WoD Relaunch

[Spriggan]

Ya, it was werewolf.  Vampire is for goths and people with no friends

[Entsuropi]

Whereas Rifts is for people who dedicate themselves to the fine art of cheese.

*grin*

[Spriggan]

I stand by my original stament, it;s been proven in the court of popularity and sterotypes.

[Nicadymus]

It was Werewolf EUOL.  I remember it vividly...unfortunately.  

I, too, found the concept intriguing, but at this point I think I would rather do a D20 Modern or D&D with the vampiric or lycanthropic templates.  I enjoy the system, it is realtively easy to run, and is adaptable enough to include everything one might desire.  Not to mention I am not opposed to using things from other games to add a little spice into my campaigns.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

Ya, it was werewolf.  Vampire is for goths and people with no friends

So wait, I'm confused. You did, or did not, play this game?

yes, for the confused, that was certainly a jab.

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

WOD's system was never a huge detractor in our games,... they were more social than anything else, and it was very east for newbies to learn, Werewolf had problems for lots of reasons. It was WW's eco-terrorist game, as Werewolves raged against corperations destroying the natural world. It was poorly organized with rules everywhere but the chapter for rules and it was unbalanced with Werewolves more than a match for anything n combat than any other WOD character.

Vampire 2e was a lot of fun

[n8sumsion]

I have to say I really like the WoD rule system. Of course, maybe I had to learn to like it running a Vampire campaign for so long. I tend to prefer rules-lite systems, where you can role-play, move things along, and throw in the occasional dice-role to give the players an opportunity for disaster. I liked the ease of the system, where basically anything you wanted to do, you take an attribute paired with an ability and it gives you a die-roll.

And I like systems where it's easy for the GM/Storyteller/DM to fudge things for or against the players. "6 successes? Wow, that's a good roll... unfortunately, it's not good enough." The problem I have running D&D campaigns is the rules-lawyers in my group calling me on any critical decision, because they know the level of the monster they're fighting because they know the levels of all monsters in the game, they have the tables memorized and know what rolls they need to make to hit. Very frustrating.

The D&D campaign I ran in Salt Lake really was right out of KODT. I had the Brian character (the guy who studied all the tables, knew all the min-max race class combos, and memorized the books. He would tell me what pages tables were on so I could look things up), I had the Stevil character (who was pissed off at the world), and the Bob and Dave characters.

<back from tangent> I haven't looked at the new edition of the WoD system yet, but I was very happy with the 2e.

And, in my opinion, the Vampire setting was always the strongest. Werewolf was the weakest, even though I really wanted to like it. And Changeling was surprisingly good even though I just couldn't imagine running a campaign out of it. Hunter was good too.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

see, the thing about rules memorization and monsters is this: describe the beasts instead of naming it. Or name the monster something other than is in the MM but give it hte same stats. Or just give the thing a level or two of some other class. You can do lots of things without even cheating to get around rules lawyers.

And if all else fails, cheat. It's your prerogative as GM.

[n8sumsion]

Sure, you can do that... but you have to realize, the group I gamed with at work = video game programmers and designers. These guys were smart. If they're fighting a new group of monsters, they kill one off... "Ah... we did 20 points of damage to kill it, that means it must be a 3HD monster, therefore these spells will work on it." And they'd pull out battle strategies I hadn't prepared for, taking advantage of Attacks of Opportunity and I don't even remember what else.

It's the GM's perogative to cheat, absolutely, but it's more fun when the players aren't sure you're cheating.

[Spriggan]

One of the problems with D&D is it's popularity.  Rarely have I played a game where everyone who's played it once (ie a campaign) know all the rules, stats, and the like.  For some reason people enjoy knowing all those rules with D&D while in other games they're content with only knowing the basics and relying on the GM for the rest.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

incidentally, the review of Frostburn that I had planned for today has been derailed for a deeper discussion of some of my thoughts on this. Expect an article in a couple hours.

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

I think the overall popularity of WODs system says volumes about what a good 1/3 of the gaming community wants. And how much they liked the rules. The spin offs from VTM are legion, Werewolf, Mage, Wraith, Changling, Mummy, Hunter, Aeon/Trinity, Aberrant, Exalted and so on. A lot of people had to like the rules and setting to allow this to happen. Have there been changes and revisions, of course there have. Im prolly one of the only people here to have played the first first edition of VTM (bought by a friends boyfriend from Mark Rein Hagan at a con) bound in a 3 ring binder. I saw lots of changes between that and its revised and 2nd edition versions.   Its not just about setting either, WOD was terrifically easy to convince inexperienced players to play, because the rules system didnt require huge amounts of memorization, or more than one book for the whole group in many cases. In fact we played vampire for a year with just the GM owning a main book. At the time that compared very favorably to the 3 book D&D system or the one book and two supplements (ie 3 books) for GURPS.
Like any game though WOD requires a good GM to maximize the game,...
VTM was also the first game I played that had lots of girls who wanted to play, and the chick magnet draw at the time (age 15 -19) was too much to pass up. Who knew girls liked vampires so much. On a side note, who knew they would be such vicious evil players...

[MoreDew]

I would agree that the GM is the one that makes the game fun in the WW settings.  That's why I had so much fun playing Werewolf when I was 13 because the GM really knew what he was doing.  When I tried to run a campaign, it sucked because I didn't really know the system.  

the WW games are fun if you have a great GM.

[Skar]

Bit off topic but the only really good experience I had with role-playing was in the shadow-run universe.  It was an absolute blast because the GM (Darpino, former movie reviewer onTWG) really knew what he was doing.

The GM makes or breaks just about any system if you ask me.  

[Mr_Pleasington]

I think Storyteller is one of the smoothest systems out there.  The only problem I ever had with it was slow combats, which the new version has virtually fixed.  It's easy to grasp, intuitive to use, and crunchy without being overly so.   Also, very easy to plug stuff into.  

While its certainly not my favorite system, its none too shabby in my book.