NWoD and when to refuse to roleplay

Last week I mentioned WoD rather shortly. This is sort of a refresher of the whole story for those not in the know.

In the start, white wolf had modules for DnD out and were part responsible for the Ravenloft setting (And I believe the best module EVER. AD&D Adeventure Module I6: Ravenloft) However, thats a tale for another day.

The World of Darkness setting was a series of books and sub-books. Most popular were Vampire: The Masquerade, Werewolf: The Apocalypse, and Mage: The Ascension. There were seven other books. Orpheus, Changeling: The Dreaming, Hunter: The Reckoning, Demon: The Fallen, Mummy: The Resurrection, Kindred of the east, and Wraith: The Oblivion.

This was the old world. Much akin to the old testament, if you were not one of the supernatural creatures enslaving human kind you were doomed to die a horrible death. OWoD had its benefits, the game highly recommended Storytellers (GM's) to require reasoning behind players raising skills and purchasing merits for their characters. While players could have a rough time; GM's usually had the advantage over the characters when it came to making them follow the story without forcing them too hard to follow it. However, A big dent was all the books had its own built in core book that made up a good half of the book. Combine that with the books rarely being able to mix with eachother and in some cases impossible to mix with eachother. Character creation was also a little confusing without practice. but I put that more to poor wording rather then the game being too confusing.

Though I sound negative about it, OWoD shaped much of the early roleplaying scene, making countless tropes and inside jokes. Though Whitewolf made a sort of strange move on their part. The apocalypse came, completely ending the OWoD lines with fire, brimstone, and the rules for fighting Cain (Rule 1: You lose). Many of the fans of the game were both scared and angered, wondering how they have the balls to tell them their world is dead by canon (Its sort of messed up if you look at it, playing a game with their system only for them to rush into your house and say "OH ha ha, your characters died because we said so")

After six tons of hate mail, Whitewolf created the NWoD. And it wasn't just a rehash. White wolf actually went in and recreated every concept. First key thing, they threw our the civil war in Vampire, they quickly learned it was hard to play vampire WITHOUT getting dragged into the Sabat, Camerilla struggle. They completely revamped Changeling, Hunter, Wraith (Turned into Geist), Mummy (Turned into Promethean), and Demon. Hunters were no longer super powered warriors on a mission from god. Changelings were no longer... whatever they were. Key point is they certainly put thought into it. They even released one core book "WoD Core" that had the complete rules, immediately making all the NWoD books 300 pages lighter. The series all still received their sub books (Clan books, new merits, stuff like that) in addition to generic books with merits and equipment for all the book series.

And it was good. I feel much better about NWoD, its cleaner, and shows the vast experience WW had received from its past ventures. However, now comes the important part I have been leading up to. Of all the "races" in WoD, none were more pissed off about this change then the Changelings. In OWoD they were avatars of dream and nightmare. In NWoD they were a bit different, survivors of the fairy plane of Arcadia. Changelings are humans that were turned into half fairies in the plane of Arcadia, having been kidnapped by the True Fae and forced to serve under them. Eventually they escaped and found their way back to the human world. They have their human "Seeming" which is essentially how others view him, human and normal. However in true reality they are twisted version of themselves, magical fair folk.

Sounds cool right? Well it is. However, this is quite different then how the old changeling players were used to it. Forcing the pockets of Dreaming players to cry their bloody heads off and non officially boycott Lost. Your all welcome to your opinions, but refusing outright to play a game just because its a improvement of what was old?

The key thing here is they are not boycotting THE SYSTEM, they are boycotting the IDEA. And that hits a little more to logic. Just like most guys would not want to play a Hello Kitty rpg because its Hello-Fucking-Kitty. Another example is I have a friend of mine named John, he absolutely refuses to play any form of NWoD because he does not know the system and rules mechanics. Not playing Lost because its a different idea from what you grew up with? Ok, that at least makes sense. Not playing a modern world setting because you don't know how many dice to use? Wtf?

As a player, you should NEVER care about the actual system (With a few exceptions). You should only care about the setting. What differentiates Shadowrun from D20 Modern settings wise? On the surface well... nothing. Thats because they are both Cyberpunk settings with a fairly close idea. Then you add the shiny stuff, Dragons, Cyberware, Astral planes, you name it. Thats when the system modulates the setting into THE setting. Shadowrun isn't just Cyberpunk, its Shadowrun because it has those twists in the story that make it shadowrun.

Paranoia however, is just Paranoia by default. Nobodys even tried to make a knockoff of that yet. (Can't improve perfection...)