Orpheus

Overall score:

What would happen if the kid from The Sixth Sense grew up and formed his own ghostbusting business? That's what White Wolf has done with Orpheus, its latest (and probably last) game set in the World of Darkness. Orpheus picks up roughly where the terminated line of Wraith: the Oblivion left off, but don't worry: not only do you not have to know a thing about Wraith in order to enjoy Orpheus, you don't even have to know anything about the World of Darkness. White Wolf specifically made Orpheus to be a very limited game; limited in that there will be only six books total (instead of the core rules plus ten kajillion splatbooks it normally does) and that there is no real crossover between it and other World of Darkness games. This game is certainly not limited in the amount of fun you can get from it, even with just the core rulebook (which is all I will be reviewing here).

White Wolf devoted the first section of the book entirely to milieu and storyline, in the form of a short story and then fifty pages of introduction liberally peppered with in-context documents (news clippings, company memos, emails, chat rooms, etc. My favorite has got to be the supermarket tabloid, though). The information comes across as a little disjointed (which I think is intentional), filling you in on bits and pieces at a time and sometimes leaving you to wonder what’s real and what’s not. This is the perfect way to introduce a game about ghost stories, especially when the entire series has a movie-like metaplot that will only be revealed as the supplements come out.

The game focuses on employees of the Orpheus Group, a for-profit company that’s found out how to get a profit from the dead. Namely, they hire people with multiple near-death experiences who through chemicals and/or meditation can “project” their spirits and interact with ghosts of the departed, helping them move on, stopping them from haunting people, or just plain destroying them if necessary. Under the table, they also use their employees' unique abilities to do more covert stuff, like spying, espionage, and assassination. The general public considers Orpheus to be right up there with Ouija boards and the Psychic Network, but people are slowing coming to realize that what they do is real (most notably their competition, the high-tech Terrel & Squib and the militaristic Nextworld).

After covering the background, the book gets down to character creation. Here White Wolf did its normal great job of putting twists on classic legend and myth, while simultaneously providing a down-to-earth realism to keep everything grounded (one of the chief complaints about Wraith was that it lost touch with the real world).

Each character falls into one of four “laments,” or races, based on how they interact with the world of the dead. Skimmers project their spirits through yoga meditation and/or special drugs, while Sleepers actually “die” for 6-8 weeks at a time and keep their body in cryogenic suspension for when they get back. Spirits are generic ghosts (Orpheus is an equal-opportunity employer; you don’t even have to be alive to be hired), while Hues are the washed-out spirits of those who took the drug pigment (a hallucinogenic that lets the user see ghosts) while alive. The common tie between them all is multiple near-death experiences, which blur the line between life and death so you can see dead people (a la The Sixth Sense), but you can only interact with them while projected (and if you’re already dead, that’s not a problem).

Each character also gets a “shade” (class) based on their personality. The core book contains five shades with two “horrors” (powers, see below) apiece, but promises that by the end of the series there will be eight with four horrors apiece. The five basic shades you can play are Banshees (compassionate people who use their voices as weapons), Haunters (adaptable drifters, able to possess inanimate objects), Skinwalkers (control freaks who can posses people), Poltergeists (angry ghosts able to manipulate things psychokinetically), and Will-o-the-Wisps (or “wisps,” social spirits able to mesmerize anyone looking at them).

The horrors of each shade are truly awesome in their potential. Each shade gets the default horror for their shade and can learn others, either its own or those of other shades. You either have a horror or you don’t, and when you’ve got one the level of power is determined by how much life force (“vitality”) you channel into it. So someone with a Banshee’s Wail can calm people down for 0 vitality, terrorize them for 2, hurt them for 3, and at 5 (the max) shatter solid steel (and you wondered why they’re called “horrors”). Although this could be easily abused by some players, it’s countered by two things. First, in order to use the high effects you basically have to drain your hit points, and second, high-level usages tend to attract spectres (nasty ghosts so consumed by hatred and rage they seek to destroy anything that isn’t a spectre), meaning that if someone starts abusing it they’re very likely to be eaten in short order.

The rest of character creation will be familiar to anyone who’s played with White Wolf’s storyteller system: each attribute gets a certain number of “dots,” representing the number of ten-sided dice you get to roll to try to get successes (usually 6 or higher). The way they have you distribute your dots among primary abilities (physical, social, and mental) makes it difficult to min/max, which is a definite plus.

The rest of the chapters deal with nitty-gritty mechanics and stuff for the storyteller (game master), and so I won’t bother you with them here. Suffice it to say that White Wolf scored an A plus on this one. The metaplot is intriguing (Who is behind pigment? Why are there no ghosts more than three years old? Why does the ghost Bishop hunt down and kill Orpheus agents?), but even without that it’s an incredibly fun game and one I would recommend for anyone out there. My biggest miff is that, to get it all, I’ll have to buy the six supplements. It’s not as bad as, say, Werewolf or Vampire, but it’s still fairly expensive. There are a few typos, too, but they’re pretty minor.

I think Orpheus’ single greatest asset is its versatility: you can tailor the game to whatever your group wants to do. Since the Orpheus Group’s highest priority is the bottom line, as long as the check doesn’t bounce they’ll do it (the back of the book has several sample missions to give you ideas, ranging from “help this ghost move on” to “silence this nosy reporter. Permanently.” My favorite is probably the one where you’re protecting a heartthrob movie star from all the teenage ghosts trying to make him fall in love with them). Plus, since it has no crossover with other World of Darkness games, you can port the game just about anywhere (or anywhen) you want. And with a little creativity, it’s possible to create a character from just their personality and life history, so you’re actually playing a role instead of a bunch of stats thinly tied together.

Overall, this game is a must-have. I fell in love with it after only one session, and everything I’ve learned since then has only made me like it more. A top-quality waste of time, I guarantee you. So go out and buy it already. But whatever you do, don’t look back…

Written by Dravner Belanos on December 01st, 2003