Vampire: The Masquerade

[Sir Degrader]

I don't know if there is a forum for miscellaneous RPG, so I'll post it here. Has anyone played the Vampire PnP gamesystem from whitewolf? I"m thinking about switching from D&D to playing vampire, and I was wondering if it was any good or not, any comments would be appreciated.

[Niadh]

It is VERY dark in its whole setting. To give a rough quote "There are no heroes in the World of Darkness[place setting]"

Depending on the storyteller it can be good or bad. For example if the game is only about you following about their super vamp who can kill anything easilly it is bad.

But as a note if you are not too keen on thoughts of killing innocents or making their lives messed up, avoid it. Otherwise get in there and play it.

[Lord]

There's a forum called Misc Games

[johnny]

Well, the game is pretty good, i've played it a couple of times.

[Smoothie]

I know there are people who have played heaps of it over at my board. We are currently running a PnP Vampire the Dark Ages game there too. Click on sig if you want to ask about it in our roleplaying section.

Mods, Sorry if this seems I'm adverting, not my intention, just know he could get much info there.

[Smoothie]

oh i know the system is alot simpler then say d20 but relies more on your character and what you do with them rather then what stats you have etc.

[Cloudbringer]

Yes, there's a Misc RPG forum. Moving this there.

[Encard]

I've played it, yes.

Now, as with any P&P RPG, the quality of our game is going to depend greatly on the GM. If you have a bad GM, you're not going to have a fun game no matter what system you use.

Nevertheless, I've found myself liking the White Wolf games quite a bit. The Storyteller system is at once very simple and very effective; the dice pool mechanics work well for resolving tasks. Depending on the type of game, combat will have a varying prevalance and difficulty, but I'd say that on the whole it's much more lethal (and thus, for me, more interesting) than combat in high-HP games such as D&D (VtM lets you take a much lower amount of damage and has wound penalties, among other things). Parts of combat also seem more logical to me than in D&D, such as armor soaking damage, dodge being an actual action, and so on. The only problem I've personally noticed is that, with the dice pool system, you'll often end up rolling a large number of dice for many things. I RP online, so this wasn't a big problem for me (dice rollers are quick), but I've heard some table-top players complain about it. Still, I think it's a small tradeoff, unless there's likely to be a lot of combat sequences between many skilled characters. Then it could get nasty.

The setting is a nice change from the standard D&D setting; it's definitely a lot grimmer, for one. The fatc that VtM has a setting that's largely based on the modern world also changes the tone quite a bit, and the greater chance of death in combat (along with the fact that killing people is illegal in most places) has a good chance of making the game more dialog based than many D&D campaigns.

As a side note... You probably already know that White Wolf publishes a number of other games. Depending on what sort of game you're looking for, it might be worth it to consider one of those instead (for example, Werewolf is probably the most combat-focused of the bunch, Vampire is often more about planning and diplomacy with some combat, etc). The core system is essentially the same for them, as is the setting, while the details (some skills, special qualities and powers, some traits, character's point of view and knowledge about aspects of the setting, etc) vary.

I'm not sure how familiar you are with the system... If you'd like, I can give you a quick overview of how it works. *shrug* Anyways, have fun with it.

[ 03-03-2004, 07:11 PM: Message edited by: Encard ]

[Arnabas]

I loved the whole storyteller system. I ran a vampire campaign for about 6 or so years-- that is to say it was a 6-year story, not a series of modules. Events that took place in our very first session had an effect on the wrap-up session six years later. I had a blast with this game and some spectacular characters came out of the story, along with some pretty good role-playing. I incorporated the other games to a degree-- one character was a Werewolf, one was a mage-- and dropped in some of my own stuff.
I have adapted the storyteller system to my own fantasy setting. I really prefer the health levels as opposed to hit points. Anyhow, I am getting off topic... Yes, Vampire is cool and well worth playing (if you have a good group).
You may wish to know, however, that White Wolf is ending the series, having put out the Gehenna sourcebook. How they will continue it remains to be seen (I haven't kept up to date, so if anything else has come since Gehenna, I don't know about it)

[Encard]

Continuations, from what I know, won't actually occur... White Wolf will, however, be putting out at least one new game line called Vampire: the Requiem. There'll probably be more games to come after that... It's basically going to be a fresh start for them; from what I've heard it'll be somewhat similar to VtM, but significantly different in theme/details/etc, and with at least somewhat modified rules. I don't know too much more than that, though... With luck what I just said is actually accurate. [img]tongue.gif[/img]