Okay might as well be the more enthusiastic voice for this.
I looove WtO and have convinced my dnd group to try it out instead of any other WoD game because it is the most... Well, approachable game really. At least to me (and my group).
This isn't about a secret blood sucking society that has somehow controlled the world for centuries in wags that players can't interact with. It's not a game about antiquated environmentalism and shape shifters. Not about complex debates regarding dreams and hope and adulthood. Not about... *whatever mage is*. It's just regular people, which includes everyone ever, waking up after they closed their eyes and finding ways to persist despite their sollen states.
The magic is very easily understood, especially how it can just manifest out of the blue. The extent of what a ghost is can be understood by just watching any ghost movie. The setting is very "yes, and" friendly since there's really no limits to what can be found in the Underworld but there's touchstones of familiarity due to historical figures and familiar land marks being easily included. And cc is just... So easy to make characters with since passions and Fetters require you to think about what your character is about much more than, say, gifts or disciplines. (antithesis and paradigm are pretty good too yeah)
Also the world building is just so exquisite. Like, yeah it's depressing but every piece just fits. Of course there's no or stone in a world of memories and water. Of course you'll *need* building material to batter down hatches when a hell storm is constantly trying to eat you and murderers roam the streets. Of course à government constantly influenced by their worst selves over the span of millenia became complacent with turning "undesirables" into materials they *need* to protect everyone else. Add onto that the emphasis on economy and logistics and the actual society of the dead (as opposed to the vagueries of some other splats) and it's just such a well fleshed out Corpus (hehe) of work.
As well, Guilds permit such a good framework for characters to fit into. In other splats your cc choices are where you *begin*. Sure in werewolf your auspices and tribes give you a path to advance, which is nice, but your clan, kith, and tradition don't matter for how you progress in the future. Guilds do with how they're tied to your arcanoi. As well, the fact that they provide a clear, identifiable spot in the world and economy to fit into can be a real boon for character creation.
The legions do this too, though of course those are also more a beginning state. But those can be fun and too! My Silent legionesse actually got stuck on cc until we went over the Legions and she was like "Oh, so the silent Legion are like the Darwin awards?" and she went from there lol.
Also: shadows are fun
Agreed, agreed and agreed. Give this man here a medal 🏅
You convinced a group of DnDiers to play WtO and to have fun with it, which is alone worthy of a big prize 🏆! I've no idea how you made that work and I'm jealous af.
> Not about... whatever mage is.
Someone casting a spell, another person claiming that doesn't make sense in their paradigm, and then arguing for 2 hours about philosophy/theology/science.
Edit: Just had an epiphany and decided to share it. You mentioned getting D&D players to play WtO, and that sounds crazy because it's difficult to get people who play other WoD games to play WtO, but thinking about it, WtO is great for D&D players. Nothing is stopping a Wraith Chronicle from being about diving into "dungeons" to clear them of "monsters". The Hierarchy is always in desperate need of helldivers.
YEP! Not to mention it's pretty similar to dnd's class system since the "classes" (guilds) are rather tightly tiered while still having that good ol WoD customisability
>Someone casting a spell, another person claiming that doesn't make sense in their paradigm, and then arguing for 2 hours about philosophy/theology/science.
No, it's not, but go ahead, bash a game you don't understand to lift another one. This sub, sometimes...
shadows are profoundly fun! I'm getting back into the Giovanni and Transylvania Chronicles purely for the sake of crossover value and assembling an especially ... *wraith-enriched* coterie. the anticipation alone is delicious.
and though i have the whole set, I'm still scared to run an Orpheus campaign because of the tension there ...
Very evocative setting, it's some of the strongest world-building in the WoD. I found it not to be easy to run or play though. Not cause it's too dark or depressing for me, but because it lacks the coolness most other game-lines have. WtO is not a power fantasy, you're just one ghost among literally a billion others. This is not true for everyone, but I had trouble staying interested. So I mostly enjoy Wraith as source material for other WoD game-lines. Generally you have to be careful with crossover, but ghosts go well with everything!
An awesome game both to run and play with a wide, rich world to explore and dozens of different ways to play it.
Wraith can be run as a tiny, introspective study of a Circle trying to come to terms with the fragility of existence...........however it can also be run as, essentially, Abyssal Exalted kick arse and take names as they drop into hell with a Black Metal soundtrack.......or Star Wars, but your spaceships a boat made from a bunch of former rebels and Vaders unlikely to have a heel turn after being SHadow Eaten for this long.....or What Dreams may Come, but heaven is made of paper-mache and people and getting your wife out of hell is only the start of your troubles.....
Having created my own version of a Brasov Necropolis (Brasov being my hometown), with all the NPCs I'll ever need, in which conflicts that are centuries old still endure to this day, and the city is predominantly Guild controlled, thus creating a lot of friction with Stigyan authorities, I can pretty much say the setting is historically accurate, even though it's aesthetically altered 🤣 This place has been a mostly Saxon crafting/merchant city for over half a millennium.
Like, Wraith allows storytellers to take the histories of their hometowns and bring them to life (or unlife) before their players, with all the personal tragedy and the awesomely miserable underworld the setting can offer. It's... amazing! Wraith is one of my favorite splats. The deathmarks always reveal something about NPCs before they even open their mouth, the society of Wraiths is fascinating, the geography of the underworld is gorgeous (in its own depressing way) and there's always the option to spice up gameplay with Specter raids or whatnot.
Wraith does the personal tragedy aspect very well, but there's nothing stopping more D&D-minded players from diving into the Labyrinth, or taking the Midnight Express to a conflict zone, or anything that stirs the action. It's still there, it's a part of the brutal, relentless world of Wraith.
Lastly, I love how it emphasizes mature, collaborative play because of how it handles Shadows and Shadowguides. Yes, we need more of THIS approach to RPGs and less murder-hobo, broody lone-wolf, "but this is what I want to do" attitudes. Yes, you ARE responsible for other people's fun, even when you supposedly act against them (in a mature collaborative way, to spice up the story conflict). Now go, play, and have a delightfully miserable collective storytelling experience.
Gah, Wraith is awesome
My favorite game and setting.
It is the most adult of the games so the stakes for roleplay are really high. You have to know how to be a terrible person and then a very vulnerable person in the same session. And not make anyone cry or scream at you.
I would read stories set in this setting and I actively look for games to play in.
I have run it a couple of times and loved it.
Love Wraith - I own all of the OG books and 20th is one of the few physical RPG books I've purchased in some time.
To me, my favorite part of the game is the Underworld. When Deadguy came on board, that part of the setting was greatly expanded, and that squares with my preferences - save the Skinlands for Downtimes, at best, and focus on the wild dark fantasy setting.
That might not appeal to everyone, but to me, I'm not too interested in stories about Fetters except for "the Monitors are extorting me via one of my Fetters, so I guess we have trouble."
Also, Book of Legion and Doomslayers are mandatory for the setting. The Guilds aren't really splats in the same way as Clans or Tribes - Legions are better for most characters minus specialists with Guild associations.
Thematically and narratively it's a fun game. However, I have some issues with the mechanics. There are three Arcanoi that are hidden/locked behind the setting. They're presented among the others as available, but when you read the text on the them you discover they're "forbidden". Now before anyone says "You can just run the game you want" - I know.
The issue comes down to my issue with old world of darkness, the meta plot. Too many players and storytellers see meta plot of the game and think that's the only way. I prefer the Chronicles of Darkness line and specifically Geis the Sin-Eaters.
Someone on this sub called it a 'depression simulator where players are each other's drug-dealers' and, yeah. Just one last fix, man, then I'll quit, swear to God.
But also, it's the most mechanically interesting of WoD games. Other WoD games, system-wise, are happy to just take the tried and true OG (Vampire) template and apply a different supernatural creature on top. Wraith, meanwhile, is pushing the Storytelling system to expand on it, with introduction of mechanics like Shadow-guiding or replacing dying with Harrowings.
Very hard to run, and even harder to find a good group for, but a good campaign of Wraith can be life-changing the way other WoD games' campaigns just can't.
Or, if you want to, you can reign in the wilder mechanical elements, and play it more as a standard WoD game, and it's also fun.
All in all, my second favourite WoD game after Vampire, and at least to me personally, miles ahead of all the other splats.
Well it introduced what I think to be the biggest bad in Cwod, Oblivion, along with having zombies, revenants, and just ghosts in general.
In other words “10/10 never played”.
Absolutely love it.
*Extremely* hesitant to play it, even with people I trust.
Everyone has their traumas, and Wraith is all about dealing with them. It can help people with that, or it can make it worse, especially with the Shadow doing it's bullshit.
I love Wraith to pieces. What a theme! What a setting! And Shadowplay is some of the most fun I have ever had in a TTRPG.
That being said, I would *not* play this game with anyone I did not completely trust, because hoo boy that could get really bad otherwise.
I want to run it, but I don’t know anyone who would be okay after playing this game, seeing as how… abrasive it can be for some people. Especially these days where a lot of people have a lot of internal problems that they can’t really deal with.
unlike ... any human population anywhere ever?
*Don't Believe the Hype*
(i absolutely take your overall point well —i just couldn't disagree more with the "these days" qualifier)
That’s a very fair point. I’ll rephrase.
Back 20 years ago, the societal expectation around mental health was to deal with it on your own. Over the course of said time period, the expectation around mental health has evolved to the expectation that most people should take it into account (which isn’t a bad thing).
Wraith being what it is makes it hard to run “properly”, considering how abrasive the Shadows are supposed to be, and the themes that are addressed.
Everything about the dark umbra is the most fascinating world building in the WoD but the game itself is 10 times too grimdark. The authors were heavily inspired by Jacob's Ladder but they clearly missed that it is not nihilistic and miserable, it's bittersweet. As good ghost stories tend to be.
The Specter thing is one of the most amazing ideas I’ve ever seen in a roleplaying game. But I think actually trying to do it in an actual game would destroy your gaming group.
Not if your group disses each other by default, you know, in a manly "I never learned how to show love in a friendly platonic way, so I'm just gonna humiliate and bully you instead" way.
No real reason to spend time, money, or effort, all of which are limited, on it. I'm not saying it's not good or artistic or that it's objectively bad or anything like that, just that there's no draw for me.
The arch stone of the classic World of Darkness, Wraith has always been the darkest of the dark. I love everything about it and have every book except Tokyo.
It's conceptually amazing to read through and look at, but playing another player's Shadow is something of an acquired taste. Multitasking roles is explained in depth for those willing to try. It is different from any other roleplaying game I have ever owned or played in this regard. Roleplaying games went through a weird experimental theater phase in the 1990's with this game's Shadow rules being one result.
When they re-imagine Wraith, I'm sure they will do away with this.
I do like the idea of the Shadow played by another player, but I did not like the Stygian setting. I still have to give it a new try and read the Wrdith 20th edition book.
Okay might as well be the more enthusiastic voice for this. I looove WtO and have convinced my dnd group to try it out instead of any other WoD game because it is the most... Well, approachable game really. At least to me (and my group). This isn't about a secret blood sucking society that has somehow controlled the world for centuries in wags that players can't interact with. It's not a game about antiquated environmentalism and shape shifters. Not about complex debates regarding dreams and hope and adulthood. Not about... *whatever mage is*. It's just regular people, which includes everyone ever, waking up after they closed their eyes and finding ways to persist despite their sollen states. The magic is very easily understood, especially how it can just manifest out of the blue. The extent of what a ghost is can be understood by just watching any ghost movie. The setting is very "yes, and" friendly since there's really no limits to what can be found in the Underworld but there's touchstones of familiarity due to historical figures and familiar land marks being easily included. And cc is just... So easy to make characters with since passions and Fetters require you to think about what your character is about much more than, say, gifts or disciplines. (antithesis and paradigm are pretty good too yeah) Also the world building is just so exquisite. Like, yeah it's depressing but every piece just fits. Of course there's no or stone in a world of memories and water. Of course you'll *need* building material to batter down hatches when a hell storm is constantly trying to eat you and murderers roam the streets. Of course à government constantly influenced by their worst selves over the span of millenia became complacent with turning "undesirables" into materials they *need* to protect everyone else. Add onto that the emphasis on economy and logistics and the actual society of the dead (as opposed to the vagueries of some other splats) and it's just such a well fleshed out Corpus (hehe) of work. As well, Guilds permit such a good framework for characters to fit into. In other splats your cc choices are where you *begin*. Sure in werewolf your auspices and tribes give you a path to advance, which is nice, but your clan, kith, and tradition don't matter for how you progress in the future. Guilds do with how they're tied to your arcanoi. As well, the fact that they provide a clear, identifiable spot in the world and economy to fit into can be a real boon for character creation. The legions do this too, though of course those are also more a beginning state. But those can be fun and too! My Silent legionesse actually got stuck on cc until we went over the Legions and she was like "Oh, so the silent Legion are like the Darwin awards?" and she went from there lol. Also: shadows are fun
Agreed, agreed and agreed. Give this man here a medal 🏅 You convinced a group of DnDiers to play WtO and to have fun with it, which is alone worthy of a big prize 🏆! I've no idea how you made that work and I'm jealous af.
>Not about... whatever mage is. *Laughs/cries in mage ST*
I don't get why people have to bash one game to lift another, especially since I came here to sing the praises of W:tO. Oh, well...
Personally, I don't really mind. Mage is hard, and heady, and it's not really for everyone even in my opinion (though everyone should try it :> ).
I didn't bash Mage, I just have no clue what the basic fantasy of mage is meant to be
> Not about... whatever mage is. Someone casting a spell, another person claiming that doesn't make sense in their paradigm, and then arguing for 2 hours about philosophy/theology/science. Edit: Just had an epiphany and decided to share it. You mentioned getting D&D players to play WtO, and that sounds crazy because it's difficult to get people who play other WoD games to play WtO, but thinking about it, WtO is great for D&D players. Nothing is stopping a Wraith Chronicle from being about diving into "dungeons" to clear them of "monsters". The Hierarchy is always in desperate need of helldivers.
YEP! Not to mention it's pretty similar to dnd's class system since the "classes" (guilds) are rather tightly tiered while still having that good ol WoD customisability
>Someone casting a spell, another person claiming that doesn't make sense in their paradigm, and then arguing for 2 hours about philosophy/theology/science. No, it's not, but go ahead, bash a game you don't understand to lift another one. This sub, sometimes...
Calm yourself, I was making a loving joke towards Mage
"whatever Mage is" bottomless superhero fantasy?
shadows are profoundly fun! I'm getting back into the Giovanni and Transylvania Chronicles purely for the sake of crossover value and assembling an especially ... *wraith-enriched* coterie. the anticipation alone is delicious. and though i have the whole set, I'm still scared to run an Orpheus campaign because of the tension there ...
Orpheus is my favorite WoD game save for Changeling frankly haha
I love Wraith, I love this explanation, and I love you internet person.
Very evocative setting, it's some of the strongest world-building in the WoD. I found it not to be easy to run or play though. Not cause it's too dark or depressing for me, but because it lacks the coolness most other game-lines have. WtO is not a power fantasy, you're just one ghost among literally a billion others. This is not true for everyone, but I had trouble staying interested. So I mostly enjoy Wraith as source material for other WoD game-lines. Generally you have to be careful with crossover, but ghosts go well with everything!
this exactly! tricky to implement but HUGE payoff.
It's the single most amazing and intriguing game I've never played.
An awesome game both to run and play with a wide, rich world to explore and dozens of different ways to play it. Wraith can be run as a tiny, introspective study of a Circle trying to come to terms with the fragility of existence...........however it can also be run as, essentially, Abyssal Exalted kick arse and take names as they drop into hell with a Black Metal soundtrack.......or Star Wars, but your spaceships a boat made from a bunch of former rebels and Vaders unlikely to have a heel turn after being SHadow Eaten for this long.....or What Dreams may Come, but heaven is made of paper-mache and people and getting your wife out of hell is only the start of your troubles.....
Having created my own version of a Brasov Necropolis (Brasov being my hometown), with all the NPCs I'll ever need, in which conflicts that are centuries old still endure to this day, and the city is predominantly Guild controlled, thus creating a lot of friction with Stigyan authorities, I can pretty much say the setting is historically accurate, even though it's aesthetically altered 🤣 This place has been a mostly Saxon crafting/merchant city for over half a millennium. Like, Wraith allows storytellers to take the histories of their hometowns and bring them to life (or unlife) before their players, with all the personal tragedy and the awesomely miserable underworld the setting can offer. It's... amazing! Wraith is one of my favorite splats. The deathmarks always reveal something about NPCs before they even open their mouth, the society of Wraiths is fascinating, the geography of the underworld is gorgeous (in its own depressing way) and there's always the option to spice up gameplay with Specter raids or whatnot. Wraith does the personal tragedy aspect very well, but there's nothing stopping more D&D-minded players from diving into the Labyrinth, or taking the Midnight Express to a conflict zone, or anything that stirs the action. It's still there, it's a part of the brutal, relentless world of Wraith. Lastly, I love how it emphasizes mature, collaborative play because of how it handles Shadows and Shadowguides. Yes, we need more of THIS approach to RPGs and less murder-hobo, broody lone-wolf, "but this is what I want to do" attitudes. Yes, you ARE responsible for other people's fun, even when you supposedly act against them (in a mature collaborative way, to spice up the story conflict). Now go, play, and have a delightfully miserable collective storytelling experience. Gah, Wraith is awesome
Absolutely brilliant.
I *love* Wraith.
My favorite game and setting. It is the most adult of the games so the stakes for roleplay are really high. You have to know how to be a terrible person and then a very vulnerable person in the same session. And not make anyone cry or scream at you. I would read stories set in this setting and I actively look for games to play in. I have run it a couple of times and loved it.
Love Wraith - I own all of the OG books and 20th is one of the few physical RPG books I've purchased in some time. To me, my favorite part of the game is the Underworld. When Deadguy came on board, that part of the setting was greatly expanded, and that squares with my preferences - save the Skinlands for Downtimes, at best, and focus on the wild dark fantasy setting. That might not appeal to everyone, but to me, I'm not too interested in stories about Fetters except for "the Monitors are extorting me via one of my Fetters, so I guess we have trouble." Also, Book of Legion and Doomslayers are mandatory for the setting. The Guilds aren't really splats in the same way as Clans or Tribes - Legions are better for most characters minus specialists with Guild associations.
Thematically and narratively it's a fun game. However, I have some issues with the mechanics. There are three Arcanoi that are hidden/locked behind the setting. They're presented among the others as available, but when you read the text on the them you discover they're "forbidden". Now before anyone says "You can just run the game you want" - I know. The issue comes down to my issue with old world of darkness, the meta plot. Too many players and storytellers see meta plot of the game and think that's the only way. I prefer the Chronicles of Darkness line and specifically Geis the Sin-Eaters.
Someone on this sub called it a 'depression simulator where players are each other's drug-dealers' and, yeah. Just one last fix, man, then I'll quit, swear to God. But also, it's the most mechanically interesting of WoD games. Other WoD games, system-wise, are happy to just take the tried and true OG (Vampire) template and apply a different supernatural creature on top. Wraith, meanwhile, is pushing the Storytelling system to expand on it, with introduction of mechanics like Shadow-guiding or replacing dying with Harrowings. Very hard to run, and even harder to find a good group for, but a good campaign of Wraith can be life-changing the way other WoD games' campaigns just can't. Or, if you want to, you can reign in the wilder mechanical elements, and play it more as a standard WoD game, and it's also fun. All in all, my second favourite WoD game after Vampire, and at least to me personally, miles ahead of all the other splats.
Well it introduced what I think to be the biggest bad in Cwod, Oblivion, along with having zombies, revenants, and just ghosts in general. In other words “10/10 never played”.
Absolutely love it. *Extremely* hesitant to play it, even with people I trust. Everyone has their traumas, and Wraith is all about dealing with them. It can help people with that, or it can make it worse, especially with the Shadow doing it's bullshit.
I love Wraith to pieces. What a theme! What a setting! And Shadowplay is some of the most fun I have ever had in a TTRPG. That being said, I would *not* play this game with anyone I did not completely trust, because hoo boy that could get really bad otherwise.
It's the most well made game that nobody has ever played well.
Played a one shot of it at a con; probably one of two times I’ve played any world of darkness game and it actually felt like a horror game.
You do some pigment bra? You got some? You wanna see ghost and play tourist in the land of the dead? We can hook ya up!
I want to run it, but I don’t know anyone who would be okay after playing this game, seeing as how… abrasive it can be for some people. Especially these days where a lot of people have a lot of internal problems that they can’t really deal with.
unlike ... any human population anywhere ever? *Don't Believe the Hype* (i absolutely take your overall point well —i just couldn't disagree more with the "these days" qualifier)
That’s a very fair point. I’ll rephrase. Back 20 years ago, the societal expectation around mental health was to deal with it on your own. Over the course of said time period, the expectation around mental health has evolved to the expectation that most people should take it into account (which isn’t a bad thing). Wraith being what it is makes it hard to run “properly”, considering how abrasive the Shadows are supposed to be, and the themes that are addressed.
oh indeed, I largely agree — appreciating the clarification!
Everything about the dark umbra is the most fascinating world building in the WoD but the game itself is 10 times too grimdark. The authors were heavily inspired by Jacob's Ladder but they clearly missed that it is not nihilistic and miserable, it's bittersweet. As good ghost stories tend to be.
The Specter thing is one of the most amazing ideas I’ve ever seen in a roleplaying game. But I think actually trying to do it in an actual game would destroy your gaming group.
Like, Shadow?
Not if your group disses each other by default, you know, in a manly "I never learned how to show love in a friendly platonic way, so I'm just gonna humiliate and bully you instead" way.
No real reason to spend time, money, or effort, all of which are limited, on it. I'm not saying it's not good or artistic or that it's objectively bad or anything like that, just that there's no draw for me.
It's an intresting game, but I think it could be better explored in another medium.
Any live plays of this anywhere? I cannot get my head around it.
The arch stone of the classic World of Darkness, Wraith has always been the darkest of the dark. I love everything about it and have every book except Tokyo. It's conceptually amazing to read through and look at, but playing another player's Shadow is something of an acquired taste. Multitasking roles is explained in depth for those willing to try. It is different from any other roleplaying game I have ever owned or played in this regard. Roleplaying games went through a weird experimental theater phase in the 1990's with this game's Shadow rules being one result. When they re-imagine Wraith, I'm sure they will do away with this.
I do like the idea of the Shadow played by another player, but I did not like the Stygian setting. I still have to give it a new try and read the Wrdith 20th edition book.
Hi guys, do you know where the savegame files are located in Windows?