WoD Alternatives
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I didn't want to derail another thread but someone mentioned in the RPG Systems thread of using a 'WoD Lite' type system. So that made me curious, what systems would be decent alternatives to WoD?
My TT group really enjoyed Everlasting. We house ruled some stuff but we found it more functional than WoD in a lot of ways.
When I was in High School my group loved Nightlife. Again, not perfect but very easy to mod and fairly balanced if I remember correctly.
There's also Urban Shadows and Monster Hearts but I'm not sure how well Powered by the Apocalypse would work on a MUX. Part of me says wonderfully...another part says not so much.
There's also Buffy/Angel, which hopefully we'll be seeing soon enough how well that works, but Eden Studios also offers Armageddon which can be modded to do modern nights quite well.
Then there are the systems that are so-called generic; GURPS, Savage Worlds, Genesys, and HERO. I think Savage Worlds could work well. In fact I've been close to doing a Ravenloft game using SW several times. I think Genesys could work well too but I'm less familiar.
Anyway, those are the systems I can think off of the top of my head that might work well as WoD alternates.
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Dresden files RPG is basically WoD Fate version and at least two MUs have successfully used it so far
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I'd forgotten about Dresden. I've had a ton of fun with the Fate Accelerated version of the game. I think this week I might pick up the Fate Core version.
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@zombiegenesis said in WoD Alternatives:
I think this week I might pick up the Fate Core version.
Dresden led the way to Fate Core, but isn't Fate Core, unless something happened in the fifteen RPG Kickstarters and I missed it. I know this is a touch pedantic, but a lot of the more crunchy bits that were designed for Core aren't there.
It's a fantastic game, tho.
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Let's see...
Undying: A PbtA variant with a 'betting' mechanic for conflict. Free text-only copy available on the publisher's site here: https://enigmamachinations.files.wordpress.com/2016/02/undying-free-text-edition.pdf
Witchcraft: One flavor of Unisystem. Free on DTRPG here: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/692/CJ-Carrellas-WitchCraft?it=1
Cortex: Scads of dice, easy to really chunk things into since it's all dice-based, particularly Cortex Heroic or Cortex Drama. There are tons of Not-Masquerade hacks for it. Hell, I have a fairly functional Exalted hack a buddy of mine wrote for it. Not free at all.
OWoD Quickstarts: They released Quickstarts for the four big lines (Vamp, Woof, Mage, Ling) that use d6s and have very clearly defined mechanics. They are meant to be introductory kits but I've wondered how they'd work on MU*. I add them here because I consider them 'different enough' from a standard WoD to be an alternative. Free, but you have to find backups. Can download here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/qdiyrxu2tmj0xe0/Quickstarts.rar?dl=0
Vampire Degeneration: A VtM tabletop game taking lots of inspiration from LAMUSH; the writer i think was one of their staffers.
Feed: A more narrative-based vampire game that has a lot of 'build your own type of vampire' stuff. Pay What You Want on DTRPG: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/124387/Feed
Nightlife: A huge product on the 90's which predates VtM. It has an interesting 'spend humanity to gain supernatural powers' mechanic, but it's super super fiddly. Able to create tons and tons of types of supernaturals.
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Do you want to keep the WoD setting?
It can be more or less translated into any other RPG system. -
I'm not necessarily looking for any one thing. Just throwing ideas out into the universe mostly. That said, keeping the WoD setting is not a necessity for sure. Just doing "dark urban horror" is all(playing vampires, witches, and werewolves). I think we've touched on a number of great systems for it.
I wish Cortex+ had gotten more support. The Smallville RPG is just fantastic. My group used it once to do a Charmed campaign and it worked with almost no real modifications.
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Cam Banks bought Cortex from MWP and has kickstarted Cortex Prime, which is a Cortex core book with details on how to do all kinds of stuff, using all the various variants of Cortex.
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@bobotron said in WoD Alternatives:
Cam Banks bought Cortex from MWP and has kickstarted Cortex Prime, which is a Cortex core book with details on how to do all kinds of stuff, using all the various variants of Cortex.
I've seen the kickstarter preview of the Prime rules, they look pretty promising!
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@wildbaboons Dark Spires was awesome.
Miss it so much. -
I wasn't a huge fan of Cortex when it came out. HOWEVER, there was a book called the Cortex Plus Hackers Guide, meaning hacking the rules, and it explains very well why Cortex is designed the way it is, and how to fiddle with it. I think that is a fantastic document to read if you want to play Cortex, let alone design a game for it.
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Cortex is a mediocre system, in my opinion, that is elevated to greatness by the relationship mechanics. Since those mechanics are applicable on a MU*, I think it would just be a fiddly, 'too many kinds of dice/rolls' system online, whereas it plays wonderfully in tabletop games.
(And having played a couple of urban fantasy/CW supernatural drama games in it, I love the hell out of it. But without the Relationship Map ... eh.)
