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The World of Darkness book "Innocents" is all about children. It's got the usual bits of fiction in the beginning and at chapter headings, and the format is typical too. Which made it rather odd to realize that "Innocents" isn't so much a supplement for playing children in the World of Darkness as it is its own little game, which happens to share most of its mechanics with the regular WoD.

Speaking of which, you thought adult mortals were fragile? They've got nothing on kids. The character creation process is broadly the same-start with one dot in each attribute and add 5/4/3 dots to primary, secondary and tertiary categories-but kids are using a scale that isn't the same as the adult one, so a child character with Strength 3 can't lift as much as an adult with the "same" score. Kids get fewer skill points, too, with older children getting more, and are again using a scale that grants less ability to a child than to an adult with the same numerical score. (Kids also get some skills adults don't have much use for-Bullying, for example.)

The tweaks to Morality are interesting too; children get a scale that places much more emphasis on whether an action was intentional or not than does the adult version. Almost every sin on the chart is worse if it's intentional than it would be if it were an accident. And instead of the Derangements that adults get when their Morality gets worse, kids get Triggers: they'll flash back to their bad experience in circumstances that resemble it. Children can also develop Triggers from traumatic experiences, of course, just as adults can get Derangements. Interestingly, children get Assets and Faults rather than Virtues and Vices; the child versions tend to be rather more specific "Bully" rather than "Wrath", and "Generous" rather than "Charity", for example. There are also more than seven of each. And Merits have some kid-friendly options too, like Pet and Guardian Angel.

In the last chapter, the book goes into how "Innocents" can interact with other parts of the World of Darkness line, including aging child characters into regular adults. It also looks at the various supernatural denizens and how they can fit into a child-centered campaign-what about a prepubescent vampire, or a child who's been carried off to Arcadia? For that matter, how does a child deal with Lunacy, or the Disquiet caused by Prometheans? And there's a whole lot of stuff on how children are NOT just miniature adults, which is something a lot of gamers are likely to have some issues with remembering.

Overall, "Innocents" is an interesting premise, but it's got some issues...like the fact that in purchasing the book you're essentially buying the WoD rulebook again, with some slight tweaks. On the one hand, this means you've got a whole game just waiting to be played; on the other, well, if you've already got the main book, you don't actually need about 75% of what's in "Innocents". Sure, it's handy to have everything right there, to minimize flipping back and forth, but those on tight budgets might want to skip the kid book and just do their own tweaking.

Learn more about this author, Carrie Schutrick.
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