World of Darkness

Quotes related to/about The World of Darkness and the Storytelling System. Quotes from World of Darkness Books "Everyone has had the sense at least once in their lives that things aren’t right with the world. There are times when the rational world seems, if only for a sec- ond, to fall away. The leaves rustling in the trees on a still day. The movement just past the corner of your eye. The way the darkness at the bottom of the basement staircase seems to crawl and writhe if you stare at it too long. We are taught to ignore the foolish impulse to react. It’s just your imagination, they say. There is no monster under the bed, in your closet, outside your window. It’s all in your head. Better to just shrug it off and go on with your safe and sheltered life." A Nightmare at Hill Manor, Christopher Lee Simmons, 2011, p.4 "But for those who look too long, too closely, there is another world pulsing just behind the façade of the one we know. Elegant, deadly things stalk the alleys and nightclubs of the city. Darkling beasts lope in the margins between physical and spirit. Men burn their fingers grasping at lightning, but still manage to mold it into vibrant beauty. Faded shades long for their living loved ones or rage at the injustice of their existence. Unimaginable things skitter by in the darkness, and sometimes they intrude on the reasonable, ordered. They seep from the shadows, they rattle their chains and they force you to look. If you’re lucky—very, very lucky—you’ll survive." A Nightmare at Hill Manor, Christopher Lee Simmons, 2011, p.4 Quotes about the World of Darkness White Wolf calls this approach “Gothic-Punk,” an apt a name as any for a game where atmosphere reigns supreme. Cities are dark clusters of decaying buildings and gloomy streets. Political corruption and corporate greed are taken for granted. Outcast youths find solace in street gangs and death-rock music. In this world of hopelessness, “the end” is not coming, it is here. Rick Swan, quoted in Joseph P. Laycock. (2015). Dangerous Games: What the Moral Panic Over Role-Playing Games Says About Play, Religion, and Imagined Worlds. University of California Press, p. 137 White Wolf’s “storyteller” games set in the World of Darkness were notoriously heavy on premise and light on combat rules. In fact, storytellers were encouraged to eschew dice entirely if they felt a particular outcome would make for a better story. Joseph P. Laycock. Dangerous Games: What the Moral Panic Over Role-Playing Games Says About Play, Religion, and Imagined Worlds. University of California Press, 2015, p.145. For all of the innovation and great ideas on display across all of the World of Darkness lines, there were problems from the start. The first version of nearly every game in the series was ugly and semi-broken, followed soon after by the second edition, which attempted to salvage the games with corrections and tidier production values. Given that White Wolf books had a habit of physically falling to pieces in short order, that is, perhaps, a feature and not a bug Stu Horvath (2023). Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. pp. 214–220.