Im currently putting together a synopsis of adventures and themes for a Vampire Dark Ages campaign that has been occupying too much of my thought processes over the last few years. So while Im not looking forward to the game, at least I can get into it as best as I can, as well as provide the players with something they have been wanting to play (for good and bad reasons) for some time too.
 
With my usual mix of reading background material and hunting for appropriate music (thread to follow on those points), I also started re:reading some of the Dark Ages material that White Wolf published. After having read a couple of their intro-pages of fluff and story, I began to wonder (not that I have much or any intention of running nWOD anytime soon), whether or not WW learnt any lessons from the oWOD that they put to good use for the nWOD.
 
For instance, did they cut down on the fluff? Up the amount of gaming useful material (i.e. not pages and pages of background on societies and NPCs that have no bearing on any regular or normal game), readability and page counts.
 
Is nWOD better, stronger, faster, improved on learnt lessons, or just an evolution? I know the rules are better/streamlined, but beyond that is there anything else?

Quote from: Lawbag;466251For instance, did they cut down on the fluff? Up the amount of gaming useful material (i.e. not pages and pages of background on societies and NPCs that have no bearing on any regular or normal game), readability and page counts.
 
Is nWOD better, stronger, faster, improved on learnt lessons, or just an evolution? I know the rules are better/streamlined, but beyond that is there anything else?

Absolutely. Many mechanics that form the nWoD system started appearing in some of the previous games. Dark Ages: Vampire started introducing some, though I cannot at this moment remember what they were exactly.

And the amount of useless fluff has been cut down to zero, at least in the books I own.

They definitely got many things right from their experiences.

There are plenty of fluff books but they are completely optional rather than critical.

I kind of like some of them. Even if I don't think a half naked modern supermodel is the best ilustration for a piece on the Romanist foundation myth!

Quote from: Ian Warner;466259There are plenty of fluff books but they are completely optional rather than critical.

I kind of like some of them. Even if I don't think a half naked modern supermodel is the best ilustration for a piece on the Romanist foundation myth!

You don't???

;-)

Hehe. Say what you like about me using Cheesecake. At least I have a reason

They didn't learn the really important ones, no.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Ian Warner;466259There are plenty of fluff books but they are completely optional rather than critical.

As part of that whole toolkit approach, each supplement typically only refers to the core books of its own line and WoD in general, and there's no metaplot about the ongoing adventures of über-NPCs to influence the future of the setting while the players watch from the sidelines. The GMs are meant to pick and choose what material they wish to use, so that for instance even a major antagonist group, like VII in Vampire, might be presented in the form of several different alternatives instead of any fixed "canonical" truth.

Quote from: RPGPundit;466391They didn't learn the really important ones, no.

RPGPundit

I'm gonna go with this answer.

I loathed the nWoD, because it frankly felt like them trying to force their hands after a decade of people playing their game as ultra-violent supers, instead of the flowery goth poetry and politics storytelling they clearly wanted it to be.  

It was like a systemic repudiation of everything my friends and I had enjoyed about their games, and I took that as a sign I was no longer wanted.

Quote from: J Arcane;466399I loathed the nWoD, because it frankly felt like them trying to force their hands after a decade of people playing their game as ultra-violent supers, instead of the flowery goth poetry and politics storytelling they clearly wanted it to be.

Eh, I'm not really sure where that impression is coming from, or how it applies to all of the nWoD in general. Is that because by default the power level is now somewhat lower and the emphasis more on local events instead of global conspiracies? After all, at its core WoD is a fairly generic horror game about ordinary people who encounter extraordinary threats, not unlike in, say, CoC, only without any elaborate mythology. Still, even when you move beyond that into the expansion lines and supernatural templates, the new set-up officially supports tweaking and hacking more than than the oWoD ever did. Again, toolkit and all that.

Quote from: J Arcane;466399I'm gonna go with this answer.

I loathed the nWoD, because it frankly felt like them trying to force their hands after a decade of people playing their game as ultra-violent supers, instead of the flowery goth poetry and politics storytelling they clearly wanted it to be.  

It was like a systemic repudiation of everything my friends and I had enjoyed about their games, and I took that as a sign I was no longer wanted.

Promethean maybe your game.

Seriously though it was clearly written to be even more angsty than Vampire everyone I've played it with has gonzoed it up to ridiculous levels!

I mean I come up with crazy character concepts normally but put a Promethean sheet in front of people and they will easily out gonzo me.

Craziest I got was an Osiran Cupurum Monk who was made out of the body of a Richard Dawkins like evolutionary Biologist.

That is a sane concept by Promethean standards!

Quote from: Ian Warner;466405That is a sane concept by Promethean standards!

The PC group in my Changeling campaign consists of a shameless Swamp Thing rip-off, a WWII fighter pilot turned into a cyborg by little grey men... and a social worker.

I have to say it's only about 1000 times better.  Everything I hated seems to have been pruned from the system, and the rules are a lot tighter (if you want them to be).

Currently using it to run a western themed game with a Twilight Zone vibe.  You can read the setting notes here.

It's very flexible and has no extraneous fluff you MUST use.

Quote from: J Arcane;466399I'm gonna go with this answer.

I loathed the nWoD, because it frankly felt like them trying to force their hands after a decade of people playing their game as ultra-violent supers, instead of the flowery goth poetry and politics storytelling they clearly wanted it to be.  

It was like a systemic repudiation of everything my friends and I had enjoyed about their games, and I took that as a sign I was no longer wanted.

Well put!

RPGPundit

I think they learned their lessons well. Most special subsystems are covered in a paragraph or two and the core game is smoother. Setting elements are very modular. Power level is scalable. Treatment of horror elements is more convincing. Fantasy is more fantastic. Character types are both more archetypal and more mechanically flexible. The games don't have to play nice together, but they will if you ask them to. Origin stories are less pat (and boring!) and the supernatural elements more mysterious.

Quote from: J Arcane;466399I loathed the nWoD, because it frankly felt like them trying to force their hands after a decade of people playing their game as ultra-violent supers, instead of the flowery goth poetry and politics storytelling they clearly wanted it to be.

I see this a lot, and yet I have a hard time seeing how the nWoD is any less suited for katana-and-trenchcoat grimdark supers action.

Granted, there's less focus on over-the-top world-spanning conspiracies (in Vampire at least; in Werewolf and Mage they're alive and well). And supernatural abilities in general were, for the most part, nerfed (again, this change was more marked in Vampire. Mages are arguably more powerful, or at least more useful, in the nWoD, since Paradox was considerably toned down). But you can still rock a "dark supers" game with an Adamantine Arrow Obrimos mage, a Blood Talon Rahu werewolf and a Summer Court Ogre teaming up to kick ass and take names. I should know, I did it.

Nonetheless, since this is a very prevalent criticism, I'd love to see it further developed. Would you care to elaborate?