When White Wolf Games Vampire: The Masquerade came out, it was quite a hit. I was more concerned with White Wolf's support for Ars Magica. The Vampire crowd was a weird lot, and while I like weird I'm no longer as young as once was. I mean, these people were freaks! I had a bad enough time with conventioneers dressing as their AD&D characters.
The Vampire crowd wanted to BE their characters.
Even for a game nut like me, that's a little too intense. Besides, I was never a Goth and my days as a punk was in the late 70's and early 80's. Apathetic Goths crying about how bad the world is and then doing nothing about it rile my Sex Pistols & P.I.L trained sensibilities. However, there was something about this game that worked. The game system is nothing to rave about, but it works with the genre it invented. What really rocked was the role-playing potential. This game seemed to click with what we called the "Drama Club Cult" during my high school days. These people role-play.
By the time I got over my hesitation, Vampire had evolved into Live Action gaming. I tried it. Yawn. It seems something you either like or don't like; I'm in the latter category. I've been in relatively few campaigns for Vampire, only two have been noteworthy.
If you haven't already guessed, games that involve wizards and magic I really like. At the time, White Wolf had the best game for wizards ever made: Ars Magica. I had high hopes for a modern day occult and magic game from them - after all, they had the authors of Ars Magica working for them. When the game came out, it was a great disappointment. Compared to the elegant rules of Ars Magica, Mage played like a bad game of superior role-play or a bad game of Vampire.
It took a while for the game to set with me. I had to overcome my immense disappointment with the game not being Ars Magica Moderne. I actually game mastered the game to a group of White Wolf fans and I had a bitch of a time. The first edition was nigh unplayable. The second edition cleared up some of the problems, but this game is not Ars Magica. By itself, it is a good game and I have come to love it for what it is. I find this rather like riding my old 450 Kawasaki after riding by Harley Davidson for a few months. The Kawasaki is great for what it is, but it ain't the Harley.
Of all the supernatural creatures that the World of Darkness has, the changlings are perhaps the weakest (at least my the Munchkin Guide to Games). Their magic is limited compared to Magi, they are hardly indestructable masters of combat like the Werewolfs, and there mere presence of a Vampire can destroy them (Banality Baby!). However, White Wolf tried to get a game where it would capture the fantasy of childhood and make it real. Their are foes and the ever-present decay-of-everything atmosphere, but the Faerie generally ignore it for their own games. Originally I hadn't put much thought into this game. I was still smarting from the disappointment of earlier white wolf games and this one seemed a non-seller. If I can't get a group interested, why bother to buy the game? I have plenty of great games nobody plays.
At a convention, I chucked all my preconceptions and played a session. The game was a fun fest of childhood pranks and deadly serious adventures. The pretensions of Vampire, the pseudo-Intellectialism of Mage, and the gore of Werewolf were not in the game. I quite enjoyed myself, bought the rules, and I have played a few sessions. This game is not one of the popular ones, but it does have a core following.
I have two characters that I played. (insert links here)
When I read the rules, I saw a game of spiritual characters fighting a great battle with utter horror and journeying through the cosmos. What I saw when I saw it played was a splatter fest worthy of a very bad game of Cyberpunk 2020. This game attracted munchkins so bad that the only way I came to enjoy the game was by parodying it. My lone character was called Grinds the Gears, a bone gnawer suffering from "small man syndrome." He was a runt even for Bone Gnawers but still would challenge Silver Fangs for Alpha Male positions. Most the times he lost - and badly. Then his friend Growls at Rocks would finish the dispute or Grinds would ambush the "Alpha" when he was alone - and unarmed. I used a James Cagney gangster voice from the movie, Angels with Dirty Faces (1936?) for the voice to hilarious effect.
Grinds and his friend Growls at Rocks (Gnosis 9, Rage 10) were pack mates and had the Spirit of the Open Road as their totem. We played tongue in cheek stereotypes (anyone NOT see Easy Rider?) that the rest of the group thought was role-playing. I do give the group credit, most were young and trying hard. I'll game with them when they mature to higher-evolved gamers.
By this time, White Wolf Games has beaten the Gothic Punk idea into a bloody pulp and served it in a smoothie. Some cool ideas, mostly stolen from the movie Ghost, but Wraith even lacked the redeeming qualities of White Wolf games earlier releases. Obviously, even their management agrees. Wraith has been discontinued. This is one White Wolf game that I've never played, and I don't think anyone else did either. I figure all the books were bought by Vampire players. All the tricks and cool powers don't hide the fact that:
There was a lot of good writing that went into this game, but it is still the second most depressing game I've ever seen (another game holds first place).