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A [[Tabletop RPG]] set in a world much like our own, albeit darker. Shadows run deeper, mysteries exist in every corner, and humanity [[World Half Empty|is not quite the master of the world]] ''or'' its fate.
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The first game of the original or "Old" World of Darkness was first published in 1991, and expanded to a half a dozen or more game lines; the world ended in 2004 with the [[The End of the World as We Know It|Time Of Judgment.]] In its place a new game line, the [[New World of Darkness]], was created and is ongoing.
 
The World of Darkness, both old and new, is a setting where several Supernatural Creatures exist. Each has a unique niche, theme, and [[Backstory]]. The Old setting had [[Crossover Cosmology|conflicting backgrounds]] for them (crossovers were theoretically meant to be optional, and mostly were, but during the second edition of the '''old World of Darkness''' too many books used crossovers actively, creating much confusion due to incompatible cosmologies and histories), and what crossovers [[Fantasy Kitchen Sink|did happen]] had [[Power Creep, Power Seep|problems with the relative strengths]] of each participant.
 
The Old setting had a grand overarching [[Backstory]] and an ongoing [[Metaplot]], though the latter tended to Railroad games at times, if you wanted to follow it, of course. The new setting is much more modular; there's no [[Metaplot]], but there is a (mostly) unified cosmology. Some see the new setting as a [[Retcon]] of the old, to fix mistakes and imbalances; while no wholesale plot is lifted several themes, clans, institutions and other things are ported over. [[Your Mileage May Vary]] about that, as many key themes and features of the old games were lost and in the case of Changeling the new game is entirely different from the old. The new games also are much more mutually compatible rules-wise, which is important for those who care about crossovers.
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* [[Ascended Demon]]: Golconda for vampires, zero torment for demons.
* [[Astral Projection]]
* [[Authority Equals Asskicking]]: Well, the vast majority of roleplaying games use this trope at least sometimes, to reign in possible sociopathic behavior of [[Player Character|Player Characters]]s, but in the World of Darkness it is particularly prominent. Movers and shakers of the setting tend to be on a completely different level of power than normal starting characters and the main reason this is less noticeable in the new WOD is general downgrading of supernatural abilities, which makes the scale of abilities less steep.
* [[Beast Man]]: There are a lot of these, but generally this is the stereotype held against the vampire clan of Gangrel, the Pooka Kith of Changelings, and basically every Werewolf.
* [[Beauty, Brains, and Brawn]]: This is how the various statistics are organized in the new world of darkness: Social (beauty), Mental (brains), and Physical (brawn).
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* [[Creative Sterility]]: Vampires and assorted others.
* [[Cross-Melting Aura]]: Powerful Baali vampires can do this.
* [[Crossover Cosmology]]: Each game line in the Old WoD had a long, intricate [[Backstory]], which was notoriously full of (intentional, in all likelihood) internal inconsistencies, and an independent cosmology. Needless to say, they did not play well together. This was a reason for several [[Retcon|Ret Cons]] and probably a contributing factor for [[The End of the World as We Know It|ending the world with a bang]] -- although—although, in some people's opinion, it was more of a whimper.
* [[Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass]]: Compared to the rest of the playable creatures in this setting, the Mages are this. They aren't immortal manipulators, they aren't unstoppable killing machines... but they ''are'' each a walking, talking [[Reality Warper]] and they know it. If the Mage is prepared, there is absolutely nothing any of the other creature types can do should he wish to twist them all like pretzels. (One page of the Mage core rulebook literally describes how easy it is for a Mage to turn a two thousand year old powerhouse vampire into a piece of lawn furniture... permanently...)
* [[Cursed with Awesome]]: At least frankly that's how most groups play it. Creators of the new WOD attempted to tune this down by downgrading powers and installing [[Karma Meter|Karma Meters]]s in every game line.
** The [[Karma Meter|Morality systems]] hilariously backfired in this regard: they were supposed to punish the character for committing certain evils, but what actually ended up happening was players having a mechanical point at which thier characters stop caring about committing mass murder.
** Lampshaded in [[Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines]]: A number of other vampires you meet are convinced that their condition really is a pretty sweet deal, what with having a good chance at an eternal or at least really long life of doing whatever the hell they want.
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* [[Evil Feels Good]]: Morality, in gamelines with [[Karma Meter]], is lost by not showing remorse for misdeeds. You also can lose it anyway, if the dice screw you.
* [[Evil Tastes Good]]: Vampires and blood.
* [[Eviler Than Thou]]: 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 rhetorics. But even they pale before the crazy, dog-raping, demon-worshiping, apocalypse-mongering [[Complete Monster|Complete Monsters]]s that usually serve as each game's ''worst'' faction.
** The Technocracy certainly started out as "outright evil", but this was ameliorated steadily over time; when they actually became player characters with the Guide to the Technocracy book, the designers made it very clear that as world-straddlingly huge a conspiracy as the Technocracy must contain multiple factions, and that your players were intended to be firmly in one of the better-natured ones (Friends of Courage, Harbingers of Avalon or Project Invictus).
*** 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 [[Nightmare Fuel]]. If you end up playing Technocratic PCs, they tend to be [[Reality Cops]].
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** ''Mage: the Ascension'' has Sorcerers, humans who lack the "spark" of mages, instead practicing linear paths of magic like tarot cards or weathercraft. They can't rewrite reality and their spells tend to require more preparation, but they're immune to Paradox backlash. Mages who scoff at their perceived weakness sometimes don't live to make that mistake twice.
** ''Changeling: the Dreaming'' has Kinain, people of True Fey blood (diluted now, but the True Fey were horny bastards when they were still around) who have the ability to interact with fae existence to a degree without experiencing the risk of Banality.
** ''Vampire: the Masquerade'' has Ghouls (mortals who gained a portion of supernatural power and longevity by feeding on vampire blood) and [[Dhampyr|Dhampyrs]]s (the offspring of Vampires conceived under very specific conditions, which vary depending on whether they're the Eastern or the Western variety).
** ''Demon: the Fallen'' has the Nephilim, offspring of Angels and humans, considered an aberration by both.
*** ''Demon'' also had Thralls - humans who had made pacts with Demons in return for (sometimes supernatural) gifts.
** ''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 -- butsidekicks—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.
* [[Hermetic Magic]]
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* [[I Know Your True Name]]: One of the power branches in Mummy: The Resurrection is called "Nomenclature," where knowing anything's True Name (which requires varying amounts of time invested in study to learn - it's easier to learn the Names of simple things like plants and animals than, say, the Name for humans, which is even less complex than an individual human's personal True Name, and so on) allows for varying effects, culminating in (at the highest level) ''total erasure from existence.'' Of course, that last one automatically costs the Mummy a permanent dot on the [[Karma Meter]], no matter who you do it to.
** 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)
** True Names play a ''very'' important part in ''Demon: The Fallen''. Certain rituals, invocations and evocations require knowledge of the target's True Name to work properly (granted, you are able to try and use a target's Celestial Name -- theirName—their "common" angelic name -- ifname—if the target is another fallen and you don't know their True Name, but it's far less reliable and generally much more difficult to do so); the fallen's Abyssal Lords can use their subjects' True Names to contact them even from inside the Pit; knowing a target's True Name makes many rolls you can make against them substantially easier; and a demon's True Name can be invoked to have them hear what you're saying (and possibly who you're saying it to and where you're doing it, given enough successes on their roll) from ''anywhere in the world'', regardless of their distance to you -- inyou—in fact, invoking a demon's True Name will very likely send shivers down their spine and make their extremities tingle, regardless of whether you want them to notice you speaking of them or not. And this is just to mention but a few of True Names applications in ''Demon''. The sourcebooks are crawling with other fun and interesting uses for them ("fun and interesting" for the user, not the target, obviously).
*** 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 -- thisthing—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).
* [[Immortality Immorality]]: Oh, where to ''begin'':
** 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 [[Safe Zone|Elysium]], for another, there are only so many corpses you can make vanish before the Masquerade is at risk.
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** Averted with the Devils in ''Demon: The Fallen'', whose [[Game Face|apocalyptic forms]] are completely immune to fire. Otherwise, ''Demon'' is actually the one old ''World of Darkness'' gameline that uses [[Depleted Phlebotinum Shells|aggravated damage]] where fire ''isn't'' a source of said damage.
* [[Killed to Uphold the Masquerade]]
* [[Knight Templar]]: 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 [[Knight Templar]] is a major occupational hazard, considering that werewolves were created to defend all existence from [[Cosmic Horror|Cosmic Horrors]]s that are indeed every bit as cosmically horrible as werewolves believe, and also extremely good at corruption, seduction and infiltration.
** Plus Werewolves have managed to [[Knight Templar]] themselves into killing [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|three other races of shapechangers]]. This sounds pretty bad on its own, but without those three races, they've seriously hurt their chances of [[The End Of The World Has We Know It|defeating the Wyrm during the apocalypse]]. Whoops.
** Not to mention the Inquisition and the ''actual'' Knights Templar, who are a small craft of Mages.
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* [[Our Vampires Are Different]]: 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.
* [[Our Werewolves Are Different]]: Moreso in ''Werewolf: The Apocalypse'' than in ''Werewolf: The Forsaken''.
* [[Personality Powers]]: In ''Hunter: The Reckoning'' a hunter's edges -- theedges—the supernatural powers they use to fight evil -- areevil—are determined by their beliefs and personality. In ''Mage: The Ascension'' the ways a true mage used his power also depended on his beliefs.
* [[Point Build System]]
* [[Positive Discrimination]]: White Wolf went ''far'' out of its way to avoid talking about ethnic minorities in the Mage sourcebook ''Destiny's Price'', which deals with street culture. As a result, it came across as a generic reprint of the [[Splat|Splatbooks]]books for the [[Vampire: The Masquerade|Brujah]] or [[Werewolf: The Apocalypse|Bone Gnawers]]. It'd be interesting to know if this came before or after the much-maligned ''Gypsies'', which would explain their fear of stereotyping, though it could have been avoided if done right.
** Destiny's Price was 1995; Gypsies was 1997, so not the reason.
* [[Power Born of Madness]]: The Marauder mages and the Malkavian vampire Clan.
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* [[Science Is Bad]]: Pretty much - if it is not used by a fascist [[Ancient Conspiracy]] to control humanity, then it is a tool of a [[Cosmic Horror]] that strives to eliminate free will and change.
** In the oWoD, science is generally associated with the principle of Stasis, which serves as a sort of [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]] to the [[Complete Monster]] that is 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. Conversedly, the default heroes in the games that has this theme (mainly ''Mage'', ''Werewolf'' and ''Changeling'') are assumed to represent the freedom-loving, change-embracing principle of Dynamism - [[Broken Aesop|despite being members of extremely hierarchal societies that hasn't changed for the last several thousand years]].
*** Except Changelings of course, their society changed quite drastically on July 20, 1969 and several times since.
* [[Science Is Wrong]]: But of course. ''Mage: The Ascension'' features an extreme, but still subverted, form of it, where the laws of physics as we know it were literally shaped by human belief, guided by a group of unorthodox mages. Even so, two of the traditions, the Sons of Ether and the Virtual Adepts whose entire magical paradigm was based on science.
** This is less [[Science Is Wrong]] and more 'Everyone Else is Also Right', though.
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[[Category:Old World of Darkness]]
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