Seriously I get this a lot.
I cut my early roleplayer teeth on drama heavy games like World of Darkness and Cyberpunk, dark gritty characters is rich and vivid settings. Where a meaningful glare across a smoke-filled bar was often as much of a turning point in the game as a fight scene with a BBEG.
When I "discovered" D&D it was back in 2nd edition. I took a look through the old Gary Gygax Monster Manual and saw what my games were missing. Hundreds of races, some enemies and some allies, but all with this tremendous depth and color. You could tell stories for ever with nothing but just that book.
People laughed at me. They still do.
D&D is about kicking in the door, they say. The game isn't about deep melodrama or character exploration, it's about dungeons and fighting. You don't play THIS game to have meaningful character moments. You do it to get fat loot and level up. If you want that stuff, go play World of Darkness.
The trouble is World of Darkness is flat. There just isn't the same depth to it. You've got, at most, a handful of possible antagonist types, a few races that are all really rare, a few kinds of special abilities that all depend on you being some kind of rare critter, and a really clunky core mechanic that can't support much detail and with wheels that fall off once there's any kind of power scale.
Most "dramatic" game systems suffer from the same thing. They're not more dramatic, they're just bad. They're badly written, don't have enough complexity or flexibility, and usually are way underpopulated with way too few factions or races.
Between that and using the D&D setting and milking it for all the rich creamy drama goodness I can I'm all for playing D&D. Toss the dungeons, toss the modules and the minis and the little five foot squares and what you have is a game with not one but a dozen fully fleshed out awesome worlds. Politics, religion, death, morality, heroism. The game is thick with these issues without even trying. People really think D&D isn't about dramatic roleplaying? It's hard to believe.
|
I dont know really what kind of response you're looking for-- but it's a message board community and lots of people feel entitled to give their opinion whether invited or not, so I'll lemming away and dump my $.02.
I happen to completely agree with you. I have never really liked the WoD, old or new, because of what you specifically you mentioned-- there are limits inherently built into the system, and especially the old WoD books really felt to me like they tried to tell you what kinds of stories you should run.
Not so D&D. The emphasis of the games through every edition has always been to me that the options truly are endless and open, and you can build a world from scratch or use a pre-gen setting and have equal amounts of fun either way. Its why I love D&D. You can run dark, happy, humorous, gritty, action-oriented, deep drama, or any other variation and its STILL D&D. Its a common framework for telling stories that three generations of gamers can relate to.
I love me some D&D.
I dont know really what kind of response you're looking for-- but it's a message board community and lots of people feel entitled to give their opinion whether invited or not, so I'll lemming away and dump my $.02.
Yours was just fine. To tell you the truth it's just me airing some old issues. It's not a boards thing really (though I've heard it a fair bit here as well as everywhere else). Nah the community here are as fine a bunch of souls as I've found anywhere.
As far as expected responses, I figured they'd run the gamut from the occassional "Here-here!" or "Huzzah!" to the occasional explanation of what's meant when someone describes D&D as being a "non-dramatic" game. I figure there's a load of other perspective out there that aren't mine.
Granted if I didn't feel there were folks out there who didn't care a lot about story I'd be at a real loss to explain the awesome stuff that used to grace the pages of Dungeon magazine or the reams and reams of beautiful prose that comes out in my monthly Pathfinder.
Mostly just raisin' the issue.
Ugh. Can't stand the WoD. I always thought the mechanics worked poorly at best, and yeah, not a lot interesting going on, despite the fact that every WoD player I've ever met insists their game lets you explore character in a way D&D can't.
I don't buy that. I think it lets them get in touch with their inner Emo Kid in a way D&D can't. Since I think my inner Emo Kid is a whiny punk who should get his ass beat more often, I'm fine with that.
Love WOD, and I fell head first into the WoD>>>>>>>>>>>>>D&D if-you-want-to-rollplay-go-back-to-killing-orcs trap. Fortunately I grew past it. Many did not.
In the end, despite my own hatred of 4e, it's not about the system. It's about the DM(or ST or GM or what have you) and the kind of world they can create for the PCs. That's it. Have problems with WOD? Spice it up with as many house rules as you wish. Don't care for 3.x mechanics? That's what house rules are for. This hobby is too small to let something as petty as language(i.e game mechanics) stand in our way.
An excellent Podcast where Ron Edwards slams the Vampire System HERE.
The basic gist is that Vampire, especially 1st edition Vampire, wanted to be a story telling game but mechanically it simply was not.
Highly recommended - Ron Edwards is a very good speaker both thought provoking and funny.
Has anyone tried Spirit of the Century? in terms of a story telling game. I've not got around to picking it up yet myself but I'm hearing rave reviews.
D&D is the best game to play, in my opinion. Other games are well and good, but in D&D you can do anything.
Plus, in D&D there are kobolds.
D&D is the best game to play, in my opinion. Other games are well and good, but in D&D you can do anything.
Plus, in D&D there are kobolds.
Then I guess the irony here is that I call D&D the "You Can't Do That" game, largely because of the structured mechanics. But I'll give D&D this edge: It does have kobolds!
In fairness, I think that D&D can do alot, but I tend to believe any system can. Instead, there are a few factors that work for or against your story potentials:
1) Your players - are they kick in the door miniature/strategy game players, or do they enjoy roleplaying?
2) The genre and the storyteller - This can work for and against you. A good story teller can tell story after story in a seemingly limited environment, while one with limited creativity will suffer early on from writers block.
D&D is about kicking in the door, they say. The game isn't about deep melodrama or character exploration, it's about dungeons and fighting. You don't play THIS game to have meaningful character moments. You do it to get fat loot and level up.
I say bullsh*t to them. I've had some excellent DMs over the years that were more interested in telling stories then in imaginary money, killing imaginary monsters, and having imaginary powers. A quality DM can take a well worn plot and make it new and innovative and interesting. Drama pulls you in. Slaying a thousand monsters isn't drama. Turning the heart of one person is. D&D is about adventure, and there is no greater adventure then the adventure of the mind and the heart.
The trouble is World of Darkness is flat. There just isn't the same depth to it. You've got, at most, a handful of possible antagonist types, a few races that are all really rare, a few kinds of special abilities that all depend on you being some kind of rare critter, and a really clunky core mechanic that can't support much detail and with wheels that fall off once there's any kind of power scale.
Now there I say bullshi*t to you. A quality Storyteller can tell a story of what makes a person human by looking from without or craft a story with Changlings about moving on from pain and suffering and about how "you can never go home again." Vampires and Werewolves are about the price you'd pay for power and the depths of the monster inside you. The WoD is about the horror of being human. A quality Storyteller can craft stories that make a person look into their own life and say, "Who am I? What have I become?"
Can you do this with D&D? Absolutely. Was the game designed to do primary this? No. IM(not so humble)O, D&D is an excellent general game from which you can play anything. WoD is a specialized game that best explores what makes humanity human.
In the end, despite my own hatred of 4e, it's not about the system. It's about the DM(or ST or GM or what have you) and the kind of world they can create for the PCs. That's it.
QF(motherf***in)T!!! A quality DM can work with a bad system and still tell a good story. A poor DM (or ...) can make any game, any system, any setting painful.
I don't think anyone's arguing that with you man. I think there's guys who can do pimp stuff in your mom's Honda, and guys with a Ferarri that will lurch it to a halt and blow up the engine within 15 seconds of getting into it.
Sure.
That said, there's differences between the Honda and the Ferarri, and I don't think its unfair to say so. I get what you're saying about some people being able to do wonders with anything, but that said I really enjoy having the better tools to work my craft with. But yeah, totally, a good storyteller with a passion for drama can make a great epic story out of Stratego.
That said I love your glorious prose in favor of the art. Likewise as settings go I really do love the World of Darkness. It's really close to my heart as one of my first experiences with storytelling. There's really just a ton of great settings out there. I guess my thing is more the awesomeness of D&D as a storytelling medium rather than trying to detract from anything else. It's the argument that D&D can't be more than a dry board game on a gridmap that gets to me. It's the beer and pretzels, orc-stabbing, space hopping--which is, don't get me wrong, all fine and good for folks who want to play it like that.
But it just feels nice to see so many people who love a good deep D&D game too, full of story and character. That's just cool. Granted I think part of it is that this is Paizo, and the posters here tend to be a cut above anyway.
Now there I say bullshi*t to you. A quality Storyteller can tell a story of what makes a person human by looking from without or craft a story with Changlings about moving on from pain and suffering and about how "you can never go home again." Vampires and Werewolves are about the price you'd pay for power and the depths of the monster inside you. The WoD is about the horror of being human. A quality Storyteller can craft stories that make a person look into their own life and say, "Who am I? What have I become?"
Can you do this with D&D? Absolutely. Was the game designed to do primary this? No. IM(not so humble)O, D&D is an excellent general game from which you can play anything. WoD is a specialized game that best explores what makes humanity human.
I think that while I agree with you about the possibilities there is a certain point that I think the OP has. One of the problems with White Wolf is that it has an odd static quality. The ideas are really cool, but I sometimes got the feeling that I was up against the feeling that nothing was really supposed to happen. Consider the few pre-written adventures done by White Wolf wherein the pcs are really just witnesses to important events and have little to do with them.
Consider the few pre-written adventures done by White Wolf wherein the pcs are really just witnesses to important events and have little to do with them.
Back when I ran exalted, the PCs were the doers of important things. They weren't the most important people in the world, but they were the most important people in the story I told.
I've wanted to run either a promethean or nChangling game since I first heard of their concepts. Those games wouldn't be "event" based, but purely character driven, with events happening around them.
Its all in the GM.
That said, there's differences between the Honda and the Ferarri, and I don't think its unfair to say so.
Oh I agree that there are differences, but which RPG system is better and which is worse is purely a matter of opinion. There is no way to measure which is better and which is worse. IMO d20 has some horrible deep flaws in it at a very fundimental level (none of which are being addressed by 4E, but that's besides the point). WW's storyteller/storytelling systems (depends on which game you are running) has its own deficiencies.
But at the end of the day, IMO, the real test of which system is "better" and which isn't is up to the individual GM and what they are going after.
We tried AMBER DICELESS once. Great for character building: that's the whole focus of the game, and the only place where there are actual mechanics. Past that, however, there isn't really much of a game to play: "OK, you're a god, you can pretty much do whatever you want as long as another god doesn't stop you, but we just sort of talk at each other now, because there are no rules for actually playing." Two sessions of that ended any interest in story-time-land.
So we took all our Amber characters and rolled them up as D&D characters. And they've been, almost without exception, some of the best-conceived, most interesting, and most fleshed-out characters we've ever played.
Go figure.
To everyone who claims that you can't properly "roleplay" with D&D I yell NONSENSE*!
And to everyone who says you can't kick in the door with WoD, or say that WoD is only for emo's, I yell an equally loud NONSENSE*!
Both are very good systems, both have strengths, and both outperform the other in their areas of expertise.
It's true that each has a certain... "favoured style of play", which is sort of enforced by the writing in of the rules and books - and by the fanbase. That's why you usually hear about D&D as kick-in-the-door, and WoD as deep immersion story telling.
Basically, D&D is the game where you have well-defined races, classes and levels.
Races, of course, have the least impact on the character's mechanics (though they do colour the character's behaviour and outlooks - often to the point of becoming a two-dimensional stereotype and excuse for bad roleplaying).
Classes define your role - mainly in combat, but also in other situations. Although 3rd edition D&D is very liberal with this, with general classes whose role isn't necessarily forced on you by the class choice and nothing else (something I fear 4e will not be able to do), your class choice still is a very character defining choice.
Levels provide definite, clear power boundries. You just have to look at someone's level and have a good idea what he's capable of. Power increases in measured steps, and does so in very large amounts. By the way you're 5 levels above someone, you can mop the floor with him (unless there's extreme differences in power levels involved, like a rookie with a 10th-level character fighting a 5th-level munchkin), but not everyone likes how low-level characters have little chance of seriously harming, let alone, killing a high-level character.
WoD (I'm mainly talking about nWoD here, I'm not very familiar with the old ruleset), on the other hand, is very free form. There are things that are similar to races, but there's no such thing as a class as you know them in D&D, and no level-based progression.
The closest thing you have to classes are the choices you make about prioritising your attributes and skills: Character generation (and advancement) is purely point based (with Between 1 to 5 "Dots" in each Attribute, and 0-5 for skills) There's physical, mental, and social (both for attributes and skills), and during character creation you get a certain number of points to assign to each category - but not the same amount to each: You decide which category gets the most, which gets the least, and which falls in between. You do that once for attributes and then get another set of points (more) for skills (you don't have set the priorities in the same way as you did with attributes). Then there's merits and secondary stats that are based on your other stats and so on.
So if you choose to have physical attributes and skills your primary factor, chances are good that you're focused on combat (or just stealth stuff, of course), while social attributes and skills as focus will probably amount to a persuasive character.
You gain experience points per game session, not per encounter, and the amount of XP you get is based on your roleplaying performance, not on how many creatures you have killed. Those XP you use directly to pay for new abilities (which all have a certain cost). No one tells you how to spend these points or anything. So if you spend everything on mental skills, it's okay. If you put everything into physical attributes and then weaponry or firearms, and get merits to improve your combat ability, that's okay, too.
There's no patterns you have to stick to, so the character generation and advancement is very free-form. Some characters are versatile, some are focused.
You can have maximum Dexterity at first level, and all five dots in firearms (with three different specialities for three different weapons) and be extremely competent with guns from first level. Or you could never put any points in any combat skill (there's brawl for hand-to-hand, weaponry for swords and clubs and such, and firearms for guns), even after getting 100 or more XP. That "first-level" starting character will easily outgun you, the ultra-experienced veteran.
But it's possible that said master-gunner has a glass jaw with very few health dots, low defense, and generally poor resistance attributes. So he'll panic easily, drop easily, and fall prey to anything easily, and that may never change if you don't invest in it.
One thing important in WoD is that things can be quite deadly, and this remains true all the time: You don't get level-based hit points. All you have is your health dots, which equal your stamina score plus your size mod (which usually is 5, though you can adjust it upwards or downwards by one during character creation), So you could have as little as 5 dots (only one point stamina, size 4) or as much as 11 (5 stamina and size 6 for giant).
There's no level-dependant increase! Unless you increase your stamina (size cannot be changed after character generation), you won't get extra health dots, and even then, there's a limit to the numbers (only exceptionally powerful superhuman characters can have more than 5 dots in attributes, skills, or merits. We're talking about centuries-old vampires, archmagi or the like here. Nothing attainable during the scope of a normal Chronicle).
That means that after 60 sessions (assuming a level-up every 3 sessions), your D&D character is level 20, and about 20-times as tough and resilient than the 1st-level one. Sure, the enemies will have a CR of about 20 as well, capable of dealing higher amounts of damage as before, but that 1st-level rookie will have a hard time hurting you - even hitting you.
But in WoD, the differences won't be so big. There might be increased toughness, due to character advancement and maybe some better equipment, but that rookie will have a definite chance of hurting the veteran. Hurting him bad. Maybe even kill you (with a portion of luck, sure, but a lot less than that 1st-level fighter against the 20th-level one).
As I said, I like both systems for their strengths, and I have played both deep immersion and kick-in-the-door in both, and it can all be great fun.
Those who think that one system or the other is just for one style of play, or played only by one sort of clichéd misfit are not only clueless, but arrogantly so.
By the way, if you want to see a fun system that is between the two systems, something between class-less and class-based, between fluid advancement and level-based advancement, and even between dice-pool and dice bonus based, take a look at Legend of the Five Rings Third Edition.
*Well, not exactly nonsense, but something similar, albeit less courteous.
As I said, I like both systems for their strengths,
Much better way of putting it then I did.
D&D is about kicking in the door, they say. The game isn't about deep melodrama or character exploration, it's about dungeons and fighting. You don't play THIS game to have meaningful character moments. You do it to get fat loot and level up. If you want that stuff, go play World of Darkness.
Some people have agendas. Some people are jaded. Some people are just plan stupid.
Here's the big fatal flaw with the storyteller system. That guy who pulls airplanes around with his teeth? Yeah that dude who's a sphirical mass of hulking veiny muscle? He has five dots in strength. World famous, maybe even historically for strength. Joe WoW player? The guy who can't do a pushup with a gun to his head? The guy who breaks a sweat walking to the corner gasstation to buy Ho-hos? He's got one dot in strength.
That's a huge range. Huge. And when Joe puts his XP into Strength, he can raise it every couple of sessions. He can go from couch potato to manly man of legend in crazy fast amounts of time.
Where level provides maybe too linear a gauge of character potential, there is at least some sense of what a character can do, the life he's lived. At 10th level a character has lived a life of glory, and has many stories to tell. He is probably the head of an organization and if you cross him he will probably wipe you.
The Prince of Chicago is hot stuff, sure...but how many dots does he have? Well hard to say. If he gets 5 XP per session for the last 600 years you can pretty much fill in every dot on the sheet and then assume he's got XP to burn that he just can't. If you assume he's a static character who's got a bit better than average allotment of dots then he's a paper tiger and give the characters a few more weeks and they'll be right there with him. The vagueness makes it really frustrating.
Add to that tens explode and high dice yields hold no promise of better rolls and you've got yourself a situation where the average PC has a chance of taking the Prince, the Primogen, the whole enchilada. Heck the guy at the corner newstand could do the same with good rolls.
If the D&D powerscale is too linear, then the WoD one is nonexistant.
There's loads of other troubles with the White Wolf system, but that one there is the most awful.
Here's the big fatal flaw with the storyteller system.
We can go round and round about the strengths and weaknesses of every system known to man. End of the day, if you don't like the system, don't play it. If you can't see that d20 has some very serious flaws in it (some of which 4E is addressing, some aren't), then that comes across as prejudice to me. It emulates some things well. It emulates some things poorly. As does Storyteller/Storytelling systems, hero system, d6, tri-stat dx, amber diceless, and so on. Question is: which areas do you want emulated better in your game?
Having played both, I do not see the issues you guys are speaking about in WoD's system. Not to say it's perfect, but I just don't see it. I've had characters go after Princes and Primogen and get their ass handed to them (as it should have been). WoD does not define power as "Now you can cast the fireball!!!" In fact, power can often be defined in many different ways, making a clear progress of power very hazy. But WoD's system is set so that a bad Storyteller can literally RUIN you on their games. Especially Mage. But that's another story...
Since that came out my group actually changed our style of play to a more... "character driven" style (no pun intended). We got more into the heavy roleplaying, using accents, different vocal patterns, mannerisms the whole 9 yards.
Which is what WoD is designed for. So of course it can be done. You may have to tweak the XP a bit to reward those who go above an beyond, and allow for non-combat driven XP more. But that is not a big deal.
The other bonus DnD has is that it's been around for a very long time. It has had the chance to evolve and adapt far more than WoD. And many people grow up playing it. What's nice about it is how when you first start you can hunt orcs until your eyes bleed and when you mature you can incorporate more plot heavy drama. And still later you can mix kick in the door action with intricate plots.
Oh... My group played Amber once or twice. It was actually hard to run because most of the conflict was between players. Forcing the DM(or whatever) to constantly be pulling people aside for periods of time.
Well, the fact of the matter is, D&D isn't built for that kind of social interaction. Does that mean you can't have deep, complex social stories in D&D? God, no. But, while D&D's campaign settings are rich in hooks for this sort of gameplay, that rich experience is coming from on-the-fly DM adjucation, not the D&D ruleset. The D&D rules for social interaction are, quite simply, abysmal in comparison to any really good set of social rules (like Exalted). You've got Bluff, Sense Motive, Diplomacy, and Intimidate, and anybody who uses Diplomacy by the book is a chump. (By the RAW, it's astoundingly simple to make a character who can, as a full-round action, make any NPC their best friend, no save, and as another full round action, make that best friend fantatically devoted to the PC, willing to give their life in a heartbeat. No exaggeration.)
Can you have magnificent drama in a D&D game? Absolutely. Just don't make the mistake of thinking that the rich roleplaying has anything to do with the fact that you're playing D&D.
That's a huge range. Huge. And when Joe puts his XP into Strength, he can raise it every couple of sessions. He can go from couch potato to manly man of legend in crazy fast amounts of time.
So? You can do the same in D&D. First-level character? Afraid of more than one goblin. 5th-level character? Obliterates goblin tribes in his spare time, as a way to relax. And the progression from 1 to 5 is a lot faster from 1 Strength dot to 5 (if you really start with one dot and advance it to 5), which costs 70 XP (which takes 18 sessions, assuming you get the full 4 XP each time.)
there is at least some sense of what a character can do
I don't say it's a cakewalk, and a rookie ST shouldn't gauge what players with wildly different XP can do, but he doesn't have to: He grows alongside the characters - and the players. A ST or DM who doesn't know the group by the time they reach level 10 (or something comparable in another game) isn't very good at what he's doing, and will have problems in any system.
The Prince of Chicago is hot stuff, sure...but how many dots does he have? Well hard to say.
And that's not necessarily a bad thing. I never liked the character name tag, complete with class and level on it.
The vagueness makes it really frustrating.
That's very subjective. Others call it freedom and consider it a major strength.
It all boils down to this: It's all a matter of perspective and preference.
Add to that tens explode and high dice yields hold no promise of better rolls and you've got yourself a situation where the average PC has a chance of taking the Prince, the Primogen, the whole enchilada. Heck the guy at the corner newstand could do the same with good rolls.
Personally, I like that about WoD: Even an average guy with a gun can take on a very powerful character in a fight, albeit there's still a lot of luck involved.
If the D&D powerscale is too linear, then the WoD one is nonexistant.
I can't sign on to that. Not as steep as D&D, sure (and that's a good thing. Different games for different people and all), but nothing near as nonexistant.
Sure, you can create a character that starts with near-max dots in dexterity and firearms and be almost as good a shooter as a very experienced character - and better than many experienced characters who never devoted points into it.
But it comes down to this: The rookie might be as good as the veteran - at shooting. And maybe at one or two other things. But the Vet will have many other skills and abilities. He'll be better at hacking computer systems, know more languages, be a decent speaker, be able to drive cars really good, and so on.
And of course there's always the chance of weird luck so a rookie can take on a champion, but to a certain extent, that's there in D&D, too.
RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32
|
As someone who is very much from the WoD school of storytelling and character development, I find that a blending of the styles is ideal. No game can be everything to everyone, but if all the players want to do is kick in the doors and kill stuff, why are you bothering with a tabletop RPG? There are board games and video games for that kind of thing.
Tabletop gaming is, at it's core, a social event. You're getting together and hanging out with your friends while donning the mask of someone who isn't real. The real objective is to have fun. Rolling dice and adding numbers up by itself is no fun for anyone (except for a few rare souls who get some of ecstatic glee from performing basic math over and over again). When you add description and dramatics to those rolls, however, then it becomes engaging. That's where the story is, the descriptions. Even if you find yourself surrounded by poor roleplayers, a vivid description can draw everyone into the game a little more. Sure, Joe might not be behaving like a cunning rogue should, but when his rogue lands a sneak attack that "punctures the target's viscera, sending a cascade of crimson blood tumbling down to the weathered cobblestones," you can bet that he's probably a lot more involved than he was a moment ago.
Cinematic combat is my biggest draw to D&D. I want to smell the sweat, hear the ringing of steel, and feel my pulse race as the battle nears its climactic end. Vivid description is where it's at, and you don't need any particular system to make that work. Just a good imagination.
I pretty much agree with Fatespinner, cinematic combat is the strength of D&D, as is long history, amount of details and game worlds (I was very quickly put off by 2nd edition AD&D as a game, but loved the fluff).
WoD mechanics do have issues, especially with long campaigns where people have raked up solid amount of exp sooner or later it goes to "your character can do WHAT?" and it's not fun anymore.
Of D&D system...social interaction rules don't work out that well and ~90% of magic are geared towards combat and the utility magic is such that it would throw all concepts of normal society right out of window...those can be helped with good amount of house rules.
Bigger problem for dramatics is the generic requirement for balance. In my experience some of the more interesting drama comes from imbalance, but level-based systems usually don't handle that well.
Let's take an example of one fun WoD session, translated to D&D: My fledgling mage (~3rd level sorcerer), grouped with some others (characters ranging from ~3rd level aristocrat to ~10th level vampire), come across an aggressive being of roughly CR 16.
In WoD That was a workable encounter where admittedly we had no chance of defeating the threat there and then. In D&D my character would be instantly geography, and TPK wouldn't be far-fetched (and that 10th level vampire would have no reason to hang out with my character in the first place).
That is a generic problem for all level-based systems, which levelless systems like WoD and GURPS handle so much better...which means that when I want to go for epic'n'cinematic combat-centered play I choose D&D, but if I want to go for character-driven drama I pick another system (and possibly steal loads of fluff from D&D).
WoD mechanics do have issues, especially with long campaigns where people have raked up solid amount of exp sooner or later it goes to "your character can do WHAT?" and it's not fun anymore.
Huh? I can see it with D&D, but not really with WoD. With some parts of WoD, maybe. Mage, of course, is a prime example: Get gnostic enough and the lower reality of the material world becomes just an inconvenience for you.
(edit: double post)