Nealok's White Wolf Rules Hospital Vol. 1

I love the White Wolf games. Not all of them, granted-- I think Wraith eats it hard, and Changeling, while a lot of fun to read because of its accuracy, is not a lot of fun to play because it is silly. But the other three World of Darkness games make up for those two in a major way. Just wanted to get that off my chest: an AD&D driven freak like myself can still adore the dreaded V:TM.

Actually, one of my my preferred games is Mage: The Ascension. Along with AD&D and Shadowrun, I think Mage has the coolest setup, but unfortuanately, no one knows about the game, so it's tough to suggest the game to a group of players; either they play AD&D and know about Vampire, and thus spit on anything that doens't at least have the TSR label (they at least picked up Alrenity...then spit on it.), OR they love V:TM and W:TA, and they think that the idea of sissy humans running around with sparks on their fingers is dumb and takes away from the edgy attempt realism in the games (This is where all the M:TA players laugh very hard at the concept of reality.). What no one figures out is that a high power mage (five points in, say, three spheres, and three to four in others, along with about 6-7 Arete) vs. a similarly powered vampire (6-8 in two to three disciplines, at least one of which most GM's can bet will be Celerity.) would kick the CRAP out of the vamp, and how! High level werewolf vs. mage or vampire? The werewolf is TOAST as well! But mages are the only ones who start out as ranting sissies, so it takes some balls to play them. In my gaming group, where I gave them the choice to play any of the three cool WW characters they wanted, and every single one of them, without missing a beat, said, "Vampire." I was astounded...I would have really liked one mage or one werewolf. Nowadays, I give type-caps, i.e. only one street-sammy per SR group, only 2 vampires in a WoD group, your PC party must have a priest, etc. Makes things easier when you set the characters in stone.

Anyway, since I think about Mage a lot, I was trying to make the character creation process a little more friendly, without sacrificing the overall sense of urgency which is so imperative to all the WW games. First off, I'll say that with the WW games, as with AD&D, I don't mind starting with powerful characters...stat- and skill- wise. I don't even mind it power wise, as long as one guy didn't go for broke with Celerity while the other went for a more balance approach; if you are going to take my suggestions and jack up the stats (Through freebie points...don't fuck with the amounts in the stats areas.), make sure that the players all have the same theme in distribution. Otherwise, game balance is going to suffer (for the record, the WW games are very well balanced; I just like more powerful campaigns.). The exception to this is M:TA.

In M:TA, I suggest first of all that you take away this free dot in one sphere garbage. It makes players too inclined to pick one Tradition over the other on account of Spheres, or pick those stupid Hollow Ones for the freedom to choose (if you run a good game, Hollow Ones and other Orphans should have such a hard time that it's not even worth it to play one: everyone would be after you for some reason or another. At least in a convention or tradition you have some sense of safety sometimes.). Traditions should be a personality issue, not a stat issue. Besides, a lot of the Spheres that the Traditions are tied to don't make a damned bit of sense... Okay, the Virtual Adepts and the Cultists don't make a lot of sense...and neither did the Al-i-Batin, while we're on the topic. Regardless, when you tie traditions to a sphere, you have a greater chance of game balance suffering. Also, keep the rule that players shoudn't be allowed to begin with any more than three Arete, if for no other reason than to tie them to foci.

Speaking of Arete, if a character has more than 1 Arete, then let them use level 1 magics for free except in combat.

Anyway, start characters with 20 sphere points. These points are not equivalent to sphere values. For the first point in a sphere, it costs one point. For the second, it costs three, and for the third, it costs 6. So if you wanted to buy a third level in a sphere, it would cost 10 points. (Yes, this is a lot like the Alternity system). Make sure the players don't buy any more than seven spheres (giving balance and limits). This way, they don't feel like wimps if they take some of the cooler 1st level powers, and they can still specialize by taking two spheres at three.  

For normal sphere progression, use the rules in the primary rulebook.

That's all I have right now. I just wanted to update. As always, I love feedback, so tell me what you're thinking.

-N