Balancing White Wolf

Sep 5, 2022 · 4 min read · RPG White Wolf

Character Creation

While I'm remaking the World of Darkness Combat system , I'm starting to feel that Character Creation could stand to be a lot more balanced.

But it's more of a Storytelling system. This isn't about killing trolls for gold pieces - it's adult story-crafting.

...that's what I hear the books echo back to me.

And okay, "story crafting" sounds great, but why do players receive Experience Points for certain behaviours?

It's to encourage that behaviour. Players want Experience Points to build their character.

Right, so they can raise stats, and achieve more successes on rolls, because players want to succeed.

Not necessarily, could be down to the character and the story they're crafting...

Okay, so sometimes players don't want Experience Points?

Players should always want Experience Points, because on average they want better successes.

Okay, so they want Experience Points so they can roll more successes on average?

Naturally, Socrates.

But this only applies after character creation, and not during?

Yes. At the time of character creation, players want to apply dots to make the character they envision, but after that the character grows - again, according to the player's vision of the character.

Okay, so I'm making a Harvard-educated scholar, who ended up training to be a lawyer. I've given him Academics 2, Law 3, and I have 2 Freebie Points left. Adding a dot of Academics would be worth 6 Experience Points, while the dot in Law is worth 8. The character concept doesn't really pin me down either way, so obviously I should go for the Law, as that's the Min-Maxed, optimal result.

Ha! "Minmax"! I got you now, you Munchkin.

Learning Maths is not a crime. Also, I can't unsee what I've seen. Hang on, how do you make characters without being painfully aware of wanting Experience Points, directly after character creation?

-- Lifts Scooby-Doo mask --

WAIT A MINUTE! You're actually just

... Mathematically illiterate. Honestly, I can't even work Excel.

Well that explains everything!

Or maybe it doesn't. The rest of the system is genius - multiplication of stats to increase costs, higher starting costs, et c. The real reason has to be an attempt to speed up character creation, but I don't see how the tiny speed-increase is worth the cost.

Right, I'm going to get to work fixing that Character Creation system, with Experience Points.

But you'll make it more complicated! New players will have to spend points dot-per-dot, one by one.

Removing a subsystem cannot make something more complicated. I'm simplifying by any measure.

And while I'm here, if you want this not to be a 'combat focussed game', you should have more Combat Abilities, not fewer. If you want to be good at social rolls, you need to buy Empathy, Intimidation, Subterfuge, Etiquette, Expression, and Leadership: 6 Abilities.

For combat, you need Brawl, Dodge, and Mêlée; but not Dodge as it's useless, so just Brawl and Mêlée. Actually, if you have Claws of the Beast, you can just use Brawl all the time, and otherwise, just carry a weapon and use Mêlée at all times: 1 Ability.

Getting your character good at Social interaction requires six times the Experience Points - the system aggressively punishes players who want to roll social abilities. Reversing the trend seems simple - remove some Social Abilities and add some Combat Abilities.

Restrict Mêlée to fights with multiple people, and create 'Sparring' for one-on-one fights with weapons.
Merge Intimidation and Subterfuge; characters can use Strength + Subterfuge in place of Strength + Intimidation, and we no longer have to worry if an empty threat should be Manipulation + Intimidation or Subterfuge.
Merge Expression and Leadership.
Maybe a Tactics Knowledge, for planning battles and adding a difficulty penalty to opponents?

That leaves us with 4 Social Abilities, and 4 Combat Abilities (or 5 if you include Archery/ Firearms).