The World of Darkness had quite the hectic journey into modern day. Once the darling of 90s goths and nerds everywhere, the setting has since seen many obstacles. A hot potato of ownership, controversial content, and the rise of their contemporaries into tabletop powerhouses puts WoD in a strange spot. Even so, the fandom it has cultivated remains strong, and they're eager to try out anything even similar to the vibes of this supernatural fantasy.
This horror TTRPG might scratch that itch for WoD fans.
Curseborne is an urban fantasy TTRPG following the Accursed, descendants of supernatural families with great power and even greater trauma. The drama of gameplay stems from these Accursed fighting against fate, family and forces beyond their power. One of the more interesting choices Curseborne has made is unifying the various fiends such as Vampires, Werewolves and Ghosts into a single game. Since World of Darkness covers some of the best tabletop RPGs ever made, anything that tries to merge that is ambitious in my eyes.
In World of Darkness, these settings have their own internal mechanics and lore. Curseborne's approach makes cross-play between the various lineages far more manageable. While I wouldn't call the difficulty of cross-play a "weakness" on WoD's part, it's a headache translating Mage: The Ascension mechanics to, say, Vampire: The Masquerade. As expected though, the game is a bit crunchier than the typical WoD game, so be forewarned.
The latest print campaign for Curseborne focuses on the Curseborne Jumpstart, an 80-page booklet tailor-made for beginners. The softcover includes an overview of the rules, pre-made Accursed, and an introductory scenario titled The Wolf You Feed. The scenario follows the mystery of a young girl's disappearance, and uncovering how the Accursed are related to this tragedy.
I am cautiously excited about Curseborne because Onyx Path are tried-and-true publishers in the TTRPG space. Not only that, they were in charge of the Chronicles of Darkness, the successor to the World of Darkness setting before White Wolf re-acquired everything last year. While Chronicles of Darkness was niche, I've always liked how it took weird swings, and I'm excited to see Curseborne grow.
You can support the Curseborne Jumpstart here.
The Wargamer Discord welcomes all ghosts, ghouls and goblins, provided they have a passion for tabletop games. If your flavor of grimdark ventures more to space, check out Wargamer's coverage of the upcoming Warhammer 40k 11th Edition.