A Review of White Wolf's Re-designed LARP System

To most people in the role playing game community, the re-release of White Wolf is either akin to the death of all things good in horror gaming, or the coming of a new and greater age of things that go bump in the night. Either way though, the transition from the old World of Darkness to the new one is old hat. However, there was something that most fans of White Wolf, both new and old, didn't catch. That was how Mind's Eye Theater was run.

Mind's Eye Theater, for those who have never heard of it, is how White Wolf governs the game rules in a LARP. LARP, for those who are in even more unfamiliar territory, stands for live action role play. The main difference is in the live action part. Those who normally play Vampire of Changeling simply gather around a table, character sheet in one hand and a case of Mountain Dew on the floor, rolling dice and having a good time in between in-character moments. This is sort of reminescent of watching the behind the scenes at a movie, seeing actors in character during the shooting, and playing around when the film stops. LARP on the other hand is like watching the movie, to continue the metaphor. Players come in costume as their characters, complete with props, and attempt to stay in character while interacting and performing as much real time as possible. However, since LARP is still a role playing game set in the World of Darkness, there needs to be a way to translate the rules from the tabletop version of the game, where imagination is kind, to the LARP, where a slightly more realistic bent needs to be taken.

A good example of how this works can be given by explaining how the old Mind's Eye Theater operated. Players who were familiar with the 5-dot system of the tabletop versions of Werewolf or Vampire were endlessly confused by how they had to now choose a certain number of physical, mental, and social traits, none of which seemed to have anything to do with the tabletop rules. Additionally, chance was now decided by "chops" (throwing rock, paper, or scissors) instead of by rolling dice. Mostly, if a player could learn the new and different rules, they could do anything in Mind's Eye Theater that they could do at a tabletop game. However, they still had to learn two completely and barely related sets of rules. Among other problems of continuity, White Wolf solved this difficulty and released a new World of Darkness version of Mind's Eye Theater.

Having played under the new system, I'd have to say that I prefer the new World of Darkness's Mind's Eye Theater hands down. For one thing, there is no separate system of rules. Your character sheet from tabletop is the exact same character sheet that's used in a LARP. There is no trying to learn esoteric rules, or throwing of "chops"... the main difference is that instead of rolling dice with ten sides, players pull a card numbered one through ten and add up the dots they have in applicable skills to what they pulled. Much simpler. Additionally, there are relatively minor rule changes (such as the Fighting Styles merits), but other than these more or less cosmetic changes, the games played at a table and the games played at a LARP venue in the new World of Darkness are more or less the same. This, more than any other factor, will likely keep players whose desire to learn a new system is not as great as their desire to play, interested in trying out new venues that they otherwise may have shied away from.