Has anyone ever actually run Promethean or Wraith? I have a hard time believing most groups would go for either one even with extensive house-ruling and doing end runs around their most inconvenient elements.

Wraith sure did straight up no alterations. Pretty weird and takes the right sort of group to play.
So far have not gotten to actually play it. Just GM.

I ran Wraith back in college (~15 years ago). The campaign lasted about 2 sessions because it got really dreary, depressing and boring. My group went back to our more light-hearted WFRP 1e campaign. Yeah, you read that right.

I ran a couple of sessions of Wraith in college, back when it first came out. No real problems or issues with it, but it never really clicked with our group.

I ran promethean on a chat site for a year and a half.  Most of the time it was a struggle to get anyone to play.  I also got my first bitter taste of ST, Admin, and site owner bullshit that plagues World of Darkness sites.  As you can see I am slowly recovering in skype and with better games with better fan bases.

I ran a solid 2 sessions of Promethean as a sort of "The Odyssey by way of hobos" with a liberal dosage of Silent Hill. Based on my experience, I can't imagine running a campaign to completion.

I ran both, my groups had fun with both games. Wraith is probably my favorite of the Cwod games.

I was in a short lived Wraith game. We found that the game was one that you had to have JUST the right group for, as you need to be able to trust your fellow players to push the right buttons and not push the wrong buttons.
But that wasn't the problem we ran into.  The problem we ran into was that the GM was a hemophiliac, and we were playing in the ICU while he was in for treatment. Any time Specters showed up, there was a code blue called down the hall.  That was the only time code blues were called. Correlation or causation, it was too creepy an occurrence for us, so we stopped playing, and never quite started back up.

Quote from: Orphan81;911649I ran both, my groups had fun with both games. Wraith is probably my favorite of the Cwod games.

Same. Theres something really quirky about the Wraith setting and tone.

Quote from: remial;911670But that wasn't the problem we ran into.  The problem we ran into was that the GM was a hemophiliac, and we were playing in the ICU while he was in for treatment. Any time Specters showed up, there was a code blue called down the hall.  That was the only time code blues were called. Correlation or causation, it was too creepy an occurrence for us, so we stopped playing, and never quite started back up.

Sounds legit

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;911627Has anyone ever actually run Promethean or Wraith? I have a hard time believing most groups would go for either one even with extensive house-ruling and doing end runs around their most inconvenient elements.

I ran a very brief Wraith game.  It took two sessions to fall apart.  The Shadow mechanic pretty much doomed it from the start.  The super grimdark tone didn't help.

The thing about Wraith is, it's one of the coolest "fantasy" settings. The Underworld is huge, and full of interesting and awesome stuff. Most of my campaigns were "DoomSlayer" based ones. Where the characters were Doomslayers, members of the Legions who went into the Labyrinth to fight Spectres and keep local citadels and haunts safe.

Had a lot of fun with Wraith back when it first came out (1994! Twenty two years ago. Jesus Christ.). Having imaginative players who really got into playing fucked-up, damaged, doomed characters was a big plus.

I've ran short campaigns with Wraith and found it worked best with precisely three players. You get a feel of a real 'Circle' that way, while the Shadow-play is entirely manageable. Go beyond that in numbers, then you end up having to dilute the Shadow-play, which is OK but not really as distinct in it's gameplay. I feel that they could have simplified the general engine beyond this, although it's not that big a deal. The main thing I like about the Storyteller system is that you do tend to get well rounded characters from the chargen process, and the rich, gothic alienness of the setting provides a lot of interesting things that the characters can explore. Good for plot hooks, I found. The other advantage is that, unlike the other Storytelling games, it's not as driven by group affiliation (Clans, Tribes, etc). While there are Guilds, the tone of the game is much more individual driven - and this can make for more personalised tales. The Life/Death/Regret of each character can easily be played out as the basis of each chronicle.  

I've not played Promethean, although I've not really played much of the Chronicles of Darkness settings truth be told (played a bit of Hunter, which was definitely an improvement on the OWoD Hunter). Out of all the titles, however, it was the one I found most interesting to read and as a concept.

I haven't run Wraith but played in a short but pretty interesting game for awhile. It didn't last much after the prelude stage before it ended though but not due to any problems with the game or setting just time conflicts. I've heard of a few others campaigns over the years. The odd things is that, despite the super grim setting many people see the other possibilities in the Underworld as the stand out features and apparently its easy to focus on them. I don't think Wraith was popular enough to get the "You're doing it wrong/No Superheroes with Fangs/Fur/Etc" treatment that happened other WW games so more folks were probably playing it how they found it fun.