One of the things which I love most about WhiteWolf’s WoD games (the original pentacle, Mark Rein-Hagens vision, before it went silly) is the character creation process.
I used to hate it, for two specific reasons, which are exactly the same reasons I now like it best. Strange how that works.
The most famous of course is VtM which changed the industry forever. The same two items is in all the games.
1) it takes yonks and a lot of headwork. The weights-and-measures system is tricky because it’s well balanced, which shows up during storytelling.
2) You learn to streamline. You can’t fit everything from your original concept into the limited points pool available. You have to make critical choices. This actually makes the game better. The characters are simplified into distilled versions of themselves. It’s easier for everyone to navigate. Over-Powered characters are toned down by a process of compromise.
This transfers to story scenes where the same faculty of making high-consequence critical choices is played out as emotionally and mentally engaging experiences. Real feels are triggered. Attachment is as high as the stakes.
These vital life skills, trained at the tabletop, when applied in reality are pure bliss of knowing you are doing the right thing. The framework is understood by the community.
The only other thing to mention here is the lead-line of the franchise is they are games of personal horror. They’re not games of generic horror. They’re not spider to put the world first and your characters interests and processing of events second. It’s the other way around. Too many Storytellers forget that.
The structure is one of confronting the Jungian Shadow through the protective shield of acting out real life, albeit exaggerated, dynamics - from the safe distance of playing a depersonalised version of it in a stylised realm of fiction.
For psychologists this is heavenly. I don’t know for certain how much the game designers intended for that consequence.
I do not play WoD games with ‘clients’ FTR as it would be inappropriate. The same skill set is invoked (TA etc, for assessment and diagnostic) when Pathworking through RPG as for NLP, CBT, yada.
The difference is in WoD the shadow is free, unchained, unbound, hence the dopamine high of liberation hits deeper. Downtime construing aftercare is necessary after a session, for assimilation. The post-game crash needs managing. Sweet carbs and reorientation is part of the session.
After that, regular D&D don’t cut so deep.
A thing changed after 2000. Online sessions avoids the aftercare and keeps the group as relative strangers compared with sharing the same sweaty breath and eye contact without distractions. The intimacy has been lost, the group bond while retaining dopamine hooks, is indifferent. No close proximity means no close proximity.
Perhaps that’s another safety valve.
For me, it means less actual playing/storytelling with groups, or the intimate 1-1 sessions of underground legend, and more actual character design by myself.
Then AI came along to do a lot of that work better than most people can. People probably don’t openly talk about it.