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?

16 responses total.

Item #9 was killed because it was a clone of this item.

I'll admit that I don't know that much about White Wolf, due to a bad 
GM when I dabbled in their games and other purposes.

What I do know is that most RPGs state that their rules are guidelines, 
because, after all, the point of playing any game is to have fun.  
Still when people create house rules, one must still mantain a skeleton 
of the original game, or else it really is a different game.  Sad but 
true, many people write their house rules without thinking about how it 
will affect game balance (or other logical concerns).

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.

Personally I like having all the variations for books- plus you don't 
HAVE to intermingle. So if you want to run a Mage game without Were-
creatures- you don't have to buy any of those books. It also depends on 
how strictly you follow WW's timelines. Or as my friends and I do- not 
at all.

This isn't anything new... anyone seen the number of books they had for 
GURPs, Rifts or D&D??

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.)

I honestly have to differ on the GURPs and the RIFTs thing. I've never 
played GURPs and only played Rifts for a very short period of time. 
Both of them EASILY had more books that I've seen for sale than White 
Wolf. I found the rules for White Wolf to be a whole lot easier to 
understand than the rules for Rifts. (Though I still REALLY cannot 
clearly follow the combat rules... I get confused)

People with no imagination have no business role-playing at all 
(IMNSHO). In that regard those people generally just want to play 
violent shoot-em ups or something with very little long-standing plot 
lines that involves a lot of politicing (yes it would be nice to just 
kill whoever pissed you off but sometimes that's just not feasible).

I can't say as I've read every single word in every single WW book, 
even Mage which is the main game I play, but I don't find it all that 
complicated. I see encouragement to make up your own storylines and 
timelines in the simple fact that there aren't a lot of 'modules' out 
there (at least that I've seen, I know there are some) like there is 
for D&D. You don't very often really get your own dungeon with 
creatures plotted out handed to you. They do however list characters- 
which in a pinch make great NPCs.

You obviously work with a very limited group of people. I was astounded 
when I went to my friends' house and saw that they had a tall bookcase 
completely filled with role-playing books- mostly RIFTs, GURPs, AD&D 
and a small shelf for WW. Granted they don't have any of the LARP info 
(only a few of my friends LARP, the others are rather contemptous of 
it) I go to my sister and brother-in-law's place- no WW books at all 
but damn do they have more GURPs book than I could EVER see the need 
for...

So it basically comes down to- your mileage may vary. It'll all depend 
on the limits of the people you play with (as far as rules 
comprehension, etc.) though my friend Debbie says that the rules are 
far from the most important aspect. As long as someone has an idea 
that's all you need.

<set rant=off>

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...

I'm obviously out of touch, then.

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

I guess.  Game companies make bucks when players fail to exercise 
imagination.  GURPS, as best as I could remember, initially had a book 
for every category out there, but "Steam" wouldn't exactly fit that.

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. 

Re: Rotes.... yeah, my table top Mage games really don't use them at 
all. Exactly...

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.

GURPS is a differnt story, each book tends to contain more informatnion
on a subject than a 100 level college textbook.

that's bad?

no iz good

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.

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