of errors ensues, however, when one of them knocks a lamp over and another trips over a wire. Clamour can be heard from upstairs, and seconds later a very dirty, clearly homeless man charges through a door at them and begins to run down the stairs towards them. Thrace fires three bullets at him, but in the dark they go wide, and only one clips the guy's arm. He falls down the stairs, clattering to the ground, where Burns throws a sheet over him, innefectually. Fisher kicks for the head but misses, and Thrace cooly shoots him again, missing completely and hitting the floor. The guy rips the sheet apart and leaps up, as Thrace finally plugs him through the head, killing him instantly.

Upstairs, it becomes clear that the doctor has escaped through the window, and Thrace runs after him while the other two loot the house for research notes and chemicals. The guy is caught, but as he is cuffed a dart hits him and he falls unconcious. There are no signs of where it comes from. He is dragged back into the kitchen, and a private medical team summoned. Before they can arrive, he wakes back up and starts going wild, showing all the same symptoms as the previous rage-infected. The medical team arrive and, knowing that he has valuable information about what is going on, do their best to stabilise him.

TO BE CONTINUED.

The World of Darkness- Session Two

Here is the second part of the campaign:

Thrace kept the gun leveled at the advancing Frank Johnson, and after repeated attempts to get him to put the weapon down, he shot him in the leg. Handcuffing him to a railing, he went after his friend.

Meanwhile, Fisher was desperately trying to catch up with the fleeing man, and not having much luck. The man made it to a car park, throwing himself into a white van that was parked up and powering it up. Fisher slowed down, taking a note of the numberplate, and thinking it was best to retreat. As he was doing so, the back doors of the van opened, and a huge dog leapt out. A gigantic german shepherd, feral and beserk, started to chase him. Waiting until it was within a few yards of him, Fisher fired a taser blast, the probes catching the dog in its haunch and stunning it to the ground. In its jerking about it manages to catch Fishers arm with its claw, giving him a nasty, but not deeply. It seems then to have a heart attack and go limp.

Going back to see their unconcious friend, they wake him up, before interrogating him as to what was happening. He isn't talking, however, so Thrace knocks him out again, planting evidence of his crime on him (all for the greater good, right?) and scarpering. Stopping only to torch the car they arrived in, they both go home.

The next morning, they are called into the office by Mr. Bryson, who asks them what they'll do next, and tells them two things. Firstly, Frank Johnson was arrested the previous night, which they pretend to know nothing about, and secondly, the security guard who they had arrested the previous session had died in custody. Apparently going insane, he killed two police officers before succumbing to a heart attack.

Fisher contacts an informer he has in the police department, who agrees to get him the autopsy report, and information regarding the vehicle that he had chased the previous day. This quickly gets back to him, and tells him that the vehicle is registered to a Sam Marwick, the address of who he supplies. He also says that he can't talk much, as a situation is developing. Eight people have disappeared from a local asylum.

A late night breakin nets some interesting clues. A laptop and a hard drive are recovered. Once cracked open, most of the information is useless, but some of it is good, including extended exchanges of emails between Sam, Frank and numerous others. Experiments are mentioned, as is a sinister formula. A map to a warehouse is provided, and a newly arrived email provides directions that Sam should come to the warehouse as soon as possible.

Heading down to the warehouse in Adam's car, they spot several people heading inside. Finding a back entrance that leads into the office at the back, they peek through the door to the main area. On the balcony that runs around the inside, several people can be heard talking about the experiment, mentioning that the fatal side-effect of the drug is still there, but comes into play much more slowly as will be shown by the next test.

In the centre of the room, several people can be seen stirring in a cage. They appear dishevelled, but feral, and they immediately begin tearing at the cage door. All of them wear uniforms marking them as inmates of a local asylum. They tear through the cage, running for the front door of the warehouse and freedom. The three intrepid heroes leap into the car, and the semi-psychotic Thrace started running them down. A couple ran back into the warehouse, so he called the police, fled the scene, crashed the car intentionally, sabotaged his own brakes and claimed to have been in an accident.

As the police vanished towards the warehouse, with the fates of the conspirators unknown, our heroes take stock of their situation.

TO BE CONTINUED.

The World of Darkness- Session One

I'm currently running a World of Darkness campaign. The first session was the other sunday, and the second starts in about an hour. The campaign is set in and around the London offices ofParasol Incorporated, a pharmaceutical company with a slightly shady reputation. Yeah, shamelessly ripped off from Resident Evil, but they story is going in a different direction.

The characters are the following. Donald Burns, who is on the board of directors. David Fisher, who is a Private Investigator, and Adam Thrace, who heads the security team. This is a coincidence, but it more or less means that there is a mental character, a social character and a physical character. Anyhow, this is what happened last week.

Mr. Bryson, the Chairman of the Board, called all three into his office. Fisher had been called in to find the source of a leak in the company's security. He had been partnered with Thrace, the head of security, and put under the command of Burns. A quick search of the research room, which required a code to enter, revealed a dead body there. Whoever it was had been completely eviscerated, and was unrecognisable. A scan of the cameras revealed that they had been tampered with, completely covered in static and white noise.

Fisher took a closer look, and realised that the footage and sound still existed, but completely covered. A techie was quickly summoned, and he began work on the video and footage. He said, however, that it would take a while.

In the meantime, the body was identified as David Kaplan, a low-ranking member of the security team who had been on security duty that day. Thrace is shocked, and immediately summoned the person who had taken over from him, demanding to know what happened. A quick questioning session revealed that he had hadn't seen Kaplan, who was supposed to have passed the shift off to him. Not only had he not investigated, but he hadn't brought the anomoly to the attention of anyone. He was immediately put on unpaid leave, pending a firing.

The sound was restored to the video camera footage, and it revealed a conversation between Kaplan and an unknown voice in the research room. It appears to be a conversation about stolen research. Kaplan demands a bigger cut of the profits, and is swiftly dispatched.

It is realised that Adam Weaver, the security guard who had just been fired, might hold a valuable clue. He is brought back in, and a makeshift interrogation room is set up in the basement in the janitor's office. Thrace fills the room with various nasty looking implements. Weaver is clearly shocked at the room, and his defences swiftly crumble. He admitted that Kaplan had promised him £3000 if he said nothing about disappearing early. With gambling debts looming, Weaver had no choice but to agree. However, he had no idea that Kaplan would end up getting killed. The last piece of imformation he could give was that Kaplan had said he was meeting a man from a rival corporation, Solomon Corp.

Fisher was volunteered to infiltrate Solomon Corp, and he started by taking a guided tour of the building. In one of the labs he heard a voice that sounded very much like that on the sound of the footage. He is introduced to Frank Johnson, a supposed genius researcher whose research topics synched eerily with those stolen from the research room. The tour swifly concluded, and his finding were brought back to Parasol. After a long argument, it was decided that they should search for more evidence on Johnson before alerting the police.

That evening, Fisher and Thrace stake out his house. At about 2Am, he leaves the house and begins walking down the street. Thrace breaks and enters, while Fisher follows the man. No incriminating evidence is found in the house, and Thrace gets a message from Fisher telling him that the man was meeting with another person in the local graveyard. Thrace makes his way there quickly and the two of them hide behind a tombstone. After a few minutes of quiet talking, Johnson leaves one way, but quickly draws a machete and starts walking towards their hiding place. The other man scarpers behind the church.

Pulling out his gun as Johnson advances, Thrace yells at Fisher to follow the other man.

TO BE CONTINUED.

Thoughts on playing DnD

I love DnD, I really do. However, let's be honest, not a lot of roleplaying actually goes on in it. You roll up your character. Your class tells you how you kill monsters, and hence which attributes you use. If you're a Fighter, Barbarian or Paladin, you pummel them. If you're a Sorcerer or Wizard, you cast magic missile at them. If you're a rogue, you sneak up from behind and stick them with a knife. If you're a Ranger or Druid your animal companion rips their throat out. There are two support classes, Clerics to heal and Bards to buff. That's about it.

You then choose skills. There are about four skills you actually use. Spot/Move silently/Heal/Bluff. That is about it.

You then decide feats. Feats give you handy ways to increase your killing or surviving powers. Either you take a feat like Cleave, allowing you to kill another monster after this one, or a feat like Lightning Reflexes, allowing you to survive a trap.

You then fall into a pattern which goes something like this: Get plot hook, go to dungeon, empty first floor, loot corpse, kill monster, kill monster, find treasure, go to level two, kill slightly harder monster.................find dungeon boss, kill dungeon boss, go back to town, hand in dungeon boss's ear to plot hook giver, get new plot hook...repeat.

I'm kidding to an extent. I have played brilliantly scripted campaigns with exellent storylines and superb villains. However, a lot of them can still be broken down to this basic formula.

That said, put a D20 in my hand and tell me my attack bonus and damage, and that dice will be rolled before you can blink.

So, if you don't play DnD for the story, what do you play it for? Partly it's a social thing. Six or seven people sit around a table making endless jokes and snide comments for four hours. Roleplay happens, but in a jokey, lighthearted way. Partly it's as simple as the fact that many-sided dice are so incredibly fun to roll. A D20 is a lovely thing, and rolling it is almost a spiritual experience. One of the reasons why games like Neverwinter Nights can never match up to table-top is simply because of the lack of dice. Finally, DnD allows you to be nothing more than a fighter with a sword hacking his way through an endless swarm of goblins. We have always wanted to do that at some point.

Other systems are much better for roleplaying. Look at the World of Darkness Storyteller System, which encourages playing a role much more. However, none have quite the same effect on me as DnD. I don't know why that is.