When I was running my Mage: The Ascension games back in “the day,” I used to describe Reality as a living, breathing organism. It was as alive and as vital as each and every player character and NPC in the chronicle. Reality was, in many cases, the biggest and baddest NPC there was. The tapestry of the world around our characters, the worlds we create for our players, is incredibly important to every single aspect of our game; mood and feeling are painted in words that we use to describe the world around our players’ characters. Simply put, the stage is as every bit as important as the actors, and it should be treated as such.

The overwhelming majority of my tenure within the World of Darkness has been spent among werewolves. Players and Storytellers of Werewolf: The Apocalypse and its predecessor, Werewolf: The Forsaken are pretty much expecting of a world where the ground walked upon is sacred and every object is, in some manner or other, alive to some degree. Places and things are as alive and as aware as people in a lot of Werewolf games… but why should that device be limited to a single line? Why should the “Living Reality” be relegated only to the philosophy of witches and warlocks? It shouldn’t. I say this with confidence not just because I’ve always believed it personally as a Storyteller, but because of a book like World of Darkness: Mysterious Places.