Has White Wolf gaming got too complex for its own good?

Jun 18 09:25 UTC 2002

Mind you, I don't understand this to be true of Trinity and other 
games outside the World of Darkness/Time of Sorrows series, but within 
this series, do you believe White Wolf has perhaps grown the extended 
series into a system that's really too complex for most gamers to 
follow?

I mean, I really doubt they are making sales on books because gamers 
are rabidly playing them-- at best, some may be well-meaning 
Storytellers who don't drum up enough interest; at worst, many are 
just buying them and reading the long and involved universe White Wolf 
describes.

The potential they describe is marvelous-- all the games can 
interconnect, and *you* have the tools to tell your own story and make 
your own World of Darkness.  The problem is, I think game designers do 
need to keep games moderately simple.  Wizard gamers will bastardize 
systems to suit their needs and craft things that are lacking-- who 
knows, maybe they'll be the next designers?

response 2 of 16:

Jun 25 08:54 UTC 2002

Well, apparently not many have seen that White Wolf is vocariously 
trying to make a buck.

World of Darkness and Time of Sorrows series cover just about every 
supernatural being in some way.  The former is divided into a present 
time series and the Dark Ages; the latter is comprised mostly of 
Exalted, where the main characters are godlike.  All are interconnected 
in some way.  This gets bombastic in scope since there is:

Vampire: the Masquerade
Werewolf: the Apocalypse
Mage: The Awakening
Wraith: The Oblivion
Changeling: The Dreaming
Hunter: The Reckoning
Mummy
Kindred of the East

Prequel #1:
Vampire: the Dark Ages (there are supplements for the others in this 
time period).

Prequel #2:
Exalted

Then there are the sourcebooks.  Vampire has over 13 clanbooks, both in 
modern and Dark Age period, and several city sourcebooks; Werewolf has 
several books for the different shapeshifters; Mage now has separate 
books for each Tradition and has an Archmage supplement; and Kindred of 
the East is comprised of *two* books, one for the Storyteller and one 
for the players.

Most books save the Dark Ages ones have been revised three times, and 
the Vampire clanbooks have been revised once, second time to include 
Mind's Eye guidelines.  Guidebooks to the Camarilla and Sabbat have 
been revised once and expanded.  There is now a Storyteller's Companion 
for Vampire.  I am probably forgetting a SLEW of books.

There are Mind's Eye Theater (MET) sourcebooks for almost all the 
tabletop games; Mummy and Exalted I cannot confirm.  The latest Vampire 
clanbooks and Mage Tradition books include MET rules; there are even 
sourcebooks corresponding to the Camarilla, Sabbat, Elder, and 
Storyteller's Companion in tabletop.

The Camarilla fan club which uses MET books for a worldwide LARP 
campaign got its start in Seattle.  Open Laws of the Wyld (Werewolf) to 
the first photo.  I've been to a Vampire game in that house.  Oooooh.  
Scary.  The organization is still pretty big there; Seattle still may 
yet have the highest concentration of players playing Elder vampires.

And that's just the RPGs: White Wolf does console and PC games, too.

response 4 of 16:

Jun 26 10:57 UTC 2002

C'mon, Anne-- D&D probably did more, but I don't think GURPs or Rifts 
has even come close to White Wolf, and none of the above you mentioned 
had *any* LARP material.  I know of plenty of folks who have scads of 
White Wolf books, and I can't think of many who have scads of the 
others.

Few actually intermingle-- it's just the fact that they are *all* 
interconnected.  And if you read the Storyteller's Companion for 
Vampire, White Wolf supposedly encourages you to do your own timelines, 
your own stories, etc., etc., etc.  I just rather doubt that many do.  
I have a hard time believing people are buying the books to really use 
them since the latest editions have become far more detailed that *any* 
system I've seen out on the market.

Besides, you understand well that Mage is a monster game, and new 
players have a hard time digesting all the rules, *if* you're using all 
of them.  Mage LARP flopped with our chapter mostly because no one got 
the idea that you could create your own spells (and the majority wanted 
to play Vampire and nothing else.)

response 6 of 16:

Jun 26 17:16 UTC 2002

Jack, I have at least 50 GURPS rule/world-books (not counting the other
stuff), and I don't think I've got even half of what's available...

response 8 of 16:

Jun 29 02:02 UTC 2002

For a game whose initials stand for Generic Universal Role Playing 
System, you'd think one rule book would be enough. :-)

response 10 of 16:

Jul 26 10:07 UTC 2002

Might as well drift to LARP for a moment..

I know Anne's not too keen on the Cam, but I honestly found the Mage 
(LARP) venue to be quite fun.  It was the most recent one to be 
approved for LARP.  It's a bit premature to say this after just one 
game, but I think the inherent lack of politics in Mage make a LARP 
experience a little smoother.. little IC politics makes it hard for OOC 
politics to bleed through.  The Storyteller is a bit more involved, and 
the enemy is a bit more apparent, namely the Technocracy, and so 
there's more incentive to work together.

The only possible downside is that you *must* deal with rotes, which I 
know are in the tabletop version, but I also know can be glossed over 
there.  Of course, the cool part is that you can make your own.

Anyway, I would have been into this much earlier, but my old chapter 
just didn't get it-- they kept looking at Spheres and rotes like 
Disciplines.  They couldn't seem to grasp that the rotes there were 
*suggestions* (well, previously established rotes-- Flames of 
Purification is a hallmark of the Celestial Chorus) and the list wasn't 
to be followed stepwise: you could pick and choose as long as you had 
the Sphere Level for it.  Once I moved, I found a group that did get 
it. 

response 12 of 16:

Sep 26 23:59 UTC 2002

eh-hem
met systems: there are all of 3 books for vtmLARP
1 for ghouls, 1 for changling, 2 for mage, 2 for warewolf
used to be 1 for wraith..
mummy has one and hunter is getting one in dec.
KotE is an expansion for VtM and requres teh basic vampire book, the
storytellers guide forKOTE does not exist,it's the addition and update to
revised 3rd ed rules.
now...rifts has WAYYY more books,but each are 200+ pages for 15.95 
palladium prizes themselves on lowwset price in the industry for 
mass published rpgs
white wolf is no way worse than ad&d (or gods forbid 3rd ed which
has every house rule published as official) or dp9's stuff
hte problem is for gms who have players that want to use everything..
oh yha, forgot the much lamented shadowrun...oi, FASA was just as bad
as WW about out of print books being neccissary for the game.

response 14 of 16:

Sep 27 09:29 UTC 2002

that's bad?

response 16 of 16:

Aug 3 11:27 UTC 2005

Well, World of Darkness v. 2 has been out for a while now, and I think
they have streamlined things quite a bit.  They axed a number of things:
no more Changing Breeds, no Dark Ages yet, no Eastern books.