Mind's Eye Theatre
| Designer(s) |
oWoD: Mark Rein·Hagen, Graeme Davis, Tom Dowd, Chris Cowart, Don Bassingthwaite, S. P. Somtow, Ken Cliffe nWoD: Peter Woodworth cWoD: Jason Andrew, Jason Carl, Kevin Millard, Jennifer Smith, Ree Soesbee |
|---|---|
| Publisher(s) | White Wolf, By Night Studios |
| Publication date | 1993, 2005 (nWoD), 2013 |
| Genre(s) | live action role-playing game |
Mind's Eye Theatre is a live action role-playing game based on the White Wolf World of Darkness universe, sharing a theme and setting originally with the table-top role-playing game Vampire: The Masquerade and with two revisions, Vampire: The Requiem and Mind's Eye Theater: Vampire The Masquerade. (The rules for Mind's Eye Theatre have likewise been revised.) Other games or "venues" include: Werewolf: The Forsaken, Mage: The Awakening, Changeling: The Lost and more.
Conflicts and skill challenges are settled in the first and current editions with a "rock-paper-scissors" system often referred to as "throwing chops" or "hand jamming". The 2005 Mind's Eye Theatre system, however, used a random card-draw mechanic. Every player carried a deck of ten playing cards (2-10, plus an Ace), and added a skill modifier to their draw.
The game possesses many rules both for game play and player safety. Some groups, however, use the game as background material, while using home-grown sets of rules for their actual game-play.
In 1999 Pyramid magazine named Mind's Eye Theatre (the original version) as one of the Millennium's Best Games. Editor Scott Haring said "Mind's Eye Theater was the first to take an established pen-and-paper RPG and do the translation to live-action. And it is easily the most successful live-action game, too."
People wishing to participate can find or create a local game, some of which are part of a larger setting run by an organization like the Camarilla/Mind's Eye Society, One World By Night, Isles of Darkness, The Garou Nation, or Underground Theater.
Independent groups create their own worlds using and based on the chronicle material published by White Wolf. The books have a large number of optional rules and variations for the settings, so the style, theme and rules of the game can vary a good deal between such games, even if they follow the published books. Some independent groups are regional clusters of related games in which characters can travel back and forth.
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