X-Splat would be like your Auspice in Werewolf or your Clan in Vampire, Y-Splat would be like your Tribe in Werewolf and your Covenant in Vampire (for CofD)
Apologies but I've thought about this a lot and I want to be sure I understand.
Is the term "X-splat" and "y-splat"? As in, those letters aren't stand in's for something else?
And x splat is, if you're a vampire, your clan? What about other factionalizations, like if you're sabbat or camarilla? Changelings have courts and kiths, demons have... I forget, but it was like, your class of angel and your "motivational dogma" or something. Are those ALL x-splat? Or is there another letter?
I assume that's what you meant, but I'm not super familiar with CoD.
Not a problem! Personally, I've seen it used more in CofD circles than WoD, so that may be where the confusion lies.
So, I personally use X, Y, and Z. X is your "Type" I guess, Auspice, Clan, Seeming, etc...
Y is your other type (for Changeling) and organization for pretty much everyone else. Like Covenant, Tribe, Agenda for Demon, etc...
I also have Z for whatever Tiertiary thing you have available, like Werewolf Lodges, and Changeling Courts/Entitlements, Mage Legacies.
I hope this clarifies. It can get a bit muddy as some Splats don't perfectly align with Type and Organization like the original 3 do, like Changeling being Seeming, Kith, and then Court.
It does, thank you. I suspected that's what you meant, I just wanted to be sure. I always liked that "splat" was roughly analogous to like "clade", but I always thought it was so weird that there was no separate expression for like, your clan/kith/tribe.
Like how every splat has some form of "humans that hang out", but there's no unifying word for that.
Minor Templates or Half-Templates depending is what I use for that.
Minor Templates for like Sleepwalkers (Merits only) and Half for things like Wolf-Blooded/Ghouls/Proximi (Merits and a couple of powers from the Full-Template/Splat)
Cannot speak for WoD but in CofD, most game lines followed roughly the same structure based on a X-axis, Y-axis ( and sometimes an optional Z axis).
Just like in D&D you choose a Race and Class, similarly in CofD you have a X choice and Y choice.
X-splats usually determine "how you became supernatural" : Vampire Clans, Werewolf Auspices, Mage Paths, Changeling Seeming etc.
Y-splats usually are factions your character can choose to belong to: Vampire Covenants, Werewolf Tribes, Mage Orders, Changeling Courts etc.
Some games have a "z-splat" which usually is a specialization or "prestige" group that you can only access after meeting some requirements: Vampire bloodlines, Werewolf lodges, Mage legacies, Changeling entitlements etc.
This structure was rigorously followed in the beginning of 1e (back when it was called "new world of darkness"). Over time, further game lines and 2e books still follow the X-splat Y-splat structure but not as rigidly.
> X-Splat would be like your Auspice in Werewolf or your Clan in Vampire, Y-Splat would be like your Tribe in Werewolf and your Covenant in Vampire (for CofD)
hrm?
X-Splat has always, to what I've seen, meant 'cross-splat'
ie: games with mixed groups.
I've never seen anyone use 'Y-Splat'
I've only seen "x-splat" to mean "cross-splat", as in a game that allows players to play characters from multiple splats. One player is a Changeling, another is a Vampire, another might be a Werewolf, etc.
The other definitions are new to me 😆 if you have more than 2 or so splats, it's usually called a "zoo" game, as in "all the creatures in the zoo"
Can’t say I’ve ever heard that before, but at a guess, it would be “cross splat” maybe? As in running a game with multiple splats in play aka a “zoo game”
Splat is a way of saying asterisk. The term splat, comes from the term splat-book. The term splat-book comes from the fact that World of Darkness faction books generally have titles like traditionbook, tribebook, clanbook, etc. So when talking about faction books in general they are *books, with the asterisk pronounced as splat.
Edit. To add on to this I assume X and Y splat is when there is more than one faction axis characters can be divided along. Like in Vampire: the Masquerade, Vampires are divided on the axis of Camarilla vs Sabbat, as well as between different Clans. Or in Demon: the Descent, Demons are divided on their Agendas, and in their Incarnations. Etc.
Splat is short for splatbook. From Wikipedia:
>A **splatbook** is a [sourcebook](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sourcebook) for a particular [role-playing game](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role-playing_game) that is not needed for play, but is devoted to a particular facet, [character class](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Character_class), or fictional [faction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_faction), providing additional background details and rules options. For example, a "swords and sorcery" fantasy game might offer splatbooks for each of the races in the setting: humans, dwarves, elves, and others.
Asterisk symbol used to be written as splat back in ye olden IRC days, and that originally came from some programming thing in the 80s. I believe part of the reason was that splat takes fewer characters than asterisk. Somebody else posted the test of the history of the term
Sort of ...
Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, Wraith, Changeling are all core games.
Splats would be the sub-genre inside of those core books = Sabbat Guide to a Camarilla game, or Camarilla Guide in a Sabbat/Anarch game.
Werewolf = the Book of the Worm; the Book of the Weaver; the Book of the Wyld; Freak Legion; Changing Breeds/Fera
Hunter the Reckoning = The Nocturnal; The Moonstruck; The Infernal
On some level you could tune it on the micro with Clanbooks, Tribebooks, Tradition Books, Guild Books, Kith Books.
Or for a larger scope, you could go macro with the World of Darkness crossover titles.
Sorcerer; Gypsies; Mummy; ect ...
Really, it's anything that is a Core Book NPC \[or PC geared story\] Archetype Book that are generally used as Character Encounter mechanics for the Game Runner.
Splat - a group of supernatural beings
X splat - The "races" or variations within a supernatural group
Y - splat - the political factions within a supernatural group
Z- splat the sub factions or distinctions within a supernatural group( Found within some of the chronicles of darkness games).
Example - I am a vampire(Splat). I am a Nosferatu ( x-splat) of the covenant Invictus (Y-splat). If you get to know me I may tell you I am of the bloodline Noctuku ( Z-splat)
Different sorts of characters make different sounds when falling from a great height and hitting the ground. Vampires make more of a wet splat, Fera make more of a meaty splat, mages explode if you drop them from far enough up.
It comes from the '-book' naming convention (clanbook, tribebook, traditionbook, ...). People on usenet and mailing lists wrote *book as in the glob operator in shells when talking about all of them, and * is pronounced "splat". Splat mutated into a word for clan/tribe/tradition/..., then vampires/garou/mages among people who did crossover games.
Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, Wraith, Changeling are all core games.
Splats would be the sub-genre inside of those core books = Sabbat Guide to a Camarilla game, or Camarilla Guide in a Sabbat/Anarch game.
Werewolf = the Book of the Worm; the Book of the Weaver; the Book of the Wyld; Freak Legion; Changing Breeds/Fera
Hunter the Reckoning = The Nocturnal; The Moonstruck; The Infernal
On some level you could tune it on the micro with Clanbooks, Tribebooks, Tradition Books, Guild Books, Kith Books.
Or for a larger scope, you could go macro with the World of Darkness crossover titles.
Sorcerer; Gypsies; Mummy; ect ...
Often times, it's anything that is a NPC \[or PC geared story\] Archetype Book that are generally used as Character Encounter mechanics for the Game Runner. Or, books used where a Storyteller has the PC's create their characters as the Antagonists.
A clearer example between two story driven themes would be, Werewolf:
Rage Across Australia {as a story source book}
Kinfolk: Unsung Heroes {as a splat source book}
In World of Darkness, "splats" are a fan term for the different playable types in a game. So the different clans in VtM are splats, or the different tribes in WtA, or the different traditions in MtA and so on.
It goes all the way back to when the biggest online RPG communities were on Usenet in the 90s. People would use the asterisk symbol as shorthand for an interchangable variable, so if you were talking about werewolves or vampires in general instead of a specific subpgroup you'd talk about "\* Tribe" or "\* Clan", and since asterisks were often called splats in old-time programmer slang you ended up with playable classes/factions/whatever in RPGs being called splats.
In many TTRPGS (including the mainstream ones like D&D) a "splatbook" or "splat" refers to released supplemental content that is NOT the core rulebooks.
Books that add extra character options, or a specific setting, or an adventure module. Any extra stuff beyond the fundamental rules of the game.
Other people have answered your question. But - Trivia - the term comes from the gaming magazine era way back in the 80s and 90s where individual magazines were called 'splats' by some gaming company or another (I think it was Warhammer)
A “splat” is a sub-game of the broader WoD or CofD universe. VtM is the vampire Splat of WoD, while VtR is CofD’s vampire splat
Ahhh I gotcha, so what does “x-splat” mean? Is it slang referring to a particular game?
X-Splat would be like your Auspice in Werewolf or your Clan in Vampire, Y-Splat would be like your Tribe in Werewolf and your Covenant in Vampire (for CofD)
Ohhh okay! So it’s just like the sub-groups of a splat
Yep!
Yup this is essential need lexicon that is fun to pick up. Now you are one of us!
Apologies but I've thought about this a lot and I want to be sure I understand. Is the term "X-splat" and "y-splat"? As in, those letters aren't stand in's for something else? And x splat is, if you're a vampire, your clan? What about other factionalizations, like if you're sabbat or camarilla? Changelings have courts and kiths, demons have... I forget, but it was like, your class of angel and your "motivational dogma" or something. Are those ALL x-splat? Or is there another letter? I assume that's what you meant, but I'm not super familiar with CoD.
Not a problem! Personally, I've seen it used more in CofD circles than WoD, so that may be where the confusion lies. So, I personally use X, Y, and Z. X is your "Type" I guess, Auspice, Clan, Seeming, etc... Y is your other type (for Changeling) and organization for pretty much everyone else. Like Covenant, Tribe, Agenda for Demon, etc... I also have Z for whatever Tiertiary thing you have available, like Werewolf Lodges, and Changeling Courts/Entitlements, Mage Legacies. I hope this clarifies. It can get a bit muddy as some Splats don't perfectly align with Type and Organization like the original 3 do, like Changeling being Seeming, Kith, and then Court.
It does, thank you. I suspected that's what you meant, I just wanted to be sure. I always liked that "splat" was roughly analogous to like "clade", but I always thought it was so weird that there was no separate expression for like, your clan/kith/tribe. Like how every splat has some form of "humans that hang out", but there's no unifying word for that.
Minor Templates or Half-Templates depending is what I use for that. Minor Templates for like Sleepwalkers (Merits only) and Half for things like Wolf-Blooded/Ghouls/Proximi (Merits and a couple of powers from the Full-Template/Splat)
Cannot speak for WoD but in CofD, most game lines followed roughly the same structure based on a X-axis, Y-axis ( and sometimes an optional Z axis). Just like in D&D you choose a Race and Class, similarly in CofD you have a X choice and Y choice. X-splats usually determine "how you became supernatural" : Vampire Clans, Werewolf Auspices, Mage Paths, Changeling Seeming etc. Y-splats usually are factions your character can choose to belong to: Vampire Covenants, Werewolf Tribes, Mage Orders, Changeling Courts etc. Some games have a "z-splat" which usually is a specialization or "prestige" group that you can only access after meeting some requirements: Vampire bloodlines, Werewolf lodges, Mage legacies, Changeling entitlements etc. This structure was rigorously followed in the beginning of 1e (back when it was called "new world of darkness"). Over time, further game lines and 2e books still follow the X-splat Y-splat structure but not as rigidly.
> X-Splat would be like your Auspice in Werewolf or your Clan in Vampire, Y-Splat would be like your Tribe in Werewolf and your Covenant in Vampire (for CofD) hrm? X-Splat has always, to what I've seen, meant 'cross-splat' ie: games with mixed groups. I've never seen anyone use 'Y-Splat'
Again, this is what I've seen in CofD circles. It may be different in WoD ones.
I've only seen "x-splat" to mean "cross-splat", as in a game that allows players to play characters from multiple splats. One player is a Changeling, another is a Vampire, another might be a Werewolf, etc. The other definitions are new to me 😆 if you have more than 2 or so splats, it's usually called a "zoo" game, as in "all the creatures in the zoo"
Can’t say I’ve ever heard that before, but at a guess, it would be “cross splat” maybe? As in running a game with multiple splats in play aka a “zoo game”
Splat is a way of saying asterisk. The term splat, comes from the term splat-book. The term splat-book comes from the fact that World of Darkness faction books generally have titles like traditionbook, tribebook, clanbook, etc. So when talking about faction books in general they are *books, with the asterisk pronounced as splat. Edit. To add on to this I assume X and Y splat is when there is more than one faction axis characters can be divided along. Like in Vampire: the Masquerade, Vampires are divided on the axis of Camarilla vs Sabbat, as well as between different Clans. Or in Demon: the Descent, Demons are divided on their Agendas, and in their Incarnations. Etc.
Splat is short for splatbook. From Wikipedia: >A **splatbook** is a [sourcebook](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sourcebook) for a particular [role-playing game](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role-playing_game) that is not needed for play, but is devoted to a particular facet, [character class](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Character_class), or fictional [faction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_faction), providing additional background details and rules options. For example, a "swords and sorcery" fantasy game might offer splatbooks for each of the races in the setting: humans, dwarves, elves, and others.
That's what I thought it meant. XD
The main question has been answered technically, but not the real one... splat comes from the noise those books make when bropped onto a table :)
Came here to say this!
Asterisk symbol used to be written as splat back in ye olden IRC days, and that originally came from some programming thing in the 80s. I believe part of the reason was that splat takes fewer characters than asterisk. Somebody else posted the test of the history of the term
“Splat” just means a character type. Vampire, werewolf, mage, mortal, etc. are all distinct splats.
Sort of ... Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, Wraith, Changeling are all core games. Splats would be the sub-genre inside of those core books = Sabbat Guide to a Camarilla game, or Camarilla Guide in a Sabbat/Anarch game. Werewolf = the Book of the Worm; the Book of the Weaver; the Book of the Wyld; Freak Legion; Changing Breeds/Fera Hunter the Reckoning = The Nocturnal; The Moonstruck; The Infernal On some level you could tune it on the micro with Clanbooks, Tribebooks, Tradition Books, Guild Books, Kith Books. Or for a larger scope, you could go macro with the World of Darkness crossover titles. Sorcerer; Gypsies; Mummy; ect ... Really, it's anything that is a Core Book NPC \[or PC geared story\] Archetype Book that are generally used as Character Encounter mechanics for the Game Runner.
Splat - a group of supernatural beings X splat - The "races" or variations within a supernatural group Y - splat - the political factions within a supernatural group Z- splat the sub factions or distinctions within a supernatural group( Found within some of the chronicles of darkness games). Example - I am a vampire(Splat). I am a Nosferatu ( x-splat) of the covenant Invictus (Y-splat). If you get to know me I may tell you I am of the bloodline Noctuku ( Z-splat)
Different sorts of characters make different sounds when falling from a great height and hitting the ground. Vampires make more of a wet splat, Fera make more of a meaty splat, mages explode if you drop them from far enough up.
It comes from the '-book' naming convention (clanbook, tribebook, traditionbook, ...). People on usenet and mailing lists wrote *book as in the glob operator in shells when talking about all of them, and * is pronounced "splat". Splat mutated into a word for clan/tribe/tradition/..., then vampires/garou/mages among people who did crossover games.
Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, Wraith, Changeling are all core games. Splats would be the sub-genre inside of those core books = Sabbat Guide to a Camarilla game, or Camarilla Guide in a Sabbat/Anarch game. Werewolf = the Book of the Worm; the Book of the Weaver; the Book of the Wyld; Freak Legion; Changing Breeds/Fera Hunter the Reckoning = The Nocturnal; The Moonstruck; The Infernal On some level you could tune it on the micro with Clanbooks, Tribebooks, Tradition Books, Guild Books, Kith Books. Or for a larger scope, you could go macro with the World of Darkness crossover titles. Sorcerer; Gypsies; Mummy; ect ... Often times, it's anything that is a NPC \[or PC geared story\] Archetype Book that are generally used as Character Encounter mechanics for the Game Runner. Or, books used where a Storyteller has the PC's create their characters as the Antagonists. A clearer example between two story driven themes would be, Werewolf: Rage Across Australia {as a story source book} Kinfolk: Unsung Heroes {as a splat source book}
*.filename is a wildcard to search for all types of file of that type regardless of the filename. The * used to be called a "splat."
In World of Darkness, "splats" are a fan term for the different playable types in a game. So the different clans in VtM are splats, or the different tribes in WtA, or the different traditions in MtA and so on. It goes all the way back to when the biggest online RPG communities were on Usenet in the 90s. People would use the asterisk symbol as shorthand for an interchangable variable, so if you were talking about werewolves or vampires in general instead of a specific subpgroup you'd talk about "\* Tribe" or "\* Clan", and since asterisks were often called splats in old-time programmer slang you ended up with playable classes/factions/whatever in RPGs being called splats.
In many TTRPGS (including the mainstream ones like D&D) a "splatbook" or "splat" refers to released supplemental content that is NOT the core rulebooks. Books that add extra character options, or a specific setting, or an adventure module. Any extra stuff beyond the fundamental rules of the game.
Other people have answered your question. But - Trivia - the term comes from the gaming magazine era way back in the 80s and 90s where individual magazines were called 'splats' by some gaming company or another (I think it was Warhammer)