World of Darkness

The Soul of Drama
World of Darkness: Antagonists Makes Conflict Fun and Easy
Posted: 2004-11-16

In game design, we ask several questions when developing a new type of character. "What do these characters do?" is a common one. The follow-up to that question is often "Who do these characters fight?"

Roleplaying has a long and somewhat checkered relationship with combat scenes. The hobby evolved out of war-gaming, after all, so it's not surprising that how a game system works in combat is often a measure of the game as a whole. And yet, as any real roleplayer will tell you, a good, dramatic combat scene isn't recounted later as a series of dice rolls ("Then, I rolled four successes! Then, the Storyteller rolled three!"). What makes the tale worth the telling are the participants: your characters and the enemy. Which brings me somewhat circuitously to World of Darkness: Antagonists.

This is a sourcebook for use with the World of Darkness in general, rather than Vampire: The Requiem in particular. This means that, while you haven’t had the chance to read Werewolf: The Forsaken or Mage: The Awakening yet, the beings in this book can easily serve as foils, foes and general stumbling blocks for those characters as easily as for the Kindred (or, indeed, normal mortals). You might wonder how that is possible, given that vampires, werewolves and mages all have vastly different capabilities and concerns and that the themes of their respective games also represent a broad spectrum. Here’s how it’s possible:

• Do it yourself. I’m a fan of toolkits. As a Storyteller, I like being handed information and suggestions, rather than lists of monsters. Oh, lists of easy-to-use foes have their place, too (usually when the players do something I didn’t see coming and I have to think fast), but when I’m planning a story around a particular group of characters and their players, I prefer to be able to customize. Antagonists provides exactly that: chapters on three of the best staple groups of foes in horror gaming, how to use them in play, how to build your own members of said groups and, of course, some great examples.

• Don’t mess with the classics. And what are some of the classic foes of horror gaming? Vampires! Oh, damn. That’s right. We’re on the other side of the mirror, here. Well, with that in mind, ask the same question. How about… monster hunters? Zombies? Members of fiendish cults?

Yep. Antagonists has all of that. Whether you want to have your troupe stumble across a graveyard where the dead don’t quite rest easy or a secret society slowly working its way through the city’s government or even a network of survivors of vampire attacks who have found strength — and a desire for revenge — in each other’s stories, this book gives you the tools to do it.

• Include the players. Okay, let’s be honest. If only the Storyteller can use the book, that’s a book of fairly limited utility. Sometimes that’s necessary, but not for Antagonists. Players can find inspiration for character backgrounds, goals for their characters to achieve and ideas for defeating their foes. And since Antagonists is a toolkit rather than a list of monsters, it isn’t like you can just memorize something’s traits and kill it in one turn. You know what the Storyteller knows… but not what she did with that knowledge. That little bit of information might actually be more frightening than none at all (which is fine with us).

• Surely there’s a fourth chapter. Actually, yes. The last chapter in the book begins with a set of Storytelling hints for using, for want of a better word, monsters. The World of Darkness has no shortage of strange creatures. Some are visitors from other planes of existence, while some are just beings that developed alongside humanity but stayed out of its path. All of them want something, and that something is very seldom benign.

After the hints come the monsters themselves. These are creatures that don’t really fit in to any of the other categories. Some are inspired by urban legends and folk tales. Others sprang from the tortured imaginations of the authors. Some of them feed on blood (but are manifestly not Kindred), some feed on flesh — while some urge others to do so. Some target human beings, some target supernatural creatures, and some don’t have any target in particular… and woe to anyone who meets such a being.

Antagonism isn’t just about combat. An antagonist acts against the protagonist of a story. What beings your Storyteller chooses to act against your character is a reflection on that character and the themes of the chronicle as a whole.

We’re happy to help her make that choice.

World of Darkness: Antagonists, a 136-page hardcover supplement, releases November 29th.