Changeling the Lost - a Storytelling RPG from White Wolf, set in the New World of Darkness. I don’t recall precisely when I first heard of Changeling the Lost. I only remember that it was well before 2009. I also recall that it was quite an unusual incident, because I had not been involved in RPG or RPG-related tasks for a very, very long time (more than 15 years). Additionally, I was not aware of any gaming going on anywhere near me, no groups, no cons, nothing. I also don’t quite remember how I found out about it, only that my first contact was through the internet. And somehow, I recall that there was music involved as well.
Anyway, what I did hear back then was somehow both offputting and fascinating at the same time: An RPG about a group of characters who had been abducted by monsters straight from a fairy tale (yes, those evil fairy godmothers exist, and you don’t want to meet them!). After their abduction to Arcadia
This premise led me to investigate the game, and I read up on the discussions on the web how this could be play, whether it was too dark, was too close to the abuse-storyline to be played at all. I came across a demo pdf, which I downloaded and read, and did not really find inspiring. I then abandoned the topic, as I did not quite grasp the concept (I had never played World of Darkness, old or new) and, of course, had noone to play with anyway.
About 2 years later, sometime in 2010, I came across Changeling the Lost again, this time again by chance, because I had seen some articles on the web and heard it mention in podcasts. This time, it was players who had given it a spin and talked about scenarios, chronicles, story arcs, and it started to make sense. I was still without a gaming group, but now I started to look for more material, and I found loads: message boards, character sheets, entire chronicles, several youtube films, which ranged from trailers to a very evocative monologue by a GM soliloquising about a chronicle he was going to run and thoughts and ideas he had been collecting. My interest was now seriously piqued. Even without the prospect of ever playing it, I just enjoyed thinking about the concepts and listening to/reading up on actual plays: People were having serious fun with this! And the depth of the world they were creating was fascinating.
Fastforward to 2011, I became part of a gaming group, and half-way through the year, we moved to RPG. I also got more involved in actual play podcasting and came across a great CtL-podcast on flamingsofa.com. That’s when I decided I needed to give this a try. I started buying the books and now, after several months of reading and research, am ready to go.
But before I start running (and documenting) a chronicle, just some thoughts on the material and the game itself. There are 10 books altogether, in addition to NWoD core rule book. The books are really well made, great artwork, good to excellent writing (the fluff is very evocative), and the covers are something to behold (take the back of each book and scrutinize it carefully: the front illustration is repeated, but overlaid with the Thorns from the Hedge: you see the world through the Wyrd, really great idea, it took me 2 weeks to see it, and then I had to check every single book to make sure it was there throughout).
The material is so intense that it is very overwhelming, so, I have decided to start slowly, I will ease the players into the world and introduce them to the concepts in-game rather than trying to outline them upfront. The idea of the Changelings being reborn to the mortal world and having to learn how to live there again makes it a perfect starting premise: You don’t know much, decades might have passed, you need to come to terms with the new reality. This perfectly fits the theme of displacement, anxiety and looking for stability and patterns.
