Customer Reviews

Changeling: The Dreaming

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

so youve played a vampire where you suck the life out of humans

youve played a werewolf where you go crazy and kill humans

youve played a mage where most humans who know about you want to kill you.

enter, changeling the dreaming, a world of darkness game that allows for a bit more. most people at first look pass off changeling as a bunch of shiny happy people, they couldnt be furthur from the truth. changeling has its dark side and its as black as night. so your this fairy soul trapped inside a human sack of meat, you spend too much time as a human? your fairy side dies. you spend too much time as fae? you go insane. its a good balance, some say that the seelie/unseelie courts have been messed up from the get go and have many other problems. i have problems with most games but luckily whitewolf has the golden rule, if you dont like it, change it, if you dont have enough imagination to adapt something you dont like what are you doing playing rpgs anyway? go back to killing monsters on your console and leave those who roleplay for the joy of the story be.

Changlings deffinatly cant take the amount of physical damage (and shake it off)as a werewolf or vampire, so if you like the play the made-for-combat, beat stick characters, you might not find too much you like here, (except for maybe Trolls or Redcaps with some of the more dangerous cantrips) But if you really just love to roleplay, you will probably really enjoy this game. Almost anything is possible when the dreaming is envolved, so expect wild adventures. The cantrips your characters can learn can be both useful and/or amusing. The characters built in frailties take the roleplaying up another notch as well with frailties such as the Pooka race has to make a willpower role to tell the absolute truth or the slaugh that can not speak above a whisper. In short I highly recomend this set for any roleplayer.

Yes, we also play changeling in France. And although the first edition has been translated a few years ago, we prefer this one.

Changeling is a great game. I love the seelie/unseelie division which is not a manichean good/bad division. I love the way faeries are somewhat alien to this world and nevertheless part of it.

I love the fight against banality : it's the fight of my life!!

Changeling is a great game that is based on fairy tales from around the world. You play one type of Fae or another (anything from a globe-trotting Eshu to a blood-thirsty Redcap). It's hard to make these characters bland and the flightly nature of the Changeling world allows for endless possibilities as long as your GM is flexible. This is not a game for GMs who like to have all their ducks in a row, nor is it a game for people who only like high powered campaigns. It is ideal however, for the low powered player who likes lots of character development. Also, the nature of Changelings makes it very easy for the campaign to stay upbeat if that is your choice. However, Changelings can have all sorts of interactions with other supernaturals, giving the campaign a chance to get dark if that is your desire. The book itself is in full color, and has the most beautiful art work of any Whitewolf book I've seen (the whole Changeling series of books is well done). I can see how Changeling's reputation for being a girls' game is true but guys, if you like character development, you should give this one a try!

I'm not particullary fond of fairies, but I seem to enjoy detailed stories of this kind. Not nursery rhymes, but true folklore belief of spirits that seem to be inhabbiting our world many ages before us. Fairies do have their certain charm, and when stories about them can turn nasty enough (which is most of the cases if we study what folklore tells us) this seems like a perfect concet to introduce to White Wolf's excellent World of Darkness.

Meet Changeling. A game where fairies of folklore shield on human hosts to protect themselves from the ravages of unbelief. The concept itself is a great one; one probably even greater than any other World of Darkness concepts.

Unfortunatelly, the main book seems to do it completely wrong. It's written in a way that it seems a nursery tale, and while it mentions a clear seelie/unseelie division among changelings, this division seems more of a plain good/bad one than what the fairy courts originally seemed to mean on Irish folklore.

Rules are completely upside down, too. The magic system (a combination of what you can do (Arts) that is frankly narrow, and to whom you can do it (Realms) that is completely annoying) is the worst White Wolf has ever created. The Kiths (the game splats) are based on wonderous creatures, but the descriptions used are completely uninspired. The Dreaming is a great concept, but how mechanics work around it are too rigid.

I've heard there are some great sourcebooks for Changeling, so I can't speak for the entire line. But this core book was a huge disappointment for me.

I'm an avid White Wolf player, going on 5 years now. By far, Changeling is my favorite. The others are good, yes, but they're not as free as changeling. Freedom to experiment is ALWAYS a big plus for us GMs. One of the the parts of this game most used by my groups (I have several groups who come to me to be the GM) is the Chimera Companion. I've had players who've had a blue dragon afraid of mice, a living feather duster, a piece of tofu fluent in English, Spanish, French, Latin, Portugese, Chinese, and German, and even someone who used the Brooklyn-accented, trod-guide owl example in the book. I require them to balance their merits and flaws, but most of them did that on their own before I told them. The Cantrips are a hoot (I had one innovative player hopscotch a group of 3 redcaps through the ceiling to knock 'em out), and the system is easy to adjust to from Werewolf and all the others. Check it out!

Though I've played and storytold Vampier, Werewolf and Mage, I am a whole hearted Changeling fan. The world has such a depth and a lack of restrictions on what can happen opens up such a world of choices it's invigerateing and interesting. While Changelings are some of teh weakest character in the World Of Darkness, they are also a very interesting group. Playing and storytelling Changeling is not as easy as some of the other games, but when you learn it, and understnad it, it becomes a wonderful and amazing game.

For all of those who are tired of the angst of Vampires, give Changeling a chance! Yes, they are "sad" creatures, forever forbidden from their home, doomed to dwell in a world that threatens to murder their souls on a daily basis, but at least they aren't completely immersed in their own misery! I've tried Vampire, read Mage, thumbed through Werewolf, and the only one that truly captivates me is Changeling. If you're looking for diverse characters, entertaining stories, and infinite possibilities, look no further than Changeling: The Dreaming.

Changeling is one of the most innovative rpg`s I have ever seen. But as in most of the White Wolf games the organization of the book is terrible you have to flip over pages to find the exact thing that you are looking for, but after some time you can get used to the book. The idea of playing faeries in world of darkness is a most challenging and enjoyable one. And the way that WW puts the elements of traditional faerie tales into their gloomy world is very successful. (`a faerie dies when someone sayas that she oes not believe in faeries` makes sense in the changeling the dreaming) If you are tired of dungeons and dragons style of fantasy and if you are not obsessively inlove with the darkness of vampire the masquarade, changeling is a good rpg for you. For those who think that changeling is not going along well with the other world of darkness games, because it is too "light" should consider that nothing can be more frightening or more beautiful than our dreams.

I first got into Changeling when a friend of mine loaned me the book. It is the best Role-Playing game I've ever experienced. It is such a refreshing break from the hack'n'slash of D&D, and the storyline is one of the most unique I've ever seen. I'd reccomend this book to anyone who likes RPGs, storytelling, and imagination.