Nwod 2e vs owod

[somasatori]

Similar to MisterBoring, I also see each version as discrete and its own complete game rather than a continuous line, such as with oWoD 1st edition through oWoD 20th anniversary.

Spoiler

Classic World of Darkness
I think the best analogy for this, in my opinion, is this: occasionally I look for a D&D group and come across these folks who are still insisting on playing AD&D 2e. It’s comfortable, has some of the better representations of the big campaign settings (Dark Sun and Spelljammer after all), and most of the people in the group grew up on it. Similar to this, the first TTRPG I ever played was Vampire the Masquerade 2nd edition at the tender age of 12. It was likely terrible, but it ensured that I essentially lived in that world through reading and consuming the material whenever I could get my hands on it.

The systems are terrible, although 20th Anniversary did a decent job at trying to adjust them (I would say especially Mage). Many of the rules vary wildly, and certain elements are just not very intuitive. Combat was mentioned above. Old/Classic World of Darkness is definitely a trad RPG and lives in that 90s design aesthetic alongside its contemporaries from the period. What I mean by that is that while definitely better than AD&D, Cyberpunk 2020, Shadowrun, Rolemaster, etc., etc., etc. the hallmarks of the “party gets together and kills shit” dynamic still does live in the entire WoD/CofD line, but in this edition particularly. Which makes sense! The storygame aesthetic would really come into its own in the early 00s.

For a MUSH, I think this is likely the worst edition because of some of its strengths: each game line is distinct and has its own mechanics that apply to what kind of fiction you’re attempting to do. Each game is its own genre, with Vampire being gothic horror, Werewolf being splatterpunk/body horror, Mage being the closest to a kind of dark urban fantasy/noir technothriller depending on what you emphasize, and so on. You could theoretically have a splatterpunk gothic horror (thanks Mariana Enriquez) but it is a hard sell. So mechanically, fictionally, the games don’t work together. Finally, I think oWoD’s main strength if you’re going to play an oWoD game is its metaplot, which is a difficult thing to reconcile with the other game lines.

Also, I would say that the way oWoD is laid out prevents it from playing as a horror game at all. How can you be afraid of anything? You know what it is. There’s no chance to be caught off guard by anyone’s abilities except in the cases where you underestimate someone. You know what vampires can do. You know what werewolves can do. You expect that Mages can generally do whatever. If there’s some weird, sanity-rending monster, it’s probably a spirit or a chimera because that’s what exists in this world. And if your ST tries to invent something new, there’s a pretty strong chance that someone is going to be able to recite chapter and verse at them about why said new creation can’t or doesn’t exist in the World of Darkness. So, let’s address that particular issue:

New World of Darkness, 1st Edition
We’ve done away with our Sisters of Mercy quotes in the books and we’ve advanced through Justin Achili hiring cage dancers for DragonCon, and now we’re in the nWoD. This edition has several reasons for why it is probably the best of the three for MUSHing, but I’ll get into that.

First off, mechanically it is genuinely better than its predecessor. As was mentioned above, the lack of variable difficulty is a big one, as well as standardized lists of things. You no longer have special lists of primary skills that everyone gets. If you know how to play Werewolf, you can probably pick up Changeling pretty quick, and as a bonus, without misspending your points and finding later that you didn’t buy the skill that lets you detect magic. All of your different templates have their own pretty similar elements. They might have different effects which fit the fiction/genre of what you’re getting at with what you’re playing, but they’ll have a general systemic feel that you don’t need to worry about. If you play vampire long enough you’ll probably figure out what Primal Urge 3 means by your familiarity with Blood Potency 3.

I know this is the biggest complaint about nWoD and maybe its biggest weakness, but I feel like the lack of metaplot or storyline behind everything is a better setup for a MUSH. In my view, nWoD is a toolbox versus an established setting. The ST is empowered to design the world. This is great for a MUSH because it can let the game exist without laboring under a larger canonical structure. Did you want the Free Council to rule all of North America? Sure, I guess, why not!

This is also terrible for a MUSH because a lack of unified canon means people come in with the knowledge they acquired at their local tabletops or other MUSHes that may not apply exactly that way on your game. In your history, the Lancea Sanctum and Invictus may have been ousted from Rome by the Carthian Movement in a revolt during WWI. This lack of a canonical form is a pretty common element in MUSHes, for sure, and many games will have their own “in this game we do X instead of Y,” but when you consider the semiotics of world of darkness, there’s an expectation of a larger story. At a high level, the Camarilla owns most cities in Europe and North America. The Sabbat owns most cities in Central and South America. Is your game set in Madison, Wisconsin? Probably a Cam city. Not so with nWoD.

All of this means that someone has to read! gross! We all hate reading the wiki (or news files if you’re into that sort of thing)! In cooperation with that, nWoD is a much more ST-intensive process to get off the ground, as there’s a lot of front-loading the worldbuilding before you get started since you can’t rely on previously established plots as a basic setup.

New World of Darkness also really tried to make something for everyone. Character generation is generally simpler as you don’t have as many things to initially pick from, but each successive rulebook put out more and more character options. This is good for a bit, then it becomes a little farcical as time went on. Some of those end-of-line books had just bizarre, bonkers character options. IMO, especially the bloodlines. Eventually you did end up with some of the same problems as oWoD insofar as if you had this very specific book, or the newest book in the line, you had advanced knowledge that someone who just played with the corebook and handful of “critical” sourcebooks would not.

Chronicles of Darkness 2nd Edition
Mechanically this was even more of an improvement. To some extent, they finally cast off the trad trappings from the 90s and attempted to embrace the storygame they were attempting to do in the first place. I’m a PbtA player, so some of these will be a given for me, but failing forward as a mechanic is great, not having to track potentially hundreds of XP is great, focusing primarily on character goals and providing things like conditions as rewards is definitely story-forward. All of these things are perfect for the MUSH environment as well, since they rely on the ongoing story. Additionally you have all the standardized mechanical strengths of the previous edition. I’ll second the comments about doors, combat declarations, and investigation. The investigation system is not perfect (it’s not Brindlewood Bay after all), but it works well if you’re wanting to do true mysteries.

However, IMO, they were probably too ambitious for what they had the money, talent, and time to do. I think there was an intention to address some of the complaints about nWoD having a paper thin plot but they went a little too light into providing an optional chronicle. If I had to guess, some of this might be due to how story/plot has been meted out in previous games, where you always had a new sourcebook ahead to go further into detail and provide granularity to the grand narrative. So things like Blood & Smoke/the Strix Chronicle or the Idigam Chronicle probably needed some room to breathe and get some fleshing out beyond their initial introduction. They did try to engage in a larger chronicle with Contagion, but it also was pretty flat. Having to hire a brand new team every time you want to put out a book can also bring about sudden tone shifts and changes in voice that are noticeable. The Hedge reads very differently to Kith & Kin, for example and feels more like an homage to CtL 1st edition.

There were some weird choices on adding new things. An example of this would be Entitlements. Entitlements aren’t really discussed in the core Changeling the Lost 2e book and first introduced mechanically in Oak, Ash, & Thorn. There was only one CtL sourcebook after this, which was The Hedge. This included 3 more Entitlements, and … now what? I suppose if there’s another sourcebook then we might get more, but the structure of Onyx Path Productions probably won’t lean in that direction for a good long while.

This might be recency bias since I’ve been down in the trenches with this particular edition, but I think that Chronicles has a big point of failure in standardization of templates. Prometheans, Changelings, and Mummies all purchase their powers as specific individual abilities similar to how Rites, Rituals, etc. are bought in other splats. Meanwhile, Vampire, Mage, and Werewolf use their power trees based on a continuous level increased from 1. Some splats have special rules that expand on the template which have no real comparable element in other templates. Making a Sin-Eater requires you to build the Sin-Eater’s Geist as a character with a separate sheet vs it being a largely narrative structure as in 1st edition. Sin-Eaters also have their morality trait rolled into their power trait. Speaking of power traits, Deviants have a power trait (Acclimation) that goes from 1-5 and does not have the same power point progression as other templates. Plus, Deviants have a bunch of other abilities that differ wildly from other templates. Scars are similar to Bestowments (Promethean), but not exactly as they have their own continuous levels that you raise as time goes on.

Then quickly mentioning some of the weirder moves with CofD-specific games. I personally think Demon is great, and I sort of like Deviant – though I struggle to see what it actually adds to the Chronicles of Darkness that other games do not already have – but Beast is awful, both as a game and as a record of its creator’s interests. The way you construct a Beast makes no sense, the lair system is a big departure from the rest of the lines where other characters absolutely have lairs but have to buy them separately as merits, and the powers. Well. It reminds me of that WKUK Grape commercial in how it tells on the author. Demon attempts to hardball the God Machine Chronicle storyline, which MisterBoring discusses above as being maybe tonally different from what people were going for with CofD. I kind of like the idea of GMC, only because I tend to put a gnostic spin on it. Demon does tend to feel like “what if The Matrix, but horror” through a lot of its fiction.

This went on longer than I anticipated. I get more into it, but the tl;dr is:

1. oWoD is a bit of a mess and is a difficult game to run in a multi-sphere MUSH (even just two of them) format because the themes, genres, and mechanical structures are specific to each game. It is easier to rely on a larger metanarrative without having to make up your own entire world.

2. nWoD is mechanically much better than the other editions due to more complete standardization of the systems across the board. It is very easy to run templates alongside one another if that’s the sort of game you want to do The lack of metanarrative requires STs and leads to frontload their world-building in order to get the plot started. nWoD generally had something for everyone, eventually to its own detriment as time went on. Honestly I think this is the best one for MUSHing if you’re going the multi-sphere route.

3. Chronicles of Darkness fulfills the “story” aspect of “storytelling system” better than its predecessors by having more subsystems focused on engaging the players in collaborative worldbuildng and storytelling, as well as experience and character development. It suffers from a lot of toneshifts and the model of OPP’s publishing (largely relying on freelancers, focusing more on crowd sourcing, etc.) that is required now that they’re not under a larger corporate entity makes it difficult to have ongoing narrative beats as oWoD had. Beast is bad. Deviants ??? Demon is good.

[MisterBoring]

@somasatori said in Nwod 2e vs owod:

I’m a PbtA player

I had a sneaking suspicion you were down with the Apocalypse.

[somasatori]

@MisterBoring said in Nwod 2e vs owod:

@somasatori said in Nwod 2e vs owod:

I’m a PbtA player

I had a sneaking suspicion you were down with the Apocalypse.

Yes! I’m a big fan. My favorite PbtA game is one that I have struggled thinking of how to make into a MUSH, being Life Among the Ruins (and Generation Ship as a close second). I mean, it probably shows since I use terms like “in the fiction” and “genre emulation” constantly these days.

Requisite meme:

[Redbird]

Now do Curseborne.

[Jenn]

@Redbird said in Nwod 2e vs owod:

Now do Curseborne.

We may be working on that.

[Jennkryst]

@Jenn said in Nwod 2e vs owod:

@Redbird said in Nwod 2e vs owod:

Now do Curseborne.

We may be working on that.

I and several folks on CoH may be prepared to pounce on that. Fear.

[MisterBoring]

I want to play Curseborne, but having seen the final book, I’m not sure if I want to MU it.

[Jennkryst]

@somasatori said in Nwod 2e vs owod:

Meanwhile, Vampire, Mage, and Werewolf

Also real quick about Werewolf, it is a mix of the two. Your Auspice Gifts do indeed level up 1-5, but the rest of your gifts are pick and choose ignoring the progression. There is no Mother Luna 4… you have Mother Luna (Cunning) or Mother Luna (Honor).

Which would be Hella cool to somehow get mage or vampire to do. But I am lazy. RIP.

[Pyrephox]

@MisterBoring Any deets you can spill on why not? I admit I’m super intrigued by the system, but wasn’t a backer and haven’t done any real dives into the mechanics or theme.

[MisterBoring]

@Pyrephox said in Nwod 2e vs owod:

@MisterBoring Any deets you can spill on why not? I admit I’m super intrigued by the system, but wasn’t a backer and haven’t done any real dives into the mechanics or theme.

The bonds mechanic rewards clique building and momentum is a currency shared by all players in the game.

[Pacha]

@MisterBoring

What do you mean by clique building? So often I see people complaining about what they consider to be cliques, but which I would just consider to be “groups of friends playing together”.

[Jenn]

@Pacha

Curseborne has built-in bonds (can be positive or negative). But characters are limited in the bonds they can have, as far as mechanical ones go. Like any game, families, friends, enemy lists can be as large and varied as desired.

And, bonds can be with NPC’s, such as your job’s boss, or your little sister, too.

It’s like any game with factions. Coteries and mystery cults are also able to be cliques. Ships or businesses can be cliques if they exclude non-members.

Bonds are no more/less a clique than any other reasons players have for their characters to know and/or exclude others. It will come down to game culture, and depend on if the community encourages and supports inclusivity or not - same as any other system.

[Raistlin]

Man, Curseborne. Or really, the entire Storypath line. I think Storypath is my favorite incarnation of the overall Storyteller mechanics. While I love the system itself, I dislike almost every single attempt to execute it.

I’ve completely lost faith in Onyx Path at this point. Their insistence on building games around a “You’re a <THIS> who is a member of <THAT>” structure is old and tired, IMO. That’s the first issue. Second, they take what should be a simple and elegant system and muddy it with needlessly complex, ambiguously explained, and confusing abilities.

I find Scion 2E entirely unplayable just from reading the books. Aberrant has great moments but falls apart when you get to Nova tech. The “It Came From…” line is good but a little too cheesy and tongue-in-cheek for me. I hate the implementation of Curse Dice to power mechanics in Curseborne. Again, destroying an elegant system with kitschy mechanics. Aegis should be my absolute favorite game given the setting and its use of Storypath, but I read it and it all just falls flat.

All that said, I think the Storypath system is fantastic, and I’ve put significant work into creating a “New-New World of Darkness” type system with it. I’ve even come up with guidelines for creating Drawbacks to help flesh out characters. The system is very flexible and easy to hack.

For instance, in my custom hack, I’ve done away with Momentum and replaced it with personal pools of power. Willpower for mortals, Blood for vampires, etc. Mechanically, they all function the same (they power abilities and allow you to do things you might otherwise do with Momentum), but they shift the focus to the character rather than the group.

[MisterBoring]

@Raistlin said in Nwod 2e vs owod:

“You’re a <THIS> who is a member of <THAT>”

This is a core conceit of basically all of RP. Characters are described in terms nearly identical to those even if there’s not a spot for it on the character sheet.

@Raistlin said in Nwod 2e vs owod:

While I love the system itself, I dislike almost every single attempt to execute it.

From reading your post, it looks like you dislike every attempt to execute Storypath, which makes me question whether you love the system or the intent of the system more. You don’t mention Dystopia Rising: Evolution at all, which makes me think that either you do like it, or you have been in the horror show that is the DR LARP, and don’t want to give them any mention at all.

[Raistlin]

@MisterBoring I’m not entirely sure what your post is trying to get across. If you want to have a back-and-forth about Storypath, I’m game, but your reply mostly feels like it’s questioning my motives rather than the points I raised.

On the “You’re a <THIS> who is a member of <THAT>” comment:

• What I was pointing out is that Onyx Path doesn’t just use that as a descriptive shorthand (which, sure, all RPGs do in some way). They make it the mechanical spine of their games; your role and affiliation aren’t just flavor, they dictate what your character can do, how they progress, and even how you interact with the world. For me, that overreliance makes the designs feel narrow and repetitive.

On Dystopia Rising:

• The only reason I didn’t mention it is that I haven’t read it. No hidden motive there.

On Storypath in the context of this thread:

• Since the discussion is about which version of World of Darkness works best, I’ll clarify: I think Storypath’s core mechanics and dice resolution are fantastic. It’s a really solid system, and I love that part of it. What I don’t care for is how Onyx Path tends to implement those mechanics in their published games. That’s why I’m actually looking forward to Storypath Ultra, it seems like a cleaner, more generic take on the system that could really shine outside of those heavy-handed frameworks.

[Redbird]

@MisterBoring I can at least report that the worst of the DR LARP crowd has been purged with fire.

[labsunlimited]

@MisterBoring ahahaha I did the Dystopia Rising Texas game in it’s first couple years. some truly heinous behavior over time. I learned to hate nerds

[somasatori]

@Raistlin said in Nwod 2e vs owod:

That’s why I’m actually looking forward to Storypath Ultra, it seems like a cleaner, more generic take on the system that could really shine outside of those heavy-handed frameworks.

I’m looking forward to Storypath Ultra as well! This was (in my mind anyway) the way they should have gone about setting up the nWoD mechanics rather than attempting to couch it in the way they did. You can infer that World of Darkness (the book) was intended to showcase the storyteller system as a toolbox rather than a complete setting + system like in the previous editions, but a lot of the messaging was around waiting for the other lines to come out.

If you wanted to play Mage, you’ll have to wait for Awakening and then deal with the constant (mine included) complaints about Atlantis in the early days. If you want to play Werewolf, well, there were no real mechanics in the WoD core book that emulated shapeshifting so you’ll have to wait or have a very creative ST or just go extremely rules-lite. Though, going the route of including basic mechanics to emulate all of the different splats – something OPP sort of did in CofD with the Dread Powers – would have probably been very divisive and pushed players away even more than they already had. Anyway, from what I can tell about Storypath Ultra they are including a lot of the different narrative and “special effects” stuff that you could find in a Trinity or Scion game, only made generic to fit into whatever setting you want.

This is good because, ultimately, reskinning things does come down to that “have a very creative ST” thing. Even (tooting my own horn) being a creative ST, there have been so many times when I’m just trying to get something to the table and don’t have time to re-craft it all into something I want it to do (with the exception of PbtA, as it’s a much easier system to reskin since everything is narrative anyway). Plus, I think with WoD more than most systems, you tend to have a mix of people who are very into the story line side of things and people who are very into mechanics, which creates its own stressors in trying to adapt and create your own powers and abilities.