The Vapor system development blog

Over the years, I have played numerous  table role-playing games such as: All flesh must be eaten, Shadow run, Mechwarrior, Savage worlds, Legends of the five rings, Champions, Mutants and masterminds, Fate, Alien and many others. Within this TTRPG ecosystem Dungeons and Dragons and Chronicles of Darkness stand apart for me.

Dungeon and Dragons served as my very first introduction to the hobby around the year 2000 with its 1st edition red and blue books (the GM was my dad).  It served as an escape into a fantasy world filled with monsters and puzzles both tactical and narrative. Over time I eventually played all editions of dungeons and dragons up until the 2024 rework of fifth edition.

Chronicles of darkness was my first structured table top system that I played majorly online; utilizing chat based websites. My first game was Changeling the lost 1e and I quickly grew connected to the emotional realm that splat explored alongside the point-buy nature of chronicles.

DnD and CoD are both multi-generational ttrpg systems that have inspired creators with their fantastical settings. DnD; especially with its 5th edition, has seen countless hacks, ports and genre shifts that take advantage of its streamlined class & level system.  

Conversly, Chronicles of Darkness features a xp/point buy design that allows for freedom of progression both horizontally and vertically.  It also utilizes one off talents that can be purchased to extend capabilities. Despite this increased freedom in character building, third party creations for  Chronicles of Darkness are usually limited to homebrew splats that fit within the setting of the chronicles of darkness or other various merits or add-ons that require its use to remain in the chronicles of darkness setting in one way or another.

For a long time I have looked at CoD and perceived that it would be an excellent system for  DnD style adventures.  Additionally its fighting style maneuvers seem like an excellent combat system for any setting that has high octane flashy combat such as RWBY or Star Wars.  The problem with running games outside of the chronicles of darkness setting however is that you are constantly fighting the implicit horror bias baked into the system. 

This bias presents itself in several ways which I won’t detail in length here. Instead these will be discussed as we go along. Additionally it is my belief that the system can be streamlined further by utilizing a few ideas from DnD and Savage worlds. We will also be taking a look at some of the assumptions that CoD makes.

Our first stop: the Core resolution mechanics and its dice; the D8.