I’m a big Wraith fan – of all the WoD games, it’s my favourite. One of the reasons for this is The Shadow.
The Shadow is a voice in the Wraith’s head, encouraging them to embrace Oblivion. It’s Sentient, Intelligent and Resourceful. It’s one of the reason that Wraith works so well – there’s a level of personal horror not found in other games. It’s also incredibly hard to pull off.
(I’d like to take a minute to stress that generally the biggest wall Shadows hit is the Wraith they’re Shadowguiding – far too many players immediately dismiss any advice or information from their Shadowguide, as they know that it ultimately wants to destroy the Wraith – a player will ignore perfectly sensible ideas, even ones that the Wraith would probably agree with, purely because it’s coming from the Shadow.)
There are several ways to run Shadows, each have their own strengths and weaknesses:
1: Each player Shadowguides someone else: This is the default method, and my favourite – it ensures a variety of Shadows and gives opportunity for a great deal of player interaction. However, care has to be put into choosing who Shadowguides who, or a weak player can be overwhelmed by a skilled Shadowguide, and a unwilling or uncomfortable Shadowguide may leave a Wraith with a Shadow that’s almost entirely inactive. It also runs the risk of dominating from the main storyline (if the focus of the adventure is too busy Shadowguiding to actually play their Wraith, the game’ll slow down to a crawl), and can cause confusion as to whether it’s the Wraith or Shadow speaking.
2: A single player Shadowguides everyone: This method is Hell when playing IRL, but online is a practical (and possibly optimal) method. With a single player Shadowguiding everyone (generally not playing a Wraith themselves), you can be sure that all other players will be able to concentrate on their characters, and that the ST can concentrate on story. It gives the Shadow’s opportunity to work in tandem better (working as a group) and avoids the risk of pulling punches (if a player is Shadowguiding, they may be reluctant to push the Wraith to do something that would harm their character). However the Shadowguide must be sure not to play favourites – focusing on a single Wraith and neglecting the others. Also, should this player be unavailable, all Shadows are inactive for the session.
3: The Storyteller is also the Shadowguide: Unless you’re running an incredibly small group, this is a terrible, terrible idea – it effectively doubles the ST’s workload, and results in a generally poorer performance. In small (1-2 players) it can be pulled off, the extra work being balanced by the ability to use the Shadows as suspense and story tools.
4: The players play their own Shadow: This is an awkward one, the chance of pulling punches is even higher, and unless you’re online, you won’t even notice.
Online, in a literate game, this can work, although the Shadows will invariably simply be there to add flavour to the player’s posts.
Next, it’s worth looking at the types of Shadow (this is separate from the archetypes available in the book, as we’re talking about how they’re played, not what they want).
Generally, a Shadow can be placed in one of three camps – Opposite, Extreme and External.
Opposite Shadows are the most common – they’re the easiest to create and the easiest to play. Their desires and Passions are polar opposites of the Wraiths – if a Wraith’s Passion is Love (Protect my children), the Shadow’s will be Hate (Destroy my children). While the simplest to run, it’s the least rewarding, and the least likely to succeed (as the Shadow openly desires the opposite of the Wraith, the Wraith knows not to listen)
Extreme Shadows take a few of the Wraith’s passions, and pervert them – turning the previous example – Love (Protect my children) into Love (Bring Children into Shadowlands) or Love (destroy anyone who might hurt my children), or (depending on quite how dark the game you’re running is, changing Love to Lust). This has the advantage that to a certain extent, the Wraith wants what the Shadow wants – the Shadow’s suggestion will probably aid the Wraith too, and the Wraith fulfilling it’s Passions will also grant the Shadow Angst.
External Shadows take the position as another person, possibly someone new, possibly someone from the Wraith’s past. The Shadow could take the roll of the Ex-Wife in our example, with Dark Passions such as Jealousy (Teach our Children to hate their father). Generally this shadow will have influences of one of the other two, but is also likely to have Dark Passions completely separate from the Wraith’s.
It should be stressed that the Shadow is Not actually the person, it’s merely pretending to be, because it knows how to push the Wraith’s buttons. This is potentially the hardest type of Shadow (due to having it’s own personality and desires), but has the potential to be the most effective.
