Vampire - The Masquerade

[taekwondogirl]

I don't know how many people here have heard of this rpg before, but quite honestly it's the best rpg I've ever played.

The dice system works so much better than D&D (with the possible exception of combat) and it encourages more roleplaying than most games I've seen.
I know a lot of people throw out their character for D&D after one session; for Vampire you stick with your character and you become quite attached.

I recommend that you look into it.

[Bezo]

I never played Vampire, but I spent a few months playing Werewolf the Apocalypse (also White Wolf). I liked it, but my character died an excrutiating death (Nexus Crawler turned his arm to silver and it slowly killed him). All in all, I'd try it again for sure.

[Edgerunner]

I've played my share of rpg systems, from DnD, to Cyberpunk, to custom systems, and I've come to the conclusion (...which I'm sure you've already figured out...) that it's about the people who are in the game, and running the game, much more than the system.

That said, I've also noticed a trend that people like to try running new kinds of games if they're coming up with ideas that just don't jive with what they're using, in which case they tend to use progressively more stylized systems, or modifications. These people tend to be creative and fairly cool, which is why a lot of these games are too, like what I've heard of Vampire games (haven't played though). On the same note, I've played DnD games that are just as rockin'. It all depends on who's in it, or so says my 2 credits.

-Edgerunner

P.S. Toss a character?!? Blasphemy!

[Rumple]

I would tend to agree that White Wolf's Storyteller system is pretty good in general... system-wise. There are a few variants that are better than others. For example, if you like your dice, Exalted is the way to go! It also has an altered system that makes non-important NPC's (i.e. "mooks") fairly easy to put out of commission, making important ones more noticeable and making the PCs look good :D

[NeoIchiro]

All of the games set in the World of Darkness (i.e. White Wolf games) use the same system modified to the specific game's differences. It is a good system, though some of the game-specific settings could be better. By the way, look into Werewolf, it's the best of them (except maybe Exalted). Go Garou!!

[Karn]

White Wolf games do incourage more rping then the d20 system games But the combat system for d20 system games
is by far better in my opinion. D20 has more possiblities but the WF makes it easier to make up complcated menuevers.
But the best WF game is Demon the Fallen. IT RULES!!!!

[Anomaly]

It has been my personal opinion for quite a while now that the WoD games are simply the best RPGs ever created. They rule. I play Vampire: The Masquerade, and I'm reading the Mage: The Ascension, Demon: The Fallen, and Werewolf: The Apocalypse books. I love 'em. ^_^
Anybody who hasn't played a WoD game is missing out. Go get one of the books. You won't regret it.

Sorry for the burst of sudden fanatic zeal... :P
And one last thing - clan Malkavian owns you.

[Viper Daimao]

here's a hint, this is the roleplaying forum, not the roleplaying game forum

[JohnCourage]

i can only assume that you guys know that the World of Darkness as you know is being shut down by the end of the year. for my part, although i have enjoyed almost all of the games in that setting (except mummy and wraith) i think that this is a very good thing. i my self recently ran a game in which the gehenna/apocolypse ect... came and went. the setting has been begging for this sort of melt down for some time now, and personally i hope that they use this as an oportunity to really re-think some of the basic mechanics of said system. (just how many sabbat vamps CAN be in a city before folks start to notice?) regardless, they are fun fun games, and i hope that those of you who are just discovering them enjoy them a great deal. (even more, i hope that you can do so with out getting suckered into buying all the useless supliments)

[Rumple]

I have no idea why this thread got moved, and the ones on Final Fantasy Tactics Conversion and Deadlands and EN World, all of which are also about roleplaying GAMES didn't.

I'm not necessarily being a whiner, but any ideas on the execution of this would be kinda appreciated.

Also... what's the difference between a roleplaying forum and a roleplaying /game/ forum? Is it just for play-by-post games or something?

[JohnCourage]

your right, it does not make any sense. the mod must have looked at the thread name, and thought of the PC game (god only knows why UGH). it really should be moved back though

[Kirby Pufocia]

your right, it does not make any sense. the mod must have looked at the thread name, and thought of the PC game (god only knows why UGH). it really should be moved back though

A good rule of thumb to observe is that generally, a mod knows better where something belongs than do you.

This thread was moved from the Roleplaying forum to the Video Games forum because of the fact that it does not involve role-playing. That forum is reserved for members who make up threads to roleplay with one another. This is far different in spirit from the context of this thread, which involves discussion about a particular game.

In short:
Role-playing a story = Roleplaying.
Discussion of a role-playing game = Video Games.

If you have any questions, feel free to PM me.
Thank you for your time.

[taekwondogirl]

Dammit.

Anyway, I don't like werewolves (one completely destroyed my first character :( ), they seem a bit powerful.

As far as I've experienced, most stats in Vamp make your character powerful, but you have to have a specific reason for having those stats; thus power gaming ( :rmage: ) is significantly less than it is in the D&D system.

Yes, Clan Malkavian r0xx0rs.

My new character (new dm, new session, about 2 years later, plus my first got destroyed :mad: ) is a Ravnos.

Even the most useless stats in this game seem to have come in handy some parts of the game.

[JohnCourage]

Man am i ever going to dislike that guy. anyway, werewolf is my favorite WoD game. i agree that they are relativly powerful, but the primal aspect is just apealing to me. everyone loves shifting to chrinos and just whipping some ass. that said, the potential is there for some very deep and emotional stories. the garou are doomed warriors, striving to do their best, and knowing they will fail. that is powerful stuff man.



and the Ventrue punk Malks anyday

[taekwondogirl]

Pff, Ventrue are relatively useless and boring.

Why are garou doomed to failure?

[JohnCourage]

Ventru control the bruja [edit ventru AIM the bruja] so they rule. and garou are fighting entropy its self. there is no way to "win" against entropy, since everything you accomplish must fall apart sometime. no matter how hard they struggle, things will always get worse. to rephrase, they can only ever hope to hold their ground, never advance. thats high tragedy if done right

[Gramcrackered]

I would probably enjoy the Vampire game series far more if I didn't keep becoming involved in games where everyone just whines about how terrible their lives as vampires are. I don't care if the major point is struggling with your nature - I could do stuff like that in real life.
Inevitably feels like I'm playing a game of "Weenie: the Bitching."

[taekwondogirl]

Why on earth do they bother fighting entropy? *confused*

And yeah Gram, that could make it a bit... annoying. Thankfully the people I've played with thus far are great.

[Strider]

It has been my personal opinion for quite a while now that the WoD games are simply the best RPGs ever created. They rule.

I played Vampire and Mage, both of which were the most fun I had in a table-top RPG. It inspired my friends and I to go to extra lengths to attempt to capture the same Role-playing atnosphere of White Wolf games as in D&D.

We didn't do too well, until 3rd edition came out. Now, we try to keep the dice away as long as wel can. I think that playing White Wolf games made us respect role-playing more. D&D can become hack and slash so much, I mean look at the PHB: its got a chapter on weapons and armour, a huge chapter on combat, and spells. Its all like trying to flesh out these rules for combat. A newbie can easilly say that D&D is hack and slash. Hell, when I started playing, thats the adventures that I made were.

But, then White Wolf showed me the light.

I just wish we had more people to play. The GM is a lazy bastard.

But, I think we have found a nice balance between White Wolf type role playing and D&D hack and slash.
At least I'd like to think we did.

[Mugajak]

Now, I realize that most of you here have played V:tM, or at least seen it once or twice, but others have only seen the WoD from the WW system. That really doesn't explain it all, and some haven't seen that much.

The system: To sum up the differences, you have health levels rather than HP and your abilities, features and such are determined by your characteristics, traits, merits, flaws, attributes, and abilities, the number of each which you may have being predetermined. Very easy to make characters very powerful, but they have to interact with their world too.

Vampire: the Masquerade: Vampires have been around since Cain was turned down and defaced by god and the angels, only now they're started to hide in the last century or two, living unnoticed in the world. There are two major factions of vampires, one being the Sabbat, which wants to live in harmony with humans. The other faction.... doesn't bring goodwill. Cain's 13 disciples became the most powerful vampires even dared to say still alive today. Each has branched off into it's own Clan, slightly different from the rest. Vampires rely on blood, although unless they are active they don't have a need of a large amount. The bite of a Vampire is said to through the victim of the bite into extasy, however repeated drainings can be dangerous. A victim who becomes bloodless can be injected with a bit of the vampire's power to become a ghoul, a walking undead like a vampire, only mindless and unable to drain blood. In addition there are Disciplins, essentially, the magic of V:tM. All clans get Disciplins they learn more easily than others, making it encouraged to learn them over other disciplins. Certain disciplins can take up blood points, hence forcing the vampire to feed more often. While vampires take damage, in V:tM they are portrayed as much stronger than humans, and generally speaking, they are. Vampires have more health levels, (which as they drain put a lid on actions of a character) and usually have more weapon skills. Blood points can also be used to heal up damage to a vampire, but damage comes in 3 categories: Bludgeoning, Subdual, and Aggravated. Bludgeoning can be healed normally, Subdual wears off after 1 day and is never lethal, however aggravated will not heal unless blood points are used to heal the wound, and usually leave scars.

One thing that needs mentioning - V:tM is NOT about running around killing things and gaining levels, as per se D&D on its most base level. V:tM is about sneaking around, conspiracy, backstabbing your neighbors, killing the Undead Prince of New York and drinking a bodyguard on the way out. Stealth and social. Many people don't like it for this reason, but others do. It's one game that enforces you to roleplay. Everyone usually has need of working together to accomplish goals, intermeshing skills to get into some building retrieve information and then take out some head-hauncho vampire, werewolf, or human who's been acting up. It's radically different from Werewolf, since the Garou have a large focus on killing, rather than staying hidden and making a name for yourself.

That pretty much sums it up, however long it seems that's the basics :eek: so don't make me go into advanced legions of the Occult knowledge piece.... or the changing history of WoD as it happens around our world. On a sidenote... V:tM usually takes place in 1999, since it was written for that year. September 11th, the War on Iraq, and other events have yet to take place.

PS: la~ first post on these boards. Thought I'd keep it short :P

[Tor]

You are almost right my friend.
It is the Cammarilla who wants to live in harmony, the Sabbath just wants to do what ever they like.
And Cain had no disciples, he had three children I thing ( every vampire call those whom they embrace children ) those three angain had the thirteen whom then in envy killed the three children of Cain who then cursed them and thus the clans special powers and dissadvantages.
Those who are drained from blood but get a drop or so of the vampires blood in them turns into a vampire, but those who still have blood and gets some of the vampires turns into gouls.
So I hope that brings more light.

Ryan the Malkavian Detective

[JohnCourage]

The werewolves fight entropy eg the "wyrm" because it has gotten out of control. they are trying to stave off the end of all of creation. and your right TKDgirl, it is pointless, and utterly hopeless, but they try anyway. why they do so is up to the individual group. some people just like to kill stuff, and the "wyrm" allows for a moral justification (oh, he was evil, so its okay), while other groups play it out as a love of nature/life. and the moody types just love thier hopeless cuases to whine about, but they usually end up in vampire before too long

[Archangel]

Oooh...WoD...

I have just about every core book in the series...VtM, MtA, WtA, DtF, HtR, WtO, CtD...almost all of them, save for Mummy...I never really cared for that concept.

Anyway, I have never actually -played- the game table top, sadly, as I am in an area where an actual TROUPE is hard as nails to find...

However, I DO know where several good WW RP sites are, if anyone is interested?

[taekwondogirl]

Heh. I was gonna correct the mistakes of the person on the previous page, but Tor beat me to it.

The first time I ever rp'ed was online, in an AIM chatroom with two other people. It was great fun, and I wish I had been able to finish the campaign before my character was torn up by werewolves.

Currently I'm in a very large group (7 people + dm); our final session for this year is tomorrow. :(