This was the least successful of the OWoD line of games, and with good reason. The society was repellent, the setting was depressing, and the goal completely intangible and unknowable. Add to it that you would need a group of very good role-players to have the system work as intended... ( )

Differentiation between different levels of reality is a bit lacking. ( )

I have read several reviews for Wraith: The Oblivion and am rather perplexed; the reviewers just don’t seem to get the point of the game. This is precisely what kept Wraith sales down and led to the early cancellation of the series. In order to run a Wraith game you need players, and more importantly a storyteller, who really GET the point of Wraith. Let’s break it down by the main complaints. I have heard it say that the characters are underpowered, compared to other World of Darkness creatures, and that is it not fun because you can’t interact with the physical world. I believe this is the ghost of old-school hack-n’-slash gaming rearing its ugly head again. Sure, you can have a lot of fun with a Vampire: The Masquerade game where you ruthlessly gain power, vanquish your enemies, and size control over a city’s assets. But you also could have a game where you explore the personal horror of becoming an undead thing, struggling with the beast within, the hunger, having to feed off of life to sustain your horrid semi-life. Wraith serves the latter style. The point is to explore the metaphor and meaning of the ghost story, not to crawl through dungeons with your +12 broadsword looking for gold pieces. Of course your character will have little interaction with the physical world, their dead. That really puts a serious hamper on your social life. As one Amazon reviewer put it “Imagine the frustration, pain, and tragedy of being able to see and feel and hear the world you left behind... but being unable to move or manipulate that world. Imagine seeing your ex-wife grow old and die... or feeling the impotent rage of watching the bastard who raped and murdered you stalking his next target.” Most of the conflict is internal; your own worst enemy is yourself, or rather the shadow of your nature (according to Jungian philosophy, if I remember correctly). Your Shadow is played by another player, which is an interesting twist. The ideal Wraith game is played with at least three players and a Storyteller, so that no two players play their opposite’s Shadow. The internal conflict, the pathos at being separated from loved ones, from whatever your player loved when he or she was alive (or things he/she hated, such as your murderer?), the struggle to hold on to your being while Oblivion pulls at you, THAT is the core of Wraith, and if that doesn’t sound like fun you should really look elsewhere. If it does sound like fun, well then being dead isn’t the handicap it used to be in the olden days. It doesn’t screw up your career like it used to. ;) ( )

I really wanted to like this game system after cutting my teeth on both Vampire and Werewolf, but at the end of the day I just couldn't get into the game. I think the biggest drawback for me was that characters were trapped in this limbo where actual game play was far from fun. You spend too much time trying not to fall down and not being able to affect the natural world. Part of the fun of the White Wolf systems are both its rich back story and easy and fun character creation, but in this system both of the aspects only hamper the enjoyment. I've even been at Live Role Playing events that featured vampire and wraith characters and the wraiths simply stood off by them selves doing nothing, which ultimately is what you do in this system. ( )