If we're focusing on Wraith after the Sixth Maelstrom, a great chronicle idea would be the PCs helping other Wraiths to reclaim the Nameless City from the Spectres lurking in the ruins. Certain areas would either be held by Wraith or Spectres with several ambiguous areas that the storyteller can fill with whatever beings their twisted hearts desires. :)
that's a really awesome idea, ngl
HOWEVER!!!
I'm not writing chronicles for WtT, only the system and some lore changes I have in mind
Talking about the Nameless City would be a great addition to the setting, but my focus for now is on the game-system side of things. If I mention it, it would be more like a plot hook or as part of the wider metaplot to get people started with their own ideas
I'm trying to keep a focused scope of the project to be able to actually finish it on the future. So for now I'll leave the stories to the Storytellers
But still, thank you very much for the input, I do appreciate seeing interest in my little project :)))
Hello again, second devlog, this time I'll be talking about something that may sound familiar to some if you have played necromancers in VtM; Fetters
Again if you don't know what this is here's a quick explanation about Wraith the Transcendence.
I'll be explaining what Fetters are, what are their function, and some changes made to their game mechanics in WtT.
Also, I know a lot of people don't know what are some of the concepts I write about, as most of you have not played wraith, I'll try to explain during the devlogs, so let me know any questions you have.
As always thanks for reading, any comment or feedback is appreciated.
Introduction to Fetters
For Wraiths, Fetters are the things that tie them to the living world, it could be an object, place, or person, and they represent the unresolved problems a wraith has.
Wraiths are kept as restless spirits because of their fetters, to achieve Transcendence a wraith must resolve the pending matters with their fetters.
The relationship with a fetter can vary drastically from one to another, a family member or your childhood house can be fetters as much as the person that killed you or the murder weapon used. The only common factor is how important the fetter is for the wraith.
Mechanically speaking fetters are a type of Advantage (like backgrounds, or virtues in VtM), and they play two major roles: Willpower recovery and Attunement.
When a wraith slumbers (resting for 8 hours to recover) near one of their fetters they can recover willpower.
Wraiths are naturally attuned to their fetters, making easier to use supernatural powers towards or through their fetters.
Fetters can be resolved, this is a requisite to achieve Transcendence, through a lot of roleplay and some very difficult dice roll a character can reduce their ties with their fetters and "resolve" them.
Design Process
For the most part I like how fetters work, there's some rules I'll rewrite to make easier/simpler and make a couple of little changes:
On the original Wraith the Oblivion if you fumbled the dice roll to resolve a fetter that fetter is destroyed, meaning that you could potentially kill a character on accident. The chance is very low, but during my WtO chronicle it was enough for my game group to completely discard the idea of trying to resolve their fetters
There's no clear rules for when a fetter is destroyed/killed before it can be resolved
There's no short-term benefit for resolving a fetter, only Transcendence once all of them are resolved
Fetter Mechanics in WtT
Every time a wraith goes to slumber near one of their fetters they get to roll dice equal to the fetter's dot rating at a difficulty of 6, for every success they recover 1 willpower point. If multiple fetters are nearby only consider the one with the highest dot rating.
Attunement is unchanged from WtO. When a wraith tries to use an Arcanoi (wraith powers, like a vampire's disciplines) towards or throughout one of their fetters they can "rattle the chains", rolling their fetter's dot rating with a difficulty of 7, every success reduces the difficulty for the dice roll of the Arcanoi in -1.
Once per session, and with enough justification trough roleplay, a wraith can try to resolve one of their fetters. This requires a willpower roll with a difficulty of 4+ the fetter's dot rating, and needing a number of successes equal to the fetter's dot rating. If successful the fetter is marked as resolved at their current dot rating, while in the case of failure the wraith loses one dot on said fetter, making it weaker, but easier to resolve in the future.
If a fetter is destroyed/killed before being resolved the wraith goes into a Harrowing, (we'll talk about harrowings later, but for know think about it as being temporarily thrown into Oblivion) if the wraith succeeds the Harrowing their destroyed fetter is erased from their character sheet and their dot rating is redistributed freely along their other fetters and passions. If the Harrowing was a failure the fetter is erased from their character sheet and instead they get a new Dark passion of the same rating (we will also talk about passions and dark passions in another devlog, sorry xd)
When a fetter gets reduced to zero dots the wraith goes into a Harrowing, in case of success the fatter gets back to 1 dot, in case of failure they are erased from the character's sheet. Fetters can be reduced for multiple reasons, being the most common failing to resolve them, being neglectful to them, or by bargaining during a Harrowing.
A wraith cannot "rattle the chains" of a resolved fetter, nor do they get willpower from slumbering near them. Instead, every day after slumbering a wraith can roll a number of dice equal to the total number of dots they have in resolved fetters with a difficulty of 10, recovering 1 point of willpower per success, the wraith does not need to be near any fetter to do this, but if they are, they recover willpower from both resolved and unresolved fetters. This represents the wraith letting go of their ties with the world of the living and preparing themselves for Transcendence.
At ST's discretion, and with good roleplay involved, a wraith can get new fetters by spending experience points, with the same cost as Background dots. Getting new fetters requires go to the land of living and develop new bonds.
Finally, the total dot rating of resolved v/s unresolved fetters is a key factor for achieving Transcendence (add transcendence to the list of things to see later)
Closing Words
The biggest change was making Fetters easier to resolve, even if a character fails, they do it moving forwards by making easier the next time. I also added the willpower recovery with resolved fetters as an incentive for players to resolve their fetters.
Maybe when I tackle character creation I will make two separate formats, one for One-shots and one for Chronicles, that way you could have a slow burn dramatic chronicle with very important fetters as in the original WtO, or just have a couple easy to resolve fetter dots for more light games, your quick story of vengeance or solving a mystery before Transcend.
That's (almost) all about Fetters, next time I'll talk about Passions, and after that will go into Specters; Dark Passions, Angst, Catharsis, the Harrowing, and all that spooky stuff.
It's nice to see somebody revamping Wraith to make it more accessible to WOD players. Here's a post I did porting the Geists from Geists the Sin-Eaters to Wraith.
Yet Another Crazy Fangirl Blog, If we're porting Chronicles of Darkness ideas to...
Heeeeeyyy thank you
I'm also very interested in Geist the Sin-eaters (and in porting CofD games into old WoD in general)
I had the idea of doing something similar, but I haven't read Geist yet, and also didn't want to increase the scope of the project
The current plan for the project is:
Revamp base mechanics
Asemble the basic game loop
Adapt character creation
Make adjustments to some Arcanoi
Write some lore for Wraith after the Sixth Great Maelstrom
Rewrite some of the previous lore in regards to Wraith outside of the US/Europe
Write advise for a better game experience
Make steps 1 to 5 for playing risen characters
Same deal for speters
And for Orpheus' proyectors
I'm currently writing the next devlog, I have drafted up to step 3, but the devlogs are just starting step 1
After that would be testing, making corrections, and compiling the final Sourcebook
Depending of how things go I could get into Geist adapt it as an additional step, but we'll see
I got sidetracked from the ask, but I wanted to give a little update