World of Darkness

So what's this setting and all its books like? Do people still play it? Which ones are the most popular ones, i.e. have the highest chances of finding people to play with?

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>So what's this setting and all its books like?

It's a consolidation of various supernatural themes, like vampires, mummies, humans who can wield magic, etc. Think Buffyverse.

The source books are rather modular. The World of Darkness core books explain some of the basic setting and core rules, but it's not enough material for a detailed campaign that would make use of everything WoD has to offer. For instance, you probably won't have enough reference to have vampire characters in a WoD campaign unless you go out and purchase Vampire: The Masquerade / The Requiem / The Dark Ages / whatever. So it's kind of like D&D in that you need to keep adding different modules to it depending on how many elements you want in your campaign.

>the highest chances of finding people to play with
Probably Vampire alone. You don't need the WoD core books just to play Vampire. Although the Vampire books probably lack enough reference material for having plain humans or even magic humans in your campaign.

What's the main difference between Masquerade and Requiem? A cursory glance via Google tells me they're basically two different things, developed by two different things, while still sharing many similarities between each other.

And of the two, which one would you recommend to someone completely new to playing P&P games in general?

They're just different editions of the same thing, like D&D 5e is to D&D 3e. The rules get slightly tweaked and revised along the way. I can't really comment on the exact differences or divergences between editions.

There's nothing wrong with playing with older editions. You could very well start with Masquerade and then experiment with Requiem later down the line if you're curious how it differs from earlier material.

World of Darkness makes many strides in drawing in various aesthetics from all across fiction and history
>Testuo fights a Cybernetic Werewolf
>Fae Elf goes to a nightclub to have a shady meeting with a Egyptian Vampire
>Have an adventure in an Arthurian story, but then just down the realm you walk into a cybernetic spider spirit with a flamethrower

You can find any niche you want in the World of Darkness and still have something cohesive tying it together. It's brilliant low fantasy to explore, but the moment you actually want answers and consensus, you're done for.

Personally, the only problem I ever had with it, is how "realistic" it somehow felt. You could actually believe it.

What are you talking about specifically?

>the moment you actually want answers and consensus

This is why I don't care for WoD myself. There's not enough concrete material to work with. Although the emphasis is on storytelling rather than density of rules, the books still leave too much to be desired.

I would very much like if there were an edition of WoD that was actually laid out more like a D&D manual, but as a single standalone reference rather than being spread across several modules or core books. Monte Cook's WoD comes close to this, but still misses its mark.

Also each slat(kind of supernatural stuff you are playing) have different themes and mood so its better played with players of same splat to keep story coherent. Vampires are mafia-medieval gangs with backstabing and scheming habits, and mood is loosing touch with humanity slowly becoming more and more monster with each passing year. Weverewolves are like gangs or warbands with shamanistic traditions and keeping spirit world\material world balance. Mages about man who allready know to much. Lovecraftian horrors, parralel dimensions, drug inducing trips to see how world really looks like, bending reality with your will, seeking mysteries in forgotten places. Changeling is folk and fairy stories with creepy twist. Mostly about being hunted and hding away. Demon is technological horror. Like matrix really, only you cant log out. Constant surveillance, spying and secrets.

Is this game worth my time?

>They're just different editions of the same thing,
the're not! requiem has a different(more modular and toolkit like) setting and just borrowed some things from masquerade but the're not different editions! that said it depends on what you want requiem has slightly better rules for Gothic horror but masquerade has better (sometimes worse) lore, cooler clans better vampire powers, and such.

BECMI to AD&D to 3e to 4e to 5e as comparable to nwod and owod are definitely good comparisons, wildly different mechanics, settings, power scales, expectations, experience point systems.

It has its pros and cons.

I'm going to guess it's the same sorta feel I got from reading VtM. It's a game that's very, very good at suspending one's disbelief. You can get really deep into the lore of it without much of a "brick wall of information" that many other settings have. Why that's a problem though, I don't know.

My biggest issue in WoD is how there are 2000 different entities or monsters that don't have stats and are basically "you lose."
It gets very boring, very fast.

That's mostly an owod thing. Although it makes the Davelets screech autistically, Imperial Mysteries has some nice quick stats for rank 6+ entities.

Could someone point me the mega archive with the old books?

What is your discord? You can't link them here.

Oh thanks for replying

Im not a Veeky Forums regular, is there a discord group i could join?

discord.gg/cgVNZw

not Veeky Forums specific, though

@Sicknot

thanks

>That gif

Dammit, user, now I have this song stuck in my head:

youtube.com/watch?v=Zja0n92TxQ8

>ONE BY ONE WE BITE THE DUST
>KICK THE BUCKET BEGIN TO RUST
>GIVE UP THE GHOST WHEN YOUR NUMBER'S UP
>WE ALL FALL DOWN
>ASHES TO ASHES BONES TO PASTE
>YOU'LL WITHER AWAY IN YOUR RESTING PLACE
>ETERNITY IN A WOODEN CASE
>WE ALL FALL DOWN

20th Anniversary Masquerade for lore and metaplot. 2nd edition Requiem for rules.

Sure if you just want to make the comparison based solely on rules that's fine, but factually they are not different editions of the same game. There both different takes on the same theme, that of horror, and most of the rules between requiem and masquerade reflect that. Requiem is personal-horror and Masquerade is action-horror.

Is it possible? We can have good WoD threads while the general acts as our shield?