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New World of Darkness Rulebook (1st Edition)
 
$14.99
Average Rating:4.3 / 5
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New World of Darkness Rulebook (1st Edition)
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New World of Darkness Rulebook (1st Edition)
Publisher: White Wolf
by Ramon N. P. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 06/06/2023 14:53:58

When it came out in 2004, I thought YES. This is what I would liked the World of Darkness to be, as I grew apart from the metaplot and some of the wonkyness of the oWoD system. When I read Requiem, my opinion was confirmed.

This book has a handy system for playing horror stories with humans in the World of Darkness. If you want to play a supernatural, you need additional books, but the copre system is here, and is an elegant and streamlined update (for 2004) of the World of Darkness system. The tone of the implied setting is extremely well realized, and the book is inspiring and full of possibilities. Definitely a great.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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New World of Darkness Rulebook (1st Edition)
Publisher: White Wolf
by John L. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 12/08/2020 09:14:45

The core rules for the new WoD game are solid. The designers cracked the code on character generation, and it's as good in this game as it's ever going to get. The game system also is solid, elegant, and works pretty well at the table. While the game may get a little wonky at higher levels or with some of the additional supernatural templates, it plays really, really well for a group of mortal investigators in a (modern) dark fantasy world.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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New World of Darkness Rulebook (1st Edition)
Publisher: White Wolf
by Shane S. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 07/19/2020 08:36:09

This was my entry point to World of Darkness and used it to run an 18-month mortals chronicle. The system mechanics were really easy to learn and simple to implement at the table. Highly recommend this game to anyone wanting to explore modern supernatural themes.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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New World of Darkness Rulebook (1st Edition)
Publisher: White Wolf
by Christopher L. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 03/29/2019 04:03:57

For me, the first edition of the new World of Darkness was perfect. The setting, the mechanics, the feel of it. From the main rulebook through V:tR, and on, everything about this edition breathed fresh life into the WoD.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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New World of Darkness Rulebook (1st Edition)
Publisher: White Wolf
by A customer [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 05/13/2017 14:24:30

I am so glad this book is still available and can't recommend this game high enough. Consider buying this book instead of Chronicles of Darkness if you like your rules simple, streamlined and if you don't want to juggle conditions, tilts and other ressources throughout your gaming session. For me this is my go-to gaming system for every need.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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New World of Darkness Rulebook (1st Edition)
Publisher: White Wolf
by Ismael A. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 12/08/2016 01:49:37

It is very difficult to be as into World of Darkness as I am and NOT write a review for this book. Though it has been updated many times since its release many years ago, I feel like it was at least a breath of logic into the then cluttered ruleset that encompassed the so-called old world of darkness.

This rulset was, in my opinion, a very good step in the right direction, having been made from experience and good sense, created as a succinct version of a set of rules that had been applied in various ways to other rule books in the past.

And while it has been updated, and while some pine for the old rules that preceeded it, there remains a certain shine to this book that glimmers with both nostalgia and an amazing design ethic that is simple and elegant.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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New World of Darkness Rulebook (1st Edition)
Publisher: White Wolf
by Matthew P. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 03/23/2015 18:59:38

I purchased a hardcover printed edition of this player's manual, and I'm really impressed with the overall quality of the physical book itself.

I have an original copy of the book to compare it to, just for the sake of those who are interested.

The DriveThruRPG hardbound printing came with a thick gloss cover about 8.5" x 11" and a little short of an inch thick. The page paper is good quality and matte. The binding appears to be a thermally activated binding, perfect binding (think National Geographic). World of Darkness is artwork heavy, especially the borders of the individual pages, and the printing quality is consistent and clear.

The original printing has some interesting differences. The original has a matte cover instead of the gloss, what appears to be a Smyth sewn binding, and the interior pages are a little bit glossier and heavier making the images and print come out a little bit crisper. The original is also slightly smaller than the DriveThruRPG printing and features a slightly larger font for the title on the binding, as well as the White Wolf logo.

DriveThruRPG has certainly printed a very high quality volume with no flaws. The differences between the two printings are pretty unimportant, and chances are, the gloss cover on the DriveThruRPG printing will hold up better to wear and tear than the matte cover on the original.

The only concern I have is that a Perfect binding will fall apart faster than a Smyth binding will, and it may make it worth the extra money to hunt down an original printing just to have the book last a little bit longer.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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New World of Darkness Rulebook (1st Edition)
Publisher: White Wolf
by Jacob S. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 01/17/2015 09:03:42

Very happy with the softcover I bought, much cheaper then I can get elsewhere and came in great time considering I live in the UK. Very crisp print making the text easy to read.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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New World of Darkness Rulebook (1st Edition)
Publisher: White Wolf
by Jamey J. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 04/18/2014 17:54:15

This is a great game to play! The pdf are very well done.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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New World of Darkness Rulebook (1st Edition)
Publisher: White Wolf
by Chris D. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 04/14/2014 15:22:14

A great sourcebook if not a little hard to follow. It takes a few read throughs in order to pick out the rules from the flavor text. This is not to say the flavor text is not well done, the text sets a great tone and draws you into the mechanics of being a Storyteller. I greatly enjoyed this product.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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New World of Darkness Rulebook (1st Edition)
Publisher: White Wolf
by Aaron H. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 01/22/2013 20:26:37

The following review was originally posted at Roleplayers Chronicle and can be read in its entirety at http://roleplayerschronicle.com/?p=30711.

You’d be hard-pressed to find a role-playing fan that doesn’t at least know about the World of Darkness. Many know it’s modern horror and many understand that it serves as the base for many different gothic horror settings published by White Wolf. However, there are lots of gamers out there that stay clear of horror games as they prefer epic fantasy or space opera and hesitate when they can’t simply kill the main antagonist (a common feature in horror gaming). Even though the World of Darkness, new and old, has been around for quite some time and many reviews have been written, I’m going to focus more on those who don’t really know about The World of Darkness and the Storytelling system and what it has to offer.

The World of Darkness presents a world much like our own, but where nasty creatures of horror and gothic horror fame lurk in the shadows or terrify people at night. It is not an alternate history whereas something in the timeline has changed, it just presents a more horrific version of the world that we know. The core rulebook presents the modern world with various horrors; other settings may add additional elements or place things in a historical era. However, the core rulebook is strictly modern and serves as the base mechanics for World of Darkness settings. Using only the core rulebook, characters are human and have standard human qualities and abilities (albeit maybe better than others). Other settings introduce supernatural concepts and abilities, but for this core rulebook, it’s all standard humans.

With this in mind, the stories to be told are not going to be like epic fantasy or space opera. They are not going to be filled with mind-blowing combat or extraordinary feats of unnatural abilities. They are most likely going to resemble modern horror stories and movies, investigation thrillers, or any number of feasible media that depicts humans in a modern environment, albeit with a horrific flair. The focus here is more on the story including how the characters immerse themselves within that story and how the story resolves. Another thing to keep in mind is the separation of The World of Darkness and the Storytelling system. The World of Darkness is the underlying setting used abroad for the core book and the setting guides. The Storytelling system is the mechanics that power game-play set in The World of Darkness.

The Storytelling system is a roll-over dice pool whereas a pool of d10s is constructed according to the character’s Attribute + Skill + Equipment with any bonuses or penalties applied. This dice pool is rolled to achieve a number of successes (rolling an 8, 9, or 10) against a static target number according to the difficulty. Target numbers are not floating and are determined according to difficulty, which all players would then be able to translate into the number of successes they need (such as a target number of 5). This is the base mechanic that the entire system is built upon; quite simple if you ask me. Attributes and Skills are listed as dots on a character sheet representing the number of dice you add to the pool being constructed. You could use numbers instead of dots; either way will give you the same result, just shown in a different way. Combining Attributes and Skills is quite dynamic as the two are only linked by general category (Mental, Physical, and Social), but not defined as a combination. In other words, you can combine skills with different attributes to create different effects, resulting in a different task being performed. This is a great way of reducing the number of skills required while maximizing their possible usage. Some systems reduce the number of skills available, but you may be left with wondering what skill applies to a specific task because it’s directly linked to a given attribute (which may not apply to that task).

The Storytelling system is simple, yet powerful and the World of Darkness is an excellent setting. This core rulebook definitely presents a story- and character-focused role-playing game with no shortage of possible horror.

OVERALL

The World of Darkness core rulebook serves as the base mechanics for all of the World of Darkness setting books. There’s enough content in here to run a modern horror game without a setting book, but the Storyteller will have to fill-in the gaps concerning antagonists. The good thing is that horror games don’t need a lot of antagonists like fantasy games do and this shouldn’t be too hard of a task. It’s a fantastic presentation of an excellent game system, but more importantly it presents a setting that is a great representation of modern gothic horror. The World of Darkness, and moreover the Storytelling system, definitely focuses on characters and their uniqueness by giving you mechanics that don’t hamper your creativity. Oh yeah, it’s also a great read, even if you don’t like the mechanics or don’t plan on playing the game; there is no shortage of content that can be extracted to create your own world.

RATINGS

Publication Quality: 10 out of 10 The World of Darkness core rulebook looks fantastic. The layout is simple and effective, the formatting looks great, the majority of the artwork has a great blend of horror and modern-feel to it, and the complete package is pleasing in many regards. It’s a very easy read and I truly appreciate the mixture of narrative and game content.

Mechanics: 9 out of 10 The Storytelling system is a solid dice pool system with simple mechanics that can be very flexible. I’m not a huge fan of representing traits using dots, but it definitely drives the point across of how simple using the dice pool can be. As stated before, you can easily convert the dots into a number, but then again dots are easier to fill-in as you go on a character sheet (no need to erase to write a higher number). I’m not particularly impressed with the antagonist list, but then again this book is meant to serve as the base mechanics only, and does that quite well. If you are turned away by the dots, use numbers, and storytellers would do well to look into additional material to flesh out additional antagonists if necessary. Otherwise, I find character creation to be quite flexible allowing you to create virtually any human character imaginable.

Desire to Play: 9 out of 10 If you compare the Storytelling system to other horror games (such as Call of Cthulhu), you get a lot of the same principles regarding how those systems view characters and their inherent flexibility regarding creation (no classes here). It’s another approach using dice pools instead of other means, and the low count of dice may not allow for a lot of granularity, but then you also don’t want to get tied up in too much dice rolling (horror is meant to focus more on the story and the characters than combat encounters). If you compare the World of Darkness to other horror settings (such as the Cthulhu Mythos), again you get a lot of the same principles, just with a different face (gothic horror instead of supernatural horror).

That being said, The World of Darkness and the Storytelling system do both of these things extremely well, presenting an excellent game package to Storytellers and players. Those who like dice pools will find an excellent dice pool system. Those who like horror will find a setting with plenty of twists, turns, creepiness, and horrific possibilities.

Overall: 9 out of 10 The World of Darkness is one of those games that is well-known for a reason. It has solid mechanics and an expansive setting, both of which fully embrace their fundamental goals. It’s not going to replace your epic fantasy, space opera, or even Cthulhu Mythos games, but it definitely gives you a perfect outlet for experiencing gothic horror in the modern world; all done with a focus on story and characters.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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New World of Darkness Rulebook (1st Edition)
Publisher: White Wolf
by Anders L. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 12/30/2012 13:47:48

This is one of the best roleplaying game's I've ever played. It basically fixes everything that was wrong with the oWoD and updates the rules to fit into a much neater and standardized setting. Aside from some of the artwork not measuring up to the standard the rest of the book sets, the text is wonderful and easy to read. The rules are clear and it's not often you find yourself wondering what they mean.

I recommend this both for the grittyness of the rules and the realism of the rules.

The bookmarks however are... horrible. For a purchased PDF, there should be -far- more bookmarks than one can find in this book. One for each chapter is not by far enough. DriveThruRpg should really work on getting a few more bookmarks in there. As it stands right now, I'm going to have to add them myself.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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New World of Darkness Rulebook (1st Edition)
Publisher: White Wolf
by Sean D. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 10/19/2012 05:07:02

Though I bought the original Vampire when it was first released, I never got a chance to play it. So I missed out on the whole original World of Darkness line. Recently I needed to put together a street-level superhero game with a strong supernatural element. The Dresden Files was off the table for reasons I won't elaborate here, so I decided to give the World of Darkness a shot.

And I was pleasantly surprised at the results. It is a smooth, easy to grasp system that I was able to tweak to meet my needs. The Morality mechanic provided just the right spice I was looking for. My campaign was not quite the sort of thing the rules set is intended for, but it still did the job admirably. This is a hugely popular system with a multitude of available settings. After running it I now have a better understanding of its popularity.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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New World of Darkness Rulebook (1st Edition)
Publisher: White Wolf
by Michael H. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 09/23/2012 15:23:41

Not only is this a good book it is also essential to play any of the New World of Darkness games. This book contains all of the basic rules you need to play a Storytelling System game and if you never move beyond a mortals chronicle (which is actually quite feasible depending on the story you want to tell) you may never need much more than this one book.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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New World of Darkness Rulebook (1st Edition)
Publisher: White Wolf
by Geoffrey R. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 05/23/2012 14:45:29

Although I collected dozens of books from the 1st WOD, among all the game lines, and I loved the setting - the 'Real World,' but through a glass darkly, populated with all sorts of monsters - I much prefer the new WOD. I really like how there's 1 main rule book (this one), which all the other game lines start from. And especially how - using the main rule book - there's no duplication of rules in each core book, and the rules are all the same, making crossovers or mixed-race stories so much more possible (you don't have to mess with trying to make the rules from the various game lines mesh with each other). Also, the fact that you can start with mortal characters, whose eyes have been opened - at least somewhat - to the nWOD, to play games featuring ghosts or other 'lesser' monsters, especially with a new troupe of players, is a perfect way to introduce them to this type of role playing (Storytelling).

The other thing I've always been so impressed with White Wolf and it's Storytelling games is the obvious amount of research and detail they bring to their games, especially given the setting is in an altered version of our world. So, much of what is brought up in their game books are things we (may) already be familiar with.

Congratulations to White Wolf for reimagining what was already a great gaming system and set of game lines, and I look forward to what more they'll come up with!



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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