The World of Darkness, Second Edition

Changeling: The Lost, Chronicles of Darkness, Mage: The Awakening, Promethean: The Created, Vampire: The Requiem, Werewolf: The Forsaken

Hi, folks. Rose here. 🙂

Today at Gen Con, we announced something big: the second edition of the new World of Darkness. This is an exciting move for us, something we’ve wanted to do for years.

(UPDATE: The wrong draft of this post originally went up. We’ve now put up the correct draft, which clarifies a few things, and also added a little more on what’s changing and not changing in Vampire.)

Short version

New editions of Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, Promethean, and Changeling are all on their way. We’ll also be releasing a new World of Darkness Rulebook, incorporating the rules updates from The God-Machine Chronicle.

Longer version

We’ve already been updating the new World of Darkness via the Chronicle series. The second edition plan replaces that, so rather than publish The Idigam Chronicle and The Fallen World Chronicle, we’re going to be publishing second editions of Werewolf: The Forsaken featuring the Idigam Chronicle and Mage: The Awakening featuring the Fallen World Chronicle. Everything we’ve said in the dev blogs about the Chronicle books holds true for the new editions.

Here are answers to some questions you may have.

Why second editions?

It’s been ten years since the new World of Darkness debuted at Gen Con 2004. With a decade of experience creating and running these games, we’re in a great position to improve them.

We started these improvements under the Chronicle banner because that was the best way to publish them at the time, but after a series of discussions with CCP, we’ve all decided that the new World of Darkness is best served by formal second editions.

(I’ve been using that phrase for a while, “formal second editions.” But how formal are they if Vampire is full of cursing?)

How does this affect the announced Chronicle books?

The announced Chronicles will be retitled on the schedule to second editions. After Blood and Smoke, the difference between the two was academic, and the success of that book proves there’s demand for updates. Calling them second editions now is both clearer and more accurate.

What’s going to happen to Blood and Smoke?

We’ll make a few cosmetic changes to Blood and Smoke and re-release it as Vampire: The Requiem, Second Edition. Players who bought the PDF or PDF + Print combos of Blood and Smoke from DriveThruRPG will receive a free PDF of Second Edition.

UPDATE: By “cosmetic,” we mean logo and title changes, changing one header that was white on white to white on red, two one word typo corrections, and a fix to the Greek grammar in the cities chapter. There may also be an addition to the Special Thanks. No rules or setting will change, and Blood and Smoke won’t be outdated. It’s unlikely that the page numbers things are on will even change.

Will the new World of Darkness Rulebook use the same rules as The God-Machine Chronicle, Blood and Smoke, and Demon: The Descent, or a newer revision?

The rules in the new rulebook will be the same as in those books. This is a second edition, not a third.

Will the second editions require the new World of Darkness Rulebook?

No, the second editions will be standalone, like Vampire/Blood and Smoke. The second edition of The World of Darkness Rulebook will be a canonical reference for the entire system, and include expanded options (like vehicle rules) not present in every game’s core book.

Will there be second editions of Hunter, Geist, or Mummy?

We don’t have an announced plan that far ahead.

Are there any “blue book” supplements planned for the second edition World of Darkness?

Yes. The first, Hurt Locker, will be entering open development on this blog soon. It will focus on violence and combat under the second edition rules.

Why does the Gen Con 2014 brochure refer to Chronicle books instead of second editions?

We hadn’t finalized plans for the second editions by the time the brochure had to go to press.

Will Dark Eras use the first or second edition rules?

Dark Eras will use second edition rules for Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, and Demon, and first edition rules for the other games. Dark Eras is not a rules-heavy book, so this shouldn’t present any problems.

I hope that answers your questions; if not, ask below, and we’ll try to answer once we’re back from the con. Thanks for all your support!

Oh, and if you’re at the show, please stop by and say hi at the Onyx Path booth! Map to the right.