Wow, White Wolf, the second largest RPG maker after Wizards of the Coast, announced Saturday that they are going to end the world. Well, the World of Darkness that is.
Now, White Wolf has been saying that the end is near for about 12 years, so the news is not really that the world is going to end, but more that they are actually going to follow through with it.
The whole Gehenna (Vampire end of the world) thing has been one of my largest problems with the World of Darkness for a while now. Creating this whole myth that the world is going to end, and then not doing much with it for 12 years is not exactly gripping storytelling. Worse, no one figured (especially me) that White Wolf would ever have the guts to actually end their (very profitable) world. I guess this is the part where I say, "I was wrong."
I was wrong.
White Wolf's press release features choice quotes from their game designers that read like I (or a hundred other dissatisfied players) could have written them. Mike Tinney, the president of the company, says quite accurately "a great story needs a great ending." Ethan Skemp says, "A lot of fans have become jaded by supposedly earth-shattering events in comics and games that end up just returning to the status quo. This is not one of those." And, best of all, Justin Achilli sums it up, "It’s time to put up or shut up".
Now, lets be clear, I'm not at all convinced that the Time of Judgement is going to be anything more or less than the cheese that the Time of Thin Blood or the Clan Novels were. White Wolf's version of epic tends to be more silly than sweeping. But at the very least this will be cheese that matters. I have great respect for White Wolf for wrapping up their story with a bang and for following through on their promises.
--Chris--7/30/2003--
What Players Really Want
I have an article up on Gamegrene. Thanks to Salvatore at Gamegrene and Jess for editing.
--Chris--7/16/2003--
Catching Moonlight
Roleplaying games don't lend themselves to recording. You can video or audio tape them, but that only captures a very top down, storyteller only point of view. You could transcribe them, but then you miss the acting part of the experience. You can take notes on them and write up those notes as a novel, but then what you have is a novel, not a roleplaying game. Any method you use has to contend with the enourmous length of the medium. A year long game that meets weekly generates 200 hours of conversation... assuming you only have one conversation going on at a time.
Why would you even want to record a roleplaying game, I hear people asking. Most mundanely, each game has tips and techniques that simply can't be passed from group to group without a recording method. Imagine how hard it would be to learn to paint if you could only talk to other painters, never see their paintings. Recording roleplaying games would also encourage appreciation of the medium amoung non-gamers. Explaining your game to a non-participant would be as simple as giving them a recording. Heck, imagine your groups game hung on the wall of the roleplaying gallery.
I've got no good ideas for how to solve this problem, but I firmly belive that its a very important one. The development of the craft of roleplaying is being hindered by the lack of recordings, as is the development of roleplaying as an art. If you have insight into solving this problem I invite you to comment.
--Chris--7/14/2003--
No More RSS
The short lived experiment known as manually created RSS feeds is too much of a pain to maintain, so I'm not maintaining it any more. Sorry! If anyone really cares e-mail me and I might change my mind.
--Chris--7/14/2003--
So, Where Do You Get Your Ideas?
Well, from The Archetype Cards, for one thing. There's nothing like a little externally imposed structure to spark inspiration, and the archetypes they've chosen are both powerful and flexible. The Sycophant, The Brute and The Alchemist are recognizable to almost everyone and can fit into most games, whether as the Power of Flattery, a hulking Eisen with a zweilhander or a gifted Son of Ether. Unfortunately, the more useful options (detailed character generation, plot generation) are not yet implemented, but with a little creativity what's there can be a great place to begin thinking about a story.
--Jess--7/7/2003--
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Chris has been roleplaying since 1993. He became a Game Master
starting from his very first game. It was Battletech, but he's
gotten better since then. He especially enjoys historical games,
and is interested in troupe style storytelling. He can be reach
by e-mail at maastrictian[at]gloria-mundi.net .
Jess has been roleplaying since 1985, until the boys kicked
her out. Fortunately for her current all-male troupe, she doesn't return
the favor. She is interested in roleplaying games as a larger model
for interactive narrative. She can be reached by e-mail at hammer[at]kleene-star.net
.
The Authors have run one game with extensive material published on
the web, Carpe Noctem, and are currently
running another, Gloria Mundi.
The current game will also be published as an entirely new historical
setting for Vampire: the Masquerade.
All roleplaying games mentioned on this page are trademarked by their owners.
The original content on these pages, the posts and sidebars, is copyright 2003 by the authors.
Dates given on these pages are based on United States Eastern Standard Time
The Final Nights are at Hand
Catching Moonlight
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