My two absolute favorite tabletop settings are Mike Pondsmith's Cyberpunk and the World of Darkness. I know classical fantasy RPGs tend to rule the roost, but I just love my nightmarish city sprawls. Cyberpunk takes the horrors of capitalism to the absolute extreme. Meanwhile, World of Darkness is a gritty dark fantasy that explores contemporary issues with wild abandon. As I was working on a homebrew campaign for Cyberpunk, I suddenly recalled a crossover from years past.
The World of Future Darkness by Deirdre Brooks is a wonderfully edgy fusion dance of my favorite tabletop RPGs. Originally published in 1993 across three editions of White Wolf Magazine, it's exactly what it says on the tin. Reading through the pages, I was taken by how easily the Kindred joined the future. I say it easily from a vibes standpoint, because 2020 is actually quite terrible for most vampires.
Everything they struggle with, from influence to bloodthirst, is exponentially harder when everybody has chrome. You try biting into the neck of a guy who's more metal than man, and see you don't visit the night dentist. The average mortal, and especially Hunters, can take on Kindred who would have dominated in 1990. If the vampires are to survive, they have to embrace more than just mortals. They need to embrace the future.
The most exciting reveal is how Anarchs, my preferred faction of vamps, are all about cybernetic implants. My Brujah slam poet was suddenly packing chrome and disciplines that make them a one-woman army. And as Johnny Silverhand showcases, being counter-culture is more valid than ever in 2020.
There's so much I'm leaving out here, because Brooks certainly went in-depth, especially with the Vampire: The Masquerade setting. Everything from the Camarilla manipulating corpos to werewolves wandering the wastes with Nomads is accounted for. The White Wolf Wiki thankfully recorded much of these mechanics and lore.
The only "downside" of the World of Future Darkness, ironically enough, is that the future is already the past. Five years past 2020, and both settings have had multiple games since. It's also clearly written more as a writing exercise than a mechanically sound setting. Which to be fair, is kind of the bread and butter of old-school WoD. For my very early stage homebrew, I opted for Cyberpunk Red as the system's guts. From there, it was just a matter of pulling out the old mechanics and updating it to 2040 standards.
While I love all the vampire stuff, I do yearn for more info on other WoD settings too. Fortunately, I can extrapolate from what little there is. Could you imagine how angsty a Changeling would be in the banality of Cyberpunk's cynical world? When the "City of Dreams" is Night City, keeping your innocence becomes so much harder.
Alternatively, the Cyberpunk world could very well be the Apocalypse that the Garou have feared for so long. Alongside the Nomads, perhaps the Werewolves are now nothing more than a band of survivalists slowly losing touch with Gaia. These are the stories I'd love to explore even more as I flesh out my own World of Future Darkness.
If you've got some homebrew hacks of your own to share, the Wargamer Discord would love to hear from you. For a lighter version of sci-fi fantasy, these Star Wars board games will keep you one with the Force.