Quote from: TrippyHippy;968669The World of Darkness games, obviously, with mechanics plucked from a few other eclectic sources. And before you get all defensive about that, it is worth pointing out that C.J Carella himself has actually said as much about it too. Indeed, it may be worth having a read up of George Vaskilakos' (owner of Eden Studios) review of Vampire: The Masquerade in the Hobby Games: The 100 Best book, if you want to know why Vampire has been popular and successful over the years. It's pretty well explained there.

Agreed 100%. It's a wod clone. But it's written in a different manner and it feels more open to me. I will check this out btw. Got a link?

Quote from: jan paparazzi;968786Well, it all comes down to your mileage may vary. I never claimed any game is superior or inferior to any other game. For whatever reasons (and I have a pretty good idea why that is and I don't want to debate them) my mileage out of a wod is extremely low. When I read Hunter the Vigil I have no idea what to do with. Some cool ideas, but nothing pops up. When I read SW Rippers I get a zillion ideas and I instantly know what to do with.

I respect "different tastes for different folks", and apologize.  I was trying to sound helpful in explaining what to do and/or figuring out why you didn't like the WoD, and apparently failed.

But really... Hunter the Vigil is just about hunting monsters.  If you don't like the mechanics or approach, that's cool, but "no idea what to do with it" is something I can't grasp.  It just seems so obvious and straight forward.  Tier 1: you're a guy who doesn't know anyone hunting monsters but your local buddies.  It's like Supernatural or Buffy at that level.  Tier 2: you're part of a (inter)national group of monster hunters, with some resources to call upon.  It's like X-Files or Millennium at this level.  Tier 3: you're part of an ancient, globe spanning group who know a lot about at least some monsters and in turn are known by (at least some of) them.  The Watchers from the Highlander TV show or Buffy are the main examples I can think of, but they're kind of watered down in comparison (no k3w| p0w3rz like HtV groups have).  Each Tier has different resources and challenges; the experience of dealing with a vamp will feel different depending on if you're part of a 6000 year old lineage of Egyptian undead slayers, a secret and paranoid British espionage cell founded in the 1890s during a failed investigation into Count Dracula, and some guys who want to stop the murders in their apartment complex, each of which makes for very different games.  And -then- you can choose to have them all exist in the same world if you want (or not).

I wonder if it'd work better if you played HtV using Savage Worlds rules?  Put another way: Rippers in HtV is just a Tier 2 Compact of hunters (an early version of the Cheiron Group perhaps) set in 19th century Europe, so can you "reverse engineer" that to make HtV's groups work in SW?

That's what I do.* If I want to make a wod game work for me, the best thing to do is close the wod book and open another rpg book for inspiration, worldbuilding or campaign ideas. I did use SW mostly Rippers and Thin Blue Line. Now I am considering a game using D00 Sigil and Shadow, just because I want to try another system. Actually HtV is probably the best of the bunch, although it still could be greatly improved if it was greatly condensed.  

Edit:*
What I do is build a wod-esque setting with some investigators, hunters, paranormals, magic users, cults and other weirdos all with their own factions, but I do that with a different ruleset. I could probably do the same with the wod core, book of spirits, hunter the vigil, second sight and reliquery etc., but the rules are really spread out and I don't like reading the books. I always loose focus reading them and forget what I was going for. They are just hard to manage for me.

Apologies isn't necessary btw. Sometimes discussions can get heated. Part of the game.

Quote from: jan paparazzi;968790Agreed 100%. It's a wod clone. But it's written in a different manner and it feels more open to me. I will check this out btw. Got a link?

Well, the Hobby Games: The 100 Best is a published by by Green Ronin. There will probably be PDF copy around somewhere - there is a drive thru at least. Vampire is listed along with about twenty or so other RPGs (amongst the other types of hobby games: cards, miniature, board games etc). It's collectively written by recognisable industry professionals, with each nominating a game to write an essay on. As such, in this book at least, Vampire is essentially listed as being among the twenty best RPGs ever made. That said, some games have been written since it's publication.

With regards to systems, it must be understood that gaming trends change over time. So when you consider game design or innovation generally, you have to consider the context of the time games were written. I agree that, in many ways, the big fat hardback has major issues with accessibility. The current 20th anniversary design is way too big for Vampire, and the same could be argued for a lot of the other games, is something like three times the size of the original Vampire book. Looking at the 5E playtest file, the next edition is looking to be a much leaner version.

I was introduced to the WoD by a storyteller who played Vampire by the book. The Ventrue where gentlemen, the Brujah punks, Toreador artists etc. We where neonites and we couldn't do shit without asking our mentor or we would be punished. We had to watch long and boring discussions between very important NPCs (hint: created by the Storyteller) and the whole chronicle can be described as Storyteller masturbating with his NPC's. Occasionally we fought some monster of the week like Sabbat or Werewolf and that's it.

At some point we wanted to start our own chronicle, we hated the setting but we loved vampires. Spearheaded by me we decided to give the middle finger to all the WoD canon that reminded us The Bold and the Beautiful and Saturday morning cartoons, along with all the emo stuff like personal horror.

My inspiration was the Preacher comic who I was a big fan at the time and Quentin Tarantino films. In the city of Chicago no major or minor npc vampire was safe, no WoD stereotype was sacred or left non ridiculed by me or any of my players, it was their playground and I wanted to make sure that they where having fun. My friends played characters who where assholes and they loved it, they where pimps drug dealers and all that stuff but at heart they where good guys. The chronicle had everything from humor to drama, It was Pulp Fiction with vampires.

At some point a guy wanted to play with us and he wanted to be the worlds best assassin, I told him ok but with one condition, your character have to wear a g string. This peculiar condition imposed to the worlds most feared assassin led to one of the most hilarious sessions I have ever seen, I think that my friends still remember it today and laugh. We played vampire for many many years and we had tons of fun although our version of the game was a little different from the norm.

Quote from: Snowman0147;968279I do agree that urban fantasy needs the attention that only Kevin Crawsford can give.

You mean you don't like his current urban fantasy book Silent Legions, or what:D?

Quote from: AsenRG;968994You mean you don't like his current urban fantasy book Silent Legions, or what:D?

Urban Fantasy has a broad number of applications (heck, "They Live" and "Blue Velvet" are technically urban fantasy), but in RPGs people are -usually- talking about games where you play super powered inhumans with this vast and ancient culture based around hiding from the puny mortals they beat up.  

Quote from: AsenRG;968994You mean you don't like his current urban fantasy book Silent Legions, or what:D?

That is his Cthulhu work.

Quote from: John Scott;968964I was introduced to the WoD by a storyteller who played Vampire by the book. The Ventrue where gentlemen, the Brujah punks, Toreador artists etc. We where neonites and we couldn't do shit without asking our mentor or we would be punished. We had to watch long and boring discussions between very important NPCs (hint: created by the Storyteller) and the whole chronicle can be described as Storyteller masturbating with his NPC's. Occasionally we fought some monster of the week like Sabbat or Werewolf and that's it.

Yup. And it actually almost sounds like it was designed by the same people who did Germany´s number one "rpg" Das Schwarze Auge which suffers from many of the same issues.

By the way, Pulp Fiction with vampires sounds a lot like From Dusk Till Dawn.

Quote from: AsenRG;968994You mean you don't like his current urban fantasy book Silent Legions, or what:D?

Cthulhu style horror. Urban fantasy is more the peoplez with powerz. So you can actually play a mage or vampire. If you wanna do a mortal investigation game without the Mythos I would call it modern horror. Big fan of the latter. Throwing curveballs to the players!

Quote from: TrippyHippy;968915Well, the Hobby Games: The 100 Best is a published by by Green Ronin. There will probably be PDF copy around somewhere - there is a drive thru at least. Vampire is listed along with about twenty or so other RPGs (amongst the other types of hobby games: cards, miniature, board games etc). It's collectively written by recognisable industry professionals, with each nominating a game to write an essay on. As such, in this book at least, Vampire is essentially listed as being among the twenty best RPGs ever made. That said, some games have been written since it's publication.

I totally get it. It was a cultural phenomenom like MtG. I was totally new, completely different than hitting orcs on the head in a generic dungeon. The art was amazing, it had attitude, the coolness of it all resonates deeply with me because I am a 90's kid. The music was edgy (at least the alternative) at the time, the comics went dark superhero, so VtM was exactly right for the zeitgeist even though I missed the boat back then. But the writing style ... doesn't work for me. And I am talking about the nwod btw. So I think I would rather have either a sandbox setting (you will probably see it already as a sandbox) or rules to make my own sandbox. I don't wanna be to hung up about it now, so I go be a happy gamer and focus more on stuff I like.

Quote from: san dee jota;969002Urban Fantasy has a broad number of applications (heck, "They Live" and "Blue Velvet" are technically urban fantasy), but in RPGs people are -usually- talking about games where you play super powered inhumans with this vast and ancient culture based around hiding from the puny mortals they beat up.  

Huh, you just help me realize something that has been missing from my life. Why haven't I tried to emulate those movies for a one-shot? I am pretty sure I can emulate both "They Live" & "Blue Velvet" with Changeling the Dreaming!
:cool:

I'm intrigued and will probably/eventually build a hack off the original 1991 version with some later V:tM stuff, Requiem, and V:tM5 for good measure.  

If anyone cares, I go further into detail in this blog post:  http://vengersatanis.blogspot.com/2017/06/vampire-5e-preview.html

VS

Quote from: san dee jota;969002Urban Fantasy has a broad number of applications (heck, "They Live" and "Blue Velvet" are technically urban fantasy), but in RPGs people are -usually- talking about games where you play super powered inhumans with this vast and ancient culture based around hiding from the puny mortals they beat up.  

Quote from: Snowman0147;969067That is his Cthulhu work.

Quote from: jan paparazzi;969133Cthulhu style horror. Urban fantasy is more the peoplez with powerz.

Powers are present in Silent Legions, if the Referee allows them. They just have a price:).
And the price of powers is a major theme of urban fantasy;).

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;968465If I recall, the game Millenium's End got a bit deep into the whole dying process (its been ages but I am pretty sure there was a chart in there that somehow involved heart rate). I may be thinking of another game. I think sometimes this stuff can add a lot to game (Butcher gave some advice that helped me shape my in-house rules on sepsis), but it helps to still try and keep it simple because real life is usually a lot more complicated than a single die roll and things can rapidly become unwieldy.

Aces & Eights provides the perfect balance for this. Without a doubt the best treatment of firearm injuries.

But I don't see why you'd need it for Vampire, mind you. You don't even need it for D&D.