I am probably very prejudiced, but I expected it to be more like a pirate setting. Combat focused and a lot of geographical exploration. WoD games are generally very political and have a lot of NPC's in it, who all have their own agenda's. A lot of debts and favors too. Who is who and what do they want? Which faction do they belong to and what does that faction want? Vampire is like that and so is Mage and Changeling.I never played a World of Darkness game, so I suppose we're even.
Given my unfamiliarity, what is it about the WoD approach which seems like an odd fit for cape-and-sword games?
Welcome to the pub!One of my most successful D&D campaigns was set in the Dresdenverse (the worlds laid out in Jim Butchers Harry Dresden books). It made for a good mixture of investigation, horror and fantasy kicking of bottoms. I found a detective type structure of roleplaying with contacts to find the big bad, and then confronting it worked well.
Modern horror/fantasy is one of my favourite genres - I like the Dresdenverse because it has a fairly kitchen sink approach, and an official 'masquerade'.
Yep, that coin has just dropped with me. I am thinking about using this not only for politics, but also for the myths and legends there are. And then building those in different layers. A conspiracy could have four different levels to discover for example.Entire post.