RPGs day 4: WoD / Changeling
May. 23rd, 2020 10:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jazzfishVia James Nicoll, my first ten tabletop RPGs in ten days, in the order in which I encountered them. Day four: World of Darkness.
(This is really about the World of Darkness games in general, but since Changeling's my favourite it gets the photo.)
Senior year of high school I knew several people who were trying to start up either Vampire or Mage games. I even went so far as to create characters for a couple of those. They never got off the ground, though: Jefferson students are notoriously overscheduled, even in grade twelve when they ought to be coasting towards college.
Actual college students, on the other hand, have plenty of free time. My freshman year, Chris Telfer was a night monitor, which meant he got paid minimum wage to sit in a dorm lobby from midnight til seven and let in the residents. Telfer had access to the big five World of Darkness books (Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, Wraith, and the just-released Changeling). And he wanted to run a big crossover game... starring humans. I shrugged and said "Sure." I believe the idea was for us to eventually turn into one of the Big Five supernatural types, but I don't think that happened until towards the very end of the campaign. Still and all, it was a lot of fun.
The thing about the WoD fistful-of-d10s system is that it very much wants you to succeed at whatever you're doing, even if you're an apparently woefully underpowered human. This makes it a lot of fun for college student players who are frustrated in their daily lives, and something of a challenge for the GM, who has to keep artificially cranking the power level. In retrospect this is probably where my attitude of "dice exist to give the players something to do with their hands" comes from.
Of the five original WoD games: I never really got into Werewolf or Wraith; always wanted to play Vampire but never got the chance; admired Mage despite or maybe because of its obtuseness; and fell deeply in love with Changeling after a one-shot run by Ian Lemke, one of the designers. The Changeling game I ran while my relationship with Emily was falling apart the first time remains one of my better RPG memories.
I don't miss a lot of my friends from college... but goddamn do I miss having a ready supply of role-players.
(This is really about the World of Darkness games in general, but since Changeling's my favourite it gets the photo.)
Senior year of high school I knew several people who were trying to start up either Vampire or Mage games. I even went so far as to create characters for a couple of those. They never got off the ground, though: Jefferson students are notoriously overscheduled, even in grade twelve when they ought to be coasting towards college.
Actual college students, on the other hand, have plenty of free time. My freshman year, Chris Telfer was a night monitor, which meant he got paid minimum wage to sit in a dorm lobby from midnight til seven and let in the residents. Telfer had access to the big five World of Darkness books (Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, Wraith, and the just-released Changeling). And he wanted to run a big crossover game... starring humans. I shrugged and said "Sure." I believe the idea was for us to eventually turn into one of the Big Five supernatural types, but I don't think that happened until towards the very end of the campaign. Still and all, it was a lot of fun.
The thing about the WoD fistful-of-d10s system is that it very much wants you to succeed at whatever you're doing, even if you're an apparently woefully underpowered human. This makes it a lot of fun for college student players who are frustrated in their daily lives, and something of a challenge for the GM, who has to keep artificially cranking the power level. In retrospect this is probably where my attitude of "dice exist to give the players something to do with their hands" comes from.
Of the five original WoD games: I never really got into Werewolf or Wraith; always wanted to play Vampire but never got the chance; admired Mage despite or maybe because of its obtuseness; and fell deeply in love with Changeling after a one-shot run by Ian Lemke, one of the designers. The Changeling game I ran while my relationship with Emily was falling apart the first time remains one of my better RPG memories.
I don't miss a lot of my friends from college... but goddamn do I miss having a ready supply of role-players.