World of Darkness

"World of Darkness" (or WoD) is the name given to three related but distinct fictional universes. The first was conceived by Mark Rein-Hagen, while the second was designed by several people at White Wolf Gaming Studio, which Rein-Hagen helped to found. The first two World of Darkness settings have been used for several horror fiction-themed role-playing games that make use of the Storytelling System. The third, Monte Cook's World of Darkness, includes only a single product. It is also the setting for White Wolf's Mind's Eye Theatre, a live action role-playing game based on the core games.

WoD MMORPG
(massively multiplayer online role-playing game)

A merger between Crowd Control Productions and White Wolf, Inc. was announced at the annual Eve Online fanfest in Reykjavík, Iceland, in November 2006. As part of the deal, it was announced that White Wolf would be adapting the Eve Online intellectual property into a RPG, and CCP explicitly stated "There will be a World of Darkness Online", referring to a MMORPG version of the game. According to news at the time, work had already begun on the WoD MMORPG and full time production was to commence within the year and launch in 4–5 years.

As of January 2008[update], full production of the WoD MMORPG was scheduled start March 2009 after the Eve Online expansion was finished according to CCP. Official confirmation that the game is currently in development surfaced in Aug 2009 on the official CCP web site.

It is scheduled to launch in 2010.

New Rule System
The new WoD rules are much more streamlined than the previous system. The Failure rules have changed and the "10-again" rule has been added, in that a "10" indicates a re-roll and the "10" still counts as a success (this rule was present in the original WoD only for Traits ranked at least 4 out of the usual maximum of 5, and then only for a "specialty" or particular sub-field of the trait's application). If another "10" is rolled, this step is repeated until anything but a "10" is rolled. Exceptional Successes are indicated by having five or more successes on the action, and can be regulated by the Storyteller. Dramatic Failures are now only possible on "chance" die rolls; when a dice pool is reduced by penalties to zero or less, a single chance die is rolled. If a 10 is rolled, it is a success (and as before, rerolled), if the result is less than 10 but not 1, then it is a simple failure. On a chance die, if the roll is a 1, then it is a Dramatic Failure, which is usually worse than a normal failure of the action, and is regulated by the Storyteller (although examples of Dramatic Failures in certain situations are occasionally given).

The game also features a much simplified combat system. In the old system each attack made during a combat scene could easily involve 4 separate rolls and in many cases required more due to supernatural abilities possessed by the characters. Combat scenes involving large numbers of combatants could take a very long time to resolve. The new system requires only one roll which is adjusted by the defensive abilities of the person being attacked and represents both the success and failure of the attack and the damage inflicted because of it, (indicated by number of successes).

The nature and demeanor rules which represented the personality of the characters and were common in the old games have also been removed. In the new system characters have a virtue and a vice trait which not only represents the personality of the characters, depending on how good a role player the person playing that trait is, but also represents actions that the character can take in order to regain willpower points that have been spent during the course of play. The vices are the same as the deadly sins, while the virtues resemble the heavenly virtues. (Charity, Faith, Justice, etc, for Virtues, and Envy, Wrath, Lust, etc., for Vices). Storytellers and Players are encouraged to invent new ones as seen fit.

The morality stat represents the moral outlook of the character and the notion that as a character takes more and more morally questionable actions she or he will eventually stop feeling bad about it. A character with a high morality would be more moral and saintly while a person with a low morality would be able to take more questionable actions. As a person’s morality falls they run the increasing risk of becoming mentally unstable.

For example, a hunter kills a mortal cultist who has been trying to kill him. Since she attacked him, it's not murder, it's manslaughter, which is represented as "4" on morality. The hunters's current morality stat is "6". He fails his roll and thus drops to morality "5". In addition, he must now make a second roll to resist gaining a derangement (a trait that affects characters' rolls and actions).

There is some version of morality in each of the game lines which represent internal struggles of the characters.

There are also specific action bonuses which can be attached to the Skills. These give modifiers to whatever the person is doing.