The World of Darkness

I had an interesting thought about why I like Hunter better then D&D. In every game like this there arises the question of "Can I do blank." Normally this is a straight DM discretion issue, where it's a matter of do the rules and the spirit of the rules allow you to do it. In the various world of darkness games that question is more or less thrown out the window. You can do all kinds of stuff, because most of it is bound to happen eventually anyway, but if you're going to do that you have to remember that the world around you will inevitably react. If what you're doing is something that people will have a problem with you're going to have to deal with that, whether the thing you're doing is making deals with vampires, or shooting setting a mall on fire. The world is there, and it offers both the potential to do anything and the reason you shouldn't.

There's a great example of this in my current group. Jason is playing a Mage, everyone else is a Hunter. The group has an understanding that Jasons character isn't a bad person, etc. etc. and since they share similar values they're working with him. That's all well and good, but to most hunters anything supernatural is The Enemy. If/When they find out that twist is a witch and that these people aren't a proper hunter cell, but a cancer cell, there's a good chacne that former allies may become enemies, that people they didn't even know about will come stalking them down. It may also be simpler and much more horrible then that. When other hunters find out that one of your friends is a witch you'll have a very simple choice. Do you kill a long term friend, or do you let him burn the witch?

All of the bullshit metagaming about what you can and cant, or should and shouldn't do is resolved in the way it always should have been. In Character.