The World of Darkness encompasses a vast number of possible character types; we support some, but not all, of those types. Why did we permit one and exclude another? Our guidelines look something like this:
- Focus on the main games. The core game lines are intended to be the primary focus of the game. Character types that have conflicting game mechanics, or are otherwise likely to draw focus away from the core games are less likely to be included.
- Characters need characters to interact with. If you have no one to roleplay with, you aren’t likely to enjoy the game very much. Character types that have trouble interacting with ordinary people who aren’t part of their sphere, and especially character types that have trouble interacting with characters from the core game lines, are less likely to be included.
- Recognizability. It’s important to us that the version of the World of Darkness the game is set in is one that’s immediately recognizable to new players. Character types that would significantly change the setting and result in a new and different status quo for one or more spheres are very unlikely to be included.
- We’re a cooperative game. Character types whose primary purpose is as antagonists for one of the core game lines are very unlikely to be included.
- We’re a positive game. Bad things — sometimes really bad things — happen in the IC world, but we are primarily a game about pushing back against those things, rather than reveling in them. Character types that fit the latter better than the former are less likely to be included.
- Staff have limited time. Character types that fit neatly alongside the core game lines (ghouls, consors, etc.) are easier to include, because content that benefits the rest of the sphere can benefit them, too. Conversely, character types that are isolated from most or all of the other spheres are essentially a sphere unto themselves. We don’t feel comfortable committing to the kind of time investment that would require, and we also don’t feel comfortable leaving those characters to their own devices, so those character types are less likely to be included.
- Exotic or complex mechanics. The closer a character type’s associated game mechanics are to those of one of the core game lines, the easier it is to integrate them into the game. Character types who have very unique or very complicated game mechanics are less likely to be included.
- Very rare or unique templates. For the most part, we prefer to have character types that we can permit on a reasonably wide scale. While there are some exceptions, characters that in-universe are extremely rare, unique, or believed to be extinct are much less likely to be included.
- Game balance. The more elements we introduce into the game, the more difficult it is to keep them all in something approaching balance. Therefore, any character type that introduces new game mechanics beyond those of the core gamelines is less likely to be included.
- Humanocentricity. The game is, fundamentally speaking, focused on people who are, or at least mostly are, human. (That some of them would IC disagree vehemently with that characterization does not change the essentially human nature of vampires, werewolves, magi, and fey.) Characters who aren’t human demand not just a completely different perspective on the part of their players, but also an entirely different perspective on the part of staff. We’d rather focus on creating a realistic and entertaining environment from the human — mostly — standpoint, and so character types who are mostly or completely inhuman are less likely to be included.
- Look and feel. It’s a little hard to quantify in a small number of words, but we have a specific vision of our fictional London and what it looks like. That vision is a mostly realistic one, where strange things can and do happen, but primarily in ways that the general public can write off or remain ignorant of. It’s not a London where dragons fight in the skies over St. Paul’s Cathedral and show up on the evening news. Character types that go against that look and feel are less likely to be included — partly for the integrity of the setting, partly because we don’t want to frustrate players by allowing such characters but so circumscribing them with restrictions that the fun of playing them is gone.
Some of these character types are not inherent so much as something a person could just up and join. There’s nothing ICly stopping a vampire from finding a Sabbat-controlled city and signing up, or a Garou from turning to the Wyrm, or a Mage from pledging themselves to the infernal, or a Changeling to openly support the Fomorians. If that’s something you want to have happen to your character, staff can make it so — but becoming something that isn’t available to PCs means that the character will become an NPC, and very probably will meet a grisly end when their turn is discovered. There are no exceptions to this rule.
Why Don’t We Have Antagonist Spheres?
We actually really like the idea of antagonist PCs. The problem is less with the theory, and more with how it tends to work in practice.
- Very few “antagonist PCs” are actually played as antagonists — that is, with their primary focus being to serve as a vehicle for creating story for the protagonists. It is far more common for them to be played as protagonists, whose primary focus is creating and exploring their own story. That’s understandable — after all, that’s what the majority of us are here to do in the first place. But it’s at odds with the ostensible rationale for having such PCs in the game at all.
- Because they are usually justified as a resource for pushing the game forward, antagonist PCs tend to be primarily allocated to people who staff like and trust. While that’s also understandable, it does have the effect of placing people who are already in a privileged position vis-a-vis staff in an even more privileged position, which in turn has a tendency to distort how the “antagonist” storyline develops. When a trusted friend tells staff that this isn’t the right time for the antagonist’s story to end, and that instead they should continue to slip away and plague the other PCs for a while longer, staff is likely to believe them, even if the other PCs are heartily sick of the whole idea.
- As characters who are generally far outnumbered by their opposition, antagonist PCs are very often much more powerful than typical starting characters from the same sphere. This breeds understandable resentment among other players, and often has the effect of shifting focus away from the sphere they’re supposed to be supporting and toward the antagonists themselves, as the cool, edgy, and powerful alternative.
So, we like the idea in theory. We just don’t think that the implementation is likely to live up to its promise, rather than causing a whole new set of problems of its own.
By now you may be wondering how the guidelines apply, in practice, to the character types we’ve chosen not to support.
General
“Infiltrator” characters
What we mean by this is “characters who profess a loyalty to one group while acting as agents of another group” — a Follower of Set pretending to be a loyal Camarilla Toreador, for instance. As with antagonist characters, this is a great idea in theory (and at tabletop) that doesn’t work so well on a massively-multiplayer game. Aside from the problems cited above, characters like this tend to be destructive to the spirit of OOC cooperation that the game relies on. While we can harangue players until the sun goes out to act strictly in character, we’re all human, and people act differently when they do not have a level of trust with the people they’re interacting with.
There are a few cases where an exception might be made. Characters who are legitimately dedicated to the group they profess loyalty to (say, a Caitiff claiming membership in the Brujah who genuinely and sincerely supports the clan and its agenda) are the most obvious example. This is not a guarantee, and applications for characters of this type will be closely scrutinized, but it is an example of a pitch that might potentially be permitted.
Vampire
Sabbat
The Sabbat are an antagonist faction — arguably the antagonist faction for the World of Darkness — and while there is a legitimate argument to be made that their agenda is ultimately less destructive than the Camarilla’s is, the Sabbat are the sect that unapologetically embraces their own monstrousness and inhumanity. That’s profoundly at odds with the type of game we’re interested in running, where characters struggle against their dark sides.
Revenants
Most Revenants are affiliated with the Sabbat, and are unsuitable as PCs for similar reasons. Even those that aren’t active participants in the sect, however, are usually brought up in twisted circumstances as part of a deeply amoral and inhuman extended family.
Kindred of the East
While it is technically part of Vampire, KotE is really an entire separate game with new mechanics and a completely separate narrative. We aren’t 100% ruling out the possibility that they might some day be playable (we try to keep the number of things in that category as small as possible), but we think of it more as rolling out an entire new sphere rather than adding options to an existing one, and the bar for that is very high.
Inconnu
As a group, the Inconnu are identified both by their intentional aloofness from vampire politics, and by their extreme age and power. The latter criterion essentially excludes PCs (who are limited in Generation and age in ways that would almost certainly disqualify them), and the former would make it difficult or impossible to garner any regular RP — participating in Camarilla society is itself a political act that the Inconnu shun whenever possible.
Laibon
Unfortunately, staff do not have a great amount of familiarity with the Laibon, and are reluctant to add something to the game without a good grasp of it. It’s possible they may be added to the list of playable vampire types at some point in the future, but at least equally likely that we’ll simply recommend that they be played as bloodlines of their respective parent clans.
Werewolf
Red Talons
As by far the most xenophobic and human-hostile of the Garou, the Red Talons are, to put it mildly, not a great fit for a game centered around one of the densest urban areas in the world. Particularly considering that wolves in the British Isles have been believed to be extinct in the wild since the 17th century and that the supply of genuine wilderness areas in the south of England is extremely limited, there isn’t a lot of room for them to fit into the game at present. It’s not impossible that they may be permitted if and when we expand the grid into more rural areas, but we’re always going to be a little leery when it comes to highly isolationist groups like the Talons.
Uktena
As one of the two remaining tribes of Pure Ones, the Uktena do have a presence outside the New World (and even some members who trace their ancestry elsewhere), but their interests are primarily focused on North, Central and South America. They are also particularly hostile to Europeans and European ideas, and it’s difficult to see them feeling comfortable in a place that not very long ago was the epicenter of colonialism.
Wendigo
The Wendigo are even less tolerant of European ways than the Uktena are, and their area of interest is firmly fixed in the Americas. Considering how badly the tribe needs every warrior to protect what territory remains to them in the Pure Lands, they’re not likely to come to Europe at all and even less likely to stay once they’ve accomplished whatever urgent task took them there.
Black Spiral Dancers & Wyrm-aligned Fera
The Black Spirals and their equivalents among the Fera are much like the Sabbat in being created as an antagonist faction — except that there isn’t much in the way of an argument to be made that the Spirals’ agenda is preferable to their opponents’. There is room in the World of Darkness for tragic campaigns based around Wyrm-corrupted shifters struggling against their fates, and there’s room for splatterpunk campaigns based around them reveling in their own corruption. But neither of those character types is well-suited to a game that is focused primarily on characters who aren’t devotees of omniversal destruction.
Ajaba
The Ajaba were almost wiped out in the very recent past, and most of those who remain are preoccupied with the business of regaining their homelands. The few who live elsewhere are not particularly sociable, don’t trust any of the other Changing Breeds any further than they can throw them, and tend to be more than a little paranoid as a result of recent history. In short, they aren’t the sort of characters who are likely to work well as part of a group, or even participate in any group larger than “themselves and any other Ajaba.”
Apis
In-universe, the Apis were one of the casualties of the War of Rage. Their destruction, and those of the other Fera that were exterminated during this conflict, form an essential part of the tragedy underlying the Werewolf: the Apocalypse game setting and the perspective that the Garou, as its protagonists, have on the world. Having them exist at all — much less as PCs — would fundamentally change the setting in which the game takes place. That’s a great idea for a campaign, but it would also result in a World of Darkness very different from the one presented in the source material.
Camazotz
See the above entry for Apis.
Grondr
See the above entry for Apis.
Gurahl
The War of Rage came close — very close — to eliminating the werebears entirely, and they remain deeply mistrustful of the Garou at the best of times. Their numbers are still very low, they prefer solitude and dislike urban areas, and the idea that one of them might choose to live in a city the size of London, with its relatively large population of werewolves, is a dubious one at best. Still, of the Fera not already permitted, they are probably the type that has the best chance of someday becoming so.
Hengeyokai
We came very close to including hengeyokai in the game at opening, and they’re among the leading candidates to be introduced in the future. We ultimately decided against, for much the same reasons the Disparate Alliance is not currently in-game for Mage — adding a second Fera faction too early on would run the risk of splitting the player base too greatly.
If and when we do end up including them, they will most likely have some modifications. By the book, hengeyokai are flat-out better than their western counterpart, having access to two additional Gift lists in addition to those the equivalent Fera have. It’s not a game-shattering advantage, but it does raise the question of why we would want to disadvantage characters from the area where the game is set in favor of characters from the far side of the world.
The most likely course is that hengeyokai will just be an alternate allegiance for the existing Fera types: that is, Tengu will be mechanically identical to Corax, but with the Beast Courts faction rather than the Fera faction.
The next most likely course is that we’ll invent a countervailing disadvantage for the book version of hengeyokai — in exchange for access to more Gift lifts, they’ll sacrifice in some other aspect.
The least likely course is that they’ll be implemented as written. It’s not impossible, but it’s about as probable as our introducing a new vampire bloodline that has five in-clan Disciplines.
Nagah
The Nagah are problematic in two ways: first, they are widely believed to be extinct, and the revelation that they not only still existed but had a presence in a major city would cause an upheaval in the setting — and such a revelation would inevitably happen if one or more were permitted in play. Second, their purpose as Gaia’s “secret police” is very likely to place them at odds with the other Fera, and especially the Garou — who are not fond of being judged by anyone — in a way that makes them effectively an antagonist faction. The wereserpents work best as the protagonists of a Chronicle specifically focused on them, and, while we know they have a dedicated following, we don’t really have enough staff resources to support that narrow a faction.
Nuwisha
The werecoyotes are believed to be extinct by the Garou, with the exception of the two indigenous American tribes. And, while it isn’t impossible that one might be found outside the American Southwest, that is where they’re most at home, and London is a very long way from there. Finally, the Nuwisha metier of education through pranking is something that really works best when deployed either against PCs by Storyteller-played Nuwisha or against NPCs by PC Nuwisha. PC on PC pranking has an unfortunate tendency to go badly awry and be less than enjoyable for one or both players, and while we can’t really stop our players from doing that, having a character type for which that’s pretty much their whole thing does not seem like a great idea.
Rokea
Weresharks are primarily concerned with the sea, not with goings-on on land, and most of them are reluctant to leave the ocean waters at all. Between their general indifference to land-dwellers’ concerns, their general ignorance of matters on land, their unfortunate tendency toward Frenzy, and their need to return to the ocean in order to regain Gnosis at all, the Rokea are not well suited to a game set in one of the world’s largest cities, especially when that city is a multi-hour hike (or freshwater swim) away from the coast. Even if the grid expands to encompass coastal areas, they’re likely to be pretty far down the list of things to add.
Mockery Breeds
It is difficult to imagine something more calculated to drive the Garou and the other Fera into a frothing fury than Wyrm-tainted shapechangers created by Pentex in sadistic imitation of Gaia’s warriors.
Possessed
It’s probably obvious why fomori are not permitted as characters — they are very explicitly evil creatures who enjoy causing pain and suffering, not misunderstood antiheroes. Drones and gorgons may not have that problem, but they still have deeply alien perspectives as well as laboring under the Autonomy game mechanic and its attendant need for close Storyteller supervision. And while the Kami don’t have Autonomy, they are also extraordinarily rare, as well as being fanatically devoted extensions of the will of Gaia who are reclusive and strongly disinclined to interact with any other supernatural creatures. In effect, they’re a whole separate sphere that occasionally intersects with one of the other spheres, and we don’t feel that supporting that would be the best use of staff time.
Skin-Dancers
We hope you’re kidding, but, on the off chance that you’re not: any character who is willing to kill and skin five living beings of human-level intelligence, all in order to further their own quest for personal power, is not a character whose story we are interested in exploring.
Mage
Disparates
The Disparate Alliance might become playable in the future; they have a different agenda from the Traditions, but it’s not a completely incompatible one. Many of the groups making up the Alliance also have a presence in the Traditions, and there’s definitely some in-character migration between the two factions. The main reason the Disparates aren’t currently playable is because we don’t want to split our player base up too much early in the game, and want to limit the amount of different factions that staff have to create content for; we already have nine Traditions for PC magi to belong to, each of which can belong to any of three chantries. If we find ourselves with a large Mage player base and a lot of staff time on our hands, we’ll consider adding the Disparates to the list of playable character types.
Technocrats
The Technocracy is the closest of all the antagonist factions to being a protagonist faction; there are fairly strong arguments that the Technocrats are as suited to being the protagonists as the Traditions are, if not more so. When both are present in-game, however, they’re virtually always antagonists to one another, and the Technocrats are often (to one degree or another) antagonists to other spheres as well. Because of this, and because the Technocracy is the side that requires much more in the way of Storyteller oversight to represent the IC authorities they work under, we opted to make the Traditions the PC faction instead.
Nephandi
We hope we don’t have to explain why Nephandi are not permitted as PCs. They are unapologetically evil beings who strive primarily to drag other characters down to damnation with them. Even the Black Spirals can make the (usually insincere) argument that by tearing down the cosmos as it is now, they’re paving the way for something better. The Nephandi don’t even have that excuse. Their presence as PCs almost inevitably leads either to their rapid demise (if their identities are OOCly known) or to endemic distrust not just among characters but among players (if they aren’t). They are probably the single least likely character type on this list to have any chance of ever being permitted, and that’s saying a lot.
Marauders
Marauders are, by definition, insane, which makes it challenging, though not completely impossible, for them to work together. That’s not great, but it’s really the effects of their powers on the world around them that makes them completely unsuitable as PCs. A game with Marauder PCs very likely could have dragons fighting over St. Paul’s Cathedral, and not just as a climactic once-in-a-lifetime encounter but as an everyday occurrence. We don’t think that it’s possible to have a really comprehensible game setting with PCs who can warp the world around them so easily and in such profound ways.
PC Familiars
The Mage-Familiar relationship is such a close and intimate one that it’s really best done by a single player running both sides of that relationship. It’s not impossible by any means for two different players to be able to play it, and play it well, but our experience has been that it very often ends up putting pressure on one or both of the players in ways that make it difficult to sustain enthusiasm.
Sorcerers
Our feeling is that the 20th Anniversary version of Sorcerer works better as a substitute for the standard Mage sphere rather than as an addition to it; having characters that use the IC groups from this book in play would mean essentially adding a fifth sphere (which we don’t have the headspace for), while incorporating them under the umbrella of the Mage sphere would require us to alter the book rules more than we are comfortable with. It is possible — though unlikely — that we may add Sorcerer at some point in the future; in the meantime, you may wish to consider playing a Mage with a similar Focus instead, possibly starting with a low level of Arete if you are uncomfortable with the full complexity of the Mage system.
Wraith
It was hard to leave Wraith out. It’s one of the core World of Darkness games, and a truly fantastic game in its own right when run with gifted players and a good Storyteller. But Wraith is also a game that makes it difficult for its characters to interact with other spheres, and a game that requires a lot of Storyteller attention to make it live up to its full potential. There are very rarely enough people who play Wraith, even in large games, to create self-sustaining in-sphere RP. It’s possible that we may reverse our decision on this in the future, if there is sufficient demand for Wraith as a sphere, but the bar for this is likely to be pretty high given the factors involved.
Changeling
Clurichauns as written
The C20 version of the clurichaun kith is, to be blunt, essentially a compendium of negative stereotypes about the Irish. The World of Darkness games have gotten … somewhat better about having this kind of thing since the 1990s, so we feel like having this in C20 was a major unforced error on their part. We wouldn’t tolerate this level of stereotyping when it comes to Assamites, Ravnos, Uktena, Dreamspeakers, and so forth, so we have opted to rewrite clurichauns into a more general kith (c.f. Changeling House Rules).
Merfolk and Morganed
It’s possible to live in London and still swim in the ocean daily. It’s a two-hour-plus drive (each way) to do it, though, not counting the actual time spent swimming, and that’s a lot of time to be spending every single day. These two kiths were among the last Changeling content to be cut, and if we’re able to fulfill our ambitions of someday expanding the grid to seaside places like Brighton and Southend, there’s a good chance they’ll be added in thereafter. Grid expansion is enormously time-consuming, though, and considering how much of the Greater London area remains to be put in play, we don’t feel comfortable speculating when (or if) we might get there.
Oba
The oba cannot leave their home territory for more than a month, and they cannot bond with territory outside Africa, India, or the Middle East. In theory, that could still work — we could posit some scheme where an oba spends a month in London, goes home for a week, and then comes back. But we don’t think it’s really in keeping with the spirit of the kith’s writeup, even setting aside the problematic nature of a kith that’s explicitly in charge of another kith.
Swan Maidens
Swan maidens’ game mechanics are problematic in several ways, but primarily in that determining when a character is eligible to use the Love Conquers All birthright is not practical in an ST-light environment.
Wolpertinger
The destructive effect wolpertinger have on freeholds is severe enough that it would make it difficult to integrate them into the larger in-game Kithain society. We don’t want to bake that severe a level of antagonism into the relationship between characters who are supposed to be part of the same sphere.
Hsien
The Hsien are one of the character types we came closest to including, and we may well add them in the future. For the time being, however, the complexity of their powers, and the need for close Storyteller attention to determine when the use of those powers may exceed the characters’ IC mandates, have led us to leave them off the list.
Shadow Court
While some — perhaps most, perhaps a few; it depends on the individual Storyteller’s vision — of the Shadow Court’s members are ignorant of the court’s ultimate allegiance to the Fomorians, their actions ultimately serve, whether they know it or not, the elder evils that spur the darkest impulses of the human psyche. Characters who serve, even unwittingly, things that are explicitly described as inimical to both human and fae are not something that we think fits in with the tone of the game we want to run.
Thallain
Like the Shadow Court, but more so. While some of the Shadow Court’s members may act out of mere selfishness and greed and remain unaware of the horrors they’re aiding, the Thallain know perfectly well what they’re serving, and they like it that way. They vie with the Nephandi as being the character type least likely to ever be permitted as PCs.
Inanimae
The Inanimae have one of the most alien perspectives in the World of Darkness, and, while they share some interests with the Kithain, their way of thinking and their agendas are ultimately too different for them to really fit in as part of the same sphere.
Lycians
Much like the Inanimae, the Lycians have a fundamentally inhuman perspective that makes them difficult to integrate into any of the other existing spheres, even Changeling.
Others
Demon, Hunter, Mummy, and Orpheus
Each of these game lines has its own, often very dedicated, following, but, unfortunately, they generally attract much less interest than the core four. While we recognize that this can sometimes be a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation, the fact remains that the investment in staff time to implement and support additional spheres is probably not going to be met with a commensurate level of uptake among the player base. That in itself is not necessarily a problem — if there’s great roleplay in a sphere and its players are happy, then who cares if it’s small? And that’s a fair point if staff time is an unlimited resource. But, of course, it’s not.
Additionally, some of the game lines take the World of Darkness in directions that are somewhat at odds with the other lines. Demon comes with the baggage of an explicitly Judeo-Christian game world in which the Christian God really exists; Hunter has connections to Demon, Exalted, or both; Orpheus is based in the Sixth Great Maelstrom having canonically occurred, which has major consequences for several of the other game settings.
As with many things on this list, it’s possible that one or more of these games may be supported in the future. That said, the level of effort involved in standing them up means it’s probably not going to happen in the near term (within the first real-life year of the game’s opening).