One of the things that I think gets overlooked in terms of VtM that many of the proposed alternatives like Feed lacks is that even the 1e core book of VtM placed its vampires within the broader context of a world with other supernaturals.

They weren't the refined versions that later emerged, but werewolves (lupines), witches, wizards (the Order of Hermes by name thanks to the Tremere), ghosts and those of True Faith were all there. Some of the earliest supplements added demons (Gulfora in Chicago by night), oriental vampires (Gaki in "A World of Darkness") and psychics (Hunters Hunted) into the mix.

Yes, you were supposed to be playing a vampire, but the world was established to larger than JUST vampires.

One thing I've noticed in terms of broader pop culture is that it is the vampire mythoses that are bigger than just the vampires themselves (even if the vampires are the protagonists or primary antagonists) are the ones that seem to be able to build some staying power.

Buffy quickly expanded to include all manner of demons and added magic and ghosts and werewolves into its framework. Vampire Diaries added witches and werewolves and ghosts. Twilight and Underworld made sure to include werewolves too. Being Human had a vamp, a werewolf, and a ghost as housemates.

I suspect its similar for RPGs as well. One reason fantasy is such a common setting is there is enough critical mass of interesting things to confront for an ongoing campaign to be possible.

Most GMs and players do not have the creative chops nor the ability to have everything run on script to make something like a long running police procedural work as a campaign. There's only so many searches for mundane clues and motives a system can handle before it gets repetitive (and a GM typically lacks a writer's room to help him devise 13-22 different mysteries each year). A WW2 or Vietnam or Afghanistan military campaign focused on being a typical unit is something a tv series could make work, but for most gaming groups would basically devolve into being virtually indistinguishable from a skirmish game.

Basically, most GMs NEED to provide variety via gimmicks to substitute for the sort of interpersonal variety of the series that often serve as their inspirations. Kitchen sink fantasy (traditional or urban) and sci-fi have that variety. Your wilderness patrol isn't limited to running across Viet Cong, booby traps and Vietnamese civilians... it could be orcs, goblins, a giant, a hungry griffin, the civilians might be traveling merchants, nobles in distress, a wizard, etc.

By the same token you can only do so many turf wars over feeding grounds with other vampires alone. There's only so many power struggles, masquerade-breachs or threats from human hunters you can weave a campaign out of if the only supernatural elements are the vampires themselves.

Which is why I would suggest that in terms of looking for genuine alternatives to VtM you pretty much have to exclude any that are actually vampire exclusive unless you're looking to run a one-off or mini-campaign. It just won't have the depth of gimmicks a typical GM would need to sustain a longer campaign without something more than a single type of vampires (and despite it's clans, VtM vamps out of the 1e corebook box was basically one type of vampire) and humans.

Quote from: Chris24601 on July 07, 2024, 09:49:50 PMOne of the things that I think gets overlooked in terms of VtM that many of the proposed alternatives like Feed lacks is that even the 1e core book of VtM placed its vampires within the broader context of a world with other supernaturals.

Feed does have an option for "The Supernatural World" on pages 103-4. It's a toolkit for building your own setting.

Quote from: Chris24601 on July 07, 2024, 09:49:50 PMWhich is why I would suggest that in terms of looking for genuine alternatives to VtM you pretty much have to exclude any that are actually vampire exclusive unless you're looking to run a one-off or mini-campaign. It just won't have the depth of gimmicks a typical GM would need to sustain a longer campaign without something more than a single type of vampires (and despite it's clans, VtM vamps out of the 1e corebook box was basically one type of vampire) and humans.

I'm not sure that your premise holds all that much water considering that, when it comes to the urban fantasy genre in ttrpgs, vampires are way more popular than other magical creatures. There are dozens of games solely about vampires, far fewer about monster mashes, and even fewer that focus on other types of magical beings like werewolves or wizards or ghosts. Urban fantasy games in general are just not popular unless they can attach themselves to a popular book IP like Dresden Files.

Maybe you're right and the people making games are just making the wrong games. I have to admit, I vastly prefer games like WotC's abandoned Urban Arcana where you have a variety of fantasy creatures running around modernish Earth. Urban Arcana not only had vampires, werewolves, etc, but also orcs, elves, dwarves, dragons, etc. I would love an urban fantasy game where you can play angels, dragons, unicorns, elves, etc right out the box.

I can only name a handful of games that do anything like that. Abyss, Night Shift, Human(ish), Nightcrawlers, Sigil & Shadow... there's probably more but I can't recall the names.

GMing a Vampire is definitely easier for me in a world where there are other supernatural things (more sources of conflict), however I'd prefer that as a bestiary. 99% of the urban fantasy games are kitchen sink that lack the single-splat focus that I really want.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 07, 2024, 10:07:26 AMIf you want an alternative to the God Machine, then there's an indie game called Midnight World that touches on similar ground but with superior implementation. The basic premise is that various dread gods from failed-yet-somehow-extant universes are trying to invade Earth and each has its own aesthetics and goals to distinguish it from the others.

Sounds like a weird divine take on Torg.

Which could be interesting. Thanks. I'll check it out.

Quote from: PulpHerb on July 08, 2024, 05:57:19 PMSounds like a weird divine take on Torg.

It's a subtler horror take, with a sanity mechanic. There's a review here: https://www.enworld.org/threads/review-%E2%80%93-the-midnight-world.692341/

The Midnight World is one world in a multiverse where worlds are created and destroyed all the time. But some come out malformed, yet don't disintegrate under their own inconsistencies. These "corpse universes" generate all sorts of cosmically wrong phenomena, like the godlike "dread beings". The Midnight World is much more permeable than other worlds, so it is vulnerable to intrusions from corpse universes.

My experience is mostly Palladium Books.  Not everyone likes their rules, which are loosey-goosey.  I recently learned that this is deliberate.

Anyway, their mystical games that are set in a world where magic and angst ridden anti-heroes exist are Beyond the Supernatural and Nightbane.

BtS is about a world where the supernatural isn't known except by the rare heroes.  In fact, monsters can only appear under certain circumstances, and all evidence fades away when they're dead. 

Nightbane is much more open about the supernatural, as everyone experienced "Dark day" when the sun never rose for 24 hours.  Now monster attacks are a thing, as well as heroes who are capable of changing into all sorts of monstrous creatures to fight back.  However, being a Nightbane is more like a thing you do on the weekends while blending in on most days as a normal citizen. 

Quote from: weirdguy564 on July 09, 2024, 07:04:42 PMMy experience is mostly Palladium Books.  Not everyone likes their rules, which are loosey-goosey.  I recently learned that this is deliberate.

Anyway, their mystical games that are set in a world where magic and angst ridden anti-heroes exist are Beyond the Supernatural and Nightbane.

BtS is about a world where the supernatural isn't known except by the rare heroes.  In fact, monsters can only appear under certain circumstances, and all evidence fades away when they're dead. 

Nightbane is much more open about the supernatural, as everyone experienced "Dark day" when the sun never rose for 24 hours.  Now monster attacks are a thing, as well as heroes who are capable of changing into all sorts of monstrous creatures to fight back.  However, being a Nightbane is more like a thing you do on the weekends while blending in on most days as a normal citizen. 

It's easy enough to shift Nightbane to a more traditional urban fantasy "hidden world" arrangement though.

Just skip Dark Day and make the Nightlords' a secret conspiracy ruling the world. The story begins when the PCs first discover they're a Nightbane and so are de facto part of the secret war in the shadows.

The biggest issue I had with Nightbane was its CJ Carella power scaling. During his tenure he was infamous for the power creep in his supplements and Nightbane bares all those hallmarks (PCs with many hundreds of hit points, SDC, and PPE, routine attacks with x10 after the damage dice, etc.; big numbers just for the sake of big numbers).

Thus, as with many things Palladium, the setting is good (particularly once you add the supplements for magic and other things that go bump in the night to it), but it might almost be easier to run it in something like Mutants & Masterminds and the random appearance tables (the most interesting part of the Nightbane) as guidelines.

I was thinking of adapting the concept of Nightbane into a "night world" (campaign setting) for Night Shift. The basic idea is that most magical creatures are evil, a la Buffy, but a minority are good, such as the PCs. They moonlight as superheroes.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 10, 2024, 09:34:08 AMI was thinking of adapting the concept of Nightbane into a "night world" (campaign setting) for Night Shift. The basic idea is that most magical creatures are evil, a la Buffy, but a minority are good, such as the PCs. They moonlight as superheroes.

I could definitely see it working like that.

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 26, 2024, 04:58:32 PMPlayers want to be heroes of their own stories, not captives for someone's wankfest about their Mary Sue.

THIS is extremely correct.

BUT what players want isn't as important to publishers as what COLLECTORS want...and collectors love metaplot because they aren't players, just readers who treat RPG books as novels instead of game manuals.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 08, 2024, 08:35:05 AM

Quote from: Chris24601 on July 07, 2024, 09:49:50 PMOne of the things that I think gets overlooked in terms of VtM that many of the proposed alternatives like Feed lacks is that even the 1e core book of VtM placed its vampires within the broader context of a world with other supernaturals.

Feed does have an option for "The Supernatural World" on pages 103-4. It's a toolkit for building your own setting.

Somehow I missed this previously, but I think your comment actually proves my point. A two-page toolkit for other supernaturals (along with the main vampire toolkit) is basically the antithesis of what most GMs/players are looking for.

They aren't interested in toolkitting their own setting together. They want a pre-built setting ready to just add their particular characters to it. This is why something like the classic World of Darkness or Nightbane (or Star Wars or Rifts or a lot of Fantasy settings) work in ways toolkit games just don't.

The GM doesn't have to figure out what they want their particular vampires to be or have to work out from two pages what, if any, other supernaturals there are in the world. They want to be able to just toss a book at the players and say "here is what you can build from."

Similarly, players in my experience don't want to guess at how the setting works... they want to be able to be able to understand just enough about the setting to be able to make something that fits (even if the particular choice is super rare to the setting, work has been done by the devs so it still fits).

Any serious competition to VtM needs to at least provide enough of a pre-built setting so those sorts of things are possible (IMHO obviously).

Quote from: Spinachcat on July 23, 2024, 05:01:05 AMwhat players want isn't as important to publishers as what COLLECTORS want...and collectors love metaplot because they aren't players, just readers who treat RPG books as novels instead of game manuals.

Yeah, fuck those guys. They're toxic and cyberbullied me out of the fandom because I wanted to play actual games. I'm so glad that Paradox pissed them off and drove the IP into the ground.

Quote from: Chris24601 on July 23, 2024, 07:39:16 PMA two-page toolkit for other supernaturals (along with the main vampire toolkit) is basically the antithesis of what most GMs/players are looking for.

They aren't interested in toolkitting their own setting together. They want a pre-built setting ready to just add their particular characters to it. This is why something like the classic World of Darkness or Nightbane (or Star Wars or Rifts or a lot of Fantasy settings) work in ways toolkit games just don't.

Feed provides several sample settings. I don't know what you're expecting. The author didn't have enough funds to write the setting book stretch goal and never did any further supplements. It's creative commons, so anyone can make their own million page setting book if they really want to.

I don't give a crap about the ramblings of a failed novelist. I just need enough material to explain "what do the PCs do?" Most lore, especially WoD lore, is irrelevant impractical garbage written by hacks to stroke their egos. I only care about practical information that is actually relevant to gameplay, like adventures and monster stats.

I don't begrudge authors making up their own settings, but in practice this is a straightjacket that attracts toxic fandom obsessed with lore that attacks you for making homebrews. Fuck those guys. The entire reason I like toolkits is to get away from those asshats.

Toolkits can totally be marketable. Night's Black Agents is a toolkit and it has an active community. D&D has a canonical multiverse and I don't see people complaining that it lets you invent your own settings; indeed, that's a key reason for its popularity. Many people love inventing their own fantasy worlds.

Quote from: Chris24601 on July 23, 2024, 07:39:16 PMAny serious competition to VtM needs to at least provide enough of a pre-built setting so those sorts of things are possible (IMHO obviously).

I don't want to compete with that. I want a game that is made to be played, not read.

Most players are conformists and only play VtM because it's superficially trendy (or at least it was in the past), not because they're strongly invested in it or because it actually does what they want to use it for. As thegamingden explained, it's a shitty setting and shitty system that briefly got popular despite itself.

Yeah, the fact Feed sits on creative commons after failing to hit the goal to supply a setting book says a lot; and probably not what you think it does.

Nights Black Agents is much less of a toolkit... the premise is secret agents fighting vampires and it gives four main genres for doing so along with four categories of vampires so you can mix and match to keep players on their toes.

That's nothing like Feed's basically blank canvas where the GM has to decide everything and again supports my point because it has more specifics laid out for the GM/players including a very tight premise (secret agents vs. vampires) that makes it easy for players to go to the stock tropes of the spy genre to come up with PC concepts.

That's why it has more of a following than Feed does too, I am almost certain.

And it's why VtM with its extensive world-building has such a dominant position relative to its competitors. You my find the fiction of it trite and self-aggrandizing, but it serves the purpose of fleshing out the world into something richer than a virtually empty setting for anyone bothering to read it.

You may not need it, but you are also not most people. Most people don't want a box of IKEA parts, they want a table or chair or desk.

It's also why people will pick up games associated with particular IPs even if the system is crap. Lore draws more people to try a game than mechanics.

So, I reiterate, if you want a replacement for VtM... it needs a genuine built-up setting more than it needs a ton of options/toolkits.

That's why something like Nightbane is memorable enough that people would give it a try despite it being Palladium rules, while Feed languishes in Creative Commons.

But I'd further caveat that with the need to read the zeitgeist. VtM also would have failed to launch if it came out today instead of 1991. It was the particulars of the era that it's Gothic Punk "eat your way to the top" ethos were able to latch onto and ride to rival even D&D at the time.

We don't live in that world anymore. VtM is only a thing today because of nostalgia. It's messages are contorted to meaninglessness by the developers refusal to acknowledge that the rebels they embraced are today The Man... so the new generation of rebels isn't allowed to fight a caracature of The Man they actually experience... but some strawman that hasn't existed in more than a decade.

It lost its truth. And without truth only nostalgia is left... and in my experience, presenting truth can trump nostalgia.

If you want to really supplant VtM you're wasting your time with a message-less toolkit. You need a setting that speaks to the truth of the age, either in earnest or as biting satire. The monsters need elements that speak to the monsters of today; chaos, factionalism, a breakdown of society and identity itself... parasitical elites who treat men as cattle and want to herd them all into "15-minute smart cities" so as to more easily exploit them.

Honestly? I don't think vampires as protagonists even works in the present zeitgeist... even as satire. In the 90's there was still the dream of the little guy getting into big business on the ground floor and fighting their way to the top.

But the divide between the elites and everyone else has grown and the barriers to entry become so rigid that the mentality that you can join the monsters and work your way up and maybe be a slightly better monster just doesn't feel authentic anymore. If you're in the club it's because you were already a monster.

Similarly, being a parasite when society is bloated like a tick feels different than being one when everyone you know is struggling just to make ends meet.

So, yeah, my opinion remains... toolkits don't inspire; settings that define some truth do.

These days I think something akin to survival horror in a world ruled by vampires and their minions would be what would strike a chord. The PCs are a group who have banded together to survive and hopefully strike back at the vampire elites, or at least save others from their depredations.

Quote from: Chris24601 on July 24, 2024, 11:08:47 AMYeah, the fact Feed sits on creative commons after failing to hit the goal to supply a setting book says a lot; and probably not what you think it does.

Nights Black Agents is much less of a toolkit... the premise is secret agents fighting vampires and it gives four main genres for doing so along with four categories of vampires so you can mix and match to keep players on their toes.

That's nothing like Feed's basically blank canvas where the GM has to decide everything and again supports my point because it has more specifics laid out for the GM/players including a very tight premise (secret agents vs. vampires) that makes it easy for players to go to the stock tropes of the spy genre to come up with PC concepts.

There's numerous indie games that are abandoned after releasing one book. Feed isn't unique in this regard. There are numerous other examples I've listed in this thread. Alone in the Darkness, Elegy, Bellum, Vampire City, Wine Dark Nights, etc.

How much have you read Feed? It's not a basically blank canvas. It's about playing vampires without the straitjacket of a trite outdated self-aggrandizing lore, but it still imposes some universal structure. Namely, 1) vampires feed and 2) struggle with their dual nature.

It has 4 sample settings that each have very specific themes, while still using that underlying structure. In "Danse Macabre," vampirism is emphasized as an addiction metaphor and being a vampire is not very sexy. In "Hush", vampirism is the result of a pact with demons that grant your wishes in exchange for victims' blood. In "Los Satanicos", vampires are b-movie villains that use their humanity as a cover for their activities. In "Nod", vampirism is emphasized as a metaphor for the cycle of violence, being transmitted when someone kills a vampire.

The reason the author wrote it was specifically because he was frustrated with the limitations of VtM being glued to its trite self-aggrandizing outdated setting. It was an experiment. He was never trying to create a competitor or a full-fledged product line. He hasn't touched it since he released it a decade ago.

QuoteThat's why it has more of a following than Feed does too, I am almost certain.

NBA has a publisher behind it who continually supports it with new releases, blog posts, and forums. No surprise that it has a following.

I shouldn't have to say this outright, but tabletop game communities are shallow and congregate around games that are currently supported by publishers with new releases and social media. That's the edition treadmill in a nutshell. Any game that doesn't run the edition treadmill will fade into obscurity.

Urban Shadows has been in development hell for years, but it has an active community on the publisher's discord server. It is even more generic than Feed is, not even having any settings at all, but it still has an active community. It seems pretty obvious to me that Feed's obscurity is entirely down to the author not advertising it. There was a facebook page for the kickstarter, but it seems to have been taken down a while ago.

Quote from: Chris24601 on July 24, 2024, 11:08:47 AMYou may not need it, but you are also not most people. Most people don't want a box of IKEA parts, they want a table or chair or desk.

It's also why people will pick up games associated with particular IPs even if the system is crap. Lore draws more people to try a game than mechanics.

So, I reiterate, if you want a replacement for VtM... it needs a genuine built-up setting more than it needs a ton of options/toolkits.

That's why something like Nightbane is memorable enough that people would give it a try despite it being Palladium rules, while Feed languishes in Creative Commons.

So what's wrong with the 4 sample settings? How much padding does a setting need to pass your standards? A dozen pages? A few hundred? If you really want me to, then I can consult my years of notes and write a setting in several hundred pages of irrelevant exposition dumping, but I feel there are deeper concerns at play here.

You're asking Feed to be something it was never intended to be. You want a game with a narrowly defined political message relevant to the current zeitgeist, but Feed was never about doing that. It's intended to be a vampire mythos game that can emulate most any vampire fiction, without being straitjacketed like White Wolf is. Vampire fiction is a lot broader than a "secret agents vs vampires" premise.

Quote from: Chris24601 on July 24, 2024, 11:08:47 AMIf you want to really supplant VtM you're wasting your time with a message-less toolkit.

Okay, so you've clearly not read much of the book if you're calling it message-less. It beats you over the head with its "vampirism as addiction" metaphor. Instead of humanity stat, it has an Addiction stat that measures how vampiric the character is. The message is very obviously that "no matter how good it feels, addiction is bad." That's an evergreen message.

If Feed tried basing itself on a political message, then it would date itself irrevocably. The intention is to avoid dating itself. It devotes a chapter to studying the last two centuries of vampire literature and explaining how that can be mined for games, explaining how the various trends have differed and result in different experiences.

Here's a link the author's google drive link so you can refresh your memory: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Byiv9hddS-1aQnluNEk1N0FWRzQ/view?usp=drive_link&resourcekey=0-DvS1eYTdc3zCFp-k4Z-fdQ

What I like about Feed is that it neatly solves a lot of ludo-narrative dissonance problems with the White Wolf games, such as "paths of whatever I was gonna do anyway". It does this because it treats vampirism and humanity as a lightside/darkside mechanic. It must be doing something right, because Wine Dark Nights apparently uses a very similar structure with predator/prey skills that are modified by humanity/hunger levels (I don't have the book yet, but once I do then I'll give a comparison).

Quote from: Chris24601 on July 24, 2024, 11:08:47 AMBut I'd further caveat that with the need to read the zeitgeist. VtM also would have failed to launch if it came out today instead of 1991. It was the particulars of the era that it's Gothic Punk "eat your way to the top" ethos were able to latch onto and ride to rival even D&D at the time.

We don't live in that world anymore. VtM is only a thing today because of nostalgia. It's messages are contorted to meaninglessness by the developers refusal to acknowledge that the rebels they embraced are today The Man... so the new generation of rebels isn't allowed to fight a caracature of The Man they actually experience... but some strawman that hasn't existed in more than a decade.

It lost its truth. And without truth only nostalgia is left... and in my experience, presenting truth can trump nostalgia.

If you want to really supplant VtM you're wasting your time with a message-less toolkit. You need a setting that speaks to the truth of the age, either in earnest or as biting satire. The monsters need elements that speak to the monsters of today; chaos, factionalism, a breakdown of society and identity itself... parasitical elites who treat men as cattle and want to herd them all into "15-minute smart cities" so as to more easily exploit them.

Honestly? I don't think vampires as protagonists even works in the present zeitgeist... even as satire. In the 90's there was still the dream of the little guy getting into big business on the ground floor and fighting their way to the top.

But the divide between the elites and everyone else has grown and the barriers to entry become so rigid that the mentality that you can join the monsters and work your way up and maybe be a slightly better monster just doesn't feel authentic anymore. If you're in the club it's because you were already a monster.

Similarly, being a parasite when society is bloated like a tick feels different than being one when everyone you know is struggling just to make ends meet.

So, yeah, my opinion remains... toolkits don't inspire; settings that define some truth do.

These days I think something akin to survival horror in a world ruled by vampires and their minions would be what would strike a chord. The PCs are a group who have banded together to survive and hopefully strike back at the vampire elites, or at least save others from their depredations.

That's an interesting analysis and I do think it helps explain why I have never liked the old White Wolf games. You should make that game and see how well it does. I'm looking through my copy of Vampire City right now, and it has a setting titled "Immortal Overlords" on page 38 that fits your description.

But that doesn't really help me because I don't want a new game where you play as vampire hunters resisting vampire overlords. I want a game where you play as vampires, without any of that dumb white wolf vomit or toxic lore collectors. I want a game that I can do homebrew for, with my own settings and such, without being attacked as a heretic.

I've gone through a number of games, as listed in this thread (see https://www.therpgsite.com/index.php?msg=1286757 ). Of all the games I've gone through, the ones that I think have the best mechanics and are the best suited to adapt with changing times are the toolkit games like Feed and Vampire City. The vampire genre changes with the times and you can't make a game based on a single fixed setting and expect it to stay relevant after more than a few years, especially it you deliberately try to talk to a zeitgeist. So those toolkits don't try to date themselves, but instead emulate the vampire genre in all its past and future.

If Wine Dark Nights is any indication, then indie designers are just gonna keep reinventing Feed until one of them gets lucky.

QuoteSo, yeah, my opinion remains... toolkits don't inspire; settings that define some truth do.

So what truth does the D&D multiverse define that has kept it popular for 50 years straight despite the mismanagement? Even though Faerun is currently the "default" D&D setting, most D&D players do not actually give a crap about it. Why is everyone happy to treat D&D as a toolkit with a plethora of settings, but loses their shit when urban fantasy tries to do the same?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 24, 2024, 01:37:15 PMHow much have you read Feed? It's not a basically blank canvas. It's about playing vampires without the straitjacket of a trite outdated self-aggrandizing lore, but it still imposes some universal structure. Namely, 1) vampires feed and 2) struggle with their dual nature.

It has 4 sample settings that each have very specific themes, while still using that underlying structure. In "Danse Macabre," vampirism is emphasized as an addiction metaphor and being a vampire is not very sexy. In "Hush", vampirism is the result of a pact with demons that grant your wishes in exchange for victims' blood. In "Los Satanicos", vampires are b-movie villains that use their humanity as a cover for their activities. In "Nod", vampirism is emphasized as a metaphor for the cycle of violence, being transmitted when someone kills a vampire.

I've read the whole damnable thing... we just have very different definitions of what constitutes a setting or toolkit apparently.

For example, THIS...

Contrary to reassuring legend, which states that only a vampire's bite can pass on the curse, vampirism can seize any corpse within miles of a vampire. Rarely, and seemingly at random, a corpse simply opens its eyes and begins to live again, healed of whatever caused its death.

Newly-risen vampires quickly discover, however, that they have traded death for a living hell; an overwhelming craving for human blood prevents them from returning to a normal human existence. Humans can't understand the agony of thirst or the immense relief of feeding, so blood becomes a secret obsession, and the hunt for blood becomes a secret life.

Unlike the romantic predators of folklore, these vampires have no fangs and no magical power to help them in the hunt. Their tools are mundane: knives and needles, chloroform and plastic tubing, false smiles and leather gloves. Stealing blood is a difficult, horrific task that comes to consume every other aspect of life. As cruel as it is, though, the craving won't be denied. Withdrawal symptoms torture vampire who fail to drink their fill. Even for vampires who feed to excess, the touch of sunlight can awaken hunger in full force, nullifying nights of careful hunting in minutes.

While many vampires rise and hunt alone, a group of corpses occasionally rises together. These vampires often band together for help and companionship in their early nights. In other cases, a newly-risen vampire meets its progenitor and becomes his or her "apprentice". In either case, vampires who learn the value of cooperation often form small families, conspiracies or hunting packs to help feed their shared addiction. Very few vampires exist, though – only two or three cities in a given geographic region contain vampires – so vampires rarely meet and never organize beyond the local level.

Using this Strain
The Danse Macabre Strain is about the basic problems of vampirism: feeding, hiding, losing control, and adapting to life as a predator. It's best suited to a grim and realistic tone, in keeping with the Strain's lack of supernatural powers.

The Strain has two built-in conflict hooks: the difficulty of feeding, and the relationship between vampires and their "progeny," whom they create unwittingly. Other conflicts will arise from your Story Profile and in play, but be careful of overburdening vampires of this Strain with high-maintenance action or mystery stories. Just surviving night-to-night is a challenge and a story in itself. Rather than superimposing another story, consider flavoring the basic challenge of survival in some unique way; for example, a crime drama and a story set in a medieval abbey would both offer great and interesting–but very different–obstacles to feeding.

As vampires are rare and supernatural elements are scarce for this Strain, it's vital that the human world feel real. Be sure to develop interesting human NPCs, both sympathetic and antagonistic. Likewise, the consequences of addiction are absolutely essential to this Strain. These vampires don't burn in the sun and they're not undead. Only the craving for blood makes them monsters, so you have to show how it makes them monsters.

Sample Story Profiles
On a cross-country road trip, four recent college graduates die in an auto accident and rise again. Without a clue as to their new natures and cravings, they struggle to survive their first vulnerable nights as vampires in an unfamiliar Midwestern town. Amid their primary challenges of acquiring blood and attempting to salvage their old lives, the graduates discover that they are not the first vampires to roam the night. Eventually, they come face to face with the freed servants and vengeful victims of a mysterious predecessor.

Legend tells of the Twig Man, a cunning, blood-drinking monster in the looming forests of Northern California. Despite the warnings of locals, logging camps along the Klamath River toil for years without a hint of the monster... until the winter of 1899, when a few lumberjacks suffer a gory accident in the waning dusk. Beneath the Cold Moon, the men rise hungry. Trapped together amid miles of desolate snow, the new vampires and the hard-nosed human lumberjacks desperately hunt each other, while from the shelter of the redwoods, the Twig Man watches...

...is NOT an RPG setting. It is maybe the start of an idea for a setting, but even then its so shallow that after your first couple times pretending Dexter is a vampire you're pretty much done. Its maybe a one-shot or mini-campaign idea at best.

Nor are the others any better... most of them read like some dude trying to work through his drug/sex addictions using his RPG project to seek catharsis. None of them have the depth to sustain more than a mini-campaign at best. If you're a non-addict and/or realize that roleplay not conducted by a licensed therapist is possibly one of the worst ideas ever there's nothing in Feed worth a damn.

Similarly, THIS is the sum total of what you described as a toolkit for including Supernaturals...

The Supernatural World
Many pop culture vampires share their world with other supernatural forces. In Vampire: the Masquerade, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the Castlevania games and Twilight, non-vampire supernaturals help define the setting. Likewise, vampires play secondary roles in broader supernatural settings like the Marvel Universe and Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files series.

The three options for implementing non-vampiric supernatural abilities and forces in Feed are:

1. Separate Dice Pool
Magic rituals, enchanted weapons, haunted locations and the like work best as separate dice pools not tied to any specific character. Mechanically, these magical "items" are no different from any other piece of equipment or environmental obstacle; simply assign each one a dice pool. The die size for supernatural elements may range from d4 to d12, depending on whether the story calls for other supernatural forces to equal vampirism in power.

2. Special Human Trait
To represent the specific powers of non-vampire creatures like werewolves or demons, use special Human Traits that are available only to characters of the appropriate type. These Traits should usually have a die size of d12, but may have lower die sizes to represent lesser powers, like the supernatural abilities of mediums and exorcists in low-fantasy settings. Don't create a new type of Trait to account for a new creature type. The balance between Human and Vampiric Traits is all about Hunger and Addiction; new Trait types won't interact elegantly with the existing rules. Just treat supernatural Traits as Human Traits with a little extra oomph.

3. Special Rules
To represent the general abilities of a type of creature, or to represent supernatural qualities too broad to work as Traits, write special rules. For example, a story featuring androids, or a fantasy race like elves, must define their special qualities more broadly than Traits will permit. Use the Gifts, Special Rules and Weaknesses in the Creating a Strain section (starting on pg. 12) as templates.

Gee... I needed a toolkit to tell me "write your own rules for non-vampires." That is SO helpful.

If Feed is the go-to inspiration for Indie designers, then prepare for the endless suck (pun intended) and people preferred VtM (even the stripped down woke V5) to continue indefinitely. There's nothing inspiring or interesting worth exploring in its pages... and yes I know because I did actually look at it for a prospect to replace VtM at one point.