This page is for discussing and posting content for Classic World of Darkness, Chronicles of Darkness and World of Darkness 5th Edition (a sort of continuation of the Classic World of Darkness).

Formerly known as Old World of Darkness (oWoD)

This is the setting that started with Vampire: The Masquerade back in 1991 and really started role-playing game systems designed around character and story-driven role-playing styles.

The titles released for Classic World of Darkness were published by White Wolf Game Studios until 2004, when they brought the world to an in-game end and closed the setting. At that time they launched the "New" Worlds of Darkness, which became known as Chronicles of Darkness (see below).

Formerly known as New World of Darkness (nWoD)

Starting in 2004, the core rulebook for a new version of the World of Darkness was released with a new system, setting, cosmology all with the concept that while different supernatural types may never meet and interact, they were going to be fully compatible with each other from the ground up, with consistent abilities and even supernatural mechanics that didn't require house rules to figure out how they affected each other.

The new book, A World of Darkness, provided the base rules (mortals, no supernaturals) and was released alongside Vampire: The Requiem. Werewolf: The Forsaken and Mage: The Awakening were launched shortly thereafter.

When the second edition of the rules was introduced, a while after Onyx Path licensed the IP to continuing releasing supplements, the setting was renamed Chronicles of Darkness to reduce confusion between the setting names.

Starting with Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition (V5), Paradox Interactive AB (the current home of White Wolf games (both TTRPG & video games) launched a new system (using elements of Classic World of Darkness and Chronicles of Darkness with many other aspects of the system not matching either) and some sizeable alterations to the setting from the Classic World of Darkness.  This is continuing with Hunter: The Reckoning and Werewolf: The Apocalypse, of which only some information is known at this time (May 2022).

You may recognize from above those titles and say "Hey, aren't those just Classic World of Darkness?" and I would say yes, and no.

Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition made some startling changes to the social and metaphysical aspects of the setting for the vampires in the world with strange and vague explanations for how many of them dramatically alter physical appearances, vampiric abilities, clan weaknesses and a lot of other things as part of events that take place within the normal lifespan if a brand new character (not ancient history, so every character is going to be aware of most of it, but little reason why).  Tough to understand for new players and the material doesn't help.  All of this is supposed to be accepted as a continuation of previous Vampire editions.

Hunter: The Reckoning 5th Edition, based on the information given will not have a strong mystical component, but will instead be largely based on Hunter: The Vigil from Chronicles of Darkness instead.  This means they are complete mortal characters and therefore vastly different from their predecessors.

Werewolf: The Apocalypse 5th Edition, based on information given thus far, will be getting rid of the Metis (werewolves/Garou that are inherently flawed due to their breeding), the law against Garou mating with Garou (which cause Metis), and while I am totally ok with that, this is supposed to the same world that V5 is in, which is a continuation of the Classic World of Darkness.  So they will have to come up with a pretty good story reason for Metis to be gone (not a player option at least) and in a way that makes it clear that Garou mating with Garou is ok and produces normal children (wolf, human or Garou is still unknown). That is typically the size of change you make when resetting or creating an alternate version of a world, not a continuation.

Now that leaves us with Mage, Wraith (maybe), Changeling, Mummy and Demon.  What will they do with them?