History TabletopGame / OldWorldOfDarkness

* DeadlyDecadentCourt:

** Also shows up in Mage (where knowing someone's true name makes magic easier to use on them) and Changeling: the Lost (where swearing Pledges on your True Name has specific effects, and many Storytellers expand the concept considerably in keeping with its importance in fairy tales)

** Werewolves find themselves targeted by a CorruptCorporation and fighting a losing battle with cosmic forces, but it might be worth it to gain VoluntaryShapeshifting into a giant man-wolf hybrid with supernaturally damaging claws and the ability to regenerate from most injuries.

*** There was a full-on semi-officially sanctioned ending for all the game lines used in the official New Bremen DigiChat online text-based game run off of the ''White Wolf'' website, since it catered to all the game lines together and crossover (while discouraged) was frequent and inevitable. In the end, the [[AbusivePrecursors Antediluvians]] rose up to devour their vampiric progeny, werewolves had their final battle with the [[EldritchAbomination Wyrm]], [[SatanIsGood Lucifer's]] Black Cathedral rose out of Los Angeles as a base from which to fight his Earthbound former captains, the changelings headed off to [[AnotherDimension Arcadia]], mages found their [[{{Magick}} powers]] overflowing now that humanity's [[ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve belief in the supernatural]] was restored and either killed each other or [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence Ascended]], ''the sun went out'', untainted humans disappeared to some unknowable reward or destination, and the [[HaveYouSeenMyGod Metatron]] showed up to collect all the [[OurDemonsAreDifferent Fallen]] who were willing to come with him to [[UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans take another crack at this whole "Creation" thing]] before the world simply collapsed. It was, in fact, fairly epic.

* EvilerThanThou: Default playable factions in both Worlds of Darkness tend to be morally dubious at best and outright evil at worst. Then there are guys like the Sabbat, the Technocracy and the Pure, who are firmly lodged in the "outright evil" camp, despite their rhetoric. But even they pale before the crazy, dog-raping, demon-worshiping, apocalypse-mongerers that usually serve as each game's ''worst'' faction.

*** Indeed, what may be interesting is that, since Guide to the Technocracy, the Technocracy may be "antagonists" but by no means are they the "bad guys." The difference between the Traditions and the Technocracy is that the Traditions tend to want a better world (though better for whom?) and the Technocrats tend to want a safer world (though safer for whom?). The Technocracy's often over-stifling control might even be downright necessary in a world where reality itself is based on consensus - a world where anything is possible and the laws of physics are constantly in flux is downright horrific. If you end up playing Technocratic [=PCs=], they tend to be {{Reality Cops}}.

* HistoricalRapSheet: Explicitly averted in one specific instance. Almost anything else is allowed to have been a Vampire/Werewolf/Mage plot, but the Holocaust is required to remain a purely human atrocity. Or not: in several splatbooks, the GetOfFenris are stated to have been involved.

** Firstly, vampires. While it is possible to live by drinking the blood of animals and to only drain humans of minute amounts, succumbing to Frenzy is a bitch and most vampires come out of it with a dead human or three on their hands. Killing humans while feeding is strongly frowned on by the Camarilla; for one it brings you closer to the beast and the last thing you want is a vampire frenzying in [[SafeZone Elysium]]. For another, there are only so many corpses you can hide before the mortal authorities catch on and put the Masquerade at risk.

** Vampires with the Auspex discipline can learn to astral project at high levels. Additionally, one path of Giovanni necromancy allows uses to project themselves (and occasionally other people) into the Shadowlands

* HistoricalRapSheet: Explicitly averted in one specific instance. Almost anything else is allowed to have been a Vampire/Werewolf/Mage plot, but the Holocaust is required to remain a purely human atrocity.

* FiveRaces
** It could be argued that this applied to the old World of Darkness on a broader scale - Vampires, Were Beasts, Mages, Faeries, and Muggles since Jiang-Shi, Wraiths, Mummies, and Demons were relatively rare and less influential than the others.
*** A stronger case can be made for Wraiths as the fifth race, who were an incredibly common 'species', one of the five 'core' races introduced for the original gameline, and whose metaplot ending was used as the springboard for numerous later games, among them Hunter, Mummy, and Demon.

* {{Animorphism}}: Fera (including Werewolves), vampire Clan Gangrel, Changelings of the Pooka Kith, and ''Orpheus'' ghosts with the Marrow Shade can all turn themselves into animals with varying levels of ease and flexibility of form.

* BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy: It got to the point where virtually every historical figure was some sort of supernatural creature. Of particular note was Rasputin, who was claimed by about five vampire clans, a Mage Tradition and a Werewolf tribe. They ultimately explained that [[spoiler: Rasputin was all of the above and the ultimate BigBad of Vampire: The Masquerade. Instead, he's eventually revealed to be a bodyriding Wraith.]] The revised editions clamped down ''hard'' on this sort of thing, making it very clear that most human things happened for human reasons with the supernaturals at most altering details.

* HorrorHunger: Vampires need blood.

** Firstly, vampires. While it is possible to live by drinking the blood of animals and to only drain humans of minute amounts, Frenzy is a bitch and most vampires come out of it with a dead human or three on their hands. Killing humans while feeding is strongly frowned on by the Camarilla; for one it brings you closer to the beast and the last thing you want is a vampire frenzying in [[SafeZone Elysium]], for another, there are only so many corpses you can make vanish before the Masquerade is at risk.

* KarmaMeter: More optimistic/more action-oriented gamelines of the old ''[=WoD=]'', including Mage and Werewolf, avoided this.

** In ''Vampire: The Masquerade'', Kindred straddle the line between living and dead (being undead), as well as between human and inner beast (as former humans who cling to their human traits as they struggle to keep their Beast at bay).

* LordBritishPostulate: There are rules for fighting Cain: ''You lose.''

* ManipulativeBastard: In some gamelines, including Vampire and Demon, being this is almost a requirement for obtaining any power within your supernatural society.

* TheMenInBlack: The Technocracy had them.

* OurVampiresAreDifferent: Thirteen clans worth of "Different". However, the differences between political views and origins are much more pronounced in the new ''[=WoD=]''. All vampires share the same common weaknesses, but each clan has a unique new weakness.

* PointBuildSystem: You put Dots into your Attributes and Abilities and whatever other specific items from the gameline, and those determine the number of dice rolled to accomplish things.

* StateSec: The Technocracy definitely has elements of this trope, what with the secret agents, cyborg and bio engineered soldiers and what-not.

* VanHelsingHateCrimes: Hunters generally don't know the difference between the good supernaturals and the bad. [[BlackAndGreyMorality Can't really blame them.]]

* CosmicHorrorStory: Most game lines offer their own brand of this.

** Vampire has the Antediluvians, millennia-old, immensely powerful, utterly inhuman vampires who lie dormant somewhere. Their awakening means massive destruction and great loss of life for both humans and vampires, but only the Sabbat seem to treat this as a realistic possibility.

* UnluckilyLucky: The dhampyr suffer from this. Since their birth (a child of a human and an eastern vampire) is so unlikely, it messes up their fate. As a result they gain supernatural luck, which they can learn to consciously manipulate, but at the same time they tend to attract trouble.
* UnstoppableRage: Vampires or Werewolves in frenzy/Death Rage.

* UrbanFantasy: Authors prefer to define the genre for most World of Darkness games as {{Horror}}, but actually ''[=WoD=]'' fit this trope.

** A scenario for ''TabletopGame/MageTheAscension'' included an illustration where a [[OmnicidalManiac Nephandus]], in a form a mountain tall with [[GlowingEyesofDoom burning eyes]], is breathing atomic fire on cities. The [=PCs=] were welcome to survive long enough to see how the victorious Nephandi and their Malfean masters tore holes in Reality and raped it to death. Depressing as it is, the book for [=MtA=] included other scenarios where the player factions won and ended the world for a better, more comfortable age.

* {{Magitek}}: Weavertech is described as this. Various other factions also make use of it.
* ManipulativeBastard: In some gamelines, including Vampire, being this is almost a requirement for obtaining any power within your supernatural society.

* {{Metaplot}}

* MrViceGuy: Potentially any and every player and character. The Toreador clan in ''Vampire'' and the Cult of Ecstasy Tradition in ''Mage'' are some of the more ready-made examples.

* PointBuildSystem

* RedRightHand: All of vampire Clan Nosferatu, Tzimisce deliberately do this to themselves.

* ScienceIsWrong

** The Wayward creed from ''Hunter: The Reckoning'', just... focused on supernaturals.

* TheSoulless
* {{Sourcebook}}

* EvilCounterpart: [[TabletopGame/VampireTheMasquerade The Sabbat]], [[TabletopGame/WerewolfTheApocalypse Black Spiral Dancers]], [[TabletopGame/MageTheAscension Nephandi]], and [[TabletopGame/WraithTheOblivion Spectres]] all existed to be Evil Counterparts of the [=PC=] supernaturals.

* GameFace

** ''Vampire: the Masquerade'' has Ghouls (mortals who gained a portion of supernatural power and longevity by feeding on vampire blood) and {{Dhampyr}}s (the offspring of Vampires conceived under very specific conditions, which vary depending on whether they're the Eastern or the Western variety).

** ''Hunter: the Reckoning'' has Bystanders, humans who were given the ability to perceive the supernatural by the angelic Messengers but "refused the Call", gaining none of the anti-supernatural powers of the various Hunter Creeds but also not having their lives steadily taken over by the life of the Hunt. A major theme of Reckoning was that you only get one chance at the Call and Bystanders can never "awaken" into true Hunters, serving as [=NPCs=] and sidekicks -- but that you could play a particularly tragic game by having a Bystander try to take on the supernaturals without any Hunter powers and doom himself to a tragic end (albeit the same end most Hunters head to eventually). Interesting note: the gameline recommended that while "normal" Hunters come from typical, everyday backgrounds and have no special occult knowledge, combat training or other unusual resources, that it would be appropriate to have such a character introduced into the game as a Bystander for the sake of "balance". Think Buffy and Giles.
** ''Wraith: the Oblivion'' has Mediums, who are not hybrids but follow the theme: humans who can speak to the dead and often give them a hand on the other side.

* HistoricalRapSheet: Explicitly averted in one specific instance. Almost anything else is allowed to have been a vampire/werewolf/mage plot, but the Holocaust is required to remain a purely human atrocity.

*** In ''Demon'', a True Name isn't even really a name per se. Rather, it is the metaphysical representation of something or someone: you don't have a True Name, you ''are'' your True Name. Before the Fall, when the angels still had access to the full breadth of their power, they could use True Names as the targets of any evocation or invocation, instead of having to be in the presence of the actual being or thing -- this was, in fact, the preferred/official method of relaying God's orders across the cosmos, and even of transporting oneself across the cosmos, depending on which House the angel was from (''e.g.'' if you knew Earth's True Name, you could teleport yourself from wherever you were in the whole Universe directly to Earth, by using the appropriate evocation with its True Name as the target).

* KilledToUpholdTheMasquerade: The short version is, every single supernatural group has ''very'' good cause to keep their existence hidden, and while some are quicker to resort to this solution than others (vampires are frequently very quick on the trigger), all of them are willing to kill a sloppy member of their group. Moreover, since the reveal of one type of supernatural is likely to get people questioning which other types are real, not to mention several of these groups are actively antagonistic ([[FurAgainstFang werewolves and vampires most notably]]), it's quite possible to get killed to uphold someone else's masquerade.

** In ''Vampire: The Masquerade'', Kindred straddle the line between living and dead (being undead), as well as between human and inner beast (as former humans who cling to their human traits as they struggle to keep their Beast at bay).

* AstralProjection: A common power among the supernatural creatures that populate the world

** Werewolf places a great deal of importance on the Umbra, a spirit realm that exists alongside our own and can be reached by "stepping sideways"

* BeneathTheEarth: Where you'll find [[AbsurdlySpaciousSewer Nosferatu warrens]] and the underground tunnels of Black Spiral Dancer hives.

** The Inquisition, an order of the Catholic Church (with later help from various governmental secret services) dedicated to finding and destroying evil caused by supernatural forces

** A matter of life or death for changelings in ''Changeling: the Dreaming'', as the central premise rests on the fae being driven into human forms by the growing unwillingness to believe in the fantastic among humanity. This tendency, referred to as "Banality," can drive a changeling to an early grave, and must be overcome if they wish to work magic on a target.

** Changeling is an exception, where the object is to prevent the world from ''becoming'' a Crapsack World by retaining the power of imagination and possibility.
** Mummy: The Resurrection was primarily written as a direct subversion of this trend. The main tagline for the game is "Where there is life, there is Hope," the [=NPCs=] are folks who lived crappy lives in the crappy world and returned with the mandate to change the world for the better, and the entire setting treats the idea of changing the world as something more than the seeming impossible.

** Being this, by comparison with [[TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons DnD]] and its clones, became one of the main marketing points for World of Darkness games when they first came out in the beginning of 1990s, featuring heavier sexual themes, graphic violence, and more mature themes.

Each supernatrual creature in the setting has a unique niche, theme, and {{back story}}. Crossovers between gamelines were initially meant to be optional. The resulting incompatible histories and cosmologies and lack of clear equivalents to various supernatural power sources, as well as differing [[PowerCreepPowerSeep relative strengths]] of the creatures created significant mechanical and lore conflicts when the second edition made such events more common.

* KilledToUpholdTheMasquerade

%%[[caption-width-right:275:some caption text]]

** ''[[Literature/VampireTheMasquerade V:TM Novels]]''

* CompetitiveBalance: A problem with the Old World.
** Every combination of splats had issues of mismatched mechanics, but the real highlight of the "just don't ever cross-over, ever" rule was a Mage landing in a Vampire game, or vice versa. Vampire is based around casing out your enemy and playing politics, then turning on him with combat only once the mandatory dramatic bristling is done; all against a background of having to conserve a consumable substance (blood) as the core mechanic. So even the most combat oriented vampire can kill a wimpy mortal mage in about a round if the mage is unsupecting, but takes a few minutes to meet him, identify him as a hazard, decide to attack, and spend points into his abilities. A mage in most cases ''automatically'' notes that that guy across the room isn't alive instantly, establishes that it's a vampire and a threat in one round with a no-cost spell, and then engages, usually half an hour before the vampire has even noticed anything weird is up.
*** This was exacerbated by the primary defense against magic being "being alive", since it limited the amount of effects that the Mage could pile on and they had to put a point in Life to even affect someone. This makes mortals and werewolves, etc reasonably resistant to awakened magic. The defining characteristic of the undead, however...
*** The above was fixed in the second edition of mage, where mages now need both Life and Matter to afflict vampires.
*** Further, pretty much the first thing that a player does with any sphere is work out how to use it to set things on fire-- more than half the spheres are pretty amenable to this. Fire doesn't quite auto-kill vampires, but it's significantly more dangerous to them than traditional anti-vampire things like, say, being staked through the heart, sunlight, or decapitation.
*** And the best Vampire detection and concealment abilities are negated with one and two-point sphere abilities...

* DeadlyDecadentCourt: Most of them, though the Masquerade's Camarilla fit the stereotype best.
* DemonicPossession: Malevolent spirits in ''TabletopGame/WerewolfTheApocalypse'' and the ''player characters'' in ''TabletopGame/DemonTheFallen''. The upside to being a Fallen in a mortal shell is that the shell can't be possessed by something else.
* DependingOnTheWriter: Storytellers and writers generally painted the other types of supernaturals with different colors than their "home" books when they showed up in other continuities, especially in the Old World. ''Hunter: the Reckoning'' is a particularly sharp victim/benefactor of this, as many of their books encouraged [=STs=] to make sure that the players saw the hunted as monsters.

* DysfunctionJunction: AND HOW! ''TabletopGame/VampireTheMasquerade'', ''TabletopGame/MageTheAscension'', and ''TabletopGame/HunterTheReckoning'' all stand out as this.
* [[spoiler:EarthIsYoung]]

* TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt: Imminent throughout the Old World of Darkness... and then in ''Time of Judgment'', it ''happened''.
** In at least five different apocalypses. [[FromBadToWorse All at once.]] Each race got 3-5 different apocalypses for a story teller to choose from, with the results ranging from bittersweet to [[DownerEnding incredibly depressing]]. Only one of the Mage endings was totally unambiguously happy. Sadly, WW did not write a comprehensive end of the world featuring all of the lines's shits hitting the fans simultaneously, because that would have been epic, and one has to applaud any [=GMs=] who tried to sort through that on their own.
*** That's because crossovers were optional for most of old ''[=WoD=]'' books, and the Revised edition emphasized this more than ever, so unified end of the world made absolutely no sense.
*** Given that one of the first books of the Revised line, ''Time of Thin Blood'', was a crazy mega-crossover that culminated in one of the big bads of one game literally NUKING one of the big bads of another game, this argument is pretty much entirely invalid. White Wolf only trotted out the "crossovers are optional" line when people pointed out how terrible the game mechanics were. Revised actually featured MORE crossovers than the 2E line did, what with Time of Thin Blood, Blood Treachery, The Red Sign, etc...

* EnemyWithin: All vampires suffer from The Beast, the animalistic, id-like force with a hint of supernatural malice, that attempts to compel them into immediately satisfying their instinctive urges, such as craving for blood, fear of sunlight, or anger at a slightest provocation, no matter the circumstances. The Shadow from ''Wraith: the Oblivion'', and the P'o from ''Kindred of the East'', fit this trope even better; in both cases, it is intelligent and consciously attempts to turn you to TheDarkSide. In case it's not obvious, the Shadow and P'o are the same thing.

* EveryoneIsBi: While not outright stated or heavily enforced, it was implied in a lot of places that most of the Fae were bisexual in ''Changeling: The Dreaming''. Especially since a husband and wife could reincarnate as two men or two women, among other reasons.
* EvilCounterpart: Sabbat, Black Spiral Dancers, Nephandi, Spectres...

* EvilTastesGood: Vampires and blood.

* WolverinePublicity: The Gangrel Beckett, who appeared in various Sourcebooks and novels, sometimes without adding anything to the story or even advancing his own quest to uncover details about Cain. Perhaps the worst was his appearance in a ''Hunter/Mummy'' crossover trilogy of novels [forgot the title], where he never met any of the main characters and it seemed his only purpose was to artificially stretch out the story.

* UnluckilyLucky: The dhampyr suffer from this. Since their birth (a child of a human and an eastern vampire) is so unlikely, it messes up their fate. As the result they gain supernatural luck, which they can learn to consciously manipulate, but at the same time they attract trouble a lot.

** In the old ''[=WoD=]'', science is generally associated with the principle of Stasis, which serves as a sort of WellIntentionedExtremist to Entropy - it's not actually evil, but if it gets its way it will remove change from the world and steal everyone's freedom. This idea gets a bit jarring at times, since science has historically been responsible for most of the changes to human society, and those changes has resulted in the average person having far more freedom and choice than ever before. Conversely, the default heroes in the games that have this theme (mainly ''Mage'', ''Werewolf'' and ''Changeling'') are assumed to represent the freedom-loving, change-embracing principle of Dynamism - [[BrokenAesop despite being members of extremely hierarchal societies that haven't changed for the last several thousand years]].

** That said, most gamelines where this them comes up have at least one {{Splat}} [[ScienceHero dedicated to proving that this doesn't always hold true]], with the [[TabletopGame/WerewolfTheApocalypse Glass Walkers and Bone Gnawers]], [[TabletopGame/ChangelingTheDreaming Nockers]] and ''especially'' the [[TabletopGame/MageTheAscension Sons of Ether and Virtual Adepts]].

* MonsterMash: Essentially the premise of the game. The core game lines introduce [[TabletopGame/VampireTheMasquerade vampires]], [[TabletopGame/WerewolfTheApocalypse werewolves]], [[TabletopGame/MageTheAscension witches]], [[TabletopGame/ChangelingTheDreaming fae]], and [[WraithTheOblivion ghosts]].

* KnightTemplar: In ''Hunter: The Reckoning'', even normal imbued that had Zeal as a primary virtue often leaned towards this. But they paled in comparison to Waywards, who were prepared to eradicate every last supernatural on the planet - and didn't care about humans who got in their way. In ''Werewolf: The Apocalypse'' becoming a KnightTemplar is a major occupational hazard, considering that werewolves were created to defend all existence from {{Cosmic Horror}}s that are indeed every bit as cosmically horrible as werewolves believe, and also extremely good at corruption, seduction and infiltration.