The World of Darkness
Average Rating: 4.5 Stars
by White Wolf Game Studio
List Price: $24.99
Store Price: from $15.99
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Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: White Wolf Publishing
ISBN: 1588464849
Product Description
Where the Shadows Grow Long
We live our days completely ignorant of the true terrors lurking around us. Only rarely do our experiences draw back the veil of shadows and reveal the horror in our midst. These glimpses into the supernatural can cause us to retreat into comforting lies -- "There are no such things as monsters" -- or stir our morbid curiosity. Only a few, however, can overcome their fear and dare to look deeper.
Abandon Hope All Who Enter
The World of Darkness Rulebook introduces a version of our contemporary world where the supernatural is real. Players join to tell tales of mystery and horror, where theme, mood and plot are more important to a character's experiences than his weapons or equipment. Inside are rules for character creation, task resolution, combat and any activity your character attempts as he delves into the shadows.
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Customer Reviews
New WOD Core Review
5 Stars
I played the old WOD setting and I'm well familiar with how many of the core books for the different game settings often repeated rules for character creation and then often had clunky or difficult cross-over rules and handling. The old setting is great in many ways.
But I love the new system and new WOD even better. While I can see many nods and similarities between the old rules and the new ones, there are just as many differences and the best advice for someone who thinks themself a vetern player of the old games, treat this as a new setting and new rules to learn.
This is your corebook, with stream lined rules for making a mortal character and fairly easy to remember rules once you've made the time to read through them.
I also feel I should note that the combat system is lethal, running in, half cocked without a plan gets you killed. This isn't D&D with instant magical healing and experience rewarded for how many monsters you kill.
And with the stream lined rules, its easier now to stick with and do just a straight mortal game, or buy the core rules for Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, ect. and implement them for game play.
So if you want to play for story and drama with maturity and an experience system that rewards that, this is the game to get and pick up. If you want points for killing monsters, power and loot, then stick with D&D.
~ A. E. Terry,
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it was fine
5 Stars
It shipped fast and was delivered in the condition promised they did a fine job they have my respect
~ Jamison Cl Lipps,
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Great RPG
5 Stars
What can I say? It's the single most important book to own for nWoD. Which is much more playable then the oWoD. White Wolf has in my opinion firmly established themselves as not only THE best table top RPG companies. But they have created some of the most detailed and fascinating universes in the entire canon of fiction.
~ W. Mette, CT.
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endless possibilities for a disgruntled RPGer
5 Stars
I have been playing rpgs all my life, but have always stuck to more traditional games like Dungeons & Dragons. Many of my friends have been playing WoD for YEARS and yet I have always steered away from it, thinking "Well that's just that weirdo goth game for vampire fans gone overboard"....
Lately, however, I have become increasingly disgruntled with the new revisions of my cherished "tradtitional" rpgs, and how these revisions seem to detract from the heart of telling an immersive, atmospheric tale. More and more, I just want a game where I can stretch my imagination both as a player as well as a GM... a game where the focus is NOT primarily on the rules and centered around things like damage types and effect types and creature types and what THIS weapon can do with THIS effect against THIS type on a third Tuesday if the moon is full and the defender is on higher ground with THIS bonus and and holding an item with THESE modifiers if he's at THIS health level and has just eaten fish. Basically, I have become sick of limitations and the need to memorize those types of rules.
This past weekend, a good friend of mine asked me if I would help him create plots and stories for his upcoming Changeling game, and I thought "Oh great... White Wolf WoD again...."
But for the sake of humoring him, and a willingness to at least TRY something new, I picked up the World Of Darkness core book, this "Blue Book" as the fans call it, and grabbed a copy of "Changeling: The Lost" to go along with it.
Forget about "Changeling" for now... I thumbed through this "new" WoD core book, and I honestly feel like I can never go back again! I became hooked almost immediately, before the point where I had yet read a single rule! Twenty-plus pages into the volume, and I was still reading the various snippets of story hooks and idea-inspiration and atmosphere without so much as rule 1, and it was totally refreshing just to see an rpg book DO THAT!
And as I began to read more and more, further into the book, something happened which I did not expect. Although I was doing this as a favor to a friend, for a specific setting (Changeling)... I began to see the possibilities for this game as an AMAZING stand-alone game without the need for the "Genre/Setting" books such as Mage and Vampire.
As a stand-alone book, the rules embody the simplicity I have been craving lately from an RPG, combined with the simple premise of "imagine your everyday real world but the supernatural exists" which has opened role-playing doors to endless possibilities for a TON of things I have always wanted to try!
Wanna run a "Silent Hill"-esque tabletop campaign for a couple of friends one evening? GO AHEAD! This WoD book and its optional handful of non-"Vampire/Werewolf" supplements allows you to do that!
Wanna take a player or two through a couple of stories inspired by the TV show "Supernaturals"? DO IT!
"Cthulu" campaign float your boat? Dive right in!
Indiana Jones? Check! That's right goth fans, I just said "Indiana Jones"!!! The Indy series of films has always been centered around "what if the supernatural existed and left behind some artifacts"... and that is a premise which lies at the very heart of what this WoD book is all about! Just TRY to deny it!
The cool thing about the "NEW" World Of Darkness, based on what I have been hearing from those I have talked to about it, is that the core book has become a "genre/setting" all its own! Whereas "Vampire" and "Werewolf" and "Changeling" allow you to become those types of creatures, the blue book and its own branch of supplements explores the role of players as humans, mortals... so in a way I guess it's like adding "Human" to that list of monster-inpired genre books.
Overall, I have given this book its five-star rating just from the sheer limitless possibilities it opens up, and the simplicity of the rules which I have been missing and craving lately... a simplicity which allows the STORY to breathe and unfold without a dozen "check the book for that rule" moments.
Perhaps an old-school WoD fan would give the book less of a rating, citing things like "they changed THIS and ruined THAT and the new method of THIS is just unneccessary!"...
But as a player/GM totally new to WoD and what it offers, I am looking at it strictly from the standpoint of how refreshing it is as compared to what I have been stuck with lately and what I have been craving from an rpg, and this World Of Darkness "blue book" delivers in spades!
~ Matthew B. Brunson, Montgomery, AL USA
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Not very surprised
5 Stars
Why the title you may ask? I'm a little bit accostumed to the great quality of White Wolf's products. I ordered this with the Vampire the Requiem rule-book, and they arrived 3 days past schedule and with some little scratches on them. Amazon has to take better care of the stuff they ship.
~ alvarojmarquez,
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