Vampire The Masquerade III

Vampire the Masquerade.

What other game could you play evil incarnate? As a vampire you get to stalk darkened streets sucking the blood from virgins and foiling the attempts of foolish mortals to end your reign of darkness, cool eh?

The idea is you play a vampire with all that entails, no sunbathing, draining blood and an allergy to steak. But you are your own man sort of. You don’t have to be a monster, beast you are ...
...from the perspective of the vampire (or whatever it deals with). For instance with supplement books dealing with the Ventrue, a vampire clan (more later) it discusses their views on the nature of vampirism and the world, these are in opposition to almost every other clan. The upside if this is it makes a very rich world to play in. The downside is it can be very confusing deciding which reality to believe also (cynically speaking) it means there ... more

Vampire the Masquerade.

What other game could you play evil incarnate? As a vampire you get to stalk darkened streets sucking the blood from virgins and foiling the attempts of foolish mortals to end your reign of darkness, cool eh?

The idea is you play a vampire with all that entails, no sunbathing, draining blood and an allergy to steak. But you are your own man sort of. You don’t have to be a monster, beast you are lest beast you become… There are plenty of archetypes you can follow, the Anne Rice arty angsty type, the romantic Dracula, the bestial Nosferatu. I’ll deal with details later, I was introduced to this game slowly and levels of conspiracy were revealed to me during play, I’d recommend you do the same.

The difference with this game as with all White Wolf Storyteller games is the emphasis on Story not rules. The rules book is very simple; the guts of the rules are skill based e.g. Strength plus Melee roll for combat etc. Depending on the number of dots you have (which you allocate during character generation) depends on the number of dice you have to available roll and the difficulty is a number set from 1-10 by the storyteller. You have to roll so many successes to achieve your objective. That’s it!

The rest of the book deals with details on the history of vampires their interactions and how to tell stories. Techniques such as symbolism, foreshadowing, parallel storytelling are all dealt with, it’s a far cry from your standard dungeon hack, role-playing has grown up.

The books themselves are beautifully presented hardback (usually) and wonderfully illustrated in evocative black and white. The Tim Bradstreet illustrations are particularly good.

Another feature of the book and its supplements is the fact they are written directly from the perspective of the vampire (or whatever it deals with). For instance with supplement books dealing with the Ventrue, a vampire clan (more later) it discusses their views on the nature of vampirism and the world, these are in opposition to almost every other clan. The upside if this is it makes a very rich world to play in. The downside is it can be very confusing deciding which reality to believe also (cynically speaking) it means there are a lot of books (to buy) with more titbits of information in and only when you own everything do you have the complete picture.

The game lends itself particularly well to adult themes, death, politics, religion, betrayal and love are all commonplace themes and tied up to the very, albeit unbeating, heart of Vampire. Also the fact you play a vampire means you have an immortal character so playing in different time frames is possible, the inclusion of a Dark Ages supplement helps out here. There is really a huge scope for developing a character on many levels.

Now here’s where I spill a few beans about the world of Vampire. Don’t read this bit unless you’ve already played.

The origins of vampires come directly from God, according to “legend” when Caine slew Abel He was cursed to walk forever in darkness and banished to the land of Nod. The first of Caines children begat a bit and created the thirteen Antidiluvians. The Antediluvians arose against their own creators and slew them. At this Caine left Nod and hasn’t been heard of since.

After a lot of begetting and begatting the Antidiluvians went into hiding preferring to manage their children from a distance. Currently there are 13 generations of vampire separated from Caine all spawned from the Antidiluvians. The progeny of each Antediluvian compromises a clan and each clan has the merits and flaws of its father. It’s predicted that Antidiluvians will rise up from their slumber and reclaim their blood destroying all vampires, a time known and feared as Gehenna.

The separate clans have always warred on behalf or against their creators and have separated into two different factions, the Camarilla and the Sabbat. The main rules deal with the Camarilla.

The Camarilla, quite sensibly, recognise that humans fear them and would seek to destroy them if the existence of vampires became common knowledge. For this reason they enforce a “Masquerade”, this set of rules ensures no vampire ever reveals their true nature, violation of these laws results in the final death.

The Sabbat on the other hand embrace their true nature and see humans as food. They are truly scary and anarchic monsters.

Another war that has raged through the ages is that of the young against the old. The closer the vampire is to Caine the more potent the blood, this makes old vampires very powerful and their blood very attractive to the young. It is in the interests of older vampire to maintain the status quo and keep their power intact and they enforce this through the laws of the Camarilla. This has created a subfaction of Anarch vampires committed to overthrowing the power of the Camarilla; these groups often ally themselves or fall prey to the Sabbat.

Now the clans….

Brujah
These vampires crave revolution, sometimes for the right things sometimes not. Of all the clans they have the most trouble containing the beast and frequently rage when they do they are ferocious fighters.

Gangrel
Of all the vampires they are the most in tune with the beast, they shun cities and it’s rumoured they run with wolves, sometimes werewolves. They have the ability to take the form of beasts too but if they loose control of the beast they take his features on permanently.

Nosferatu
Cursed with a monstrous appearance the Nosferatu shun and are shunned by other vampires commonly dwelling in sewers and dark shadows. They deal in information; few secrets are unknown to this clan. Though knowledge is power they rarely choose to take positions of power within a city.

Malkavian
The beast has fractured the minds of the Malkavians, though this gives them a unique insight to the nature of reality it does make them very unpredictable and so dangerous.

Torreador
These are the artists of the clans, divided into those who can artistes and those who can’t poseurs. Torreador are often chosen for their talent or merely their appearance. They crave beautiful things to the extent that they are stupefied in its presence.

Tremere
The warlock of the clans, feared and despised by others their ability to wield magic places them in a unique position of power amongst the clans. They are the second most likely clan to rule a city, if they do not rule a city directly they will have more than enough power to rule it indirectly. They do have a rigid clan structure that can stifle more errant young.

Ventrue
The ruler of the clans arrogant and conceited, Ventrue are the most common princes of a city. Though being a Prince does not necessarily mean they rule. The Ventrue suffer from a strict feeding regime, for instance they may only feed from virgins, this can be very restrictive.

Caitiff
The Caitiff are the disenfranchised of the vampires, embraced and left to fend for themselves, they are the lowest order of vampires and shunned by those in power.

All in all Vampire provides a very rounded setting and a whole new approach to role-playing leading to a rich gaming experience.

 

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