Tom Waits and the World of Darkness

In an earlier posting, I talked about how King Crimson's music (especially the album "Beat") fit my view of Over the Edge. Another musical association I make is between Tom Waits (especially "Rain Dogs") and the World of Darkness. Why?

• Waits describes life in the underbelly of a big city; his cast of characters included criminals, bartenders, and struggling workers. The screwed up nature of these characters' lives reminds me of the WoD.
• The people in Waits' songs are often desperate and crazed, covering these up with bravado and violence. And alcohol. If there's an official songwriter of drinking, it's Tom Waits.
• The world Waits describes is seedy and decaying.

If I ever run a WoD game again, I definitely will draw on Waits' music for inspiration. And possibly background music.

A World of Darkness Campaign Frame

I've been thinking for a while about a campaign framework for a World of Darkness game for a group of players who know virtually nothing about the setting. That lack of knowledge makes running a Vampire or Werewolf game very hard, but straight-up Hunter doesn't exactly fit what I want either. I've come up with several different ones, but recently I came up with one that I think has legs.

The setting of the campaign is Chicago, mostly in the neighborhood of Rogers Park (where I lived for 7 years). Since I love the city, and think it's a great WoD setting, this makes sense. The PCs are newly assigned members of a gang crime task force that includes the Chicago police, the prosecutor's office, and several federal agencies. In particular, the players are assigned to the section of the task force dealing with Russian gangs in the Rogers Park area.

However, all is not as it seems--the PCs are acting as undercover agents because the Feds suspect corruption. Someone on the task force--maybe several people--has been bought by the gangs, and is sabotaging the task force. So the PCs' real job is to find out who the corrupt people are, and take them down.

How is this a World of Darkness game? Lurking in the background are supernatural forces. The PCs don't know about this, and neither do the players, which makes it good for WoD newcomers. It also presents all kinds of opportunities for intrigue and deception, which is what a good WoD game should have (at least I think so).

Games I Want to Run or Play In

I think it's probably typical for roleplayers, but there are many, many games that I'd love to play in and/or run. Here's a short list:

• A long-term Traveller game: I've only become interested in class SF fairly recently, and it'd be a lot of fun to do a sandbox type Traveller game. I actually managed to start a game like this, and I think it was going well, but then I had to stop gaming on account of the impending arrival of twins.
• A low-magic fantasy game. I'm not sure D&D would be the right system for this, but I'd love to run a game that is very close to medieval Europe, but with magic and horror lurking in the shadows. I've sketched out many setting elements and ideas for this type of game over the years, but never managed to actually run one.
• A World of Darkness game: I love the World of Darkness games (at least the old WoD games; never played the new ones), and I haven't played one of them in years. I'd love to remedy that. A while back I ran an mash-up of Mage, Unknown Armies, and a bit of Kult for some friends, it was a hell of a lot of fun. But that was years ago. I miss being steeped in that setting.
• Something set in ancient Rome. That's why I find Cthulhu Invictus so interesting, although Rome could be a great setting for lots of types of campaigns.

I could easily expand that list.