Children don’t have "Drive" or "Firearms" (usually). Instead, they have Larceny (for sneaking cookies), Subterfuge (for lying to parents), and Survival (for navigating the woods or the mall). The PDF details exactly how to scale down a character sheet to fit a 2nd-grader.
Released in 2008, World of Darkness: Innocents is a standalone sourcebook that shifts the lens of gothic horror from cynical adults to the most vulnerable protagonists of all: children. It provides rules, settings, and storytelling advice for running games where the player characters are between the ages of 6 and 12.
The central mechanical innovation is Trust. It functions as a resource between a child character and an adult protector (parent, teacher, older sibling). A child can spend Trust to:
However, when an adult betrays that trust (intentionally or through neglect), the child loses Trust points permanently—and may gain a Derangement or a supernatural Shadow (a dark imaginary companion).
Innocents is not hopeful. The PDF suggests that survival means losing innocence. The child who sees a ghost will never sleep again. The child who kills the monster (with a baseball bat) will be sent to juvenile detention because the body looks like a homeless man. world of darkness innocents pdf
You might ask: Why can't I just run a horror game with kids using the core rulebook?
The Innocents PDF provides specific mechanical frameworks that make childhood horror unique. Here are the highlights you will find inside the digital file:
Werewolf: The Apocalypse (WtA)
Mage: The Ascension (MtA)
Changeling, Hunter, Geist, and other lines
Here is a ready-to-play story structure you can run.
The Hook: The characters are a group of friends in a quiet suburb. A new family moves into the creepy house at the end of the cul-de-sac. They have a child, "Timmy," who is never allowed to come out.
The Mystery: Timmy begins appearing at the edge of the woods, looking emaciated and scared. He asks the players for help, claiming his parents are "dressing him up" for a special party every night. When the players investigate, they see Timmy’s parents taking him into the basement. Children don’t have "Drive" or "Firearms" (usually)
The Twist: The parents aren't abusive in the conventional sense. They are cultists (or fodder for a spirit) who are preparing Timmy as a vessel. The "Party" is a ritual. The adults in the neighborhood see the parents as charming and upstanding citizens.
The Climax: The players must sneak into the house during the day while the parents are "sleeping" (or performing rites). They have to rescue Timmy without alerting the parents or the police (who have already been warned by the parents that "neighborhood kids are bullying them").
The Ending: The players rescue Timmy, but the house burns down (or the parents vanish). The authorities blame the children for vandalism. The players saved the day, but they are now the "troubled kids" of the neighborhood—proving the theme that doing the right thing has a cost.