Geist The Sin-Eaters [ハードカバー]

Geist should be great but unfortunately it's only good. Reading it is frustrating because you can see how brilliant it could have been. It's a great concept but there's just so much about it that seems half baked. The game doesn't supply you with enough strong examples, with some sections being maddeningly vague. The x-axis splats, Thresholds, don't hold up as different enough from each other. With all the other game lines there are big philosophical, physical differences you can get your teeth into to create characters, but here the only big difference is the manner of death, and it's pathetically obvious that the writers simply didn't know what to do. The Torn (victims of violence) are the strongest in their write-up, but then you have the victims of nature who apparently all try to see the "patterns" of death, the victims of disease who stand up to the universe and the Silent, victims of being sad who really want to see the underworld apparently. ("Ok, seen it. Now what?") It's all a bit weak. The worst are the Forgotten, victims of random chance. The developers gave up on them altogether and their entire write-up is a collection of increasingly stupid examples; no discussion at all.

The y-axis splats are interesting but poorly written, again with not enough strong examples. White Wolf have great difficulty in convincing us of the difference between Advocates and Gatekeepers, for example. Both seem to do the same job. The Mourners seem entirely pointless.

The writer of the section on founding krewes does not seem to have received the memo on the fact that the magic section had changed radically and writes happily away about the dot cost of Keys, clearly from the point in development when they had a dot cost. Several someones seem also to not have read the World of Darkness core book section on ghosts because the game appears to constantly think that a manifested ghost is physical and can be hurt by weapons. Ghosts are always intangible, and very often invisible, even when manifested. Seems like an oversight.

On the plus side the Underworld chapter brims with creative and atmospheric writing. It's by far the best bit and genuinely original and clever.

This is a lot of criticism but actually I do like this game, it's just that it should have been so much BETTER. It's not all beyond redemption and will be fun to play. White Wolf just didn't seem to care about this game as much as others.

Death. Goth stylings or not, everyone is afraid of it to a point. This book explores those that have gone right to the edge of the Abyss and stared long into Its blackness. Some have even fallen over the side. But they all stared too long, because not only did something look back, but it wanted to make a deal. Geist is an amalgamation of Wraith: the Oblivion, Mummy: the Resurrection, and even some parts of Demon: the Fallen. But be aware, this game isn't about Death. It's about what happens when you come back.

For those that aren't familiar with the above games, this supplement is a self contained game system within the new World of Darkness from White Wolf. You play a Sin-Eater, someone who either died or had a near-death experience and made a bargain with a very powerful ghost. The ghost gets to merge with the person, and the person gets to come back to life. What makes this a proper horror/fantasy (or whatever genre they want to call it now) isn't the bleakness of Death, that's just the background. The heart of the game is simply Hope.

My only complaint about the book was that the editing blades cut too deeply. There are a few places where important information was cut for space because this is a single book game. At least in one case (Krewe Binding), the author of the section has promised Errata to fill the information gaps. Otherwise, this is my favorite White Wolf game set in the new World of Darkness.

Geist is not a Wraith re-make, so don't go in looking for similarities if you were a fan of that game.

I've never played Wraith and have yet to play Geist (although I've read this book). That said, this game has a good amount of potential and I look forward to starting it in this fall's gaming season with my troupe. The game's central theme is death, and players portray mortals who have died and been given a second chance at life (not unlife) by ghost-like creatures called Geists. These Geists form a symbiosis with the revitalized mortal, creating a Sin-Eater - a person who serves as liaison to the dead.

Ethan Skemp is a good writer in my opinion, and the story elements of this book/game are cool. I do, however, understand the confusion a lot of Geist players and critics seem to have about how the game's systems and concepts should be interpreted. There are a wide variety of powers to deal with, such as Manifestations (with various Keys) and rituals, which creates a greater amount of game-specific jargon than usual (at least in my opinion). The Krewe (troupe) systems struck me as over-wrought, and my Storyteller and I quickly decided to abandon them altogether; this game seems best suited to small, personal stories about individual characters and deaths, rather than influential political or ideological units.

The powers are pretty cool if you can get past the volume of note-taking that seems necessary, and the Underworld is pretty cool (particularly as outlined in the "Book of the Dead" WoD supplement). Given the pervasiveness of death, this game has a lot of crossover potential for other WoD games, and our Vampire games have seen no shortage of cool Sin-Eater cameos. I will note that the creators were pretty liberal in terms to giving Sin-Eaters powers well beyond the scope of death, and I see the potential for power-hungry players to abuse the toughness of Sin-Eaters if not carefully reigned in by the Storyteller. Thankfully, the Storyteller-controlled Geist gives you the means to do this if you're savvy.

Overall, I gave it 3 stars because this game strikes me as love-it-or-leave-it. Personally, I'm lukewarm on the material itself, but my friend/Storyteller is so enthusiastic about it that I'm interested in playing on faith. As I said, there's definitely potential here if you're interested in death and second chances as themes (and have a lot of faith in the Storyteller). If that's the case, you may yet enjoy this game. (It should be noted that to date, Book of the Dead is the closest thing to a Geist supplement available. To my knowledge, no more Geist sourcebooks are forthcoming. This leaves it up to you to flesh out and expand the universe if this book's not enough, for better or worse).