It’s not often that I go to the RPG.Net forums for inspiration, but I had this idea for tweaking the Virtue and Vice system in World of Darkness, and, fortunately, had the forethought to Google it first. The almighty Goog linked me to this thread, featuring a post by Evil Hat’s own Rob Donoghue. And here I was, thinking I was being original. Well, no matter. I’m going to cop out and post this anyway.

What are Aspects?

First of all, when I talk about Aspects, I’m referring to the primary feature of awesomeness from Evil Hat’s FATE system, which powers their Spirit of the Century and Dresden Files RPGs. In short, Aspects are basically short phrases that describe something important about your character. In FATE, they’re generally used one of two ways; either you can invoke an Aspect to get a bonus on your die roll, or the GM can pay you, the player, a Fate Point (which are the FATE system’s form of player-input currency) in exchange for compelling you to act in a particular way based on one of your Aspects.

For example, let’s say you have an Aspect that says, “Sucker for a pretty face.” When you’re trying to convince an attractive young lady to give up some information on some Ancient Artifact you’re trying to keep out of Nazi hands, you shell out a Fate Point and tell the GM that you’re invoking your Aspect. You get a bonus on whatever die roll you use for sweet-talking info out of pretty young women. Later on, the same lass turns out to be secretly working for the Nazis, and slips the Ancient Artifact out of your pocket. The GM then gives you a Fate Point and compels you to let her go, citing the same Aspect.

Clear? Good. Indiana Jones reference too heavy handed? Eh. Sue me.

Aspects in the World of Darkness

Okay, so now that you are aware of what Aspects are and the basics of how they work, let’s look at a couple of ways that you could use them in a World of Darkness game. There are no guarantees that any of these suggestions will not break the game. However, they are also likely to lead to awesomeness that wasn’t there previously.

The WoD Problem

Okay, it’s not really a problem, in the strictest sense. I’ve just never cared for the Virtue/Vice setup.

First of all, in all of the ideas below, we’re going to use Willpower points as the player-input currency, and then tie WP spending and recovery to the Aspects.

Method #1: Virtue and Vice as Aspects

The simplest way of applying these mechanics is to straight-up use Virtue and Vice as Aspects. When you want to be able to spend a point of Willpower, you justify that through either your Virtue or Vice. You want three extra dice on that attack roll? “My Wrath overcomes me as I strike.” You want some WP back? The GM’s gonna make you go for that idea that’s full of Hope, but probably not very likely to happen.

The downside is that Virtue and Vice as written aren’t really meaningful. I think in practice, most people tend to take the seed of the Virtue or Vice and turn that into something a bit more specific, usually with one tied to the other. An ex-cop might have Justice as his Virtue and Wrath as a Vice, with the explanation that he’s got a tendency to let the ends justify the means while seeking justice. Fortunately, there are ways of tweaking this…

Method #2: The Two Aspect Character

In this method, we ignore the idea of Virtue and Vice per se, and instead give your character two aspects, one based on a Virtue, and the other on a Vice. This has the benefit of being, basically, what people do anyway, with the added bonus of actually having a concrete way of gaining back Willpower. Instead of having Justice and Wrath, you’d have a statement that’s a little more solid, like, “I am the law,” or, “I will make the wrongdoers pay!”

For a little exta fun, you could also make your character’s Concept or splat combination into Aspects as well.

Method #3: The Donoghue Method

In the post I linked to previously, Rob Donoghue made a brilliant suggestion of making each dot you have in Willpower an Aspect. Thus, a Willpower 4 character will have 4 aspects, chosen by the player. You’d create Aspects that apply to your character at character creation, and then, as you spend XP on raising your Willpower, you’d have to come up with Aspects that represent why you gained that dot. The nice part of this method is that you wind up with a character that has a ton of Aspects, and, once that happens, it’s really easy for the GM to get your character invested in the game. Also, in my experience, most WoD GM’s like to make players justify their XP expenditures. This makes you think long and hard about whether or not you have justification for spending those points on Willpower.

Next time, I’m going to address one of my pet-peeves in WoD – well, in a lot of RPG’s, really – the Extended Roll.