Extracted from a review of "Wraith: the Oblivion" (White Wolf/ Rein*Hagen, Chupp & Hartshorn), by Sam Dodsworth, Interactive Fantasy #3
White Wolf's 'gothic punk' games are often called pretentious, not least by myself, but 'self- important' would probably be a more accurate term.
Vampire: the Masquerade (politics amongst super powered immortals) was about "facing the madness within you"; Werewolf: the Apocalypse (Dungeons & Dragons for eco-terrorists) was apparently about the "power and relevance of the spiritual path"; and Mage: the Ascension (an excellent system searching desperately for a background) focussed on the "alienation of the saviour". All quotations are genuine, by the way {\em[ed: after he's searched hard enough, I'm sure.]}. The distinction is significant because self-importance is yet another aspect of the game's real unifying theme; adolescence and the adolescent world-view.
A typical White Wolf game involces protagonists who have been ripped unwillingly from their former cosy existence, gifted with power and new, barely controlled drives, and thrust into a world hopelessly corrupted by easily recognised evil and controlled by un-imaginably old and powerful elites who act to supress any innovation. This is about as unequivocally adolescent as you can get, particularily when you take in to account the self-important editorial comments and style-over-substance suggestions about theme and moods that litter the text. This is not necessarily a bad thing: most RPGs never rise to the dizzying heights of theme and mood in the first place, much less the sort of focus on character and story that the White Wolf games provide. It is also typical of White Wolf that they announce this approach is designed to liberate us from out "slavery" to "an oligarchy of artists". (Workers of the World unite! You have nothing to lose by your Tarkosvsky!).
Wraith, then, is a game of self-pity that bills itself as about the "irrational terror of death". This is based, I think, on a radical mis- understanding of the fashionable lament that we're not as good at dealing with the death of other people as the Victorians were. This theme would, incidentally, seem to contradict the injunction not to "go gentle into that good night" that seems to adorn every third page of the book, as well as the omnipresent fear of "Oblivion" that is a major component of the game's setting.
The player characters are newly dead, having been ripped from their former cosy existence and thrust into a grim hostile world run by feuding factions of unimaginable age and... you can probably work out the rest yourself. However, Wraith differs from the other White Wolf games in one important respect: it is, at core, very good indeed.
(Dodgsworth now goes on to spend four pages praising Wraith in detail.)
[As suggested earlier] the game seems best suited to a character-centred approach where plots develop slowly and form a backdrop to the main action.
Suggested "story concepts" involve mainly espionage, intrigue and running missions for the political factions. In other words, as has already happened with Vampire, White Wolf are set to take an genuinely interesting idea and turn it into yet another game about politics among super-powered immortals.
This, if it happens, will be a tragedy. The only way to avoid this is not to buy the supplemenmts - except of course for the Player's Guide which traditionally contains all the rules missing from the game itself - but if nobody buys the supplements then White Wolf will decide that the game is unpopular and will take it out of print. I find myself wishing that Wraith had been produced by a small, unknown company. [ed: Just like Vampire was? :)]
A Response of sorts...
The above reviewer has some valid points to make about White Wolf and their products. Pretentiousness and a certain amount of arrogance seem to be part of their approach - but we are talking 'gothic' here after all (ow).
However, he also tries the usual trick of concentrating on reviewing aspects of the game which he thinks are bad. Ok, there is a certain amount of adolescence to the games, but it is not as all encompassing as Dodsworth seems to want to demonstrate.
The descripton of a "typical White Wolf game" matches Vampire, and to some degree Wraith, when taken from the least flattering view. Werewolf does not regularily have characters "ripped unwillingly from their former cosy existence" - in fact much of the psyche implicit in Garou is that they do not fit in with their original lives, and it is only as a pack that they feel comfortable.
Mage on the other hand, may indeed have an element of "alienation of the saviour" - but more as a background element rather than a part of every plot.
In essence, Dodsworth presents one theme (that he obviously doesn't like) from each game, and proceeds to base his entire concept of the game on that theme. This is tantamount to blinding yourself and then saying that Vampire smells funny. A major part of the appeal in the StoryTeller games is the wide range of different themes and storylines that exist within each of the games. Vampire games need not posess Machiavellan politics nor Werewolf combat rages through obvious evil. Mage does not necessarily focus on the normal humans and a character's desire to save them from themselves.
In short: White Wolf do a lot of good things. Their emphasis on character rather than statistics has introduced a lot of younger players to the idea that their character concept is much more important that their character's powers. However, it is easy to make the mistake of in wrapping yourself up in complete fandom - sometimes angst is all pretension.