Looking for a good alternative to VTM. In particular, I want something that isn't very rules-heavy, and it must be vampire-themed (so no generic systems). Any recommendations? :)
Only thing I can think of is Actual Fucking Monsters. Never read the rules, but from the blurb, it looks like it was intended as a response to the perceived softening of VTM and similar games over the years.
https://post-mort.com/collections/roleplaying-games/products/actual-fucking-monsters
I'd be interested in this as well.
Liminal is pretty damn good though but it does include a lot of other supernatural creatures. But you can play Vamps.
Here's a list: (Sorry about the quality, typing on my phone)
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/124387 <- This one is my personal favorite
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/375472
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/223788
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/219754
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/2945
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/317710
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/308014
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/692
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/106783
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/202601
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/174206
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/306279
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/153464
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/212511
Some of them are more general urban fantasy, but offer vampiric characters
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on January 14, 2023, 12:22:19 PM
Here's a list: (Sorry about the quality, typing on my phone)
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/124387 <- This one is my personal favorite
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/375472
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/223788
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/219754
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/2945
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/317710
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/308014
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/692
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/106783
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/202601
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/174206
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/306279
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/153464
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/212511
Some of them are more general urban fantasy, but offer vampiric characters
Great list! Thanks.
How did I forget about Blood Dark Thirst? That's a great game (if a little space).
I've considered making my own urban fantasy game, but I don't know what people actually want out of the genre. My preference is to write mechanics for things that people want, not shove square pegs in round holes like "designers" typically do.
Have a look at Undying. Neat little game that did what VTM never managed to do for us. You really feel like you're in this web of supernatural society that you must leverage to your interests, sometimes joining forces to other PCs to contain bigger threats, other times scheming against them to push your own agenda and climb the status ladder. All the while managing your "feeding grounds" (with actual stats like abundance and prey awareness) and it's neighbours (you can actually lose grounds to competing vampires). All in a rules-light package.
Here, the character sheets from the Magpie site: https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0569/7716/2422/files/Undying_Sheets.pdf?v=1627575511 (https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0569/7716/2422/files/Undying_Sheets.pdf?v=1627575511)
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on January 14, 2023, 02:06:44 PM
I've considered making my own urban fantasy game, but I don't know what people actually want out of the genre. My preference is to write mechanics for things that people want, not shove square pegs in round holes like "designers" typically do.
Ironically I've been dabbling with a new Vamp game for a year or two, loosely based on 80s horror and the types of Vampires you'd have in those movies. So less of the angst and more of the monster. Basically, players would embrace their vampiric nature. Although their origin is Lovecraftian in nature (not that many of them know that of course). I wanted a pretty bleak vibe overall and one that would complement the zeitgeist of the US at that time.
But I kept having problems with mechanics (I've no head for maths or probabilities).
Urban Fantasy is a tough nut to crack. But I think Liminal is pretty sweet.
Many thanks for the recommendations, everyone! :)
Vampire - Alone in the Darkness
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/329920/Vampire--Alone-in-the-Darkness
101 games also has rules for witches, werewolves, and Cthulhu, but they haven't been translated into English yet afaik.
Quote from: mudbanks on January 17, 2023, 12:49:50 AM
Many thanks for the recommendations, everyone! :)
Glad to help!
Also, forgot to link this:
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/364162/Sigil--Shadow
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/156434/humanish
Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on January 15, 2023, 07:02:42 AM
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on January 14, 2023, 02:06:44 PM
I've considered making my own urban fantasy game, but I don't know what people actually want out of the genre. My preference is to write mechanics for things that people want, not shove square pegs in round holes like "designers" typically do.
Ironically I've been dabbling with a new Vamp game for a year or two, loosely based on 80s horror and the types of Vampires you'd have in those movies. So less of the angst and more of the monster. Basically, players would embrace their vampiric nature. Although their origin is Lovecraftian in nature (not that many of them know that of course). I wanted a pretty bleak vibe overall and one that would complement the zeitgeist of the US at that time.
But I kept having problems with mechanics (I've no head for maths or probabilities).
Urban Fantasy is a tough nut to crack. But I think Liminal is pretty sweet.
I've looked at
Liminal and a number of others. What I think some of them suffer from is a lack of focus.
For example, in
Liminal vampires are evil aside from dhampirs (the PC vampire option)... but werewolves aren't. Instead of a setting where all monsters besides the PCs are evil a la
Nightbane or one where monsters are more gray/independent, we get different takes for different monsters. Which is a choice.
I'd prefer something where you'd have some universal rules that can run multiple kinds of campaign settings, with further options to mix and match. So far,
Feed,
Night's Black Agents and
Night Shift are the few games I've found that explicitly offers multiple settings right out of the box.
Yeah, I think with Liminal it's more of a pure Urban Fantasy as opposed to Vampire-centric. So it's probably not what OP is after as you say.
Speaking of, OP hasn't really specified what he's looking for in a vampire game. What precisely are you looking for? Undying covers politics and territory disputes, Urban Shadows covers politics and factionalism, Feed covers the internal struggle between human and vampiric natures, Everlasting has a dozen vampire bloodlines writeups, Nightcrawlers is a monster mash, etc
Shiver has awesome and rules-lite, yet robust mechanics for all genres of horror. Add on their Gothic supplement and you have all the vampire stuff you need to do whatever you want.
That is exactly what I'm going to do with it. I am going to be do something similar to VtM but without the setting stuff in the modern day. Vampires struggling against their nature while trying to climb the social ladder in vampire society and navigating vampire politics.
If anyone would be interested in trying the really intriguing Vampire Alone in the Darkness game in a GM'less small group, I will literally hook you up with the PDF. I accidentally got multiples from DriveThruRPG.
I've wanted to do a modern-day vampire RPG somewhat similar to VtM for a long time now. THis allows different modes of play from solo to group without a GM to classic GM + group.
Any interested folks?
There's also The Blood and Strands of Power.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/333015/The-Blood-Basic-Rules
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/97330/Strands-of-Power
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on January 17, 2023, 02:39:02 PM
Speaking of, OP hasn't really specified what he's looking for in a vampire game. What precisely are you looking for? Undying covers politics and territory disputes, Urban Shadows covers politics and factionalism, Feed covers the internal struggle between human and vampiric natures, Everlasting has a dozen vampire bloodlines writeups, Nightcrawlers is a monster mash, etc
I'm running it for some teens so nothing too M18 (but we don't want Twilight sparkles either). Politics and being played about as pawns (before finally exacting revenge) is going to be what drives the campaign forward. Also it'll get PCs drunk with power for a while as they play around with mortals.
The best comparison I can think of regarding how I would like the campaign to go is True Blood Season 1, sans the sex.
In the end, I just went with SWADE Fantasy and Horror, taking bits and pieces from each. I know I said I didn't want a generic system, but I'm so familiar with SWADE that I just went back to it lol. It helped that Horror had rules for playing as a vampire, so I didn't have to hack much. I almost went with The Blood Hack, but I didn't want to give crazed leftists my money.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on January 17, 2023, 09:36:26 AM
Quote from: mudbanks on January 17, 2023, 12:49:50 AM
Many thanks for the recommendations, everyone! :)
Glad to help!
Also, forgot to link this:
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/364162/Sigil--Shadow
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/156434/humanish
Sigil & Shadow has my interest now, thanks! I like DwD's games. This may replace Savage Worlds for me.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/375472/Nightcrawlers
I picked up the print version of Nightcrawlers recently. It is essentially WOD monsters simplified for The Black Hack. You can get the print version on Exalted Funeral.
Quote from: Batjon on January 17, 2023, 07:47:34 PM
If anyone would be interested in trying the really intriguing Vampire Alone in the Darkness game in a GM'less small group, I will literally hook you up with the PDF. I accidentally got multiples from DriveThruRPG.
I've wanted to do a modern-day vampire RPG somewhat similar to VtM for a long time now. THis allows different modes of play from solo to group without a GM to classic GM + group.
Any interested folks?
Do you know when the other books in this series will be released in English? Together with the vampire rules, they could serve as a good alternative to WoD/CoD.
Quote from: mudbanks on January 17, 2023, 08:38:11 PM
Sigil & Shadow has my interest now, thanks! I like DwD's games. This may replace Savage Worlds for me.
Sigil and Shadow is fantastic if you're looking for an Urban Fantasy game that focuses on Modern Magic. A very slick set of rules too.
Quote from: Lynn on January 18, 2023, 01:32:38 AM
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/375472/Nightcrawlers
I picked up the print version of Nightcrawlers recently. It is essentially WOD monsters simplified for The Black Hack. You can get the print version on Exalted Funeral.
It's actually a remake of
Nightlife, which was released in 1990. A whole year before white wolf started their releases.
Quote from: Rhymer88 on January 18, 2023, 02:52:41 AM
Quote from: Batjon on January 17, 2023, 07:47:34 PM
If anyone would be interested in trying the really intriguing Vampire Alone in the Darkness game in a GM'less small group, I will literally hook you up with the PDF. I accidentally got multiples from DriveThruRPG.
I've wanted to do a modern-day vampire RPG somewhat similar to VtM for a long time now. THis allows different modes of play from solo to group without a GM to classic GM + group.
Any interested folks?
Do you know when the other books in this series will be released in English? Together with the vampire rules, they could serve as a good alternative to WoD/CoD.
I wrote to the devs over Facebook and asked when the new version of Vampire Alone in the Darkness would be released and they stated it would be March or April.
For a while now I've been brainstorming ideas for a setting inspired by works like Nightlife, Captain Kronos and American Vampire comic where the secret world is inhabited by many different strains of vampirism, lycanthropy, witchcraft, etc. Not just uses a single template with at most a few superpower cost breaks and one or two additional drawbacks, but wildly different in their origins, feeding, and other traits.
I'm not sure that many would be interested, tho.
Something I really want to avoid is the "glorified high school cliques" problem that made certain other games intolerable for me.
Quote from: mudbanks on January 17, 2023, 08:38:11 PM
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on January 17, 2023, 02:39:02 PM
Speaking of, OP hasn't really specified what he's looking for in a vampire game. What precisely are you looking for? Undying covers politics and territory disputes, Urban Shadows covers politics and factionalism, Feed covers the internal struggle between human and vampiric natures, Everlasting has a dozen vampire bloodlines writeups, Nightcrawlers is a monster mash, etc
I'm running it for some teens so nothing too M18 (but we don't want Twilight sparkles either). Politics and being played about as pawns (before finally exacting revenge) is going to be what drives the campaign forward. Also it'll get PCs drunk with power for a while as they play around with mortals.
The best comparison I can think of regarding how I would like the campaign to go is True Blood Season 1, sans the sex.
In the end, I just went with SWADE Fantasy and Horror, taking bits and pieces from each. I know I said I didn't want a generic system, but I'm so familiar with SWADE that I just went back to it lol. It helped that Horror had rules for playing as a vampire, so I didn't have to hack much. I almost went with The Blood Hack, but I didn't want to give crazed leftists my money.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on January 17, 2023, 09:36:26 AM
Quote from: mudbanks on January 17, 2023, 12:49:50 AM
Many thanks for the recommendations, everyone! :)
Glad to help!
Also, forgot to link this:
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/364162/Sigil--Shadow
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/156434/humanish
Sigil & Shadow has my interest now, thanks! I like DwD's games. This may replace Savage Worlds for me.
When I got my SWADE Horror PDF... the *first* thing that came to my mind after scrolling through it was doing a Werewolf the Apocalypse conversion. Different forms would be easy - those are just different stat-bloc shifts, and changes to Pace and the Pace die. Probably wouldn't look any different than the WoD blocs with the hashes seperating the die-codes.
As for the Gifts... that'll be more elbow-grease in terms of breaking up Powers into discrete Gifts including the use of modifiers. Gnosis would be the "Skill".
Rage - Could easily swipe the Burn mechanics from Juicers in Savage Rifts with different penalty mechanics. Might need a *little* tinkering.
Beyond that? What's the hard part? Most of the other mechanics including the Fear induction from the Garou already exist in SWADE (just give it a ridonculous penalty to mortals/non-mystics).
Quote from: tenbones on January 18, 2023, 03:45:27 PM
Quote from: mudbanks on January 17, 2023, 08:38:11 PM
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on January 17, 2023, 02:39:02 PM
Speaking of, OP hasn't really specified what he's looking for in a vampire game. What precisely are you looking for? Undying covers politics and territory disputes, Urban Shadows covers politics and factionalism, Feed covers the internal struggle between human and vampiric natures, Everlasting has a dozen vampire bloodlines writeups, Nightcrawlers is a monster mash, etc
I'm running it for some teens so nothing too M18 (but we don't want Twilight sparkles either). Politics and being played about as pawns (before finally exacting revenge) is going to be what drives the campaign forward. Also it'll get PCs drunk with power for a while as they play around with mortals.
The best comparison I can think of regarding how I would like the campaign to go is True Blood Season 1, sans the sex.
In the end, I just went with SWADE Fantasy and Horror, taking bits and pieces from each. I know I said I didn't want a generic system, but I'm so familiar with SWADE that I just went back to it lol. It helped that Horror had rules for playing as a vampire, so I didn't have to hack much. I almost went with The Blood Hack, but I didn't want to give crazed leftists my money.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on January 17, 2023, 09:36:26 AM
Quote from: mudbanks on January 17, 2023, 12:49:50 AM
Many thanks for the recommendations, everyone! :)
Glad to help!
Also, forgot to link this:
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/364162/Sigil--Shadow
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/156434/humanish
Sigil & Shadow has my interest now, thanks! I like DwD's games. This may replace Savage Worlds for me.
When I got my SWADE Horror PDF... the *first* thing that came to my mind after scrolling through it was doing a Werewolf the Apocalypse conversion. Different forms would be easy - those are just different stat-bloc shifts, and changes to Pace and the Pace die. Probably wouldn't look any different than the WoD blocs with the hashes seperating the die-codes.
As for the Gifts... that'll be more elbow-grease in terms of breaking up Powers into discrete Gifts including the use of modifiers. Gnosis would be the "Skill".
Rage - Could easily swipe the Burn mechanics from Juicers in Savage Rifts with different penalty mechanics. Might need a *little* tinkering.
Beyond that? What's the hard part? Most of the other mechanics including the Fear induction from the Garou already exist in SWADE (just give it a ridonculous penalty to mortals/non-mystics).
Do you really need those things though? I've never found that IP very interesting, not the least because of the obnoxious self-defeating environmentalist propaganda, the awful research on real cultures that still exist, the hypocritical Eurocentrism, etc
There's probably a ton of different ways you could handle werewolves by making it up yourself or drawing upon folklore. Osprey Publishing has a resource book on different kinds of folkloric and literary werewolves.
Well the thread was "Is there a good alternative to VtM". I only took it to the next move - WtA.
heh I never really did the Environmentalist stuff. Was dumb to me (still is). But I do like the cosmology. I even like elements of the NuWoD Werewolf cosmology - but they have it reversed. I can mix and match the two and do my own thing with little effort.
The key here is minimal effort to get what I want. It doesn't *really* have anything to do with WW per se.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on January 18, 2023, 08:58:04 AM
Quote from: Lynn on January 18, 2023, 01:32:38 AM
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/375472/Nightcrawlers
I picked up the print version of Nightcrawlers recently. It is essentially WOD monsters simplified for The Black Hack. You can get the print version on Exalted Funeral.
It's actually a remake of Nightlife, which was released in 1990. A whole year before white wolf started their releases.
I have all of Nightlife. This sounds right up my alley.
Thanks.
Quote from: tenbones on January 18, 2023, 06:07:01 PM
Well the thread was "Is there a good alternative to VtM". I only took it to the next move - WtA.
heh I never really did the Environmentalist stuff. Was dumb to me (still is). But I do like the cosmology. I even like elements of the NuWoD Werewolf cosmology - but they have it reversed. I can mix and match the two and do my own thing with little effort.
The key here is minimal effort to get what I want. It doesn't *really* have anything to do with WW per se.
Ok. The only other non-d20 werewolf game I can think of is Bite Marks. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/296461/Bite-Marks
For whatever reasons, werewolves haven't been popular outside of the white wolf fandom. The most I've seen done were those times they tried making additional mini-settings for Forsaken, like teen wolves and sumerian era demigods. I thought a number of the ideas were interesting, but I always felt they were held back by the monomyth about Father Wolf and the eternally hostile spirit world. It's not cringy ecoterrorism, but it is still a monomyth that heavily restricts what you can do.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on January 19, 2023, 09:39:25 AM
For whatever reasons, werewolves haven't been popular outside of the white wolf fandom. The most I've seen done were those times they tried making additional mini-settings for Forsaken, like teen wolves and sumerian era demigods. I thought a number of the ideas were interesting, but I always felt they were held back by the monomyth about Father Wolf and the eternally hostile spirit world. It's not cringy ecoterrorism, but it is still a monomyth that heavily restricts what you can do.
I always thought the Forsaken myth of Father Wolf being killed was "whatever, okay." But the idea that the Garou who took the marks of Luna were actual bad guys, and Luna was the crazy one, made more sense narratively.
A simple flip, and the myth seems to change things for me. No need at all for the environmental silliness. You can even combine it with the Apocalypse myth and make the Forsaken the Black Spirals. I loved the territorial rules of Forsaken.
But yeah - Werewolf in general was never as popular as Vampire. But as you know, these ideas can be done a lot of different ways, your mileage may vary.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on January 19, 2023, 09:39:25 AM
Quote from: tenbones on January 18, 2023, 06:07:01 PM
Well the thread was "Is there a good alternative to VtM". I only took it to the next move - WtA.
heh I never really did the Environmentalist stuff. Was dumb to me (still is). But I do like the cosmology. I even like elements of the NuWoD Werewolf cosmology - but they have it reversed. I can mix and match the two and do my own thing with little effort.
The key here is minimal effort to get what I want. It doesn't *really* have anything to do with WW per se.
Ok. The only other non-d20 werewolf game I can think of is Bite Marks. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/296461/Bite-Marks
This one has been on my queue for sometime now, thanks for reminding me.
Quote from: tenbones on January 19, 2023, 09:58:57 AM
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on January 19, 2023, 09:39:25 AM
For whatever reasons, werewolves haven't been popular outside of the white wolf fandom. The most I've seen done were those times they tried making additional mini-settings for Forsaken, like teen wolves and sumerian era demigods. I thought a number of the ideas were interesting, but I always felt they were held back by the monomyth about Father Wolf and the eternally hostile spirit world. It's not cringy ecoterrorism, but it is still a monomyth that heavily restricts what you can do.
I always thought the Forsaken myth of Father Wolf being killed was "whatever, okay." But the idea that the Garou who took the marks of Luna were actual bad guys, and Luna was the crazy one, made more sense narratively.
A simple flip, and the myth seems to change things for me. No need at all for the environmental silliness. You can even combine it with the Apocalypse myth and make the Forsaken the Black Spirals. I loved the territorial rules of Forsaken.
But yeah - Werewolf in general was never as popular as Vampire. But as you know, these ideas can be done a lot of different ways, your mileage may vary.
Yeah, white wolf always struggled to write coherent backstories. Everything has to be convoluted af.
I would've just had werewolves invent their own myths to explain their origins, rather than having a single myth that is known and believed truth planetwide. For example, you could have Christian werewolves that fight demons and are patronized by guardian angels, next to pagan werewolves that believe themselves the divinely blessed descendants of Remus and are patronized by guardian eudemons, next to cursed dudes who involuntarily transform under the full moon and are haunted by hallucinations of their victims, next to devotees of Artemis, etc.
Add some more entries to the pile:
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/325047/Dark-Necessities
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/405602/Fanged--Lightweight-vampire-RPG
^These two are very short. Try them out if you want something that doesn't require much pre-reading.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/343626/Low-Stakes <- If you want to play What We Do In The Shadows, this was explicitly made to do that.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/126591/Upir-Gaunt-Protocol-Game-Series-21 <- If you like monstrous vampires that suddenly wake up in modern times, this is for that.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/99313/Vampire-City-English <- I haven't read it in detail, but it seems to be similar to Undying.
It's difficult to find vampire-related stuff on drivethrurpg because WW products clutter the search results and you can't filter them out.
Anyone wanna try out Vampire Alone in the Darkness online and put it through its paces?
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on January 25, 2023, 07:33:53 PM
Add some more entries to the pile:
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/325047/Dark-Necessities
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/405602/Fanged--Lightweight-vampire-RPG
^These two are very short. Try them out if you want something that doesn't require much pre-reading.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/343626/Low-Stakes <- If you want to play What We Do In The Shadows, this was explicitly made to do that.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/126591/Upir-Gaunt-Protocol-Game-Series-21 <- If you like monstrous vampires that suddenly wake up in modern times, this is for that.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/99313/Vampire-City-English <- I haven't read it in detail, but it seems to be similar to Undying.
It's difficult to find vampire-related stuff on drivethrurpg because WW products clutter the search results and you can't filter them out.
Some of these games might be good for one shots.
I have a few thoughts so far.
Read more through Vampire City. It's a toolkit game for playing vampires. The group can decide on the period (historical, modern, post-apocalyptic, etc) and the rules for vampirism itself. Vampire hunters are permissible character options, too, but there's a greater focus on playable vampires as opposed to purely antagonistic vampires. This makes it a mirror of Night's Black Agents, which is centered around vampire hunters but does occasionally allow vampires to be playable. There's no humanity mechanic whatsoever. It can handle long-running campaigns.
Feed, Night's Black Agents, Undying, and Vampire City are some of the few toolkit vampire games I've found. All of these let the group devise their own lore from the outset, and typically provide 4 campaign settings each. Feed places the emphasis firmly on the internal struggle between humanity and vampirism, which the rules are built around from the ground up, but it includes provisions for playing evil b-movie vamps that use their humanity merely as a cover. The rules are fairly abstract and simplified, so it may take some getting used to if you're more familiar with more complex/concrete systems. Undying is focused firmly around politics and territory and so forth, so it has detailed rules for these. Vampire City places a greater emphasis on developing the external world compared to Feed, but lacks the more robust rules for handling politics that Undying does.
Blood Dark Thirst, The Blood Hack, and The Vampire: Alone in the Darkness are not toolkits. Each is built around a default setting. Vampires are generally treated as demonic reanimated corpses here, only sometimes with some kind of morality/humanity mechanic or internal struggle. These are very dark fantasy or splatterpunk. Blood Hack and Alone in the Darkness both provide character classes/cliques if you prefer that structure.
By Night We Thirst is a collection of premade settings exploring different takes on the vampire taken directly from existing fiction. It is a supplement fort FATE, not a complete game. You could use it as a resource for another game, however.
The Blood has a default setting, but what sets it apart from other games is that it treats vampirism as a freeform magic system. The titular "The Blood" is a mystical force that empowers vampires and allows them to alter reality through force of will by consuming blood. There's no humanity mechanic: the moral corruption is treated purely as the result of player choice rather than struggling with an inner demon.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on January 26, 2023, 10:51:45 AM
I have a few thoughts so far.
Read more through Vampire City. It's a toolkit game for playing vampires. The group can decide on the period (historical, modern, post-apocalyptic, etc) and the rules for vampirism itself. Vampire hunters are permissible character options, too, but there's a greater focus on playable vampires as opposed to purely antagonistic vampires. This makes it a mirror of Night's Black Agents, which is centered around vampire hunters but does occasionally allow vampires to be playable. There's no humanity mechanic whatsoever. It can handle long-running campaigns.
I found a review of this after your post. I quite like the sound of it, but I'm not mad about GMless games. I also thought the player 'bidding' thing sounded strange too.
So if you wanted to play a more conventional game with this can it do that? Does it give you info on powers or do the players make it up?
Ta'!
Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on January 26, 2023, 11:13:19 AM
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on January 26, 2023, 10:51:45 AM
I have a few thoughts so far.
Read more through Vampire City. It's a toolkit game for playing vampires. The group can decide on the period (historical, modern, post-apocalyptic, etc) and the rules for vampirism itself. Vampire hunters are permissible character options, too, but there's a greater focus on playable vampires as opposed to purely antagonistic vampires. This makes it a mirror of Night's Black Agents, which is centered around vampire hunters but does occasionally allow vampires to be playable. There's no humanity mechanic whatsoever. It can handle long-running campaigns.
I found a review of this after your post. I quite like the sound of it, but I'm not mad about GMless games. I also thought the player 'bidding' thing sounded strange too.
So if you wanted to play a more conventional game with this can it do that? Does it give you info on powers or do the players make it up?
Ta'!
I imagine you could probably house rule that to use a GM/player structure.
There is a list of generic powers with explanations on how they work. The group is free to modify these and invent others.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on January 26, 2023, 11:19:46 AM
Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on January 26, 2023, 11:13:19 AM
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on January 26, 2023, 10:51:45 AM
I have a few thoughts so far.
Read more through Vampire City. It's a toolkit game for playing vampires. The group can decide on the period (historical, modern, post-apocalyptic, etc) and the rules for vampirism itself. Vampire hunters are permissible character options, too, but there's a greater focus on playable vampires as opposed to purely antagonistic vampires. This makes it a mirror of Night's Black Agents, which is centered around vampire hunters but does occasionally allow vampires to be playable. There's no humanity mechanic whatsoever. It can handle long-running campaigns.
I found a review of this after your post. I quite like the sound of it, but I'm not mad about GMless games. I also thought the player 'bidding' thing sounded strange too.
So if you wanted to play a more conventional game with this can it do that? Does it give you info on powers or do the players make it up?
Ta'!
I imagine you could probably house rule that to use a GM/player structure.
There is a list of generic powers with explanations on how they work. The group is free to modify these and invent others.
Cool, I'll pick it up. As I was saying I'm writing my own vamp game at the moment and I'm trying to get as many resources for information as possible.
Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on January 26, 2023, 11:13:19 AM
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on January 26, 2023, 10:51:45 AM
I have a few thoughts so far.
Read more through Vampire City. It's a toolkit game for playing vampires. The group can decide on the period (historical, modern, post-apocalyptic, etc) and the rules for vampirism itself. Vampire hunters are permissible character options, too, but there's a greater focus on playable vampires as opposed to purely antagonistic vampires. This makes it a mirror of Night's Black Agents, which is centered around vampire hunters but does occasionally allow vampires to be playable. There's no humanity mechanic whatsoever. It can handle long-running campaigns.
I found a review of this after your post. I quite like the sound of it, but I'm not mad about GMless games. I also thought the player 'bidding' thing sounded strange too.
So if you wanted to play a more conventional game with this can it do that? Does it give you info on powers or do the players make it up?
Ta'!
GM-less play is just one option in it. It supports play with a GM right out of the box as an option. You can even use the tables it provides for GM-less play for aiding you in coming up with scenarios and such.
Quote from: Batjon on January 26, 2023, 11:37:49 AM
Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on January 26, 2023, 11:13:19 AM
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on January 26, 2023, 10:51:45 AM
I have a few thoughts so far.
Read more through Vampire City. It's a toolkit game for playing vampires. The group can decide on the period (historical, modern, post-apocalyptic, etc) and the rules for vampirism itself. Vampire hunters are permissible character options, too, but there's a greater focus on playable vampires as opposed to purely antagonistic vampires. This makes it a mirror of Night's Black Agents, which is centered around vampire hunters but does occasionally allow vampires to be playable. There's no humanity mechanic whatsoever. It can handle long-running campaigns.
I found a review of this after your post. I quite like the sound of it, but I'm not mad about GMless games. I also thought the player 'bidding' thing sounded strange too.
So if you wanted to play a more conventional game with this can it do that? Does it give you info on powers or do the players make it up?
Ta'!
GM-less play is just one option in it. It supports play with a GM right out of the box as an option. You can even use the tables it provides for GM-less play for aiding you in coming up with scenarios and such.
Thanks! That's good to know.
Adding this newcomer to the list:
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/430585/The-Vampyre-Hack
The same publisher also released games for ghosts and magi. I haven't read it yet, but the blurb sounds like a pretty generic clone.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on April 19, 2023, 11:01:58 AM
Adding this newcomer to the list:
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/430585/The-Vampyre-Hack
The same publisher also released games for ghosts and magi. I haven't read it yet, but the blurb sounds like a pretty generic clone.
Nice one. I must check that out. Ta'.
Reading it right now. It's a blatant ripoff and the author even admits to this in the intro. Which... I mean, I give him credit for honesty after the author of Vampire: Undeath openly lied that he was being original when he obviously wrote a blatant ripoff. But it's still a blatant ripoff with a direct 1:1 correspondence between splats and mechanics that are renamed to avoid lawsuits. Everlasting was obviously a clone but the author of that tried very hard to make it distinct by using folklore as the basis for splats.
The renames aren't even very good, but feel arbitrary, random and torturous. Which is actually how the White Wolf games pick names, so I give the author credit for accurately mimicking that. But I hate that style of naming things. It's like how hack writers pick overly flowery words from thesaurus rather than using simple English.
No offense to the writer. It's his choice to write a ripoff and he admits this, so I can't blame him.
I'm reading the Ghost and Magus hacks. These are very clearly derivatives of White Wolf, to a greater or lesser degree. The Magus Hack has nine splats that are quite clearly ripoffs of Mage: The Ascension, but it doesn't have the same cosmology/antagonists and has a corruption stat called "Hubris" (this is pretty obviously drawing inspiration from Awakening) so it's not as much of a ripoff as the Vampyre Hack. The Ghost Hack is the least of a ripoff, since it has its own splats and reduces key aspects of its source material like the afterlife slaver empire or the evil split personality to optional rules (which I don't mind, as those parts were just typical WW baggage that over-complicates a simple premise).
I'm curious as to whether the author is working on a werewolf hack, but I can understand why one doesn't exist given the source material is social justice madness.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on January 14, 2023, 12:22:19 PM
Here's a list: (Sorry about the quality, typing on my phone)
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/124387 <- This one is my personal favorite
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/375472
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/223788
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/219754
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/2945
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/317710
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/308014
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/692
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/106783
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/202601
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/174206
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/306279
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/153464
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/212511
Some of them are more general urban fantasy, but offer vampiric characters
Very nice list. Some more to add for completeness:
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/156434 (I've never played or read it)
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/731
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/1377
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on April 19, 2023, 11:22:37 AM
Reading it right now. It's a blatant ripoff and the author even admits to this in the intro. Which... I mean, I give him credit for honesty after the author of Vampire: Undeath openly lied that he was being original when he obviously wrote a blatant ripoff. But it's still a blatant ripoff with a direct 1:1 correspondence between splats and mechanics that are renamed to avoid lawsuits. Everlasting was obviously a clone but the author of that tried very hard to make it distinct by using folklore as the basis for splats.
The renames aren't even very good, but feel arbitrary, random and torturous. Which is actually how the White Wolf games pick names, so I give the author credit for accurately mimicking that. But I hate that style of naming things. It's like how hack writers pick overly flowery words from thesaurus rather than using simple English.
No offense to the writer. It's his choice to write a ripoff and he admits this, so I can't blame him.
Sorry for the late reply.
Yeah, I just picked up these two. And you're not wrong. In some cases, it's virtually a pound-for-pound copy with some name changes. Masquerade - Charade! :)
As you pointed out, at least he admits that this is his 'own take' on a popular game of the 90s.
Just for my own personal preference, I'm not sure I like the black hack rules for a vampire game, but I'd have to try it out before making a proper assessment.
It's not bad at all but I think if you are going to do a game like this I'd like to see you add something new & cool as opposed to trying to just recreate the past.
I have to admit, shamefully, that I once did my own rename (https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQ7Nye5r0Dhm8Cp7D81stTbAWsFrl1Gxg7dpmRo5DRNJAtDcyZL0FOwAfNid4-r2yVFSLgATKj4cs89/pub) of the splats for an OSR thing in case anyone else wanted to do their own ripoffs. My intent was to wean disillusioned open-minded fans off their addiction to this tired outdated 90s IP and encourage them to make up their own stuff. I tried picking names that feel like something real people would come up with, compared to whatever Rein-Hagen was smoking.
I checked out the author's blog (http://www.fenorc.co.uk/), and I have to admit that he is way more charitable towards this IP than I am. Although his original ideas genuinely look interesting. He has a group of enlightened anarchists who run crime syndicates to destroy civilization from within so they can replace it with enlightened anarchy; they acknowledge this is evil and hate doing it, but believe it is necessary in service of their good ends. My approach by contrast was to make a cult of weresnakes who worship Apophis and seek to despoil civilization from within, opposed by a cult of were-salukis who worship Seth in his original incarnation as protector of Ra from Apophis.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on April 20, 2023, 11:05:19 AM
I have to admit, shamefully, that I once did my own rename (https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQ7Nye5r0Dhm8Cp7D81stTbAWsFrl1Gxg7dpmRo5DRNJAtDcyZL0FOwAfNid4-r2yVFSLgATKj4cs89/pub) of the splats for an OSR thing in case anyone else wanted to do their own ripoffs. My intent was to wean disillusioned open-minded fans off their addiction to this tired outdated 90s IP and encourage them to make up their own stuff. I tried picking names that feel like something real people would come up with, compared to whatever Rein-Hagen was smoking.
I checked out the author's blog (http://www.fenorc.co.uk/), and I have to admit that he is way more charitable towards this IP than I am. Although his original ideas genuinely look interesting. He has a group of enlightened anarchists who run crime syndicates to destroy civilization from within so they can replace it with enlightened anarchy; they acknowledge this is evil and hate doing it, but believe it is necessary in service of their good ends. My approach by contrast was to make a cult of weresnakes who worship Apophis and seek to despoil civilization from within, opposed by a cult of were-salukis who worship Seth in his original incarnation as protector of Ra from Apophis.
To be fair I quite like what you came up with as those clans do feel like you've put your own stamp on them so-to-speak. So good job. :)
Yeah indeed. In fairness to the author he's totally held his hands up and said, 'My dudes, I'm making my own OSR product that is effectively VTM with some extra bits'. Which is cool. As long as you give an appropriate nod I think that's fair enough.
My own take (that I've been writing for a while on and off) definitely has some influences from Vampire & especially The Sabbat. But there's a large influence from pop culture vamp films that I loved from the 80s. Plus, I wanted to make vamps scary again (apres Twilight). But I have a Lovecraftian origin and instead of different tribes, they are divided into sects. Although, there are lone wolves as well, etc.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on April 19, 2023, 11:22:37 AM
Reading it right now. It's a blatant ripoff and the author even admits to this in the intro. Which... I mean, I give him credit for honesty after the author of Vampire: Undeath openly lied that he was being original when he obviously wrote a blatant ripoff. But it's still a blatant ripoff with a direct 1:1 correspondence between splats and mechanics that are renamed to avoid lawsuits. Everlasting was obviously a clone but the author of that tried very hard to make it distinct by using folklore as the basis for splats.
The renames aren't even very good, but feel arbitrary, random and torturous. Which is actually how the White Wolf games pick names, so I give the author credit for accurately mimicking that. But I hate that style of naming things. It's like how hack writers pick overly flowery words from thesaurus rather than using simple English.
No offense to the writer. It's his choice to write a ripoff and he admits this, so I can't blame him.
If you like fail forward mechanics... I don't.
Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on April 20, 2023, 12:43:34 PM
Yeah indeed. In fairness to the author he's totally held his hands up and said, 'My dudes, I'm making my own OSR product that is effectively VTM with some extra bits'. Which is cool. As long as you give an appropriate nod I think that's fair enough.
My own take (that I've been writing for a while on and off) definitely has some influences from Vampire & especially The Sabbat. But there's a large influence from pop culture vamp films that I loved from the 80s. Plus, I wanted to make vamps scary again (apres Twilight). But I have a Lovecraftian origin and instead of different tribes, they are divided into sects. Although, there are lone wolves as well, etc.
One approach I took in my ultra kitchen sink setting was that every so in history often a founder vampire pops up, the first of its strain that wasn't turned by an older vampire. Each strain has different traits, sometimes wildly different traits, based on the proclivities and neuroses of their founder. Different powers, weaknesses, rituals for recruiting, types of fangs/diets, ways to employ familiars, etc. Every aspect of how they work is selected to best suit whatever theme I'm going for with that strain.
To use "shadow vampires" as an example, one idea I had to differentiate them is that they drain lifeforce in the form of color. Their victims grow pale, then transparent, then finally shatter like glass. (If you've ever watched
Masked Rider, this is how fangires kill their victims.)
The urban fantasy genre has limitless potential.
Quote from: GeekyBugle on April 20, 2023, 01:39:20 PM
If you like fail forward mechanics... I don't.
That's fair. I think the problem is the way it is structured rather than the idea behind it. The idea of fail forward arose as a solution for all those times groups have gotten frustrated when a game has ground to a halt because of a bad roll. An ancient and notorious blind spot in ttrpg design is giving GMs tools for handling negative outcomes and ensuring that the momentum of the adventure doesn't grind to a halt. Adventures are typically written with the assumption that rolls never fail and don't explain how to run the adventure if rolls fail. One way I've seen to reinterpret fail forward is as "instead of pass/fail, you pass/pass. A trap is either disarmed or triggered. Whether you passed well or poorly, you still passed."
But I digress.
I'm looking at his Hedgerow Hack which on first blush would be his Changeling ripoff, but it looks like a very different direction than CtD or CtL.
I might give it a shot.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on April 20, 2023, 01:51:04 PMThat's fair. I think the problem is the way it is structured rather than the idea behind it. The idea of fail forward arose as a solution for all those times groups have gotten frustrated when a game has ground to a halt because of a bad roll. An ancient and notorious blind spot in ttrpg design is giving GMs tools for handling negative outcomes and ensuring that the momentum of the adventure doesn't grind to a halt. Adventures are typically written with the assumption that rolls never fail and don't explain how to run the adventure if rolls fail. One way I've seen to reinterpret fail forward is as "instead of pass/fail, you pass/pass. A trap is either disarmed or triggered. Whether you passed well or poorly, you still passed."
But I digress.
I love fail forward myself, and can't go back to the days of "you miss, I miss, he misses, roll again". Or worse: the old 90's Perception tests that allowed everybody and their dog to keep rolling until whatever the GM wants to be found is found. I got little time these days, and Fail Forward as a concept fits my needs like a glove.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on April 20, 2023, 01:51:04 PM
Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on April 20, 2023, 12:43:34 PM
Yeah indeed. In fairness to the author he's totally held his hands up and said, 'My dudes, I'm making my own OSR product that is effectively VTM with some extra bits'. Which is cool. As long as you give an appropriate nod I think that's fair enough.
My own take (that I've been writing for a while on and off) definitely has some influences from Vampire & especially The Sabbat. But there's a large influence from pop culture vamp films that I loved from the 80s. Plus, I wanted to make vamps scary again (apres Twilight). But I have a Lovecraftian origin and instead of different tribes, they are divided into sects. Although, there are lone wolves as well, etc.
One approach I took in my ultra kitchen sink setting was that every so in history often a founder vampire pops up, the first of its strain that wasn't turned by an older vampire. Each strain has different traits, sometimes wildly different traits, based on the proclivities and neuroses of their founder. Different powers, weaknesses, rituals for recruiting, types of fangs/diets, ways to employ familiars, etc. Every aspect of how they work is selected to best suit whatever theme I'm going for with that strain.
To use "shadow vampires" as an example, one idea I had to differentiate them is that they drain lifeforce in the form of color. Their victims grow pale, then transparent, then finally shatter like glass. (If you've ever watched Masked Rider, this is how fangires kill their victims.)
Actually, that's what I'm aiming for as well a kitchen sink approach. Basically, I wanted the player to be able to play any type of vampire they have ever seen.
While keeping the meta-plot simple and at a distance. So if you belong to a Sect, you'll have your own beliefs, rituals, goals, and abilities. But it's up to the players to dial these up or down or even ignore them.
I wanted to keep things at a more local level without imposing an intimidating worldview on the players (and GM) which imo, which made VtM exceedingly messy, contradictory, and virtually unplayable as written. But I also want to keep the PCs in the dark as much as possible so they know very little of their own existence. Even if their Sect claims to have all the answers.
At the core, it's very Lovecraftian but the players won't have a clue or if they do it would never be a deep understanding. I felt by explaining everything like they eventually did in VtM all the mystery was lost. Also Vamps in the world are rare so the PCs will feel isolated - until they run into more of their kind.
Quote from: PulpHerb on April 20, 2023, 02:01:15 PM
I'm looking at his Hedgerow Hack which on first blush would be his Changeling ripoff, but it looks like a very different direction than CtD or CtL.
I might give it a shot.
I'm checking out the Hedgerow Hack to see where the author goes with it. It has nothing in common with either iteration of Changeling. This is a 100% original game.
Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on April 20, 2023, 02:42:36 PM
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on April 20, 2023, 01:51:04 PM
Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on April 20, 2023, 12:43:34 PM
Yeah indeed. In fairness to the author he's totally held his hands up and said, 'My dudes, I'm making my own OSR product that is effectively VTM with some extra bits'. Which is cool. As long as you give an appropriate nod I think that's fair enough.
My own take (that I've been writing for a while on and off) definitely has some influences from Vampire & especially The Sabbat. But there's a large influence from pop culture vamp films that I loved from the 80s. Plus, I wanted to make vamps scary again (apres Twilight). But I have a Lovecraftian origin and instead of different tribes, they are divided into sects. Although, there are lone wolves as well, etc.
One approach I took in my ultra kitchen sink setting was that every so in history often a founder vampire pops up, the first of its strain that wasn't turned by an older vampire. Each strain has different traits, sometimes wildly different traits, based on the proclivities and neuroses of their founder. Different powers, weaknesses, rituals for recruiting, types of fangs/diets, ways to employ familiars, etc. Every aspect of how they work is selected to best suit whatever theme I'm going for with that strain.
To use "shadow vampires" as an example, one idea I had to differentiate them is that they drain lifeforce in the form of color. Their victims grow pale, then transparent, then finally shatter like glass. (If you've ever watched Masked Rider, this is how fangires kill their victims.)
Actually, that's what I'm aiming for as well a kitchen sink approach. Basically, I wanted the player to be able to play any type of vampire they have ever seen.
While keeping the meta-plot simple and at a distance. So if you belong to a Sect, you'll have your own beliefs, rituals, goals, and abilities. But it's up to the players to dial these up or down or even ignore them.
I wanted to keep things at a more local level without imposing an intimidating worldview on the players (and GM) which imo, which made VtM exceedingly messy, contradictory, and virtually unplayable as written. But I also want to keep the PCs in the dark as much as possible so they know very little of their own existence. Even if their Sect claims to have all the answers.
At the core, it's very Lovecraftian but the players won't have a clue or if they do it would never be a deep understanding. I felt by explaining everything like they eventually did in VtM all the mystery was lost. Also Vamps in the world are rare so the PCs will feel isolated - until they run into more of their kind.
There's this cyberpunk crpg in development called
Vampire Syndicate: Gangs of Moonfall. It's initially about cyberpunk gangland, but the PC eventually gets the option to join one of several vampire cults. The vampires are... well, clearly vampires, but there are details involving Lovecraft stuff and magical rituals. Perhaps the most obvious is that the PC has to perform a magical ritual to become a vampire, rather than being infected with vampirism by another vampire. You might find it interesting.
I think I've used ritual self-transformation two or three times in my worldbuilding notes, although I don't go into much detail. I included becoming a vampire by willingly swearing an oath to the dark powers, but that was for founders rather than vampires in general. Deliberately performing a ritual to become a vampire lends itself to a very different dynamic than being abducted and turned against one's will as is usually the case in vampire stories. Even familiars who willingly serve vampires in the hopes of becoming one have no guarantee that their master will hold up its end of the bargain. But putting the choice, the power to enact it, entirely in the hands of the pledge...
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on April 20, 2023, 11:05:19 AM
I have to admit, shamefully, that I once did my own rename (https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQ7Nye5r0Dhm8Cp7D81stTbAWsFrl1Gxg7dpmRo5DRNJAtDcyZL0FOwAfNid4-r2yVFSLgATKj4cs89/pub) of the splats for an OSR thing in case anyone else wanted to do their own ripoffs. My intent was to wean disillusioned open-minded fans off their addiction to this tired outdated 90s IP and encourage them to make up their own stuff. I tried picking names that feel like something real people would come up with, compared to whatever Rein-Hagen was smoking.
I checked out the author's blog (http://www.fenorc.co.uk/), and I have to admit that he is way more charitable towards this IP than I am. Although his original ideas genuinely look interesting. He has a group of enlightened anarchists who run crime syndicates to destroy civilization from within so they can replace it with enlightened anarchy; they acknowledge this is evil and hate doing it, but believe it is necessary in service of their good ends. My approach by contrast was to make a cult of weresnakes who worship Apophis and seek to despoil civilization from within, opposed by a cult of were-salukis who worship Seth in his original incarnation as protector of Ra from Apophis.
Neat! Don't mind if I do steal it whole.
If it wasn't part of the overly crunchy Chronicles lines I'd recommend Requiem. No giant metaplot that you have to master or some player will complain. Vampires are powerful but pretty terrible by default (no "I'm on the path of doing whatever is convenient"), lots of things make sense (all vampires have some night-sense, older Vampires get weird memory wise).
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on April 20, 2023, 11:05:19 AM
I have to admit, shamefully, that I once did my own rename (https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQ7Nye5r0Dhm8Cp7D81stTbAWsFrl1Gxg7dpmRo5DRNJAtDcyZL0FOwAfNid4-r2yVFSLgATKj4cs89/pub) of the splats for an OSR thing in case anyone else wanted to do their own ripoffs. My intent was to wean disillusioned open-minded fans off their addiction to this tired outdated 90s IP and encourage them to make up their own stuff. I tried picking names that feel like something real people would come up with, compared to whatever Rein-Hagen was smoking.
This is excellent work! Thanks for that.
Quote from: PencilBoy99 on April 20, 2023, 05:44:40 PM
If it wasn't part of the overly crunchy Chronicles lines I'd recommend Requiem. No giant metaplot that you have to master or some player will complain. Vampires are powerful but pretty terrible by default (no "I'm on the path of doing whatever is convenient"), lots of things make sense (all vampires have some night-sense, older Vampires get weird memory wise).
If you need a different system, then I'd recommend Feed, Undying, or Vampire City from earlier in this thread. They don't have default settings, so you can easily adapt Requiem or whatever.
Looked through drivethrurpg sorting by date to find some new titles since my last additions to the list. Here they are:
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/353122/SHIVER-RPG-Core-Book
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/431221/I-Was-A-Teenage-Creature
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/431567/StokerVerse-Roleplaying-Game
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/426887/What-lies-beneath-the-darkness?filters=0_2140_0_0_0
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/426074/Kith-and-Kin-Vampires?filters=0_2140_0_0_0
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/423246/Progeny-of-Blood-and-Shadow-OneShot-RPG-Rules?filters=0_2140_0_0_0
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/421803/Bloodless?filters=0_2140_0_0_0
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/415536/Bellum-A-Solo-Game-about-Vampires?filters=0_2140_0_0_0
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/409614/Blood-A-Little-Live-Action-Game-about-Vampires?filters=0_2140_0_0_0
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/355497/Blackened?src=also_purchased&filters=0_2140_0_0_0
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/346886/Gaia-Awakening--Core-Rulebook?src=also_purchased&filters=0_2140_0_0_0
Thanks for those, man.
Stokerverse looks interesting!
A number of these are using AI art. It looks terrible.
Several present themselves as toolkits giving groups flexibility in terms of how to design races/classes. This is nice and all but I'd like to see more practical examples like sample settings, adventure paths and so forth. I'm not expecting reams of interconnecting lore, but standalone and modular content like what we got from the d20 3pp glut is more than sufficient.
Most of these are very emo goth and I'm pretty tired of that cliché. I prefer content more light-hearted or darkly comedic in tone. (My unfinished attempt would've been a splatterpunk dramedy pastiche.) You're not constrained by the pretension and lore of a white wolf IP so you can do more fantastical or heroic stuff. God I miss Everlasting. The writing was flowery and pretentious af but aside from the unliving splatbook the tone was much more upbeat then these bazillion emo goth imitators.
Stokerverse looks neat, I agree. The premise is typical vampire hunters like Chill, Night's Black Agents, etc. The presentation and production values are very nice.
One or two sound interesting but I tend to like games with a higher page count - So more I can get my teeth into (pun intended!).
Stokerverse looks good as I was saying, and Art by Clint Langley!
I know what you mean about AI art though. Originally I was quite stoked by it (believe it or not considering I'm an artist) but I'm starting to get sick of it. Basically, unless you're really good at keywording it all looks plasticky and very samey. So my eyes just glaze over when I see it now.
I think us hand drawers are safe for a while. :)
Prompt monkeying sounds so stupid. Why should anyone waste their time learning the inane way that a blackbox AI organizes information when you could just hire a real artist? Or learn to draw yourself? Nobody is better at translating the images from your visual cortex into art than yourself.
Anyway, a lot of these indie games are just too derivative and don't try to do new things imo. I want to write my own games sometime with less tired premises like "you play as heroic Carpathians who fight their evil vampire kin" or "you go on fantastical adventures involving a variety of magical phenomena hidden from muggles" or even "silly b-movie soap opera shenanigans."
Stokerverse gives a lot more material to work with, such as locations, secret societies, a bestiary with monster ecologies and flexible monster design (the rules explicitly state that all stats are generic and should be tailored for individual monsters). The backstory is very pulp-influenced, with serpentfolk, old ones, etc. I'm surprised it didn't use explicit Call of Cthulhu references considering it uses explicit references to other 18th and 19th century fiction, instead writing its old ones as wholly original entities. The copious White Worm references make me think the author was inspired to write it after watching Chapelwaite (and Penny Dreadful).
Nightlife: Obscure, but its not a bad system.
Nights Edge techno-horror setting for Cyberpunk 2020. Vampires feature in a few modules.
Palladium's Nightbane might work.
I own Nightbane.
Let's all get together and play it online!
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on June 14, 2023, 10:40:30 AM
Prompt monkeying sounds so stupid. Why should anyone waste their time learning the inane way that a blackbox AI organizes information when you could just hire a real artist? Or learn to draw yourself? Nobody is better at translating the images from your visual cortex into art than yourself.
Anyway, a lot of these indie games are just too derivative and don't try to do new things imo. I want to write my own games sometime with less tired premises like "you play as heroic Carpathians who fight their evil vampire kin" or "you go on fantastical adventures involving a variety of magical phenomena hidden from muggles" or even "silly b-movie soap opera shenanigans."
Stokerverse gives a lot more material to work with, such as locations, secret societies, a bestiary with monster ecologies and flexible monster design (the rules explicitly state that all stats are generic and should be tailored for individual monsters). The backstory is very pulp-influenced, with serpentfolk, old ones, etc. I'm surprised it didn't use explicit Call of Cthulhu references considering it uses explicit references to other 18th and 19th century fiction, instead writing its old ones as wholly original entities. The copious White Worm references make me think the author was inspired to write it after watching Chapelwaite (and Penny Dreadful).
That's the ideal... For people to produce their own vision through art. But it takes a lot of time to learn it as a skill. I think AI art will always be seen as the 'quick and dirty' route.
I know what you mean... When writing a vampire game it's always hard to get away from VtM as that's what everyone expects and is the benchmark (for many). For my own current game that I'm writing, I've deliberately not used dice pool mechanics (I'm using GJ's Actual Fucking Monsters game). And I've got a Lovecraftian origin. But people will always probably drag it back to VtM, sadly.
The pulp feel for Stokervese might work well - Given the fact that you are tough vampire hunters. Although, I'm skeptical to dip my toe into their latest stuff, given what they did with Terminator and Sla 2. I'm not mad about their proprietary system (although, Stokerverse might use its own).
It's especially weird when more than >99% of vampire fiction nowadays is about romance, not... whatever the fuck "personal horror" is supposed to be. I'm not interested in that emo goth shit. I live in a dystopia every day, what with stuff like AI killing human-made art and making people stupider. I play games to escape. To stimulate my imagination. Not kill my imagination with a cult mentality.
"You're playing your character wrong!" is the absolute nadir.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/458886079/mister-vampire/description
Oh my god, somebody actually posted a blatant ripoff to Kickstarter last month and was successful.
"Prince of the city"? Seriously? This is the third blatant ripoff I've found after Vampire Undeath and Vampyre Hack and it's easily the worst of the three if that description is anything to go by. Even Vampire Undeath and Vampyre Hack knew better than to outright copy Rein•Hagen's own jargon, even if their jargon was just find and replace using a thesaurus or random gibberish. (And Vampyre Hack was written by a creative person who deliberately decided to limit himself but his creativity shined through even thru that.)
What is wrong with people? Everlasting was released in 1997 with a full dozen bloodlines and it wasn't a blatant ripoff. Did creativity suddenly take a nose dive since the 1990s? What kind of creatively dead and media illiterate person makes such a lazy ripoff? *glances at the fantasy genre lazily ripping off Tolkien* That's probably a stupid question. But still! There are video essay playlists on YouTube that explain "how can I make my vampires different?" Like this: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLn98Bs0xnjT9WZvwlTlh72UHf3Rvc-MXz&si=zRYZ-yaz9zIEGlah There's really no excuse for you to publish a book that screams "I've never read any vampire fiction besides the white wolf wiki".
I'm definitely reviewing this when it releases, if only to add to my list of "what not to do."
EDIT: it's already available to purchase here: https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/460786/mister-vampire
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on November 21, 2023, 09:43:04 AM
What is wrong with people? Everlasting was released in 1997 with a full dozen bloodlines and it wasn't a blatant ripoff. Did creativity suddenly take a nose dive since the 1990s? What kind of creatively dead and media illiterate person makes such a lazy ripoff?
But doesn't that pretty much describe a great many RPG projects on Kickstarter (or the Internet in general)?
Any time some trailblazing movie or TV series comes along, there's a host of RPG projects that pretty much duplicate whatever the storyline is. All the "Stranger Things" RPGs for example.
I see this as well even in product naming. It seems like nobody bothers to do a simple Google search before naming their product (or bother to see if a same domain name is available).
Incredibly helpful!! thank you
The name is awful, and I wonder if some of those symbols are trademarked. But I'll give them credit for this:
QuoteY'know what problem people run into in, like, eighty percent of their vampire games? The problem of "okay, we've all made vampires - now what?" And Mister Vampire solves this problem with mechanics both for seizing control of the city's secret supernatural government and for protecting it...
That's a focused premise that tells you exactly what the game is about.
I skimmed the book and ultimately gave up.
It outright copies the jargon from V5. Names of superpowers, spelling child with a pretentious silent e...
The magic system is divided into astral, orphic and infernal... oh my god, the author is ripping off Frank Trollman's After Sundown too?!
One of the interior arts copies the ankh from White Wolf games.
This is somehow worse than Vampyre Undeath. That was a ripoff, but at least it tried to pretend it wasn't. This? This is painfully uninspired and doesn't even care to hide it.
Here's the thing - what do you *really* want out of a "vampire-game" that's not been done to death?
No one outside of the morons at WW(or whatever they're calling themselves these days) is even putting out Vampire material that's not (as you and others posted) blatant rip-offs. Hell even modern Vampire is ripping itself off and doing a shit-job of it.
The beauty of Vampire 1e was it forced a narrow sandbox: the city. Gave everyone some basic rules: The Traditions. Gave your some in-game distinction to glom on: Clans. And it told you to go play.
Everything that came after and grew out of those assumptions and conceits were hit/miss to your personal likings.
I think that's what any modern Vampire game should be - City, Rules of Engagement (after all - immortals would have established rules right?), Distinction (whether it's bloodlines, powers whatever) - now go find a ruleset that will support those things and have at it.
Insert your own "genre tone" and conceits as you see fit. If you're waiting for someone else to do it for you, I think we'll all be waiting a long time.
There really isn't any room for anyone to compete anyway. WW has been dead for years due to competition from video games and D&D becoming mainstream. Urban fantasy is a dead stagnant genre. The remaining WW fandom, a pale shadow of its 90s heyday, is only interested in circlejerking the lore rather than playing games or being creative. The video games Paradox has been shoveling out have all been terrible.
The only positive experience I remember coming from that IP is playing Bloodlines on PC. And that was due to Troika's writing, not anything specific to the IP. Hammy, campy, irreverent... the tonal opposite of how the IP is traditionally written.
The closest I've been able to find is the Abyss ttrpg, which has plenty funny writing, but it doesn't really have much in the way of activity. Not many books for it and not much of an active fandom.
I'm more interested in making video games, honestly. At least those seem to get actual engagement.
I honestly don't know how Vampire: The Masquerade keeps digging itself out of the dirt, when Vampire: The Requiem is twice the game it is. Better balance, smoother mechanics, better vampires, more customizable lore, and without a lot of the cringey stereotypes. Just a better game.
Quote from: pawsplay on November 26, 2023, 12:07:07 AM
I honestly don't know how Vampire: The Masquerade keeps digging itself out of the dirt, when Vampire: The Requiem is twice the game it is. Better balance, smoother mechanics, better vampires, more customizable lore, and without a lot of the cringey stereotypes. Just a better game.
Because the fans are overgrown children and deranged cultists who refuse to move on and make their own games when it's increasingly obvious that this rotting IP has moved on without them?
They throw childish tantrums almost every single time there's a new edition. When V3 came out, they threw tantrums. VtR? Tantrums. V5? Tantrums, again.
But rather than being mature about this and making their own damn games, they continuously throw tantrums with the expectation that the devs will cave in. Which never happens. V20 was a fluke that only happened because CCP bought the company so they could mine it for their MMO and didn't really care about the PnP (as shown when they finally dissolved the original White Wolf company), then got axed by Paradox when they bought the IP and wanted to make a Bloodlines franchise because it got good Steam sales.
Over on itch.io there's a "demake" of Bloodlines called Bloodlust: Santa Monica. The creator had to change the names for legal reasons, but continues working on it. He could easily make an original game and sell it, but prefers to make fanfiction. Same for the remake of Redemption in Skyrim. I don't understand how someone could be so dedicated to their work and yet so selectively uncreative and lacking in ambition. Why do you need so badly to write this fanfiction when you could make your own game and profit from it? I can understand making rule34 of the characters, but a video game requires vastly more effort than a handful of art pieces.
I really hope that the recent Bloodlines 2 disaster finally shocks these people out of their cultish obsession, because I really want to see new urban fantasy games that don't suck.
Quote from: pawsplay on November 26, 2023, 12:07:07 AM
I honestly don't know how Vampire: The Masquerade keeps digging itself out of the dirt, when Vampire: The Requiem is twice the game it is. Better balance, smoother mechanics, better vampires, more customizable lore, and without a lot of the cringey stereotypes. Just a better game.
Bollocks! The Requiem is a s twee as fuck.
Quote from: mudbanks on January 14, 2023, 10:06:48 AM
Looking for a good alternative to VTM. In particular, I want something that isn't very rules-heavy, and it must be vampire-themed (so no generic systems). Any recommendations? :)
<jumps on to soap box>
You do know that because it's a generic system doesn't mean that you don't take the time to make it fit your vision for the setting, right?
</jumps off the soap box>
I don't have an alternative without wondering what it is about the setting that you're after. Without that, I guess I'm treading the grounds of others with this suggestion (https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/14vmq32/games_like_vampire_the_masquerade_but_less_rules/).
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on November 26, 2023, 11:47:39 AM
Because the fans are overgrown children and deranged cultists who refuse to move on and make their own games when it's increasingly obvious that this rotting IP has moved on without them?
Are we talking about WoD or D&D here? :)
Quote from: Armchair Gamer on November 26, 2023, 07:04:40 PM
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on November 26, 2023, 11:47:39 AM
Because the fans are overgrown children and deranged cultists who refuse to move on and make their own games when it's increasingly obvious that this rotting IP has moved on without them?
Are we talking about WoD or D&D here? :)
Many?
Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on November 26, 2023, 06:28:26 PM
Quote from: pawsplay on November 26, 2023, 12:07:07 AM
I honestly don't know how Vampire: The Masquerade keeps digging itself out of the dirt, when Vampire: The Requiem is twice the game it is. Better balance, smoother mechanics, better vampires, more customizable lore, and without a lot of the cringey stereotypes. Just a better game.
Bollocks! The Requiem is a s twee as fuck.
Oh totally. The fans are extremely OCD and anal-retentive about the miniscule differences between the two, but these are fundamentally the same game. It's still written pretentious af.
Quote from: Kage2020 on November 26, 2023, 06:41:49 PM
Quote from: mudbanks on January 14, 2023, 10:06:48 AM
Looking for a good alternative to VTM. In particular, I want something that isn't very rules-heavy, and it must be vampire-themed (so no generic systems). Any recommendations? :)
<jumps on to soap box>
You do know that because it's a generic system doesn't mean that you don't take the time to make it fit your vision for the setting, right?
</jumps off the soap box>
I don't have an alternative without wondering what it is about the setting that you're after. Without that, I guess I'm treading the grounds of others with this suggestion (https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/14vmq32/games_like_vampire_the_masquerade_but_less_rules/).
To be far, specialized systems are always more efficient than generic systems. For example, if you want a game about vampires but don't want it to be married to an existing lore or want to emulate a specific work that doesn't have an rpg, both
Feed and
Vampire City present specialized tools for inventing your own takes on vampirism.
Quote from: Kage2020 on November 26, 2023, 07:07:53 PM
Quote from: Armchair Gamer on November 26, 2023, 07:04:40 PM
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on November 26, 2023, 11:47:39 AM
Because the fans are overgrown children and deranged cultists who refuse to move on and make their own games when it's increasingly obvious that this rotting IP has moved on without them?
Are we talking about WoD or D&D here? :)
Many?
This seems to be the case for lots of ttrpgs lately. I find it very frustrating. There's tons of cool out of print ttrpgs but people are afraid to get invested because they're not actively supported and copyright law prevents fans from reviving them. I haven't found many retroclones or spiritual successors, and those I have found don't feel even a fraction as passionate. Current ttrpgs just feel like a pale shadow of the glory days in the 80s, 90s and even 2000s.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on November 27, 2023, 09:36:15 AM
This seems to be the case for lots of ttrpgs lately. I find it very frustrating. There's tons of cool out of print ttrpgs but people are afraid to get invested because they're not actively supported and copyright law prevents fans from reviving them. I haven't found many retroclones or spiritual successors, and those I have found don't feel even a fraction as passionate. Current ttrpgs just feel like a pale shadow of the glory days in the 80s, 90s and even 2000s.
It's puzzling because so many of the older games are more readily available than they've ever been. Some have fallen through the cracks in part or whole, due to rights issues of one sort or another, but those seem to be the exception rather than the rule.
I think it's largely because:
a) The fanbase for many of those older games is aging out without fostering a new generation of players;
b) Unlike the more heterogenous hobby of the past, where D&D was big but people were aware of alternatives, and even TSR/WotC was looking to cover other areas of the hobby, 5E seems to have achieved a suffocating dominance over the new audience, to the point that people are licensing or converting to it at a rate that even exceeds the d20 Boom.
I don't think D&D is suffocating other games, I think D&D has simply gotten so very, very big. Vampire: The Masquerade may be a smaller class, but it has a similarly robust fan base; what other game could pump out a new edition, a competing alternative game, an anniversary edition, and an entirely new edition all within such a short period of time, and sell a fraction of it? There's a huge fan base out there, the challenge is to persuade them to unite around one version of the game.
Quote from: pawsplay on November 29, 2023, 12:24:06 AM
I don't think D&D is suffocating other games, I think D&D has simply gotten so very, very big. Vampire: The Masquerade may be a smaller class, but it has a similarly robust fan base; what other game could pump out a new edition, a competing alternative game, an anniversary edition, and an entirely new edition all within such a short period of time, and sell a fraction of it? There's a huge fan base out there, the challenge is to persuade them to unite around one version of the game.
Such a short time? The new edition (Revised) was c. 1998, the competing alternative was c. 2003, the anniversary edition was 2011, and V5 was 2015 (and has only managed to scrape a W5 together this year... vs. coming just a year after the new editions of Vampire in all previous instances... and M5 isn't even a glimmer in someone's eye but at the rate they're going might be out in time for V5's 20th anniversary edition).
That's nearly three decades overall with an ever slower and more anemic release schedule because, even among its generally lefty audience everyone thinks the new woke direction is trash (seriously, they made W5 into a game where you're punished for going Crinos and any effort to confront or stop the establishment is wrong... you're just supposed to angst about the inability to confront the evils of the world).
That's "a short time" and an arc of success to you?
QuoteThat's nearly three decades overall with an ever slower and more anemic release schedule because, even among its generally lefty audience everyone thinks the new woke direction is trash (seriously, they made W5 into a game where you're punished for going Crinos and any effort to confront or stop the establishment is wrong... you're just supposed to angst about the inability to confront the evils of the world).
That's interesting twist I have to admit, even with modern age of woke I did not expected them gelding werewolves that much.
Getting rid of Get of Fenris or Red Talons, sure I can take it - but - no fight with industrialists... wow that's somehow worse than woke.
Quote from: Chris24601 on November 29, 2023, 10:45:46 AM
Quote from: pawsplay on November 29, 2023, 12:24:06 AM
I don't think D&D is suffocating other games, I think D&D has simply gotten so very, very big. Vampire: The Masquerade may be a smaller class, but it has a similarly robust fan base; what other game could pump out a new edition, a competing alternative game, an anniversary edition, and an entirely new edition all within such a short period of time, and sell a fraction of it? There's a huge fan base out there, the challenge is to persuade them to unite around one version of the game.
Such a short time? The new edition (Revised) was c. 1998, the competing alternative was c. 2003, the anniversary edition was 2011, and V5 was 2015 (and has only managed to scrape a W5 together this year... vs. coming just a year after the new editions of Vampire in all previous instances... and M5 isn't even a glimmer in someone's eye but at the rate they're going might be out in time for V5's 20th anniversary edition).
That's nearly three decades overall with an ever slower and more anemic release schedule because, even among its generally lefty audience everyone thinks the new woke direction is trash (seriously, they made W5 into a game where you're punished for going Crinos and any effort to confront or stop the establishment is wrong... you're just supposed to angst about the inability to confront the evils of the world).
That's "a short time" and an arc of success to you?
Not to mention that WoD was put on hiatus when CoD was released in 2004 until 2011, so they didn't directly compete then.
Quote from: pawsplay on November 29, 2023, 12:24:06 AM
I don't think D&D is suffocating other games, I think D&D has simply gotten so very, very big. Vampire: The Masquerade may be a smaller class, but it has a similarly robust fan base; what other game could pump out a new edition, a competing alternative game, an anniversary edition, and an entirely new edition all within such a short period of time, and sell a fraction of it? There's a huge fan base out there,
What? There isn't a robust fan base. The height of their popularity was in about 1995 and now they're just a pale shadow of themselves. If it wasn't for CCP and later Paradox buying the IP to turn it into mediocre video games, then there probably wouldn't be new products now.
I was in the fandom back in the mid 2000s and it was very easy to find fansites and fan-made material for WoD and CoD. Dozens of new bloodlines, legacies, whatever. Now? I can't find much of anything besides partial archives on wayback machine.
The majority of the current fans are fans of Troika's
Bloodlines game and only know the IP through badly written and unsourced wiki pages that present an extremely biased and rose-tinted version of the IP that ignores its many idiotic aspects that are obvious to anyone who reads the actual books.
Quote from: pawsplay on November 29, 2023, 12:24:06 AMthe challenge is to persuade them to unite around one version of the game.
Why would you even want that? Wouldn't it make more sense to do what D&D does and provide universal basic rules with a variety of different campaign settings in a multiverse? The IP is old as fuck and is definitely showing its age now. What worked among mall goths in 1992 definitely doesn't work now.
Also, these companies are woke now so they can't write worth shit anyway regardless of whatever game they're currently peddling. My advice is to make your own games, like what I'm trying to do. Paradox has killed their IPs with the latest announcement of Bloodlines 2 so you have no reason not to prepare to fill the market vacuum they're going to leave when they cancel the IP and let it rot in a box.
Quote from: Wrath of God on November 29, 2023, 11:03:36 AM
QuoteThat's nearly three decades overall with an ever slower and more anemic release schedule because, even among its generally lefty audience everyone thinks the new woke direction is trash (seriously, they made W5 into a game where you're punished for going Crinos and any effort to confront or stop the establishment is wrong... you're just supposed to angst about the inability to confront the evils of the world).
That's interesting twist I have to admit, even with modern age of woke I did not expected them gelding werewolves that much.
Getting rid of Get of Fenris or Red Talons, sure I can take it - but - no fight with industrialists... wow that's somehow worse than woke.
I'm actually surprised they ditched the environmentalist angle. Paradox is very woke so you'd think they'd be all over that ecoterrorism. They probably realized that it didn't make sense anymore to preach zealously about the evils of civilization when their current audience is addicted to phones.
I never really cared since I find the ecoterrorism obnoxious and hypocritical. I think Forsaken vastly improved that, but I never found it very interesting because the secret werewolf society was so completely isolated from human culture. There weren't any touchstones to connect with them. WtA was racist af (towards everyone, not just Native Americans), but I find werewolves inherently more interesting if they're based in real human cultures rather than made up fantasy.
I don't care about the transformation rules. I've never found it very evocative. The entire appeal of werewolves is that their wolf side isn't human, but players just seem to want to play superheroes. Why make them werewolves at all if you just want superheroes? I think the werewolf transformation should be spiritually meaningful, not a power rangers transformation. But ttrpgs seem to be inherently bad at representing things requiring emotional and spiritual connection.
The wolf should have a different personality from the human. Not necessarily Cujo because that's overdone, but at least something like the pre-woke She-Hulk where she became more confident and assertive while transformed.
But I digress.
I don't want more White Wolf crap. I've long since outgrown their stupid writing. I don't want their racist high school cliques, their insane fans obsessed with cannibal snuff porn and gay furry sex, etc. I want new IPs that aren't beholden to that crap, written by sane people with life experience and no inclination to insert their disgusting sexual fetishes into their writing.
Like, if you could make your own werewolf-centric ttrpg right now, would you really include a detail like all couplings between werewolves results in deformed werewolf incest babies, werewolves who fuck wild wolves to continue the purity of their bloodline, and werewolves who have gay fury sex to maintain their spiritual purity? No you wouldn't, because those ideas are fucking stupid. It was fucking stupid back in the 90s and it's fucking stupid now.
It's time to retire these rotting zombie IPs and make new ones. "But wah! I want my globe-spanning ninja clans!" someone might cry. To that I say: Make your own games that cater to your tastes then.
Quote from: pawsplay on November 26, 2023, 12:07:07 AM
I honestly don't know how Vampire: The Masquerade keeps digging itself out of the dirt, when Vampire: The Requiem is twice the game it is. Better balance, smoother mechanics, better vampires, more customizable lore, and without a lot of the cringey stereotypes. Just a better game.
No.
Quote from: King Tyranno on November 29, 2023, 12:04:09 PM
Quote from: pawsplay on November 26, 2023, 12:07:07 AM
I honestly don't know how Vampire: The Masquerade keeps digging itself out of the dirt, when Vampire: The Requiem is twice the game it is. Better balance, smoother mechanics, better vampires, more customizable lore, and without a lot of the cringey stereotypes. Just a better game.
No.
Everyone knows that forgotten indies like
Feed and
Vampire City are the superior games.
Quote from: pawsplay on November 29, 2023, 12:24:06 AM
I don't think D&D is suffocating other games, I think D&D has simply gotten so very, very big. Vampire: The Masquerade may be a smaller class, but it has a similarly robust fan base; what other game could pump out a new edition, a competing alternative game, an anniversary edition, and an entirely new edition all within such a short period of time, and sell a fraction of it? There's a huge fan base out there, the challenge is to persuade them to unite around one version of the game.
The question is will be D&D being this big last. The past few years are the third time I've watched D&D be a mass market fad, the first of which hit a couple of years after I started playing when it was a wargaming fad that eventually took over the hobby (why hex and chit wargaming didn't have a mass market fad in the Reagan era still puzzles me) and the second around 2000 with 3.x and my generation coming back (for those who left).
This is the strongest of the three for a few reasons: general enthusiasm for "geek culture" and COVID being the two biggest. Now that both are waning will D&D continue as a mass market phenomena where the Basic D&D box set joins perennials like Monopoly, Scrabble, and Catan (which has crossed over sometime in the past 20 years) or will it fade from Target and Walmart like the B/X version did from Sears, Montgomery Ward, and J. C. Penny's catalogs?
I'm betting on the latter for two reasons, one minor and one major. The minor one is WotC mismanagement. The bigger one is rpgs require too much active participation. While the Critical Role era implies there might be a place for passive watching of rpgs as entertainment, Howard Thompson at Metagaming argued circa 1980 that by 1985 we'd be watching hex and chit wargaming on TV.
By 1985 his hex and chit company was going out of business with its biggest hits being sold to SJG and AH.
YouTube does allow for more niche players, but YT is actively trying to become the old networks. Did CR at its peak get enough viewers for that?
If the hobby continues I suspect it'll settle to where hex-and-chit and model railroading are today not become a mass market game perennial or the new WoW. At that, we'd be better off than either of those hobbies as they both need some actually non-cottage industry, especially model railroading (my biggest hobby outside of rpgs and perhaps slowly overtaking it).
Quote from: pawsplay on November 26, 2023, 12:07:07 AM
I honestly don't know how Vampire: The Masquerade keeps digging itself out of the dirt, when Vampire: The Requiem is twice the game it is. Better balance, smoother mechanics, better vampires, more customizable lore, and without a lot of the cringey stereotypes. Just a better game.
The same reason Files-11 style systems never replaced Unix style even though NTFS was designed by former DEC VMS people.
First mover advantage (although arguably second mover with a smart differentiation strategy).
And yet Pepsi dethroned Coke, and Red Bull had to give ground to Monster. There's nothing inevitable or permanent about market dominance. At some point, there will be a flip, and some new thing will be the new, more popular thing, and the other thing will be seen as old. I have no idea if that's going to happen to D&D any time soon; such things are unpredictable.
Quote from: pawsplay on November 29, 2023, 08:29:49 PM
And yet Pepsi dethroned Coke, and Red Bull had to give ground to Monster. There's nothing inevitable or permanent about market dominance. At some point, there will be a flip, and some new thing will be the new, more popular thing, and the other thing will be seen as old. I have no idea if that's going to happen to D&D any time soon; such things are unpredictable.
I think the dethroning of D&D can have two forms:
1. As the cool mainstream thing...I think it already is in progress.
2. As the core of the RPG hobby. I honestly think the GenX cohort that started with B/X and came back with 3.x (assuming they ever left) will need to pass first unless more stay from the current fad (which does seem to run about a couple of decades younger) than did after the early 80s round by a large margin. If they do I'd put my money either one of a: Critical Roll's game, b: Cypher by Monte Cook, or c: PBtA, probably centered on
Dungeon World.
Pathfinder is too tied to the 3.x world to survive a collapse in D&D like it did for 4e. Of my three, I have different reasons for each...I'm just not sure which factor wins.
Quote from: pawsplay on November 29, 2023, 08:29:49 PM
And yet Pepsi dethroned Coke, and Red Bull had to give ground to Monster. There's nothing inevitable or permanent about market dominance. At some point, there will be a flip, and some new thing will be the new, more popular thing, and the other thing will be seen as old. I have no idea if that's going to happen to D&D any time soon; such things are unpredictable.
Oh, and right now Coke has two of the top three soda brands and five of the top ten. Pepsi has two. On the brand icon, Coke or Pepsi, Coke is #1 again.
I think Coke/Pepsi is more a D&D/PF type thing with Pepsi's brief dominance a kind of 4e Coke era.
The real surprise on the top 10 is Diet Coke is 3 while Diet Pepsi if 7, barely beating out Coke Zero at 8. Pepsi Zero didn't crack the top 10.
Lack of Coke Zero in top 3 is truly proof America needs to be destroyed.
Quote from: PulpHerb on November 29, 2023, 09:34:59 PM
Quote from: pawsplay on November 29, 2023, 08:29:49 PM
And yet Pepsi dethroned Coke, and Red Bull had to give ground to Monster. There's nothing inevitable or permanent about market dominance. At some point, there will be a flip, and some new thing will be the new, more popular thing, and the other thing will be seen as old. I have no idea if that's going to happen to D&D any time soon; such things are unpredictable.
Oh, and right now Coke has two of the top three soda brands and five of the top ten. Pepsi has two. On the brand icon, Coke or Pepsi, Coke is #1 again.
I think Coke/Pepsi is more a D&D/PF type thing with Pepsi's brief dominance a kind of 4e Coke era.
The real surprise on the top 10 is Diet Coke is 3 while Diet Pepsi if 7, barely beating out Coke Zero at 8. Pepsi Zero didn't crack the top 10.
That tracks. One of several possible scenarios.
Quote from: mudbanks on January 14, 2023, 10:06:48 AM
Looking for a good alternative to VTM. In particular, I want something that isn't very rules-heavy, and it must be vampire-themed (so no generic systems). Any recommendations? :)
I worked on the 5th Edition of Vampire, then when there was a whole harassment campaign that tanked the game, I put all the ideas we didn't get to use into Demon City.
It is set up as a regular horror game, but it has explicit rules for a mode where everyone's a vampire or other monster ("The Hidden") and there are specific rules for vampire PCs.
https://diyrpgproductionsstore.com/products/demon-city-the-ultimate-horror-rpg
The pdf is available, the hardcover should be out soon.
(https://64.media.tumblr.com/f9e8b0bcf63a3501bbd63eb61ab97510/81597d55d7c26260-62/s1280x1920/ed4e8ee01c02b4245440f30f709c9e1f7ef3e32e.png)
Wine Dark Nights is another one that is new to add to the list.
I find it amusing that a thread about undead was just necroed
There's an indie game titled Elegy on Drivethrurpg and itch.io. It's very derivative of White Wolf, even using the same social structure and other ideas. It has a wildly different way of structuring superpowers, but that's the extent of its originality.
Quote from: Batjon on June 24, 2024, 05:41:27 AMWine Dark Nights is another one that is new to add to the list.
Researching that now.
It's hugely derivative of V5 in the way it handles hunger dice and humanity. Basically you have two sets of skills, predator and prey, which humanity and hunger then modify. Feed does more or less the same thing, but different: a PC's hunger ceiling is determined by the ratio of human and vampiric traits.
I suggest looking at Palladium's NIGHTBANE for setting inspiration and ideas regardless of whatever system you choose.
https://palladium-store.com/1001/product/730-Nightbane-Role-Playing-Game.html
Also, "vampire rpg" means many different things in 2024 after decades of vamp movies, books and TV shows so only YOU know what kind of vamp campaign you wish to run.
AKA, there might not be a RPG that's exact to your vision.
Thus, the key question is WHAT system would best fit YOUR vision and the enjoyment of YOUR players?
Quote from: Spinachcat on June 24, 2024, 07:07:59 PMI suggest looking at Palladium's NIGHTBANE for setting inspiration and ideas regardless of whatever system you choose.
https://palladium-store.com/1001/product/730-Nightbane-Role-Playing-Game.html
Also, "vampire rpg" means many different things in 2024 after decades of vamp movies, books and TV shows so only YOU know what kind of vamp campaign you wish to run.
AKA, there might not be a RPG that's exact to your vision.
Thus, the key question is WHAT system would best fit YOUR vision and the enjoyment of YOUR players?
Most of these are heartbreakers of V5, not particularly original games. I've noticed an uptick in them since the late 2010s and I can't figure out why.
If you want something that supports creativity, then my best suggestions are Night's Black Agents, Feed, and Vampire City. They're toolkits that let you invent your own settings. NBA lets you play hunters, while the other two play vamps.
Given how Paradox is currently trying to drive Onyx Path (the original creators of the WoD. Yes the original company was called White Wolf but that was bought and the old writers reformed under Onyx Path) out of business by preventing them from releasing any more WoD books outside of a small handful..
Onyx Path has created yet another (this will now be the third, after Chronicles of Darkness) Modern Supernatural Horror game where you play the Monsters called "Curseborn".
Curseborn has been in development for a few years now and a playtest ashcan edition is up on Drive thru for like 5 bucks.
All signs point to this being Onyx's new big line they plan to support. They're going full bore to compete with their old product.
As for Curseborn itself, it sounds interesting. The Curseborn are broken into "Families" that all have similarities...
The Dead, The Hungry, The Primal, The Outsiders, and a few others. One is specifically for Mages as well.
Within those families will be separate lineages, like "Bathory" within the Hungry, "Lyka" within the Primal.
So it's leaning more towards lots of customization but also giving the greater "societies" within for those who want to focus on that.
I'm looking forward to it considering what a disappointment 5th edition under Paradox has been.
nevermind
I'm gonna need to go back through the thread and assemble a list of the store pages posted thus far, and post anything I recall missing from my own library.
There seems to be an uptick in heartbreakers in the last few years. Bellum, Elegy, Mr Vampire, etc are all highly derivative of WoD more than they are of anything else. I find it really frustrating, because vampire fiction is much larger, including ttrpgs from the 90s and 2000s.
For example, most of these games use the same Ricean-derived template for romanticized vampires. They even use the blood bond mechanic from WoD. While most ideas in WoD are derived from other sources, like stakes only pinning vamps (this goes back to folklore and 40s movies at least), the blood bond mechanic of becoming infatuated with a vamp after drinking their blood three times seems to be unique to WoD. I haven't found anything that uses it prior to WoD. It's a dead ringer that indicates an author's influence. By contrast, Everlasting uses a similar but distinct mechanic, making it more distinct than just another heartbreaker even when it was written by a WW freelancer. Other writers should take note.
Honestly, I'm not thrilled for anything that isn't a toolkit. When you make a single setting game, then you don't address the problems with WoD that killed it like its bloated lore that intimidated new players.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on June 26, 2024, 10:21:48 AMwith WoD that killed it like its bloated lore that intimidated new players.
That's not at all what killed WoD. Not one damn single bit.
Quote from: Orphan81 on June 26, 2024, 10:58:03 AMQuote from: BoxCrayonTales on June 26, 2024, 10:21:48 AMwith WoD that killed it like its bloated lore that intimidated new players.
That's not at all what killed WoD. Not one damn single bit.
Well, to be absolutely fair, that sort of thing is off-putting to a lot of newcomers seeking a smooth entry-point into a product line.
Quote from: SmallMountaineer on June 26, 2024, 11:23:07 AMQuote from: Orphan81 on June 26, 2024, 10:58:03 AMQuote from: BoxCrayonTales on June 26, 2024, 10:21:48 AMwith WoD that killed it like its bloated lore that intimidated new players.
That's not at all what killed WoD. Not one damn single bit.
Well, to be absolutely fair, that sort of thing is off-putting to a lot of newcomers seeking a smooth entry-point into a product line.
The entire reason White Wolf rebooted it in 2004 was because it was not selling due to being offputting to newcomers. Additionally, the single monolithic IP cultivated a toxic fandom of lore worshipers and edition warriors who contributed to scaring away newcomers. I had to deal with a lot of asshats in the 2000s who wouldn't stop bullying me for liking nWoD. They don't actually play the games, they just masturbate to the lore. It's a fucking cult. Fuck those jerks and fuck their shithole IP.
The only reason the IP still exists commercially in any form right now is solely because of Bloodlines attracting a cult following. CCP was happy to just let the IP die after their MMO plans fell through before Paradox decided to buy it so they could make ties-ins to Bloodlines. Which aren't doing great.
It's disappointing to me that the output of new games right now is heartbreakers, but maybe someday someone will come along with something more creative.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on June 26, 2024, 01:18:43 PMQuote from: SmallMountaineer on June 26, 2024, 11:23:07 AMQuote from: Orphan81 on June 26, 2024, 10:58:03 AMQuote from: BoxCrayonTales on June 26, 2024, 10:21:48 AMwith WoD that killed it like its bloated lore that intimidated new players.
That's not at all what killed WoD. Not one damn single bit.
Well, to be absolutely fair, that sort of thing is off-putting to a lot of newcomers seeking a smooth entry-point into a product line.
The entire reason White Wolf rebooted it in 2004 was because it was not selling due to being offputting to newcomers. Additionally, the single monolithic IP cultivated a toxic fandom of lore worshipers and edition warriors who contributed to scaring away newcomers. I had to deal with a lot of asshats in the 2000s who wouldn't stop bullying me for liking nWoD. They don't actually play the games, they just masturbate to the lore. It's a fucking cult. Fuck those jerks and fuck their shithole IP.
The only reason the IP still exists commercially in any form right now is solely because of Bloodlines attracting a cult following. CCP was happy to just let the IP die after their MMO plans fell through before Paradox decided to buy it so they could make ties-ins to Bloodlines. Which aren't doing great.
It's disappointing to me that the output of new games right now is heartbreakers, but maybe someday someone will come along with something more creative.
Paradox is about as consumer-friendly as WOTC. I'm surprised they haven't devised a way to make you pay five cents to
look at their products on store pages/shelves.
Quote from: SmallMountaineer on June 26, 2024, 01:25:38 PMParadox is about as consumer-friendly as WOTC. I'm surprised they haven't devised a way to make you pay five cents to look at their products on store pages/shelves.
Yeah, their attempts to monetize the IP have failed. Quite frankly, I don't think it would've worked for anyone. The IP is firmly stuck in its own zeitgeist of crazy shit that just doesn't fly now.
Like, why are the werewolves all feminazi ecoterrorists who fuck wild animals? Why are "crazy" vamps a political bloc? Why are the bad wizards the ones who use scifi tech?
The Gaming Den already went over the many problems in their Anatomy of Failed Design series. It's just not a well constructed IP. Just one example they gave: the vampires are depicted as being stuck in a centuries old feudal dynamic with limited territories based on the human population ratio. However, this immediately breaks down because the population explosion and city expansion of the past two centuries should've opened up a ton of territory, but the lore doesn't account for this at all. Ancient vamps from Europe magically claim all territory in the United States, when logistically the continent should be dominated by thinbloods. Speaking of, the generation mechanic is also another silly rule that shouldn't logistically work the way writers think.
Aside from nostalgia (which I don't have as a zillennial who came into the hobby after WoD was rebooted for the first time, except for playing Bloodlines but that's all Troika's work), there's no reason to invest in this IP. It's ridiculous and not in a good way, the fandom is toxic af... it's generic enough that you could make your own IP and tap into the same urban fantasy tropes.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on June 26, 2024, 01:18:43 PMQuote from: SmallMountaineer on June 26, 2024, 11:23:07 AMQuote from: Orphan81 on June 26, 2024, 10:58:03 AMQuote from: BoxCrayonTales on June 26, 2024, 10:21:48 AMwith WoD that killed it like its bloated lore that intimidated new players.
That's not at all what killed WoD. Not one damn single bit.
Well, to be absolutely fair, that sort of thing is off-putting to a lot of newcomers seeking a smooth entry-point into a product line.
The entire reason White Wolf rebooted it in 2004 was because it was not selling due to being offputting to newcomers. Additionally, the single monolithic IP cultivated a toxic fandom of lore worshipers and edition warriors who contributed to scaring away newcomers. I had to deal with a lot of asshats in the 2000s who wouldn't stop bullying me for liking nWoD. They don't actually play the games, they just masturbate to the lore. It's a fucking cult. Fuck those jerks and fuck their shithole IP.
The only reason the IP still exists commercially in any form right now is solely because of Bloodlines attracting a cult following. CCP was happy to just let the IP die after their MMO plans fell through before Paradox decided to buy it so they could make ties-ins to Bloodlines. Which aren't doing great.
It's disappointing to me that the output of new games right now is heartbreakers, but maybe someday someone will come along with something more creative.
I would argue it wasn't the basic lore that wasn't selling; so much as the obsession by WW with its metaplot events which were basically "sit and watch as the GM reads off our block text about our GMPCs and how awesome they are... oh, and if you don't suicide your Ravnos immediately you're playing wrong because you aren't following our required metaplot."
Players want to be heroes of their own stories, not captives for someone's wankfest about their Mary Sue.
That said, I already wrote my own replacement mechanical system ("White Book" Mage as I call it) and my own concept for an alternate universe ("Hunters of the Damned") so I have a system/setting already.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on June 26, 2024, 01:43:04 PMQuote from: SmallMountaineer on June 26, 2024, 01:25:38 PMParadox is about as consumer-friendly as WOTC. I'm surprised they haven't devised a way to make you pay five cents to look at their products on store pages/shelves.
Yeah, their attempts to monetize the IP have failed. Quite frankly, I don't think it would've worked for anyone. The IP is firmly stuck in its own zeitgeist of crazy shit that just doesn't fly now.
Like, why are the werewolves all feminazi ecoterrorists who fuck wild animals? Why are "crazy" vamps a political bloc? Why are the bad wizards the ones who use scifi tech?
The Gaming Den already went over the many problems in their Anatomy of Failed Design series. It's just not a well constructed IP. Just one example they gave: the vampires are depicted as being stuck in a centuries old feudal dynamic with limited territories based on the human population ratio. However, this immediately breaks down because the population explosion and city expansion of the past two centuries should've opened up a ton of territory, but the lore doesn't account for this at all. Ancient vamps from Europe magically claim all territory in the United States, when logistically the continent should be dominated by thinbloods. Speaking of, the generation mechanic is also another silly rule that shouldn't logistically work the way writers think.
Aside from nostalgia (which I don't have as a zillennial who came into the hobby after WoD was rebooted for the first time, except for playing Bloodlines but that's all Troika's work), there's no reason to invest in this IP. It's ridiculous and not in a good way, the fandom is toxic af... it's generic enough that you could make your own IP and tap into the same urban fantasy tropes.
This is literally all bullshit considering the sheer phenomenal success of everyone of the 20th anniversary editions. All of which were also considered great entry points for new players, and sell better than the 5th edition stuff does. Which is why Paradox is trying to kill it.
I get you have a personal axe to grind with The World of Darkness and Onyx Path but nothing you've said is true or backed up by facts. Provide the receipts if they are.
I liked Chronicles of Darkness too, and still do... but it never sold as well as Classic World of Darkness, and the 20th edition return to Classics sold like gangbusters.
CCP held all the intellectual property rights to The World of Darkness and Chronicles... Onyx Path formed to take on the burden of printing and selling tabletop rpgs set in those worlds because CCP didn't want to... they just wanted to make a WoD MMO... when that fell through, they sold the IP rights to Paradox..
Paradox wanted nothing to do with Onyx Path, which is why they created a "5th edition" in the first place.... Onxy Path didn't even consider the 20th annivesary editions to be "4th editions" they literally announced 4th edition Vampire the Masquerade at Gencon months before CCP sold them to Paradox and Paradox canned it all.
Paradox is the reason for the death of WoD.
Quote from: Chris24601 on June 26, 2024, 04:58:32 PMI would argue it wasn't the basic lore that wasn't selling; so much as the obsession by WW with its metaplot events which were basically "sit and watch as the GM reads off our block text about our GMPCs and how awesome they are... oh, and if you don't suicide your Ravnos immediately you're playing wrong because you aren't following our required metaplot."
Players want to be heroes of their own stories, not captives for someone's wankfest about their Mary Sue.
The way I heard it, the edition treadmill played a huge role in the decision to reboot. I can't find the blog post now, but one of the people at the company back then said the reasons why 3e was made with metaplot changes was because the 2e books weren't selling anymore. Groups weren't buying the new supplements but were satisfied with what little they already had. (and this was years before 3e D&D was released and took back the market dominance.) So WW decided to shake things up, and when that didn't work like they hoped, then they decided to reboot with a clean slate.
They weren't making arbitrary stupid decisions because Justin Achilli demanded it. Back in the 90s they were an actual company with offices and a marketing department. They were doing market research to inform their decisions. Their sales seem to have peaked around the mid 90s or so and never recovered.
Quote from: Orphan81 on June 26, 2024, 05:11:49 PMI liked Chronicles of Darkness too, and still do... but it never sold as well as Classic World of Darkness, and the 20th edition return to Classics sold like gangbusters.
Quote from: Orphan81 on June 26, 2024, 05:11:49 PMnothing you've said is true or backed up by facts. Provide the receipts if they are.
Here's a quote from rpg.net (https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/white-wolf-et-al-future-of-the-white-fluffy-cainine-entity.448281/post-10258875):
QuoteWhite Wolf never releases specific sales figures, but they do make claims in official press releases. Back in August 2004 when NWoD hit the shelves, they claimed they had sold 5.5 million books since 1991 and had a market share of 26%. That claim wasn't updated until May 2008, when they claimed they had sold 7 million books since 1991 and didn't mention their market share at all. Combined with a number of other factors both obvious and deducible, that is not good news, and that's taking them at their word. Also before the recession hit.
But more directly, I talk to a number of distributors. They all tell me WW sales are down relative to the market. They were hit hard when D&D 3rd ed launched, and they've been struggling ever since.
From 1991 to 2004 is 13 years, so that's 5.5 million over 13 years or 400k per year. From 2004 to 2008 is 4 years, so that's 1.5 million over 4 years, or 375k per year. That's with the hit did due to D&D 3e, which launched in 2000, because remember that a key factor in White Wolf's success was that TSR was making poor business decisions in the 90s.
So while poster frames the numbers as being objectively bad and nWoD as a failure, when you look at the numbers in context, they're actually pretty good. nWoD was a resounding success considering that it had to compete with D&D, couldn't rely on the old guard to buy books (which was already a problem for cWoD), and had to deal with various other economic factors like competition from video games. I don't know where people get the idea that it was a failure when the numbers we have don't actually support that. It was as good as it could be considering the circumstances outside its control.
Do you have hard numbers to support your statement that 4e is resounding success and 5e is a resounding failure? Because I've heard plenty of people say the opposite, that V5 is the most played edition, using numbers like discord memberships (e.g. the official V5 discord had 22k members according to them, which sounds paltry imo). Considering all the economic changes since 2008, and checking Google Trends, I suspect that the IP's popularity since has been a pale shadow of its 90s heyday.
Quote from: Orphan81 on June 26, 2024, 05:11:49 PMParadox is the reason for the death of WoD.
Good riddance then. It's about time it fucking died and released its market dominance. Let's see how the new blood does with the new opportunities for making new games. I haven't been impressed with the heartbreakers so far, but maybe they'll surprise me?
My impression is that V5 is pretty popular. It's mechanically simpler / more consistent, more focused, and has less lore (maybe, it's hard to figure out).
I did find the thread about VtM as a failed design - which fits with my belief that you can have very popular, fun games even if the system and setting is broken or nonsense. Good stuff can emerge from RPGs in a way that it can't from other things and I'm not sure why.
The thread did suggest a neat idea to run a VtM type game - which is to abandon the feudal structure and instead focus on "mafia crime family" + coterie. So you'd have vampires, with more core powers than they have in VtM, and then maybe some additional specific bloodline/clan power. In most cities you'd have different groups that are essentially crime families competing with each other, w/out any "prince", camarilla (at least locally), or clan based organization (except maybe loosely).
Quote from: PencilBoy99 on June 27, 2024, 11:11:40 AMMy impression is that V5 is pretty popular.
Online echo chambers can give very distorted views of popularity, so take that with a grain of salt.
Quote from: PencilBoy99 on June 27, 2024, 11:11:40 AMIt's mechanically simpler / more consistent,
Maybe compared to the mess that was V20, but it's more complicated than CoD 1e is. Rather than a single difficulty slider like CoD 1e has with modifying dice, it has modifiers for both number of dice and number of target successes. The way merits and flaws work is also more complicated: flaws are rated like merits are and you take them at character creation to reduce the cost of merits, whereas in CoD 1e flaws were unrated and provided free XP whenever they hindered the character during an adventure. At least it doesn't have laundry lists of conditions like CoD 2e did.
Quote from: PencilBoy99 on June 27, 2024, 11:11:40 AMand has less lore (maybe, it's hard to figure out).
Pause for laughter.
It still has the bloated mess of lore, it's just even more messed up now by retcons and not properly accounted for in any one place. For example, the current metaplot deals with the Second Inquisition (the FBI or whoever is now hunting vamps in mass) and the Beckoning (all the elders and the sabbats fuck off to the middle east and vanished). Fans of the lore hate it, naturally, and negatively compare it with VtR.
Quote from: PencilBoy99 on June 27, 2024, 11:11:40 AMI did find the thread about VtM as a failed design - which fits with my belief that you can have very popular, fun games even if the system and setting is broken or nonsense. Good stuff can emerge from RPGs in a way that it can't from other things and I'm not sure why.
Exactly. Even if it's garbage, you might get lucky and strike gold anyway.
Part of it may be that most groups didn't even read the rules as written and just relied on fiat. I got numerous anecdotes in another thread corroborating that.
I've noticed something similar in video games. The story in video games is as irrelevant as story in a porno unless it's a genre like RPG or visual novel. So there's tons of profitable games with shit tier stories, like Starcraft and Warcraft.
Quote from: PencilBoy99 on June 27, 2024, 11:11:40 AMThe thread did suggest a neat idea to run a VtM type game - which is to abandon the feudal structure and instead focus on "mafia crime family" + coterie. So you'd have vampires, with more core powers than they have in VtM, and then maybe some additional specific bloodline/clan power. In most cities you'd have different groups that are essentially crime families competing with each other, w/out any "prince", camarilla (at least locally), or clan based organization (except maybe loosely).
Sounds pretty logical, yeah.
They also suggested adopting branching bloodlines a la VtR but different. Every vampire starts out as part of their maker's bloodline (wherever that came from), but they can make their own or join another. So there's no silly arbitrary distinction between clans and bloodlines and shit, besides in-character mythology that invents stories about the "great clans" or whatever.
I had similar ideas before reading their thread. Some people become vampires without being turned by another vampire, these founders found their own bloodlines. From there, vampires who were turned by another vampire can found their own bloodlines or join a bloodline founded by someone else. While the bloodline determines a vampire's powers and weaknesses, it doesn't determine their beliefs and personality, so there are numerous non-familial covens that vampires join based on their beliefs and desires: crime syndicates, science journals, wizard schools, etc. The exact structure will vary from region to region. They also rub shoulders with werewolves and other magical creatures in a single underground society, not arbitrarily segregated. Most covens accept members of any magical race, unless they're something really dangerous, toxic or subject to persistent rumors and hearsay.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on June 27, 2024, 01:31:25 PMOnline echo chambers can give very distorted views of popularity, so take that with a grain of salt.
I'm familiar with one that really pushes OSR as being far more popular than it is.
Quote from: SmallMountaineer on June 26, 2024, 11:23:07 AMWell, to be absolutely fair, that sort of thing is off-putting to a lot of newcomers seeking a smooth entry-point into a product line.
It was off-putting to me and I ran WoD for most of the 90s.
Just chiming in to restate Osprey's "Sigil & Shadow" as a good alternative using the d100 Lite system, even if it's already been mentioned a couple times before.
Yes, it is a toolkit for Urban Fantasy, but it is good at "World of Darkness" such that you can use it for Vampire game, werewolf game, Succubus game, Mage game, Promethean/Frankenstein monster game & more with just this one toolkit. There's a section that has template structures for "Bloodsucker", "Lycanthrope", and other common supernatural themed monsters.
It's not limited to playing monsters, so you can do the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" thing, Vampire Hunters, etc.
There's enough cosmology for it all to exist, but it's not overwhelming like WoD. The world building covers just the basics of how the supernatural universe operates, not some giant political structure of Vampires or Werewolf clans or whatever.
Simple, solid system (d100 Lite/BRP foundation). No grandiose metaplot... only the basic sketch of cosmology. While it's a tool kit, it's Urban Fantasy tool kit (like... a kit for all of the WoD in one book), and it shows you how to handle Vampires. There's a lot to like about it & it doesn't have the baggage of the modern Vampire titles.
Re: Obligatory "Safety Tool" nonsense. There are 2 pages for the Safety boilerplate blah blah, in the back with the GM's stuff. It's the typical safety tool crap that is "required" for games that touch on personal horror (lines & veils, red light/greenlight, etc), minus the Diversity/gender confusion lectures.
Lastly... for those who use Amazon's evil empire of products, Osprey also has a Kindle version & not just the PDF. This is a true Kindle format, so you can re-size and re-flow the font like any other Kindle book, making it infinitely better on a smaller form factor (mobile phone) or e-ink device. Unless you're reading digital books on large form factor devices like iPad, I would recommend the Kindle version, which is also generally less expensive than the PDF on DTRPG.
(ALL of Osprey's RPG titles seem to have a true Kindle version, including "Jackals", "Paleomythic", and other very good/very interesting titles.)
Not mention, VtR is actually a better for the video game format, ironically.
You know the two plots proposed for Bloodlines 2? The one where you start as a thinblood who later joins a clan, and the one where you're an elder who awakens depowered in the present? Those don't work in VtM lore without adding additional stipulations (e.g. Phyre had her powers bound by magic tattoos), whereas in VtR2e they're built into the premise. Meanwhile, the VtM clans were made up as they went, so the power distribution is arbitrary and unbalanced.
The VtR equivalent is a revenant (a vampire who spontaneously rose for whatever reason, and without a clan) who can join a clan by being blooded by a sponsor of that clan, who effectively becomes their new maker in the process.
VtR elders will atrophy in hibernation naturally, so after waking up centuries later they'll be depowered naturally and have to regain their power through play.
The five clans setup has the right amount of asymmetry: each clan has two disciplines they share with one other clan each, and each clan has one discipline unique to that clan.
Quote from: yosemitemike on June 27, 2024, 02:51:43 PMQuote from: SmallMountaineer on June 26, 2024, 11:23:07 AMWell, to be absolutely fair, that sort of thing is off-putting to a lot of newcomers seeking a smooth entry-point into a product line.
It was off-putting to me and I ran WoD for most of the 90s.
It's also just, well, irrelevant to the player characters. I know fanboys like to ceaselessly debate the lore, but in practice it's completely irrelevant. Why should the PCs care that a vampire feud was involved in the fall of Carthage two thousand years ago? None of the elders ruling the USA were around when that happened, much less the PCs, but somehow it's made a huge deal by all the vampires. It's bizarre.
If the typical PCs are supposed to be ancient immortals that lived through these events, a la Forever Knight or Highlander, then it would make sense to emphasis ancient history. But in practice, it's irrelevant! All that microfiction lore exposition dumping is just the writers fawning over their own egos.
I strongly suspect that the people who care about WoD lore so much are actually a terminally online minority who don't actually play the games. It's a running gag in ttrpg circles for decades that most WW fans buy the books to read, not play. Most of the people I talk to who say they played almost always stipulate that they ignored the lore and did their own thing, not even reading the books to make sure they knew what the rules even were. I hear this so commonly that it seems like it's the default way groups play the game. So I'm surprised people keep saying WoD is the best when CoD is actually a better fit for how most groups seem to actually play, especially when CoD actually has multiple toolkit books exactly for that, like
Mirrors and
Mythologies. (I'm not saying CoD is well-designed, it's a typical WW disaster, but its heart was... closer to the right place, I guess?)
Quote from: bromides on June 27, 2024, 03:38:32 PMJust chiming in to restate Osprey's "Sigil & Shadow" as a good alternative using the d100 Lite system, even if it's already been mentioned a couple times before.
I've checked that out a while back. I think I found it interesting, but barely remember. I chatted with the dev on his discord about some of the rules a while back.
I do remember reading Osprey's hunters guides and really enjoying those. The werewolf hunter's guide is really useful on giving a taxonomy of werewolf tropes in folklore and literature. I use it as a standard reference in my own writing.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on June 27, 2024, 03:56:08 PMI strongly suspect that the people who care about WoD lore so much are actually a terminally online minority who don't actually play the games.
Most of the people who wanked on about the lore obviously didn't play even at the time. Most of them would admit it with a bit of digging. The stuff they argued about just didn't matter in an actual game at all. That crowd was also fascinated with the idea of cross spalt play but you could tell they had never actually tried to do it.
nWoD is a lot better set up for actual play with the way the splats are organized.
So here's that updated list I promised:
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/276038/Actual-Fucking-Monsters
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/124387/feed
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/375472/nightcrawlers
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/223788/blood-dark-thirst
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/219754/by-night-we-thirst
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/2945/book-of-the-unliving-revised
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/317710/abyss-action-horror-role-play
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/308014/night-shift-veterans-of-the-supernatural-wars
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/692/cj-carrella-s-witchcraft
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/106783/night-s-black-agents
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/202601/the-blood-hack
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/174206/undying
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/306279/thousand-year-old-vampire
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/153464/urban-shadows-1st-ed
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/212511/monsterhearts-2
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/329920/Vampire--Alone-in-the-Darkness
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/364162/Sigil--Shadow
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/156434/humanish
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/333015/The-Blood-Basic-Rules
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/97330/Strands-of-Power
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/296461/Bite-Marks
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/325047/Dark-Necessities
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/405602/Fanged--Lightweight-vampire-RPG
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/343626/Low-Stakes
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/126591/Upir-Gaunt-Protocol-Game-Series-21
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/99313/Vampire-City-English
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/430585/The-Vampyre-Hack
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/731/buffy-the-vampire-slayer-roleplaying-game
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/1377/angel-corebook
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/353122/SHIVER-RPG-Core-Book
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/431221/I-Was-A-Teenage-Creature
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/431567/StokerVerse-Roleplaying-Game
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/426887/what-lies-beneath-the-darkness
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/426074/Kith-and-Kin-Vampires
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/423246/Progeny-of-Blood-and-Shadow-OneShot-RPG-Rules
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/421803/Bloodless
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/415536/Bellum-A-Solo-Game-about-Vampires
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/409614/Blood-A-Little-Live-Action-Game-about-Vampires
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/355497/Blackened
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/346886/Gaia-Awakening--Core-Rulebook
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/460786/mister-vampire
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/233621/nightbane-role-playing-game
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/456053/Elegy
Thanks for that list.
So I wrapped up my Heroic RPG testing with my group (good rules, it's great, buy it) and my group and I were batting around ideas of what to play or pick up on an old campaign.
One of the ideas was a Savage Worlds World of Darkness game. And literally *all* the arguments everyone has made here was condensed into a five-hour booze-rant between myself and my crew. The issue is Savage Worlds could easily handle doing WoD with a cleaner set of mechanics... but with all that work required, my contention is that if I'm going to spend all that time translating WoD to Savage Worlds (which would be great for Savage Worlds fans) I'd simply rather design my own game and publish it, using all those elements.
I've done a few templates of WoD Vampires and Werewolves, and did some mockups of Mages, and it passed our sniff tests (but do require some playtesting). So I'm absolutely sure it would work after some testing and tweaking. The real question is: why use WoD at all and not just make an entirely new setting and mythos? Yes, obviously that's a higher bar, but y'know, as we've established in this thread, WoD is a circlejerk of epic proportions.
Alas, we settled on playing Rifts (which I'm going to make a thread on), but the Savage WoD concept is haunting us.
I think Everlasting had the right idea by making the default PCs Immortals who actually lived through history. Thus, the various events of the secret history would actually be personally relevant to them, a la Nick Knight or MacLeod.
The problem is that establishing a PC's secret history is very time consuming, especially if you do it at character creation. It would be very intimidating to beginner players.
I think one way to handle it is to allow PCs to recall their past lives during play, rather than establishing them at character creation. This could be represented as the PC being an amnesiac who gradually remembers their lives, or it could be framed as that information not being relevant until later in the campaign.
The Mythos *IS* what one of the primary driving forces of WoD is... Whether it's Classic World of Darkness or Chronicles of Darkness.... Chronicles was much more open ended with it's Mythos, but it still (especially by 2nd edition) had a Mythos.
It's enough as to why 5th edition sells poorer than 4th/20th edition does. Paradox rewrote large portions of the mythos in the name of DEI....
That's really the main thing here... There are lots of games you can play Monsters in. Every Superhero game by default can easily be reskinned towards it...
But that's the thing.... All Vampires being descended from Caine is fucking cool and evocative.
Werewolves being the immune system of the Earth is also cool.
Chronicles of Darkness made Vampires origins more mukry but it still had very The Clans and the Covenants which were what gave players something to sink their teeth into.
People didn't love WoD just because they got to play a Vampire or a Werewolf, they loved it because they were a VENTRUE Vampire or a Get of Fenris Werewolf.
I remember Nightlife was a contemporary of WoD's but never took off as much partially because it's system was ten times more obtuse, but partially because it was a Monster Mash as well... It had a ton of different Monster types but not a lot of Lore inherent to those individual Monsters.
Onyx Path's new game is a "Monster Mash" but even then they're still making the Lineages and Families distinct with their own lore and origins and mysteries to dive into.
That's a blind spot I'm seeing in this discussion. Making up your own Monster Mythos is going to be the hardest part of a WoD alternative, not the system.
Quote from: Orphan81 on June 28, 2024, 12:34:36 PMThe Mythos *IS* what one of the primary driving forces of WoD is... Whether it's Classic World of Darkness or Chronicles of Darkness.... Chronicles was much more open ended with it's Mythos, but it still (especially by 2nd edition) had a Mythos.
It's enough as to why 5th edition sells poorer than 4th/20th edition does. Paradox rewrote large portions of the mythos in the name of DEI....
That's really the main thing here... There are lots of games you can play Monsters in. Every Superhero game by default can easily be reskinned towards it...
But that's the thing.... All Vampires being descended from Caine is fucking cool and evocative.
Werewolves being the immune system of the Earth is also cool.
Chronicles of Darkness made Vampires origins more mukry but it still had very The Clans and the Covenants which were what gave players something to sink their teeth into.
People didn't love WoD just because they got to play a Vampire or a Werewolf, they loved it because they were a VENTRUE Vampire or a Get of Fenris Werewolf.
I remember Nightlife was a contemporary of WoD's but never took off as much partially because it's system was ten times more obtuse, but partially because it was a Monster Mash as well... It had a ton of different Monster types but not a lot of Lore inherent to those individual Monsters.
Onyx Path's new game is a "Monster Mash" but even then they're still making the Lineages and Families distinct with their own lore and origins and mysteries to dive into.
That's a blind spot I'm seeing in this discussion. Making up your own Monster Mythos is going to be the hardest part of a WoD alternative, not the system.
I do buy all that. You want to have something like that. But the level of Lore in WoD games drives me insane and makes it hard to GM. Player's who are into it have tons of "knowledge" (often contradictory) so nearly anything I try to do in the game is constrained by all this.
Quote from: PencilBoy99 on June 28, 2024, 02:17:17 PMI do buy all that. You want to have something like that. But the level of Lore in WoD games drives me insane and makes it hard to GM. Player's who are into it have tons of "knowledge" (often contradictory) so nearly anything I try to do in the game is constrained by all this.
So, I'm not trying to convert you or convince you to use WoD here. If you don't like the system or the lore, than obviously you should use something else.
All that being said though.... It's important to remember the Whitewolf "Golden Rule" and that's... the Storyteller is always right... throw out what you don't like and use what you do. The lore should be a tool, not a straight jacket.
It's supposed to be YOUR World of Darkness in the end... so for example if you decide the Ventrue as a Clan have been completely wiped out... You've decided it, that's how it is.
I don't know if you have any of the 20th Anniversary Books, but if you *ARE* interested in the World of Darkness and you don't... Those are the books to use. They present pretty much every highlight of The Metaplot and how to include it or ignore parts of it in every core book.
They're *very* new player/storyteller friendly in that aspect without getting lost in the reeds.
But at the end of the day, like I said, I don't want it to seem like I'm trying to tell you your wrong or how you should play.
I obviously very much like World of Darkness. I like it's system and the 20th anniversary books are my go to... I ignore everything 5th edition.
The mythos was never a driving force outside of the lore nerds and the terminally online who never actually played the game. WoD wouldn't have struggled against D&D if people played it for the lore.
Making up your own mythos for an urban fantasy game set on Earth is easy. You have the entirety of myth, folklore and literature to draw from. It's just the fantasy genre, except set on Earth.
But I don't want a mythos. I want a game that lets you make your own setting. That is designed to do so specifically. Premade modular elements to set examples, but not constrain. Something actually made to be played by gamers, not read off a wiki by terminally online nerds.
"You can ignore the lore!" That's a bullshit thought-ending non-reply. I want a game that caters to original world building, not one that you can force to use something else despite itself. You can do that with any game.
I didn't like how CoD turned into a lore masturbation fest when it entered 2e. Curseborn seems to be doubling down on that writer egotism. I'm not gonna buy it. I'm a gamer, not a sycophant.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on June 28, 2024, 03:05:29 PMThe mythos was never a driving force outside of the lore nerds and the terminally online who never actually played the game. WoD wouldn't have struggled against D&D if people played it for the lore.
*Insert Jay Jonah Jamesion Laughing gif*
Wait you're serious?
Box Crayon you have continued to make the most blatantly wrong and fradulent claims about Whitewolf, the World of Darkness and it's history I can only assume you lived in an entirely different dimension than I did.
The world of Darkness was literally the second most popular roleplaying game in the world through the 90s and up until the release of Chronicles. Full stop, it was nipping at D&D's heels.
You have a personal grudge against it for some... Bizarre reason. Full past "It's not for me" to actively hating it, like Wod took you behind the garage and bad touched you. I don't get it.
Me being a fan of World of Darkness doesn't make me a Sycophant either. I'm clearly aware of it's flaws, and it's something I enjoy *despite* those Flaws.
But you're not willing to have a real discussion, you just want to shit on it and tell lies that suit your narrative of the World of Darkness never being successful, it's Lore never being something people were really into, and the concept of playing Supernatural creatures being the only thing going for it..
Despite there having been multiple games released under a variety of systems that let you play Supernatural creatures that never reached the height, success or cultural impact that World of Darkness did.
Quote from: Orphan81 on June 28, 2024, 02:36:47 PMAll that being said though.... It's important to remember the Whitewolf "Golden Rule" and that's... the Storyteller is always right... throw out what you don't like and use what you do. The lore should be a tool, not a straight jacket.
It's supposed to be YOUR World of Darkness in the end... so for example if you decide the Ventrue as a Clan have been completely wiped out... You've decided it, that's how it is.
I don't know if you have any of the 20th Anniversary Books, but if you *ARE* interested in the World of Darkness and you don't... Those are the books to use. They present pretty much every highlight of The Metaplot and how to include it or ignore parts of it in every core book.
I have the 20th anniversary books and they're uniformly great (and heavy). However, from my own experience
1. I don't recall most of the WW stuff presenting it as "this is a toolkit take what you want". The only book I can recall doing that was Beckett's Jyhad diary, that explicitly presented each thing with "here's a bunch of options you can choose from for each event presented."
2. It's been my uniform experience that every person I've played with (I've even run vampire LARPs) that's into Vampire pre-v5 treats their detailed knowledge of the setting canon as if it was part of the game, so when I violate that as a GM I'm not doing my own thing, I'm literally not running the game, like if I was running Savage Worlds and got rid of the wild die. I've only ever seen this with WW Vampire. Those same player's I'm talking about wouldn't ever push back with any whacky idea I had about any other setting. Other than me, and maybe you now, I don't know anyone who is like 'just hack this how you want and that's great, if you want to merge the Sabbat and
Anarchs into one thing go for it'.
Quote from: Orphan81 on June 28, 2024, 03:23:34 PM*Insert Jay Jonah Jamesion Laughing gif*
Wait you're serious?
I never called you a sycophant and I never said the game wasn't successful. I said the lore didn't help it compete with D&D once WotC pulled things together.
You still haven't given any hard numbers to support your assertions that WoD was going strong until CoD and Paradox arbitrarily ruined it. The impression I've gotten is that WoD peaked in the 90s and never recovered. Its success was due to a combination of TSR's poor business decisions, the popularity of the goth scene at the time, first mover advantage, and the network effect. But then things changed: video games got better, WotC released D&D 3e and d20 boom happened, the goth scene declined, the popularity of LotR made elfgames look cool and mainstream, etc.
Despite what folks like Frank Trollman might claim, CoD was clearly financially successful before the 2008 recession hit and CCP axed the company. So I don't think the gamers who were buying several hundred thousand books per year were all that concerned with lore. They weren't concerned when WoD was published, and they weren't concerned when CoD replaced it on shelves.
No other games were able to survive in that niche? That's pretty normal for ttrpgs. It's not a growth sector and never has been. It has insane first mover advantage due to the huge initial investment costs. Every genre is dominated by a single game that pushes out competitors. Aside from Pathfinder, can you name any medieval fantasy game that reached the same level of success as D&D? Any horror game that matched Call of Cthulhu? Any cyberpunk game that matched Cyberpunk 2020? Of course not! So calling out WoD for having no competition is a silly statement. It's not special in that respect.
I think your online echo chamber has given you an inflated sense of WoD's importance. Outside of heartbreaker ttrpgs, its cultural impact has been nil. "It influenced Blade and Underworld!" you claim. The tropes used in those movies can be traced to works that predate WoD, such as Anne Rice's
The Vampire Lestat, or to Dracula, or to Captain Kronos, etc. It clearly hasn't meaningfully influenced popular vampire shows like
True Blood or
Vampire Diaries.
Do I have a chip on my shoulder? Well, I've said multiple times that I was cyberbullied by terminally online WoD lore nerds in the 2000s for briefly liking CoD. The fandom was a dumpster fire then, and it's still one now. It's hard not to be disgusted by that.
Could I be misinformed? Sure, but so could you. But I suppose none of that matters now because the IP is very obviously on life support and never coming back. Once
Bloodlines 2 bombs as predicted, Paradox is gonna dump the IP like a hot potato or let it languish in limbo. There's been so much damage done to the brand name now, it's so out of touch with modern tastes, and there's so much mainstream distrust of any corpos reviving old IPs, that even if someone else bought it then they'd most likely be unable to make it successful outside of the shrinking number of diehard brand loyalists.
Like,
Bloodlines by itself seems to be largely responsible for the lingering interest in the IP. White Wolf sold themselves to CCP because they were banking on video games maintaining their flagging sales. Didn't work out for them, since ttrpgs are drops in the bucket compared to video games. The peaks in Google Trends seem traceable to
Bloodlines and
Bloodlines 2, but it's pretty obviously been a continuous downward trend for the IP since Google started collecting data.
I think it's only a matter of time before somebody makes a new urban fantasy ttrpg that takes over the genre, like how Pathfinder has increasingly taken market share from D&D. Or maybe we won't see a single game dominating the genre, but a split among a bunch of smaller games. I suppose it'll be interesting to see what happens.
Quote from: PencilBoy99 on June 28, 2024, 04:59:56 PMHowever, from my own experience
Correct.
WoD is not a toolkit and never has been. The lore nerds are anal retentive about it. If you don't use the lore exactly as they imagine it, then they think you're running the game wrong. It's very obnoxious.
CoD isn't a toolkit either, but it has several toolkit books and the community is usually more open-minded about that sort of thing. It's not frowned upon for GMs to just make things up. Or at least it wasn't back in the 2000s. I noped out around when 2e was released because the rules got much clunkier and the lore nerds took over.
However, if you did treat v20 as a toolkit, with maybe some different optional rules for how you could make vampires work, you could make a pretty nifty home brew.
I do strongly prefer single splat games, and really WoD/CoD that's been their meat and drink. Cross monster games are much less interesting to me.
I would love to see a core system for building your own monsters (like Unisystem Angel but much fancier) so you could make your own single splat game.
Quote from: PencilBoy99 on June 28, 2024, 05:35:42 PMHowever, if you did treat v20 as a toolkit, with maybe some different optional rules for how you could make vampires work, you could make a pretty nifty home brew.
Quote from: PencilBoy99 on June 28, 2024, 05:36:55 PMI do strongly prefer single splat games, and really WoD/CoD that's been their meat and drink. Cross monster games are much less interesting to me.
Quote from: PencilBoy99 on June 28, 2024, 05:37:34 PMI would love to see a core system for building your own monsters (like Unisystem Angel but much fancier) so you could make your own single splat game.
I have some recs. Check out
Feed or
Vampire City for vamps,
Bite Marks for werewolves.
Sigil & Shadow has a build your own monster section.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on June 28, 2024, 05:42:30 PMI have some recs. Check out Feed or Vampire City for vamps, Bite Marks for werewolves. Sigil & Shadow has a build your own monster section.
Those are very cool.
What about Requiem 2e? I've heard it has much better mechanics than VtM and you're not bogged down by tons of metaplot.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on June 28, 2024, 05:42:30 PMQuote from: PencilBoy99 on June 28, 2024, 05:35:42 PMHowever, if you did treat v20 as a toolkit, with maybe some different optional rules for how you could make vampires work, you could make a pretty nifty home brew.
Quote from: PencilBoy99 on June 28, 2024, 05:36:55 PMI do strongly prefer single splat games, and really WoD/CoD that's been their meat and drink. Cross monster games are much less interesting to me.
Quote from: PencilBoy99 on June 28, 2024, 05:37:34 PMI would love to see a core system for building your own monsters (like Unisystem Angel but much fancier) so you could make your own single splat game.
I have some recs. Check out Feed or Vampire City for vamps, Bite Marks for werewolves. Sigil & Shadow has a build your own monster section.
Sigil and Shadow is excellent!
Quote from: Monero on June 28, 2024, 08:10:28 PMWhat about Requiem 2e? I've heard it has much better mechanics than VtM and you're not bogged down by tons of metaplot.
2e added a ton of clunky new mechanics, like conditions that you collect like Pokemon, so it doesn't have that advantage anymore.
If you want vampires who struggle with their inner conflict, but with simple rules that don't constantly get in your way, then the best option I've found so far has been
Feed. It tells you to invent your own setting, so you can cherrypick whatever you like from other settings.
CoD carried on the old White Wolf tradition of having a bunch of clunky, disjointed subsystems that bogged everything down and were ignored by most people.
I'm skimming through Elegy. It's extremely derivative of WW and even mentions the WW games as its sole source of inspiration. It has 1:1 equivalents to sects and covenants, while the clan equivalents or "lineage" are each equivalent to multiple clans. The only thing that's particularly original is that it offers three different kinds of werewolves, with one of them being the tree-hugging vampire-hating "varou". It's disappointing that it's a ripoff, but that seems to be the case for most of these new games.
It's really strange. 90s urban fantasy games like Everlasting and WitchCraft were written directly in response to WoD, but they weren't ripoffs. The bloodlines in Everlasting were not 1:1 ripoffs and the vampires in WitchCraft fed on emotions rather than blood.
If 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. The writer doesn't try to fake an incomprehensible mystery by hemming and hawing, but outright tells you how to design dread gods with several examples.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/407806/The-Midnight-World
Sad to say Curseborn's system is a real turn off.
As much as I like the idea of the original Whitewolf staff developing another Urban Horror game, they seem to be leaning into more and more fiddly mechanics that try to blend traditional tabletop gaming with 'story game' mechanics.
Overly complicated dice mechanics borrowed from V:TM 5th, combined with their superhero system implemented in the new versions of Trinity and Scion...
With all the 'conditions' of Nwod 2e.
Honestly, with how dice pools with static TNs work, it's almost worth looking at using Fudge dice to replace the variance... for difficulty 6 on a d10, half the dice pool + 4dF is close enough to the results that the reduction in number of dice needed is worth the slight loss of fidelity on the edges (i.e. yes, 10 dice at difficulty 6 could, in theory, botch... but 4dF+5 counted as successes will get all but the most extreme outlier results within a couple of percentage points for rolls in the normal range of attributes and abilities).
Basically, one place to go looking for alternatives with similar mechanical weighting to WoD might be to look at what people have built out of FUDGE and Fate.
I think if I were to ever rebuild my "White Book Mage" engine for a setting of entirely my own design, I'd probably drop the dice pool system (a modified OWoD that replaced difficulties less than 4 with bonus dice and difficulties above 8 with subtracting dice... working magic allowed both building up ridiculous numbers of dice and extreme difficulties that kept the final pool size manageable) for something akin to Fudge dice just because it would likely speed up play a lot.
"Hunters of the Damned" is probably next on my list once I finally get my current game product done.
Quote from: Orphan81 on June 28, 2024, 12:34:36 PMThe Mythos *IS* what one of the primary driving forces of WoD is... Whether it's Classic World of Darkness or Chronicles of Darkness.... Chronicles was much more open ended with it's Mythos, but it still (especially by 2nd edition) had a Mythos.
It's enough as to why 5th edition sells poorer than 4th/20th edition does. Paradox rewrote large portions of the mythos in the name of DEI....
That's really the main thing here... There are lots of games you can play Monsters in. Every Superhero game by default can easily be reskinned towards it...
But that's the thing.... All Vampires being descended from Caine is fucking cool and evocative.
Werewolves being the immune system of the Earth is also cool.
Chronicles of Darkness made Vampires origins more mukry but it still had very The Clans and the Covenants which were what gave players something to sink their teeth into.
People didn't love WoD just because they got to play a Vampire or a Werewolf, they loved it because they were a VENTRUE Vampire or a Get of Fenris Werewolf.
I remember Nightlife was a contemporary of WoD's but never took off as much partially because it's system was ten times more obtuse, but partially because it was a Monster Mash as well... It had a ton of different Monster types but not a lot of Lore inherent to those individual Monsters.
Onyx Path's new game is a "Monster Mash" but even then they're still making the Lineages and Families distinct with their own lore and origins and mysteries to dive into.
That's a blind spot I'm seeing in this discussion. Making up your own Monster Mythos is going to be the hardest part of a WoD alternative, not the system.
All vampires descending from Caine is the main reason I DON'T play VtM. I'm not a fan of it.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on June 29, 2024, 11:06:39 AMQuote from: Monero on June 28, 2024, 08:10:28 PMWhat about Requiem 2e? I've heard it has much better mechanics than VtM and you're not bogged down by tons of metaplot.
2e added a ton of clunky new mechanics, like conditions that you collect like Pokemon, so it doesn't have that advantage anymore.
If you want vampires who struggle with their inner conflict, but with simple rules that don't constantly get in your way, then the best option I've found so far has been Feed. It tells you to invent your own setting, so you can cherrypick whatever you like from other settings.
I guess I don't get the love affair for Feed. I bought it and wanted to like it, but it just seemed like a vampire creation toolkit more-so than an actual game.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 01, 2024, 12:00:50 PMI'm skimming through Elegy. It's extremely derivative of WW and even mentions the WW games as its sole source of inspiration. It has 1:1 equivalents to sects and covenants, while the clan equivalents or "lineage" are each equivalent to multiple clans. The only thing that's particularly original is that it offers three different kinds of werewolves, with one of them being the tree-hugging vampire-hating "varou". It's disappointing that it's a ripoff, but that seems to be the case for most of these new games.
It's really strange. 90s urban fantasy games like Everlasting and WitchCraft were written directly in response to WoD, but they weren't ripoffs. The bloodlines in Everlasting were not 1:1 ripoffs and the vampires in WitchCraft fed on emotions rather than blood.
I'm looking for Elegy to research it and found this: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/456053/elegy (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/456053/elegy)
Is this it? If so, this is a solo game.
Where can I find Everlasting?
Shiver could work well and you can overlay a hunger mechanic easily.
Quote from: Batjon on July 07, 2024, 02:32:39 PMQuote from: BoxCrayonTales on June 29, 2024, 11:06:39 AMQuote from: Monero on June 28, 2024, 08:10:28 PMWhat about Requiem 2e? I've heard it has much better mechanics than VtM and you're not bogged down by tons of metaplot.
2e added a ton of clunky new mechanics, like conditions that you collect like Pokemon, so it doesn't have that advantage anymore.
If you want vampires who struggle with their inner conflict, but with simple rules that don't constantly get in your way, then the best option I've found so far has been Feed. It tells you to invent your own setting, so you can cherrypick whatever you like from other settings.
I guess I don't get the love affair for Feed. I bought it and wanted to like it, but it just seemed like a vampire creation toolkit more-so than an actual game.
How so? What do you think it is lacking?
The creator did want to make more supplements, but couldn't raise enough money on kickstarter.
It's released under creative commons, so anyone can make and sell repackages and supplements. If you think it doesn't have enough game, then anyone can write supplements adding more game to it.
Perhaps Vampire City would be more to your taste?
Quote from: Batjon on July 07, 2024, 02:37:32 PMWhere can I find Everlasting?
It's on the list, but doesn't have Everlasting in the name:
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/2945/book-of-the-unliving-revised
Here's the list:
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/276038/Actual-Fucking-Monsters
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/124387/feed
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/375472/nightcrawlers
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/223788/blood-dark-thirst
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/219754/by-night-we-thirst
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/2945/book-of-the-unliving-revised
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/317710/abyss-action-horror-role-play
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/308014/night-shift-veterans-of-the-supernatural-wars
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/692/cj-carrella-s-witchcraft
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/106783/night-s-black-agents
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/202601/the-blood-hack
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/174206/undying
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/306279/thousand-year-old-vampire
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/153464/urban-shadows-1st-ed
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/212511/monsterhearts-2
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/329920/Vampire--Alone-in-the-Darkness
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/364162/Sigil--Shadow
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/156434/humanish
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/333015/The-Blood-Basic-Rules
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/97330/Strands-of-Power
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/296461/Bite-Marks
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/325047/Dark-Necessities
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/405602/Fanged--Lightweight-vampire-RPG
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/343626/Low-Stakes
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/126591/Upir-Gaunt-Protocol-Game-Series-21
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/99313/Vampire-City-English
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/430585/The-Vampyre-Hack
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/731/buffy-the-vampire-slayer-roleplaying-game
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/1377/angel-corebook
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/353122/SHIVER-RPG-Core-Book
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/431221/I-Was-A-Teenage-Creature
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/431567/StokerVerse-Roleplaying-Game
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/426887/what-lies-beneath-the-darkness
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/426074/Kith-and-Kin-Vampires
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/423246/Progeny-of-Blood-and-Shadow-OneShot-RPG-Rules
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/421803/Bloodless
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/415536/Bellum-A-Solo-Game-about-Vampires
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/409614/Blood-A-Little-Live-Action-Game-about-Vampires
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/355497/Blackened
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/346886/Gaia-Awakening--Core-Rulebook
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/460786/mister-vampire
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/233621/nightbane-role-playing-game
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/456053/Elegy
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/407806/The-Midnight-World
I did enjoy Vampire City the time I read it, before its new update. I haven't gotten to read the new updated version yet.
I remember Feed being almost completely concentrated on designing vampires with very little barebones actual game mechanics behind it. Perhaps I didn't read it thoroughly enough and/or am misremembering a bit. I do want to like it. A customer vampire designer is one of the things I want, but I also need solid game mechanics to make the gameplay fun and compelling.
I just pulled it off my shelf to re-read.
Quote from: Batjon on July 07, 2024, 02:41:53 PMShiver could work well and you can overlay a hunger mechanic easily.
Shiver does have an immortal archetype in the Shiver Gothic supplement. Vampypre being one of the two. There's simple resist hunger check in one of the optional backgrounds (essentially GM can require you to make a check to resist feeding.)
Lot's of neat archetypes in that one (mad scientists, constructs, undead, etc).
https://composedreamgames.com/marketplace/shiver-gothic-spireholm (https://composedreamgames.com/marketplace/shiver-gothic-spireholm)
The book is mostly dedicated to a gothic city and adventure.
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 AMQuote 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.
Quote from: mudbanks on January 14, 2023, 10:06:48 AMLooking for a good alternative to VTM. In particular, I want something that isn't very rules-heavy, and it must be vampire-themed (so no generic systems). Any recommendations? :)
Here's a bit of a curve ball.
Cyberpunk 2020 and Night's Edge. Oddly enough, the cyberpunk gaming genre and monsters works really well together. You can even include Lovecraftian horrors that scare even the vampires. I ran a campaign where the vampires were powerful manipulators of everything behind the scenes trying to popularize having no cyberware (mainly because humans with high Empathy stats tasted better).
Might be worth looking into for you.
Quote from: Chris24601 on July 24, 2024, 09:10:42 PMI've read the whole damnable thing...
Damnable? Really? The PDF is free and released under CC. It's not like the author gave you false expectations and took your hard-earned cash. He gave you his work for free in perpetuity and legal carte blanche to modify it and sell those modifications.
A lot of creators are paranoid nutjobs who would prefer that copyright lasts forever because, *gasp*, somebody might write and sell fanfiction of their original characters when the copyright expires decades after the creator died. Nevermind the whole problem of abandonware that is damaging our cultural heritage. But I digress.
Quote from: Chris24601 on July 24, 2024, 09:10:42 PM...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.
Your complaints all boil down to the settings not being detailed enough for your tastes. Fair enough. I don't know what to tell you and I'm sorry about that.
What's done is done. The author hasn't touched the material since and last I heard he has a kid now and won't ever do more hobby work, so I guess life just sucks. We are lucky he even released it under CC.
If you don't want to use the existing settings or make your own, then you can take any existing vampire setting and then adapt it to Feed. I've converted VtM/VtR, Nightlife, and Everlasting on my blog and it works fine.
I would love to see you review
Urban Shadows, btw. I imagine that you'll absolutely despise it. Here's the 2e quickstart for your perusal: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/333500/Urban-Shadows-2nd-Ed-Quickstart Let me know what you think! ;)
Quote from: Chris24601 on July 24, 2024, 09:10:42 PMGee... I needed a toolkit to tell me "write your own rules for non-vampires." That is SO helpful.
I guess it's frustrating that he doesn't include NPC stat blocks for werewolves, elves and androids for those who want them. Do they really need to be more detailed than one or two dice pools? This
is a game where a PC's minion, or group of mooks, is represented with a single dice pool on their sheet rather than a full stat block.
I once tried hacking the system to represent werewolves. My idea was that, unlike vampire traits, werewolf traits have to exist in a balance with human traits. Too far on one end, the werewolf suffers from imbalance. I lost interest, but I still have my notes.
Honestly, trying to hack the rules to represent other magical creatures with the same degree of care would require multiple other books. It would require a fuckton of work and it would add a ton more bookkeeping to the GM's plate.
Quote from: Chris24601 on July 24, 2024, 09:10:42 PMThere'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.
I disagree that it has nothing worth exploring. You haven't criticized the
mechanics at all, and the mechanics are really where it shines. Not because it's particularly amazing or anything, but because it's so simple that I'm astonished that this wasn't written decades earlier.
VtM/VtR has this whole dumb problem where stealing candy bars punishes you with schizophrenia, so the writers have invented all these dumb rules like touchstones and paths of whatever you were going to do anyway in order to avoid it. Furthermore, there's no rule preventing a character from having humanity 10, blood potency 10, and all powers at 10, basically being a superhero that turns the premise into a farce. The premise is stupid on its face!
In
Dark Shadows and
Interview with the Vampire, which inspired the mechanic, Barnabas and Louis didn't develop schizophrenia after stealing candy bars. They felt emo because they were allergic to sunlight and ate people. How could the authors fail so utterly to represent that with their mechanics? I mean, personality mechanics are always a crapshoot in ttrpgs, but you have be really incompetent to be inspired by "sad emo vamp" but instead produce "you get schizophrenia for stealing a candy bar!"
Feed neatly fixes all that by making vampirism and humanity into a lightside/darkside mechanic. Rather than stealing a candy bar and being punished with schizophrenia, PCs alienate human traits and replace them with vampiric ones. Losing humanity is not a horrible punishment to be avoided at all costs, and gaining vampiric traits necessarily requires losing human traits. You don't need paths of whatever you were gonna do anyway, because the mechanic supports playing evil vamps who only use their humanity as a cover for their villainy. It even incorporates the functionality of obscure mechanics like "discipline derangements": as you lose human traits and gain vampiric traits, you outright become less able to function as a human being instead of a vampire.
Any nerd can write hundreds of pages of irrelevant self-masturbatory lore. The hard part is making decent rules that support the fluff. The stuff Feed comes up with is not rocket science, but painfully simple. I'm astonished that nobody came up with this before Feed did (to my knowledge).
I've gone thru multiple vampire games, as my list attests. Most of them simply don't bother with a humanity statistic (which is fine), and when they do it's dumb and clunky. VtX's humanity mechanic is dumb shit that's only kept around because of shallow nostalgia but nobody actually likes playing it. Feed is the only vampire rpg I've encountered that actually makes a humanity stat worth including as a mechanic.
The humanity mechanic is the only reason I even consider it worthwhile. If I just wanted to play vampiric superheroes and not worry about humanity struggles, then I could play GURPS, D&D, QAGS, Risus, or any number of other games. If I wanted to play vampires who struggle with their humanity, then Feed is the only game I've found that makes that anything other than dumb shit nobody actually likes using but keeps around because "muh nostalgia!".
That and the superpowers. VtX makes you jump through dumb hoops to get superpowers. You have to buy filler powers before you can buy the powers you want, and the powers available are arbitrary. You can buy the power to sink into soil of all things, buy you can't buy levitation/flight a la
The Lost Boys or walking through walls like
Carmilla or scaling sheer surfaces like
Dracula. Not without jumping through dumb arbitrary hoops, anyway.
I never switched to Feed because I was invested in its sample settings. I switched to it because the humanity rules aren't fucking stupid. If I need settings, then I already have a ton of other vampire media that I can adapt to it, if I don't make my own.
Like, dude, I'm just gonna say it straight: if you're reading Feed for its settings, then you're reading it wrong. You don't play it for its sample settings, you play it because its humanity and superpower mechanic doesn't suck ass. If you need a detailed setting, then you're supposed to convert an existing setting like VtX or Nightlife.
Does that help at all? I'm sorry this has gone on so long, I got sucked into rant mode. I sympathize with your problems and I wish the author had done more, but real life sucks that way.
If you want to pull interest from VtM you need more than a single type written page (c. 1000 words) of outline.
I didn't bring up Feed's mechanics because they're largely irrelevant given the amount of "make stuff up" the GM needs to do just to create a campaign.
Yes, most GMs just want a game they can pull out of a box and use, not one where they have to toolkit practically every aspect.
Games like VtM or any of Palladium's horror-themed games or Ravenloft give players a specific set of already decided options to build their PCs and the GM a world with enough themes and things going on already decided that they can just focus on how the PCs will fit into that.
Do you know what really cemented VtM in its zeitgeist? Chicago by Night. A detailed location with scores of NPCs a Storyteller could drop into their games. Organizations and Conspiracies the Storyteller didn't have to invent from whole cloth. It also had hints of other supernaturals in Chinatown and the demon Gulfora.
Any nerd can write prose, it's true, but that doesn't mean the prose is unnecessary in selling a setting to potential GMs/players. A good story hooks better than anything mechanics related ever will (witness all things Palladium... the mechanics aren't good, but Kevin writes hella compelling settings that people love).
Basically "here's a toolkit to build any type of vampire your GM can imagine" is never going to be as compelling as "play as a scion of the first murderer, Caine."
If you want something to steal VtM's thunder, the only thing that could do it is something with a similarly compelling as the hook (mechanics have never been the appeal of any WW games).
Relatedly, I know you make a huge deal out of addiction/humanity type mechanics, but the fact that you could pretty much ignore them was actually a huge part of VtM's success. 'Vampions' is a very real thing that a LOT of people played using VtM and I think a big stumbling block for many potential competitors was trying to push an addiction/temptation type mechanic as their hook when a lot of people just wanted "superheroes with fangs."
Because let's face it... for Angel, Spike (once he got chipped/ensouled), Det. Knight, all the Vampire Diaries, Blade, etc. the whole blood addiction was just fluff 99% of the time. Outside of specific plot lines the protagonist was never going to actually surrender to the urges... which mechanically in an RPG would just be a player affectation no different than someone playing a rogue saying "my rogue examines the security of the treasury and ponders for a moment how easy it would be to rob, but shakes off the temptation."
And that's the type of vampire most players are looking to play, not ones whose moral choices get overridden by mechanical checks/tests.
VtM made that trivially easy to do... buy up enough of the virtues to avoid frenzies and avoid humanity loss, backstopped by the degeneration for humanity flooring at 3-4 where you'd no longer even need to check unless you were literally desecrating corpse after murdering them.
Any potential competitor would need similar options or else it's only competing with the WW dev's vision of VtM, not with VtM as it is widely played by many of its fans.
Quote from: Chris24601 on July 25, 2024, 10:36:30 AMDo you know what really cemented VtM in its zeitgeist? Chicago by Night. A detailed location with scores of NPCs a Storyteller could drop into their games. Organizations and Conspiracies the Storyteller didn't have to invent from whole cloth. It also had hints of other supernaturals in Chinatown and the demon Gulfora.
Oh, so you want a city book? Full of pre-written NPCs, organizations and conspiracies? I could totally write something like that. Probably not very well, but I could certainly try. Give me a few years, I'm currently tied up.
Quote from: Chris24601 on July 25, 2024, 10:36:30 AMRelatedly, I know you make a huge deal out of addiction/humanity type mechanics, but the fact that you could pretty much ignore them was actually a huge part of VtM's success.
That's stupid. Why should I even play a ttrpg when I'm just gonna ignore the mechanics anyway? Why not play a video game like
V Rising where the mechanics are actually important?
Quote from: Chris24601 on July 25, 2024, 10:36:30 AMBecause let's face it... for Angel, Spike (once he got chipped/ensouled), Det. Knight, all the Vampire Diaries, Blade, etc. the whole blood addiction was just fluff 99% of the time. Outside of specific plot lines the protagonist was never going to actually surrender to the urges... which mechanically in an RPG would just be a player affectation no different than someone playing a rogue saying "my rogue examines the security of the treasury and ponders for a moment how easy it would be to rob, but shakes off the temptation."
And that's the type of vampire most players are looking to play, not ones whose moral choices get overridden by mechanical checks/tests.
There's no shortage of games on my list that do just that.
Here's a new addition to the list: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/217296/All-of-Their-Strengths
It's literally about playing Blade. Does it strike your fancy?
Quote from: Chris24601 on July 25, 2024, 10:36:30 AMIf you want something to steal VtM's thunder, the only thing that could do it is something with a similarly compelling as the hook (mechanics have never been the appeal of any WW games).
I never wanted to steal VtM's thunder. They're plenty good at losing it all by themselves. Besides, I despise the collectors and want nothing to do with them.
I want a game about playing vampires without all the dumb bullshit in VtM, like it's trite self-aggrandizing lore or garbage rules that nobody uses anyway. I want a game that doesn't waste your time with lore bloat and gives you customizable settings. I want a game with rules that you actually use rather than ignore, that are actually fun to play.
Feed is a fixer-upper, sure, but do you see any better options currently on the market?
Quote from: Chris24601 on July 25, 2024, 10:36:30 AMAny potential competitor would need similar options or else it's only competing with the WW dev's vision of VtM, not with VtM as it is widely played by many of its fans.
There's already several games specifically about playing dark superheroes without any dumb bullshit like humanity mechanics. I don't see them blowing up in popularity.
At this point, I don't think anyone is ever gonna make a game that will genuinely compete with VtM and steal its thunders. The fandom now is mostly toxic cultists who won't touch anything else anyway, and the conformists who don't actually have any investment are fine playing anything and have moved on to D&D or Pathfinder because it's more popular. VtM is just gonna wither away because the vibe is outdated and Paradox is making crappy games. If anything takes it place, then it's gonna do so only by virtue of lack of competition and the network effect. Curseborn will probably take over that market niche because Onyx has some remaining fan goodwill to power the network effect and most players are conformists who will play whatever's available. I'm never gonna play it because the rules are the worst iteration of the ST system made thus far.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 25, 2024, 12:12:48 PMOh, so you want a city book? Full of pre-written NPCs, organizations and conspiracies? I could totally write something like that. Probably not very well, but I could certainly try. Give me a few years, I'm currently tied up.
No, you misunderstand me. I don't want or need anything. For anything like that I have my own created world to use. If I need a system, I'll either use one I already wrote or I'd make a new one.
I'm talking about what I meant by the sort of setting that could actually pull in an audience... not 1000 words about playing a serial killer, but an actual setting that a GM can just take out an use with minimal need to create much of anything for themselves.
The topic is good alternatives to VtM and I'm just trying to explain why none of them actually are because they lack certain key elements that actually draw in players (and more importantly GMs)... and they're all the stuff you despise.
Now, you're free to like what you like, I'm just trying to explain that what you like is such an outlier you're never going to find much interest in it outside of yourself.
QuoteFeed is a fixer-upper, sure, but do you see any better options currently on the market?
None that you would like... because you actually want addiction/temptation/degeneration mechanics as a core part of the experience and call anything that doesn't deliver that or which as any level of detail for a setting 'dumb bullshit.'
I learned a long time ago that if you want a game you'll have zero issues with you have to write it yourself. Anything else is will be some degree of compromise with the author's vision and any concessions they made to make it something more appealing to anyone other than themselves.
I also stand my previous statement that "Play as a Vampire (at least of the type you want to play)" is just antithetical to the current zeitgeist of interest in the same way public interest in mass media leans towards science fiction and antiheroes in good times and towards fantasy and idealism in bad times... thus you're unlikely to find any market for a "play a vampire" game outside of the VtM crowd who are playing mostly for the nostalgia of their youth.
Closest I could get you is hunters that also include dhampirs among their number these days (and frankly, I've never understood at all the desire to play as a fucking parasite sliding into degeneracy while whining about how unfair the world is... just go take a sunbath and get it over with already. There's a reason I've only every
played VtM as a Dhampir [who don't need or crave blood in VtM] and when I've run it I've made every last vampire NPC a monster you should be trying to figure out a way to end).
Quote from: Chris24601 on July 25, 2024, 01:52:01 PMNo, you misunderstand me. I don't want or need anything. For anything like that I have my own created world to use. If I need a system, I'll either use one I already wrote or I'd make a new one.
Hey, something to add here that I wrote before you replied. I chatted about this with someone else, and he gave me an insightful comment. Feed is essentially written for VtM veterans who are already experienced with running games, but have become frustrated with the limitations of the VtM rules and setting. So the author expects you to have that context already when you're using Feed, rather than providing you with a newbie-friendly context.
I totally get the issues you have. Another game with a similar mechanical logic is the game
City of Mists. It uses a mythos/logos duality that works similarly to Feed's human/vampiric duality. I've decided to get in touch with the community for that game and ask them for assistance in providing the context you asked for. Feed doesn't have a community, but I want it to have one and I think this would help to do that. Wish me luck!
Quote from: Chris24601 on July 25, 2024, 01:52:01 PMThe topic is good alternatives to VtM and I'm just trying to explain why none of them actually are because they lack certain key elements that actually draw in players (and more importantly GMs)... and they're all the stuff you despise.
I don't particularly despise any of the games on my list. Most don't have communities and those that do haven't cyberbullied me or anything. I don't have any antipathy towards them.
Like, I think
Elegy is way too derivative and uninspired, especially compared to something like
Everlasting, but I don't despise it.
Quote from: Chris24601 on July 25, 2024, 01:52:01 PMNone that you would like... because you actually want addiction/temptation/degeneration mechanics as a core part of the experience and call anything that doesn't deliver that or which as any level of detail for a setting 'dumb bullshit.'
Correction: I would like a degeneration mechanic that doesn't suck,
or not at all.
I never said I think setting detail is dumb bullshit. I like having a variety of settings to choose from, helpful guidelines for making my own, and a community that is receptive to homebrew. VtM is the exact opposite, which is why I despise it.
Quote from: Chris24601 on July 25, 2024, 01:52:01 PMI also stand my previous statement that "Play as a Vampire (at least of the type you want to play)" is just antithetical to the current zeitgeist of interest in the same way public interest in mass media leans towards science fiction and antiheroes in good times and towards fantasy and idealism in bad times... thus you're unlikely to find any market for a "play a vampire" game outside of the VtM crowd who are playing mostly for the nostalgia of their youth.
I don't think the market is so limited to old guys playing VtM for nostalgia. There's still communities for games like Urban Shadows and Chronicles of Darkness. Onyx Path is even making Curseborn, which will include vampiric character options. And maybe I'll have luck with the City of Mist community?
Quote from: Chris24601 on July 25, 2024, 01:52:01 PMClosest I could get you is hunters that also include dhampirs among their number these days (and frankly, I've never understood at all the desire to play as a fucking parasite sliding into degeneracy while whining about how unfair the world is... just go take a sunbath and get it over with already. There's a reason I've only every played VtM as a Dhampir [who don't need or crave blood in VtM] and when I've run it I've made every last vampire NPC a monster you should be trying to figure out a way to end).
As I said, I'm totally fine with playing dark superheroes or outright supervillains. Do you know of many games that explicitly support that option?
I don't know of any; largely because that's not a genre I actually enjoy. I have less than zero interest in playing villains or supervillains (nor, based on various reported game metrics, do about 90% of most players... the metrics are more available for video games, but it aligns very strongly with results in broader entertainment about audience preferences for story structure... basically "bad guy wins" or playing as the bad guy is super niche within an already niche hobby... even in games like SWTOR where the Imperial side is popular, it's been reported that 90% of Imp players exclusively make lightside choices, meaning most like to play heroes trying to make a difference in a crapsack world rather than as villains).
For a bit of further insight, I came into WoD by way of Mage the Ascension (1e then 2e... wasn't a fan of the dying magic thing in Revised) and other than crossover splats I never got into the VtM material until they released V20 (I think I'd picked up the Revised Core to make viable vamp NPCs and Time of Thin Blood for the Technocracy story) and even then I wouldn't actually play in the campaign if I had to play a vampire... so I played a dhampir who hunted vampires (and only excluded the other PCs because they kept their humanity high and fed from blood bags).
My preference is much more for what I term "the dark fantastic." The world is a dark place, but the protagonists (or players in this case) seek to be lights in that darkness and, through effort, can make a difference; basically the "Earn Your Happy Ending" trope is in full effect.
Degeneration and Dissolution ending in tragedy is just antithetical to my interests. I've seen enough of both in real life that playing at it frankly feels macabre to me.
I'm with you, Chris, on Feed. I've already been through this back and forth with Boxcrayontales about this and I have no interest in doing it again. I checked out Feed again at their recommendation and found it was still nothing I was interested in, especially in comparison to what I wanted from old White Wolf. But that conversation was years ago and it can stay in the past.
Best of luck on your search Boxcrayontales! :)
It didn't work out. Leeching off the community for other games is bad etiquette or something.
Fucking bullshit
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 26, 2024, 08:11:58 PMIt didn't work out. Leeching off the community for other games is bad etiquette or something.
Fucking bullshit
What did not work out?
What is FB?
Quote from: Aglondir on July 27, 2024, 09:02:33 PMQuote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 26, 2024, 08:11:58 PMIt didn't work out. Leeching off the community for other games is bad etiquette or something.
Fucking bullshit
What did not work out?
What is FB?
I'm guessing trying to reach out and get ideas from the City of Mist community.
Unfortunately, it seems like nearly everyone in the Urban Fantasy RPG fandom, whether WoD or not, has decided that being a toxic snowflake to everyone else is how you prove your loyalty to their particular in-group.
If you have players who want to play monsters, but still want to kinda be the good guys, then Nightbane is worth a read. I ran it decades ago for a WoD group who hated Palladium's system so we used Silver Age Sentinels system instead. Personally, the Palladium system works fine in actual play and the setting really shines at the table.
I can see WoD having a second life, but only with new ownership in the future. There's enough gems in the muck to draw in a new audience IF done properly which won't happen until some new crew is in charge.
I am surprised there isn't a current popular "Play the Monster" RPG, especially with the popularity of Urban Fantasy literature and media.
Quote from: Spinachcat on July 29, 2024, 04:14:36 AMIf you have players who want to play monsters, but still want to kinda be the good guys, then Nightbane is worth a read. I ran it decades ago for a WoD group who hated Palladium's system so we used Silver Age Sentinels system instead. Personally, the Palladium system works fine in actual play and the setting really shines at the table.
I can see WoD having a second life, but only with new ownership in the future. There's enough gems in the muck to draw in a new audience IF done properly which won't happen until some new crew is in charge.
I am surprised there isn't a current popular "Play the Monster" RPG, especially with the popularity of Urban Fantasy literature and media.
I contend the zeitgeist isn't right for a "play the monster" setting... specifically, the monsters of the age are "the other side" and no one really wants to see that other side portrayed as just misunderstood.
Unless you're doing something far enough from the modern that current year politics can't be portrayed (and the woke designers will try and push their ideologies in anyway) you're either alienating a large chunk of your audience or ensuring your release gets ratioed or outright canceled so no one can see it.
V5 is a prime example of what I'm talking about. The vampires have now skewed into complete DEI hire territory and the new "Second Inquisition" who hunts them now is a union of the Left's psychotic projections of the Catholic Church and the United States under President Trump.
Basically, Vampire 5th wants you to play a LGBTQWTF expy being hunted by Priests and the minions of the Bad Orange Man.
Also, as I said before, the Vampire metaphor of being a parasite on humanity hits different when everyone you know is already being bled dry and struggling just to make ends meet vs. when lots of people were bloated on the excesses of the early 90's, the existential threat of nuclear annihilation with the USSR had been lifted and the idea of a terrorist strike at home was unthinkable.
They lost the ability to actually poke fun at themselves or engage in satire or black comedy so all of it gets presented as "serious business" and the RPG equivalent of a "struggle session."
By contrast, something like Nightbane actually fits the zeitgeist for a lot of people. Life is sucking, and suddenly you're awakened to the existence of dark powers who secretly rule the world and want to suck it dry, but you've become a misunderstood monster which gives you and your allies the power to try and fight it.
I think a lot of players these days, at least those not so lost in "the message" that they still care about having a good time playing a game, would find that setup appealing.
But, unless you're going timeless (the advantage of fantasy and far future scifi) your setting and system will always have to deal with the spirit of the age one way or the other.
Yeah, I'm surprised that there isn't more urban fantasy ttrpgs given the popularity of urban fantasy in prose and other passive media. Like, I not really familiar with Nightbane, but the premise sounds interesting to me, as does the sister game Beyond the Supernatural. I'm not really in the mood for misunderstood unfairly persecuted monsters. I like the fantasy in modern times aspect.
In an urban fantasy story I'm working on, I take a much more nuanced approached to the whole monsters living in secret among society thing. One of my secret societies is a group of monster hunters who have made a truce with the monsters in exchange for becoming the lawmen and cleaners in the secret world. While they do see monsters as monsters, they recognize that it's better to be corrupt cops than dead and that some monsters are reluctant or pragmatic enough to work with them. They can't save everyone, but this way they can save more people and at less risk to themselves.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 29, 2024, 11:45:47 AMYeah, I'm surprised that there isn't more urban fantasy ttrpgs given the popularity of urban fantasy in prose and other passive media.
I think if you look at the trends in UF literature you might see why.
Every year urban fantasy seems to merge more and more with paranormal romance, to the point I'm now seeing authors in the genre complain about it. There are authors who think they are the same thing. More than once I've been burned by it.
So, if a written genre is tending romance it's skewing to an audience than isn't going to be very RPG oriented, especially more traditional style RPGs. I think what we do get is hangover from WB series and earlier authors starting with Emma Bull and Charles De Lint and ending with Jim Butcher and Simon Green.
Quote from: PulpHerb on July 30, 2024, 01:14:31 PMQuote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 29, 2024, 11:45:47 AMYeah, I'm surprised that there isn't more urban fantasy ttrpgs given the popularity of urban fantasy in prose and other passive media.
I think if you look at the trends in UF literature you might see why.
Every year urban fantasy seems to merge more and more with paranormal romance, to the point I'm now seeing authors in the genre complain about it. There are authors who think they are the same thing. More than once I've been burned by it.
So, if a written genre is tending romance it's skewing to an audience than isn't going to be very RPG oriented, especially more traditional style RPGs. I think what we do get is hangover from WB series and earlier authors starting with Emma Bull and Charles De Lint and ending with Jim Butcher and Simon Green.
That makes sense. I've noticed that romance is eclipsing pretty much every genre lately and every other cover is a trashy romance novel cover that centers on a muscular man's torso with his head and legs out of frame. Even non-romance books are given trashy romance novel styled covers (https://www.branding.news/2019/06/13/these-books-are-topping-the-charts-and-its-not-because-of-content/)!
Re: trashy romance and it's rise.
I attribute it to the rise of childless cat ladies. Wine boxes and trashy romance novels are part of the package.
Unfortunately, urban fantasy has been eaten by the same CCLs which means most young men are steering the frack clear of it and that means the lion's share of potential RPG players is steering clear of it and the only audience for an UFRPG are either grognards who likely grew up on WoD or the woke storygamers who don't give a crap about anything other than having their special snowflake ego stroked.
I think there's some room in the form of, say, something in the vein of Larry Correia's 'Monster Hunter International' but now you're in "play the hunters" and not "play the monsters" territory which we've already discussed.
Relatedly, the Urban Fantasy that hasn't gone trash romance definitely has a more traditionalist and conservative bent to it (see Dresden, Monster Hunter, etc.) so to snag the people still reading the non-romance UF for a potential RPG you're going to need to skew at least old-school liberal (i.e. what liberalism looked like in the 80's/90's) in terms of the setting's ethos which would probably limit a lot of the options Box is looking for in an RPG.
Paranormal investigation is another genre I like. Unfortunately, it's dominated by Cthulhu mythos games. If you like traditional horror like Chill, wacko conspiracy thriller like Dark•Matter or Conspiracy X, Hanna-Barbera cartoons, immortal adventures like Nephilim, or Tales from the Crypt (there was a Masterbook world book for it), etc, then you're shit out of luck.
There's only so many times you can play the same old "investigate, go crazy, mutate, die" loop before getting sick of it. I've played The Song of Saya, I've read Uzumaki, yadda yadda, there's basically nothing left. I'm burnt out on anything Cthulhu-related.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 30, 2024, 05:51:12 PMThere's only so many times you can play the same old "investigate, go crazy, mutate, die" loop before getting sick of it.
Ever played Dark Heresy? It's the far-future grimdark version of that path.
Quote from: Chris24601 on July 30, 2024, 05:26:24 PMRelatedly, the Urban Fantasy that hasn't gone trash romance definitely has a more traditionalist and conservative bent to it (see Dresden, Monster Hunter, etc.)
Is Dresden Files still popular? We tried the Fate RPG when it came out (2000-something?) Impressions ranged from "Meh" to "Fate sucks." Regardless, it was nothing that couldn't be done with Hero or Mutants and Masterminds.
Quote from: Aglondir on July 30, 2024, 11:29:37 PMIs Dresden Files still popular? We tried the Fate RPG when it came out (2000-something?) Impressions ranged from "Meh" to "Fate sucks." Regardless, it was nothing that couldn't be done with Hero or Mutants and Masterminds.
The books still are, though it's been a bummer having to deal with Butcher letting the series lie stagnant with little progress the past decade. We used to get a book roughly every year, but the pace of new releases has slowed way down to a new story every 4-5 years. I'm starting to have doubts that it'll ever be finished. The way things are going, it could take another 30 years for it to reach the conclusion.
The RPG doesn't have much momentum these days. It didn't help that Evil Hat put out a second version (Dresden Files Accelerated) that split the audience. The first game is a bit of a cluttered mess, and the second one is so stripped down and wildly unbalanced that I can't recommend it without heavy house rules. As you said, you're probably better off just using M&M and creating rough templates of any supernatural creatures you plan to use. Neither of the DF games will convert people who don't care for Fate in the first place. Cinematic Unisystem would likely be another good option.
For WoD-style genres, I'd much prefer a post-apocalyptic setting in which the monsters operate completely out in the open, e.g. downtrodden humans huddled in the fortified domains of vampire warlords, who fight each other for control of territory, while werewolf biker gangs haunt the badlands.
Quote from: Rhymer88 on July 31, 2024, 05:20:35 AMFor WoD-style genres, I'd much prefer a post-apocalyptic setting in which the monsters operate completely out in the open, e.g. downtrodden humans huddled in the fortified domains of vampire warlords, who fight each other for control of territory, while werewolf biker gangs haunt the badlands.
I believe
Night Shift has that as one of their four sample settings.
Quote from: mudbanks on January 14, 2023, 10:06:48 AMLooking for a good alternative to VTM. In particular, I want something that isn't very rules-heavy, and it must be vampire-themed (so no generic systems). Any recommendations? :)
*in my best norm macdonald voice* the sweet cold relief of death!
Quote from: Brand55 on July 31, 2024, 01:32:36 AMQuote from: Aglondir on July 30, 2024, 11:29:37 PMIs Dresden Files still popular? We tried the Fate RPG when it came out (2000-something?) Impressions ranged from "Meh" to "Fate sucks." Regardless, it was nothing that couldn't be done with Hero or Mutants and Masterminds.
The books still are, though it's been a bummer having to deal with Butcher letting the series lie stagnant with little progress the past decade. We used to get a book roughly every year, but the pace of new releases has slowed way down to a new story every 4-5 years. I'm starting to have doubts that it'll ever be finished. The way things are going, it could take another 30 years for it to reach the conclusion.
The RPG doesn't have much momentum these days. It didn't help that Evil Hat put out a second version (Dresden Files Accelerated) that split the audience. The first game is a bit of a cluttered mess, and the second one is so stripped down and wildly unbalanced that I can't recommend it without heavy house rules. As you said, you're probably better off just using M&M and creating rough templates of any supernatural creatures you plan to use. Neither of the DF games will convert people who don't care for Fate in the first place. Cinematic Unisystem would likely be another good option.
Sounds like Evil Hat made a bad thing worse. That's unfortunate. Checking their webpage, I don't even see it for sale.
Cinematic Unisystem: That would work well. Maybe even better than Hero or M&M.
Quote from: Aglondir on August 01, 2024, 01:14:26 AMCinematic Unisystem: That would work well. Maybe even better than Hero or M&M.
Yeah, I decided some years ago when I was running the original Dresden Files game that if I ever ran another campaign in that setting, I'd just use Angel + Ghosts of Albion and fill in the cracks as needed. Angel gives you the basics of supernatural creature creation, and GoA has a freeform magic system that could be adapted to Dresden's magic system fairly easily.
I really loved the WitchCraft setting for Unisystem, but since the owner of the IP is dealing with health problems and real life issues, the Unisystem IP is just sitting fallow and can't maintain its community. C.J. Carella himself tried and failed to negotiate the rights for a new edition. This shit is precisely why we need copyright reform.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on August 01, 2024, 12:32:42 PMI really loved the WitchCraft setting for Unisystem, but since the owner of the IP is dealing with health problems and real life issues, the Unisystem IP is just sitting fallow and can't maintain its community. C.J. Carella himself tried and failed to negotiate the rights for a new edition. This shit is precisely why we need copyright reform.
I'm surprised that no one has made an open-source clone yet.
Quote from: Aglondir on August 01, 2024, 01:40:10 PMQuote from: BoxCrayonTales on August 01, 2024, 12:32:42 PMI really loved the WitchCraft setting for Unisystem, but since the owner of the IP is dealing with health problems and real life issues, the Unisystem IP is just sitting fallow and can't maintain its community. C.J. Carella himself tried and failed to negotiate the rights for a new edition. This shit is precisely why we need copyright reform.
I'm surprised that no one has made an open-source clone yet.
It's too bad. With some modernization/cleanup (e.g., fixing dex uber stat) it would be great.
Quote from: Chris24601 on July 30, 2024, 05:26:24 PMUnfortunately, urban fantasy has been eaten by the same CCLs which means most young men are steering the frack clear of it and that means the lion's share of potential RPG players is steering clear of it and the only audience for an UFRPG are either grognards who likely grew up on WoD or the woke storygamers who don't give a crap about anything other than having their special snowflake ego stroked.
--snip--
I think there's some room in the form of, say, something in the vein of Larry Correia's 'Monster Hunter International' but now you're in "play the hunters" and not "play the monsters" territory which we've already discussed.
A lot of UF predate WoD. Most people consider the Borderlands shared anthology as the point when modern UF becomes identifiable and the first of those were 1986. Emma Bull's
War for the Oaks was 1987. Charles DeLint hit with
Moonheart in 1984.
Books like that is why I goth C. J. Carella's
Witchcraft although it's not the best fit as the strong fae presence isn't modelled.
I'd love to get back that style even more than Butcher and Green's detective noir crossover.
But this "everything is a romance" is killing things.
Quote from: Brand55 on July 31, 2024, 01:32:36 AMThe books still are, though it's been a bummer having to deal with Butcher letting the series lie stagnant with little progress the past decade. We used to get a book roughly every year, but the pace of new releases has slowed way down to a new story every 4-5 years. I'm starting to have doubts that it'll ever be finished. The way things are going, it could take another 30 years for it to reach the conclusion.
He lost me with
Peace Talks. After nearly triple the normal wait I get a novel with a huge opening and a piss poor "oh, my brother" plot.
Yeah, no.
Quote from: Brand55 on August 01, 2024, 11:07:26 AMYeah, I decided some years ago when I was running the original Dresden Files game that if I ever ran another campaign in that setting, I'd just use Angel + Ghosts of Albion and fill in the cracks as needed. Angel gives you the basics of supernatural creature creation, and GoA has a freeform magic system that could be adapted to Dresden's magic system fairly easily.
The nice thing about Cinematic Unisystem for Dresden that the others (except FATE) don't do well is making sure people other than the central character have something to do, which they needed for Buffy.
I don't have GoA. What does it add I don't already have with Buffy and Angel.
Quote from: PulpHerb on August 04, 2024, 10:12:16 AMHe lost me with Peace Talks. After nearly triple the normal wait I get a novel with a huge opening and a piss poor "oh, my brother" plot.
Yeah, no.
Peace Talks/Battle Ground were pretty divisive. I have a friend who was really upset with the big death in BG, and I think my biggest issue was the new Denarian. I'm not spoiling just in case you ever pick the series up again.
Quote from: PulpHerb on August 04, 2024, 10:15:45 AMI don't have GoA. What does it add I don't already have with Buffy and Angel.
Freeform magic. If you have The Magic Box for Buffy you don't need it, but the system is expanded and some more options are added.
Quote from: PulpHerb on August 04, 2024, 10:15:45 AMThe nice thing about Cinematic Unisystem for Dresden that the others (except FATE) don't do well is making sure people other than the central character have something to do, which they needed for Buffy.
How well does that mechanic actually work? It seems the solution is "they have extra hero points, but they're bad at stuff so they have to use them up, also there's no way for them to get more."
In re Dresden Files, I really liked the first couple of books - I loved the whole Noir Detective thing - corruption, double dealing, and an outclassed protagonist who kind of out-clevered his opponents. Then the power level kept going up, which is fine but not really my thing.
I would love to see a retroclone of Unisystem that collects all the different subsystems in one place and revises the presentation. I have no shortage of ideas for urban fantasy and conspiracy thriller settings inspired by the abandonware classics of yesteryear.
Cinematic Unisystem works very well for characters of different power levels, in my experience. A few things should be kept in mind. First, "weaker" archetypes aren't useless; they can still be very good at stuff, they just don't have as many points to throw around at character creation. Second, Drama Points can be gained a number of ways, not the least of which is being purchased with XP (and they only cost half as much for the weaker characters). And last, DP do more than just adding bonuses to rolls. They negate damage, allow for details to be added to the scene, and even let characters survive otherwise fatal scenarios. So having plenty of DP to throw around is a big help. Being able to bring in details in a scene is especially useful when you have a creative player who can make full use of it.
As for the Dresden Files, you should probably be glad you dropped it when you did. The power level is way beyond what we saw in the first few books, and it's likely only going to get higher.
This thread makes me want to take another look at Witchcraft. But as someone pointed out, I wish there was a Fae component.
Quote from: Aglondir on August 04, 2024, 09:25:46 PMThis thread makes me want to take another look at Witchcraft. But as someone pointed out, I wish there was a Fae component.
WitchCraft originally released in the late 90s/early 2000s before the old style fairies came into vogue in urban fantasy. Maybe if a new edition was written, but the rights are tied up.
I just bought this if you're curious: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/479971/wine-dark-nights
I will give it a read and then share my thoughts
I backed Wine Dark Nights, but was ultimately very disappointed with it. It is so rules-lite it is barely a game. There is not much at all to the game other than a hunger mechanic.
Quote from: Batjon on August 23, 2024, 03:12:31 PMI backed Wine Dark Nights, but was ultimately very disappointed with it. It is so rules-lite it is barely a game. There is not much at all to the game other than a hunger mechanic.
This is more or less how I feel. It's got rules, but there's no settings. There's only a very sparse implied setting and no options to modify it. It's not even explained if sunlight hurts vampires.
The only particularly original aspect is that skills are divided into predator and prey skills. Prey skills are capped by your humanity stat. Your current hunger applies a bonus to your predator skills. There's a rage stat, separate from hunger, that you can roll instead of another stat.
There's hit points (called "coil"), an age stat (this actually represents a combination of time and experience, in other words it's blood-potency), and a rank stat measuring status in the vampire community.
It's definitely a lot simpler and abstracted compared to ST.
According to the discord, the dev would only be interested in writing a setting book if it sold well enough to justify the effort. Figures.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on August 04, 2024, 03:17:41 PMI would love to see a retroclone of Unisystem that collects all the different subsystems in one place and revises the presentation. I have no shortage of ideas for urban fantasy and conspiracy thriller settings inspired by the abandonware classics of yesteryear.
Yeah, that would be epic.
Quote from: Batjon on August 23, 2024, 03:12:31 PMI backed Wine Dark Nights, but was ultimately very disappointed with it. It is so rules-lite it is barely a game. There is not much at all to the game other than a hunger mechanic.
How lite? When you say, barely a game ,could you elaborate a bit?
I like lite-rules but nothing that makes a game unplayable.
Ta'.
Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on August 24, 2024, 07:51:26 AMQuote from: Batjon on August 23, 2024, 03:12:31 PMI backed Wine Dark Nights, but was ultimately very disappointed with it. It is so rules-lite it is barely a game. There is not much at all to the game other than a hunger mechanic.
How lite? When you say, barely a game ,could you elaborate a bit?
I like lite-rules but nothing that makes a game unplayable.
Ta'.
It
looks playable to me so far, but it's bare bones, abstracted, and generally indie.
It has rules for social ranking and social interactions, including favors, allies, enemies, competitions and conflict. Older games left this up to roleplaying, but this is one of those games that provides concrete consequences and rewards for different types of interactions.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on August 24, 2024, 09:45:41 AMQuote from: Rob Necronomicon on August 24, 2024, 07:51:26 AMQuote from: Batjon on August 23, 2024, 03:12:31 PMI backed Wine Dark Nights, but was ultimately very disappointed with it. It is so rules-lite it is barely a game. There is not much at all to the game other than a hunger mechanic.
How lite? When you say, barely a game ,could you elaborate a bit?
I like lite-rules but nothing that makes a game unplayable.
Ta'.
It looks playable to me so far, but it's bare bones, abstracted, and generally indie.
It has rules for social ranking and social interactions, including favors, allies, enemies, competitions and conflict. Older games left this up to roleplaying, but this is one of those games that provides concrete consequences and rewards for different types of interactions.
Thanks man! I don't mind bare bones rules, as long as I have at least something to work with and improve upon if i can. So I'll pick it up.
Ta'.
One of the challenges with RPG System flexibility is that options open inversely restricts down on the Setting making a STATEMENT!tm
That's why I care more about the framework, the chassis as I call it, versus the options on offer. If the framework is robust that I can change it boldly enough to make a STATEMENT!tm then that's good enough. It may explain why I am OK with GURPS and other generic universal systems, but rarely in love with them and their worlds. What inspiration you trade away for stability or inclusion tends to feel unsatisfying.
In art it'd feel like retreading the same statement another already made, like bucolic landscapes for retirement homes or hotel lobby art abstractions. Sure the consistent parameters makes it feel so anyone can paint-by-numbers, but it feels so cookie cutter as to no longer hold interest. I have enough systems, I *like* settings that grab me. Sometimes (nay, often) that setting is a moment in time... and that's not a bad thing. All you need is a few touchstones to the timeless and it's otherwise fine to be a part of an era.
Recently found this: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/467575/exsanguine-modern-vampirs
Gonna give it a read and let you know what I think.
I've put the list in a google doc so I don't have to keep reposting it. See here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1umoHUYUskl-oXdXM-pg1D_k8tYu7XysQiobjP4mk5l8/pub
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 04, 2024, 04:40:14 PMRecently found this: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/467575/exsanguine-modern-vampirs
Gonna give it a read and let you know what I think.
I've put the list in a google doc so I don't have to keep reposting it. See here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1umoHUYUskl-oXdXM-pg1D_k8tYu7XysQiobjP4mk5l8/pub
Thanks man!
ExSanguine is nothing special. The exact arrangement of tropes is original (no globe spanning conspiracies, vampires must sleep on their native soil, no fangs), but aside from providing some bare bones explanations it doesn't do much to draw you in.
The weirdo jargon doesn't do it any favors. It just comes across as pretentious mostly.