Vampire The Masqurade

[citybeatnik]

I'm a bit of a White Wolf veteran myself (I actually modded for a while on the main-site chat for all of six months until the end times rolled around. And then my russian thinblood gangster Accended. Oy).
I've played Vampire the Masquerade and the Requirem (I truly only enjoyed Ravnos, Anarchs, and Thinbloods from Masquerade, and I didn't like Requirem all that much. It's good, just not my cup of tea anymore. Too much goth, not enough blues is the best way of describing it). Thinbloods were an absolute joy to play, and as long as you didn't take the game too seriously or acted too stupid, you were set. It was interesting to play out what was basically the same turmoil you'd find in Macbeth out with your character. What DOES it mean to be human? How WILL you react and change?
And then people started to play Sabbat, and complained constantly about how Paths were better. So feh on that. Gimme a thinblood with Kineticism and humanity 5 (never got the kineticism, but had the humanity 5. And technically Prime, since the poor bugger ascended).
As for the werewolf twins... I loved the heck out of bonegnawers and ratkin, but that was about it. Haven't played WtF (heh, man I love that), but it defiantly feels EHish to me.
Mage... man oh MAN was Mage a mixed grab bag. I played a Celestial Chorus who Awakened during a drug overdose, and modeled him after Robert Johnson. An everday man forced to confront the powers that he suddenly had. What I ended up playing with were people who read a hodge-podge of metaphysics and mushed it all together. It had promise, but became muddled in the end. Although you'll be damned if you try to get a Mage player to admit it.
The BIGGEST problem WW games have (other then bringing out the crazies) is that you end up with some pretty damn elitist players, especially mages. One look through the new world of darkness forums will tell you that. If you can get a well-adjusted group together, then you are set. Otherwise, feh.
And as for the Storyteller dice system... yeah, it always felt weird to me. The new system that they use actually makes some sense to me, but I haven't completely made the change over yet.
As a completely unrelated sidenote, I just learned that ABC is bringing Kolchak: the Night Stalker back. WOOHOO!

[Kahoolin]

Yeah the guys I played Mage with were into metaphysics and secret society type stuff like the Rosicrusians, very "I read philosophy and know alot about Aleister Crowley" sort of guys. They had good characters too (mine was an Orphan who was the host of a paranormal cable show, and had just realized that he was causing all the things he was investigating). I don't know why it failed but man did it fail. They started out OK. Then one of them out of deperation just stopped the hearts of five guys they were having trouble with. After that they stopped caring about the cabals and the secret history and all that and just became marauders until they were destroyed utterly.

The impression I got with Mage is just what you said Citybeatnik; Elitist. It seemed as if it was written for "spiritual" people who also fancied themselves as intellectuals (talk about your niche market!), but after studying actual philosophy at university I realized that the people who wrote it weren't quite as intelligent as they thought they were. And neither I guess are alot of the elitist folk who play it.

Sorry but I hate metaphysics wankers. Maybe coz I meet so many of 'em, but funnily enough never in metaphysics courses... only at parties where they stare at you with their well practiced "piercing gaze" and talk about kabbalah and chakras.

I think at least one guy I played Mage with thought if he meditated enough he would gain magical powers, kind of like the Vampire player Kungfusucka mentioned who actually thought he was a vampire. Why would a real mage or vampire play a dice game with a bunch of mortals where they pretended to be a mage or a vampire? I don't sit around with my mates rolling dice to see if I succerssfully pop down to the shops for a packet of ciggies.

[H0urg1ass]

I always end up reminding the elitist wankers that just because metaphysics works one way in THIS world, it doesn't really have to work that way in WOD. It's obviously an alternate reality, unless you are one of those people who actually thinks that Vampires exist or that they themselves are in fact a Vampire. (Hey, didn't I see you at Wal-Mart during broad daylight the other day?? Ummmm, yeah, why? Oh nothing, I just thought you were a Vampire... *snicker snicker*)


To the person who said that Vampire might as well not have any dice, you must be really biased towards this game and not have really played it enough. WOD d10 has exactly enough dice rolling to make your stats actually mean something, yet it still has loads of room for character. (No not character sheet, where you list all of your high level monster kills, I'm talking about the other sheet that 90% of D&D players don't know about. The one where you spend a few hours writing out your character's history and background.) ^_^

[Alexei Vor Yaruk]

I loved WW games the few times I had a good group, the other
90% I hated them. Same goes for DnD. the big advantage of WW is really that your stats mean something outside combat and 90% of the time there are other ways than fighting to explore.
The advantage of DnD is that everyone plays it and there is SO MUCH stuff out there for it.

Take the mage game I am ST for as an example, the mages ultimate goal is to put down all the extremist factions like the rabid dogs they are. (technocracy, nephandi, marauders.) Sounds combat heavy don't it? Three, three fights the whole chronicle so far. They have snuck, stolen, and swindled their way through just about everything. Without casting ONE spell they blew up a lvl 5 technoc construct. I had that thing safer than Fort Knox! but a few well placed bribes and allot of good BSing and they rig the reactor core to blow, then run for it. This is good RP.

My first mage game not so much. We basically went off into deep space then created four separate worlds, each with their own internally consistent sets of physics, no two of which matched. When the aliens who fly with spelljaming ships arrived and started fighting the guys in the force spheres over Manhattan consensus went the way of the dodo. No RP to speak of in that game. We had fun but honestly we might as well have been playing video-games.

[dr_nick22]

Originally Posted by H0urg1ass

Vampire is a ROLE playing game as opposed to D20 which is a ROLL playing game.

This is said so many times in my role-playing group it's not funny. Especially when fools try to roll something like Charisma+Expression to talk their way out a a tight spot. You have a mouth and a brain, just do it!

Personally I would make the roll it but they get penalties/bonuses depending on how well the RP it and if they do a really good job I met just give them automatic success.

Although I prefer RPs where you Role play instead of rolling dice for eveything. Just gets pointless and boring.

[The_Giant_Mantis]

Originally Posted by dr_nick22

This is said so many times in my role-playing group it's not funny. Especially when fools try to roll something like Charisma+Expression to talk their way out a a tight spot. You have a mouth and a brain, just do it!

Here's the problem with that attitude, however..

Now, imagine I'm playing a 1000 year old Lasombra who has hung out with the greatest political figures of the last millenium. I should be cool, I should be suave.. I should be the kind of guy who can make anyone do anything with a smile and a snappy comment.

Sadly, I'm not, I'm a geek with limited social skills playing a roleplaying game.

I'm not saying players shouldn't try and roleplay their characters, and this is why people with genuinely poor social skills should probably stick to playing physical or mental characters, but punishing social characters for failing to live up to their archetype can make life quite difficult for them. I mean, a physical character doesn't have to lift a wheelbarrow full of bricks whenever his character does something strength related, does he?

I love VtM.. Tend to play Tzimisce (my favourite clan by miles) but I'm about to start a dark ages campain so I'll probably wind up breaking with habit.

You know what, screw people who say 'paths are better than humanity.' If you think paths are easy to roleplay, you're not roleplaying them properly. I played a long term character on the path of metamorphosis, and trust me, it's a heck of a lot harder than just letting your humanity slip to 3 and tollerating crappy frenzy rolls. To those of you whose players want to play paths, make sure they're actually getting into the mentality of that path, not following the path of 'doing whatever the hell I want.'

E.g. if your Tzimisce on the path of Metamorphosis wants to pull someone's face off, ask him why.. if he says 'because it would be funny' give him a conviction roll.. If he says 'because I want to explore the nature of humanity by seeing how this creature will live without its visual identity,' he's doing well. If he does it, observes the results for a few weeks, then goes on to do the same to himself.. consider allowing him a score raise.

[BDThrall89]

Amen from Mantis. Though honestly I can't say I've done too much involving the actual tabletop version of the games from the WW community. Have a few of the books, mostly Werewolf, but still. I am a fan of the game.

'Course like I said this is coming from someone who's spent most of his time involving VtM being strick LARP games. I still love playing these games as they do indeed seem to give you a bigger reward for better role playing than just the typical 'hack, slash, eat, sleep' routine.

[CaptainSarathai]

I've considered picking up WW and Gurps, but to be honest, either of these games would destroy my group. I am playing in that crap-tastic DnD group that really just likes to have the +100 Sword of Frenzied Wankery with the +20trillion Armor of Can't Touch This. I give them a situation where they have to talk their way out of it, and they just blunder around and stagnate. The trouble with a game where you can roll for anything, is that they'll do just that. They won't think. You want to know who's backstabbing who in the city. Um... I'm gonna roll my Streetwise check.

I'd prefer to play the D10 games. I made my group furious one time because I stopped rolling any dice at all, never looked at my books, and started telling them if they passed or failed based on their roleplay. I'm a writer damnit, not a mathmetician. I know what will work and what won't in the world of Makebelieve. Rolling a 20 on a Jump Check with a +80 Boot of the Athletic Geek on, will not get across that damn chasm. Stop rolling the dice, you character is plummeting to his doom unless someone can roleplay a way to save him.

/end rant
sorry.