Customer Reviews

Vampire: The Masquerade

5 star:		(65)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Vampire: The Masquerade is an excellent product for the gamer who would rather have a character who has personality and, more often than not, a debilitating character flaw than a character who is a sword-swinging warrior or a blaster-wielding intergalactic hero. This game has a solid system that is simple to learn and a breeze to use, and the only dice that are used are ten-siders, eliminating problems with finding the four-siders or the twelve-sider under the couch. For the Vampire veterans out there, White Wolf has fixed and updated several things, including the insanely over-powered merit Iron Will, the damage rules (how does a dead guy take lethal damage from a bullet? Well, they fixed that little discrepancy for the Revised Edition), and the practically useless Giovanni Discipline of Necromancy has been fixed so it has more practical applications in chronicles without crossover to Wraith: The Oblivion. As a general rule, the Revised Edition of Vampire: The Masquerade is a wonderful product and an awesome improvement from the previous editions (they were great too, but the current version is better), with better art updated background information, and, perhaps the most convenient feature, every Discipline, clan, and sect in the same place; the scattering of this vital information over three $20+ books was a major shortcoming of the previous editions of Vampire. My only grievance is that the high-level Disciplines are not in this book. But beyond that, the Revised Edition of Vampire: The Masquerade is, in my opinion, a nearly flawless product.

Well, first a small word to first time role-players in Vampire the Masquerade. If you have never tried the game, you don't know what you are missing in your life. Now here are the things I found to be sooo much better and distinctively different in the third edition than the second. Note how much the rules are so much better as well when you read them. a) Assimite Disciplines fixed to be useful b) Presence has a kick to it when used against some much lower generation. c) Fortitude is so much better explained now (some used to claim it as automatic soaking all the time). d) Combat has some good changes. e) Obfuscate limits are actually explained! f) Serpentis III is different and so much better. g) Celerity uses one blood per round to activate, was worded before as if it used one blood for each celerity point. There are so much more I can go on with but I figured if you went this far down I probably got your interest enough to go get it.

Vampire: the Masquerade is an amazing game to play with your friends. In stark contrast to RPGs like AD&D and Shadowrun, where your player attempts to be the coolest (and you live out a dream of, "if only I were my character"), V:tM dooms your character from the beginning. You are a vampire, cursed to prey upon the living, cursed to lose your friends, living out a solitary existence. Vampire emphasizes true drama--either comic or tragic, the game MOVES you.

If you have read this far, DO NOT TAKE THE SOFTCOVER VERSION. The softcover edition that Amazon.com advertises is a GURPS adaptation (GURPS stands for Generic Universal RolePlaying System). It tells you how to turn Vampire characters into GURPS characters, and how to run a GURPS campaign with Vampires engaged in the Masquerade. It is loosely a rulebook for the game, but its rules make much less sense if youve never played GURPS.

Now, on to the rest of the game

The storyteller has the best time with the game. She runs the chronicle with the pride of a playwright, knowing that she touches her audience. She has all the power; she also has all he responsibility. The storyteller has to invent the chronicle, plotting out each weeks saga for the rest of you to endure. While the most rewarding, its also the hardest job in V:tM. And somebody has to do it.

Youll probably notice the oddness of the feminine pronoun (She runs, she has, etc.). The writers of this manual have distributed the pronouns in the book to be roughly 51% female and 49% male, to accompany the national division of the sexes. If youre a male, its a reminder of the alienation that female scholastics must endure. This book pulls that off flawlessly.

I have two complaints. The first is dice. Most pen-and-paper roleplaying games use dice, with the exception of Amber. AD&D uses seven different types of dice, and three to five of each. Shadowrun and V:tM are each more forgiving; they just use one. This is nice. Shadowrun dice are your normal 6-sided dice, which is awesome. In Vampire, the die is ten-sided, which is much harder to come by. This means no buying in bulk; Ive simply found it impossible to get a package of 10-sided dice without extra AD&D dice added on.

My second complaint is that the book has almost no structure. Id recommend putting post-its in as tabs for the sections that you want to have quick reference to; character generation alone involves swapping between different parts of the book 5-6 times. God forbid you have a rule conflict in a game; my group partitioned the book into sections to skim through whenever people were uncertain about a rule.

Once youve read the rulebook, though, you dont need it in the game. The most Ive ever done is have the lexicon open so that I have my terms straight; you get a feel for what each level of each vampiric power does, and you dont have to look up Natures and Demeanors all the time. (Natures and Demeanors are personalities that youre required to take. There is a list of 30 and you take different ones for nature or demeanor).

Overall, this game is splendid. It has advanced over other RPGs to give true entertainment. Focused, fast-paced, and fantastically horrid, some gaming might give you nightmares, depending on who your storyteller is. Some gaming will be a lot of jokes and mudslinging at authority. Either way, youll scare yourself with how casually you say, I suck down all the humans blood and kill him. At some level, the horror of catching yourself saying that phrase is what the game is all about.

Vampire is a very interesting game. When I was in 4th Grade me and my friends used to make up games in our heads but something was lacking a cohesive setting. By the time I was in 7th Grade we decided to buy an RPG book, just to get the gist of things. We ended up buing Vampire, and I must say it is great! I've bought 40 other books by White-Wolf in the last few years.

This game is a modern game in the Modern World, not a D&D type of Fantasy. Vampires are real in this game, they live in all the major cities, they pull the strings of politics. They hide from Humanity though, because they fear discovery. Yet they have to interact with humans, because as Vampires they eternally need blood to survive and even more to power their dark powers.

Vampires are arranged into clans, 13 to be exact all created by Ancient founders. These clans are divided into three groups. The first is the Camarilla, most obsessed with secrecy and having 7 of the Vampire clans. The next is the Sabbat, a group of Vampires who believe they should rule humanity and arch-Rivals of the Camarilla. They only consist of two clans but their are other clan members who have decided to join. Finally their are 4 Independent clans who try to avoid keeping any alligence to anyone.

The Rules of this game are simple as well. All a person needs is a copy of the sheets, a pencil and maybe ten 10-sided dice. The rule system is rather simple and the game doesn't revolve around pointless hours of combat but story purposes. This adds more enjoyment to the game, if your interested in weaving a story.

The Vampire game is a good introduction to White-Wolf RPG's and it is not only an interesting play, it is an interesting read as well. I have bought many books just to read them, and even if you don't have a group, their is a huge online community.

I picked up this book after playing the Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption computer game (which I liked well enough) just to see what the pen and paper game was like... Now I'm pretty much hooked on the gameline. The Storyteller system is appealing for its simplicity and its current incarnation is relatively familiar since I am also into Werewolf: The Apocalypse and had most of fundamental first edition WTA sourcebooks. I've never owned any of the first / second / whatever edition VTM sourcebooks, but from what I hear from long-time Storytellers and players, VTM revised edition is a major (or perhaps just much-needed) improvement. (I *have* seen a list of Abilities in VTM's earlier edition sourcebooks and some of Abilities were so redundant, obscure or arbitrary that they made me blush. I have also seen The Kindred's Most Wanted (an earlier edition VTM supplement) and, frankly, the particulars of most of the characters on the Red List made me really sad. I hope - no, pray (ha ha) - that there are no major appearances of Ferox, the renegade gargoyle with True Faith 9, in VTM canon.)

On the side, this book is rather Camarilla-centric, but that's what the Sabbat guide is for, and this *is* a game about masquerading as vampires, something the Sabbat would never admit to actually practicing (albeit to a lesser degree). It just seems like a huge jump from this book to the Guide to the Sabbat that I suspect I probably should've gotten the Camarilla guide (or even the Anarch guide) before the Sabbat guide. Certain clans (i.e., Assamite, Setite, Gangrel, Malkavian, Ravnos, Toreador) are just barely touched upon in this book that you only see a few (very narrow) sides to them, but that's due to the more major clan events happening after this book was written, and can't be helped. Of what the writers did manage to stuff in this book, they did a pretty good job. (However, if you want advanced Disciplines (ranks 6-9), you might want to get the Camarilla guide and the Sabbat guide.)

Anyway, VTM is great, and to have more than an inkling of what it's like, it's helpful to own this book. The other VTM books I've found extremely helpful (other than the Camarilla guide and the Sabbat guide) are just about every one of the revised edition clanbooks (although a person who's only interested in one clan only really needs one clanbook, certain clanbooks are actually what got me interested in those clans I previously disregarded or disliked. Of course, Storytellers should also have the Storyteller's Handbook).

Vampire: The Masquerade is by far, the best role-playing game I've ever had the pleasure of playing. Created by the amazing minds at White Wolf, this game is perfect for beginners to role-playing or veterans with years of experience.

First lets explain exactly what V:tM is as a game.
Some of you may be familiar with the biblical story of Caine and Abel (and if you aren't, you will be after reading both, this review and the core-rulebook). Sons of Adam and Eve, Caine slew his brother Abel, and was marked by God and banished from eden. In V:tM, that mark was the curse of vampirism. Over the ages, Caine sired more Kindred, before he eventually fled the earth. These "Childer" of Caine began to sire more vampires, and eventually, they started splitting off into 'clans', thirteen of them. Each clan has it's own unique characteristics, and certain 'disciplines' that they are more attuned to. Disciplines are the vampires' powers in V:tM, and while some mirror the hollywood image of vampires, many are totally different, all creative and a wonderful tool for you to create powerful, intriguing characters that are apart from the normal mish-mash of much of role-playing. If you look at the second part of the title, you may ask yourself what is The Masquerade, and what's it have to do with Vampires? Well simply put, there are two 'sects' of vampires (as well as those clans who fall into neither sect), essentially the 'good' and the 'bad'. Who is good and bad is for you to decide. One, The Camarilla, focus's on the upholding of the Masquerade, the global act put up by Kindred so humans don't find out about them. The second, the Sabbat, cares nothing for the MAsquerade, and believes that Mortals should fear Kindred, and serve them as slaves, blood bags.. All this takes place in the White Wolf, World of Darkness, a techno-gothic punk sort of world, cruel, unforgiving, and extremely real.

Now that that's out of the way, why should you buy it? So it's got a great story, a richly detailed setting with a huge amount of supplement books to enrich it even further, and endless opportunities for fun. On top of all this, as an appeal to beginners, the dice system is excedingly easy to learn, and one need only buy the core rulebook (where in things like Dungenons and Dragons you need to buy -three- books to have a game as successful as one book of vampire). The dice system uses only one dice, and a very basic, but extremely effective 'point' system that allows for any type of game you could desire. While it doesn't require a huge amount of dice rolling and stat checking, you can have a game that revolves entirely around social interaction, or, if battle is more your thing, you need not spend countless hours of rolling just to figure out a simple action.

As an Experienced gamer, you'll find that Vampire: The Masquerade is loaded with creativity which can offer insight to your other games, as well as a vast amount of plot detailing in the core rulebook, definately enough to make a very in-depth campagin with whatever mood you want. In addition, the very way it's written, with examples being 'In Character' often, can be a huge push toward creating your own interesting campaign, an idea describing a simple skill can spark up an entire scenes creation.

Above all else, it's just downright a great read. I bought this game when I had my group of friends that we could all RP with in highschool, but as college came the troupe split up. I still read this book, as well as a great many other books by the White Wolf team, and enjoy every bit of them, even if I don't even play the games.

Besides...Amazon[.com] has a great price on White Wolf products, 30% off most (if not all) their titles..What have you got to lose?...I mean..aside from your time for being addicted to reading and playing this game.

As much as I enjoy having everything in one volume, I miss the second edition. The third edition just lacks soul. Yes, you can play the same chronicles on it, and technically there is not that much that is different, the details often add so much. Whereas third edition is very much a rulebook, second edition had mood and feeling to spare. The artwork is too cartoonish (the clan section looks like it belongs in a manga)and the writing gives none of the true feeling of the genre. This idea follows through with most of the things that White Wolf has put out in the past few years, ever since Mark Rein-Hagen left. After reading the second edition for the first time, I was left with the impression of something that could truly be there, a world out of sight, with monsters in the shadows. I bought into the World of Darkness, and the Gothic-Punk milieu, but the current string of writers don't seem to be doing more than paying lip service to the concept. For those who are new to Role-Playing and are intersted in Vampire, I do not wish to scare you off; for all my complaints, the third edition is a good rulebook. For inspiration, look elsewhere though. Search the used bookstores for stuff put out by White Wolf before 1998.

"By becoming a monster, one learns what it is to be human"

I'm probably the only person who bought this book with no intention of using it as it was meant to be used--as a role-playing guide to the "Vampire: The Masquerade" game. I don't play role-playing games--I even have an aversion to games in general (mostly video ones)--but I really love vampires, so I had to buy this book. Probably the thing I like the most about it is all of the beautiful black-and-white drawings inside. They really get the imagination juices flowing.

The beginning part of the book is basically an introduction to VtM, familiarizing the reader with the basic rules, its Gothic-Punk setting, vocabulary, and tips on effective storytelling. Then it goes deeper into dice rolling, character creation, and bloodlines. This latter part is my favorite in the book, describing the attributes and abilities of the seven clans of the Camarilla: Brujah, Nosferatu, Tremere, Ventrue, Gangrel, Toreador, and Malkavian. (But if you really want further insight into these clans, then I'd highly recommend any--or all--of the Clanbooks.) There is also a character sheet at the end of the book you can Xerox, as well as an example story to further help players.

I think I've read this thing about half a dozen times (though not usually from front to back), and it takes about that many times to thoroughly comprehend and memorize all of the above--rules, guidelines, etc.--without having to refer to the book all the time (unless you're a fast learner). If you enjoy role-playing games--or if you're like me and just like anything vampire-oriented--then I highly recommend this book. It's well worth your time and money.

Though any true player of White Wolf games already knows this, I think it needs to be said: Vampire is not a hack-and-slash kill-everything game. It's a serious, adult game which takes roleplaying to a level that other games barely touch. Vampire: the Masquerade is about personal horror. It's about what it means to be unliving, and the struggle that these denizens of the night face. In that light, White Wolf has done a beautiful job revising the game. The revisions are in every aspect, from systems to storyline. This edition outdoes its predecessor all-around, though this was a good game to begin with. I think that any White Wolf player, and perhaps any player of any roleplaying game, will appreciate the detail that the authors have gone to in this game. They continually focus on rich story and character material over heavy rules. The rules themselves are simple enough that you only need this one, large-print book to play; but the game unfolds as you buy supplement books. The game is what you make it, and this is an excellent place to start for anyone wanting to play White Wolf games. Vampire is easy to learn, particularly in the revised edition, and no matter what your level of expertise in the material, the game is enjoyable. A bit of warning, though: this is a game for mature players. I don't recommend it for young or immature people, or for teenagers with overbearing parents. That aside, enjoy.

Ok, here's the honest deal. Some people love this game above all others. Others hate it. There are few people in the middle ground. I am certainly in the middle on this one. I will play Vampire if I am invited to a game, but there have been multiple times when I was unsatisfied. Typically, I play Malkies, Ventrue or Setites. That comment right there will probably stop most hard-core Masquerade fans from reading the rest of this review, but these are the clans that interest me.

Ok, on the mechanics. A storyteller, and even players, need to know the White Wolf D10 system pretty well to run any of their Storyteller games properly. This becomes more true with Vampire, because this is one of the few games with huge amounts of social powers to listen in on distant conversations, dominate another person's mind or make them love you, or even drive them mad with a glance. With perhaps the exception of Changling, no other White Wolf game requires so many rolls in non-combat situations. I do consider this a weakness to some extent since it really does slow down game sessions considerably while the two parties roll, and inevitably counter-attack, and so forth. Frankly, it does seem like there is a roll for everything in Vampire, which is not really the case for many of White Wolf's other storyteller system games. This is further complicated by the slight adversarial nature many players seem to have in the game.

On the plus side, this game has an amazing back story. From the fall of man, and more specifically Cain, to modern nights, the history is great. It ties in things from actual history that make this stuff seem almost believable. The only problem I have with this is, to get most of that history you need to shell out some hard cash to get the supplement material. You can easily find yourself lost or just relying on another player on points of Vampire history and society most of the time. Some more development in the base book on this deep history and culture would be appreciated. That said, as long as the ST of your home game is aware of this information, you should be fine.

A comment on the players of this game is needed. A number of reviews have been blasted because they discussed the players being goths or just in general complained about the players. It is a valid point, however. You can't play Vampire by yourself. That is called day-dreaming. Many of the players are devoted fans with deep knowledge of their clans' histories and can tell you all didn't want to know about them. This is not a real problem, but for a new player it can be very daunting. I was fortunate that my first game only had two such people, and one was the ST. If you are the only new player in the game, however, be afraid.

I should also point out, since most of the negative reviews complain about LARPing, this is NOT the Vampire: the Masquerade LARP manual. Go look for Minds Eye Theatre stuff. This is the table top version. If you are more comfortable sitting around a table with your friends with chips and pizza somewhere, this is the version for you.

Please keep in mind the V:tM has suffered bad publicity because of a group of people who played Vampire murdered a family several years ago. The Rod Ferrell Case has been used against Vampire the Masquerade and gaming in general by a few, but remember there is a disclaimer in the very front of every White Wolf book. If you think any of this stuff is real, please put the book down and walk away. Otherwise, there is a fair amount of fun to be had.

This game is part of a larger world created by White Wolf. The meta-plot of the World of Darkness has many other games in it. If Vampire isn't your cup of suspiciously red and thick tea, but you enjoy the world or the system, try looking into the other games. Werewolf: the Apocalypse is great for combat oriented folk in defense of nature. Mage: the Ascension is a deep thinking look at subjective reality. Changling: the Dreaming is a call to return imagination to the world. The list goes on. White Wolf's games are not like D&D or some other RPGs. What game you play gives your character preset goals. There are stereotypes, especially in Vampire, to play with. If you haven't tried one of these games yet, Vampire is a good starting place, but if pseudo-political drama-queen blood-suckers ain't your style, move on down the list until you find something you love.