Storyteller System

Not to be confused with the Storytelling System of Chronicles of Darkness

The Storyteller System is the core ruleset developed by White Wolf for use in the World of Darkness roleplaying games and later used in Street Fighter: The Storytelling Game. A modified version of the system, the Revised Storyteller System, was introduced in the Trinity Universe games (Trinity, Aberrant and Adventure!); changes from this version of the system informed subsequent revisions of the Storyteller System in the Revised Edition World of Darkness games, as well as adaptations of the Storyteller System used in Exalted and Scion. Chronicles of Darkness games introduced another variation on the system: the Storytelling System.

The core task resolution system in the Storyteller System is a dice pool system, which uses ten-sided dice (d10s) to resolve conflicts. The key traits of characters in the Storyteller System are the nine Attributes, a larger number of Abilities (usually divided into three categories), and Advantages like Health Levels, a Willpower score, Backgrounds and optional Merits and Flaws.

System

Actions are resolved in the Storyteller System by rolling a pool of ten-sided dice, with the number of dice determined by one or more of a character's traits. Each action has a number that each die must meet; this number is either called a difficulty (in the World of Darkness games and Street Fighter) or a target number (in the Revised Storyteller System). This number is usually 7, although some World of Darkness games instead use a baseline difficulty of 6. Any dice that come up as this number or higher are counted as successes; in some versions, each die showing a result of 1 actually subtracts a success. The more successes, the more favourable the result. One success is sufficient for basic tasks, while more successes may be required for difficult tasks or tasks performed in trying conditions; in the Revised Storyteller System, the difficulty of an action instead refers to the number of successes required to carry out that action. Additional (often optional) rules exist for more complicated actions, including contests between two or more characters, tasks that may require an extended period of time, and botches, or failures with disastrous consequences.

Beyond basic action resolution, another basic mechanic concerns the expenditure of points. Some traits, like Willpower, have temporary "points" as well as a permanent rating. These points may be spent to gain various benefits, depending on their nature; some may be used for enabling particular actions, healing wounds, or augmenting normal actions. Character types capable of supernatural or paranormal ability typically have a trait that represents their source of supernatural power, such as blood pool for vampires, Quantum for novas or Essence for Exalts. Such points may be regained in different ways.

A character's health is tracked via health levels. When a character suffers wounds, these are marked in the health level boxes in sequential order. The first few health levels represent minor damage, while the later ones indicate serious injury which debilitates, incapacitates or even kills the character. In addition, there are three different types of damage, which determine how long a wound takes to heal and the effect a final wound has on a character (i.e. unconsciousness, torpor, death etc.). Most character types have seven health levels, though exceptional characters like novas and Exalts may have more.

History

Tom Dowd, co-designer of Shadowrun, worked with Mark Rein•Hagen to develop the Storyteller System, adapting Shadowrun's d6 dice pools to use d10s.

The Storyteller System has predominantly seen use in the World of Darkness and in Street Fighter: The Storytelling Game. An updated version, the Revised Storyteller System, is used in the Æon Continuum, Exalted, and Scion.

First Edition

The first edition of the Storyteller System was introduced in 1991's Vampire: The Masquerade First Edition, the first game in the World of Darkness game line. Merits and Flaws were introduced shortly afterwards in the Vampire Players Guide First Edition. As the first edition of Vampire was succeeded by the second fairly quickly, the first edition has few distinctions to set it apart from the second edition; most of the changes between the first two editions were made in presentation and formatting, with only minor updates to fix errors in the actual rules text.

Second Edition

After the initial run of World of Darkness games, particularly with how quickly they came out, it became obvious that a revision was in order. VTM: Vampire: The Masquerade Second Edition came out in 1992, little more than a year after the game's first edition. This placed it as releasing between the first editions of Werewolf: The Apocalypse and Mage: The Ascension. Similarly, each of the original five World of Darkness games (Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, Wraith and Changeling) received second editions two years after their original release. In each case, the original rulebook was a softcover release while the second edition was hardcover.

Werewolf: The Apocalypse Second Edition, Mage: The Ascension Second Edition, WTO: Wraith: The Oblivion Second Edition , and CTD: Changeling: The Dreaming Second Edition . With this release of Changeling in 1997, the initially-envisioned run of five core World of Darkness games was complete. All subsequent game lines were added later, during the Revised era.

The Second Edition era also saw the release of Vampire: The Dark Ages, as well as the release of the non-World of Darkness game Trinity (using the Revised Storyteller System) which influenced the design decisions of the later Revised Edition.

Revised Storyteller System

The Revised Storyteller System began in 1997 with the publication of Trinity. It was modified for Aberrant in 1999 and again for Adventure! in 2001. Of these, the Adventure! incarnation is arguably the most distinctive, largely because of its Dramatic Editing mechanic. Exalted First Edition was also released in 2001, and used its own variant of the Revised Storyteller System. This was overhauled again, including a major rewrite of the combat rules, for a Second Edition in 2006 and again for a Third Edition in the 2010s.

Significant variations from the original Storyteller System include:

• Differentiating damage into three different types: Bashing, Lethal and Aggravated.
• Changing rules for botches, making them less likely for higher skilled characters.
• Fixed target numbers for all die rolls.
• Difficulties represented by the number of required successes, rather than a varying target number.
• Removal of the Ability categories: Talents, Skills and Knowledges (though Exalted uses Caste (or equivalent) categories for Abilities instead)
• Default pairing of Abilities with Attributes.

Many of the innovations of the Revised Storyteller System, most notably the updated damage and botching rules, were incorporated back into the original Storyteller System with the Revised Editions and subsequent revisions. Elements of both the Storyteller System and the Revised Storyteller System were incorporated into the Storytelling System used in the Chronicles of Darkness. For example, the Storytelling System uses fixed target numbers and difficulty based on required successes, and categorizes Skills as Mental, Physical or Social rather than Talents, Skills or Knowledges. Elements of that system were combined with the version of the Revised Storyteller System as implemented in Exalted Second Edition for Scion.

Revised Edition

Sometimes called "Second Edition Revised," but more frequently considered the Third Edition, the Revised Edition was a broad attempt to overhaul the rules and setting of the World of Darkness games. It incorporated a large number of rules changes, many from the Revised Storyteller System, though several key features - variable target numbers, Ability categories, etc. - remained to make a distinction between the two systems.

The Revised Edition was used for the final editions of the World of Darkness games, beginning with Vampire: The Masquerade Revised Edition in 1998. Werewolf and Mage followed, and the Revised system was also used for Hunter: The Reckoning, Mummy: The Resurrection, Demon: The Fallen, the new Dark Ages line, Victorian Age: Vampire and further modified in Orpheus. Lower-selling games like Changeling: The Dreaming, Wraith: The Oblivion and other historical settings did not get Revised editions; books published for these lines after 1998 rarely made explicit reference to the new rules, but conversions for some, most notably Kindred of the East, were included in the VTM: Vampire Storytellers Handbook Revised .

Just as Vampire: The Dark Ages informed the creation of the Revised Edition, the Revised-era version of the setting, Dark Ages: Vampire further developed the system.

20th Anniversary Edition

After a seven-year hiatus between the end of publication of World of Darkness material, White Wolf made the decision to release a deluxe, limited run Vampire rulebook to celebrate the game's 20th anniversary in 2011, the VTM: Vampire: The Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition , or V20 , This edition was designed to evoke the setting of the Second Edition, while retaining many design sensibilities and rules of the Revised Edition. V20 had an open development cycle, with several decisions about the system open to fan feedback online.

Many changes from later Revised Edition titles were incorporated into V20, such as the Dodge rules from Orpheus and changes to Disciplines made in Dark Ages: Vampire. Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, Changeling, and Wraith have since been updated to the 20th Anniversary Storyteller System following successful Kickstarter campaigns, and updated rules for Orpheus were included as an appendix to the Wraith hardcover.

Fifth Edition

Following the acquisition of White Wolf by Paradox Interactive, plans were announced to renew publication of White Wolf books through traditional publishing channels, beginning with a Fifth Edition of Vampire: The Masquerade in 2018, followed by new editions of Hunter: The Reckoning and Werewolf: The Apocalypse.

Fifth editions differs heavily from previous editions, having very different dice mechanics, as well as incorporating some elements from Chronicles of Darkness. Significant changes to the mechanics include:

• Fixed target numbers, with difficulty determining the number of successes required to succeed at a test.
• Incorporating success ladder mechanics such Messy or Brutal Criticals, Bestial Failures, and Succeeding at a Cost.
• Replacement of resource management mechanics, such as the Blood Pool, with 'push your luck' mechanics such as Hunger Dice and Desperation Dice.
• Consolidating damage into Superficial and Aggravated damage. Willpower can also be damaged through non-physical confrontations.
• Changes to player Morality trackers, such as the introduction of Stains, Touchstones, and Convictions.
• Loresheets designed to offer Merits that allow for characters to interact with the metaplot.

Other Variations

• The Mind's Eye Theatre system used in Classic World of Darkness LARPs, which is based on a heavily modified version of the Storyteller System
• The Storytelling System, as seen in the Chronicles of Darkness
• The Mind's Eye Theatre adaptation of the Storytelling System as used in Chronicles of Darkness LARPs

Related Systems

• Opening the Dark, an OGL-compatible Systems Reference Document developed by Malcolm Sheppard
• The Storypath System (formerly codenamed "Sardonyx"), the new system being used for Onyx Path Publishing's forthcoming editions of the Trinity Universe games and Scion