What was playing Vampire: The Masquerade like in the earliest days of the game?

Basically around the time of its first release and rise in popularity, when it was all raw and fresh, before splatbooks and the ballooning of the world of darkness, before the 90s had fully asserted themselves and the likely shape of the 2000s was perceptible. What did people make of it coming off of other games?

I thought it was great.  I'd been playing Anne Rice-style vampire protagonists in other systems for some time, and this was a game that said it was about those themes: redemption, personal horror, Midian-esque secret occult societies, etc.

What actually happened at the table was pretty much trenchcoat-and-katana from day one.  I don't think I saw a Humanity roll in three years of VtM gaming.

In general, I would say the problem was a game system that was really pretty traditional and didn't really enforce its themes much, combined with a player base that was completely ignorant of the source material and had no interest in learning more (in my local gaming community; YMMV)

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;916230What was playing Vampire: The Masquerade like in the earliest days of the game?

Basically around the time of its first release and rise in popularity, when it was all raw and fresh, before splatbooks and the ballooning of the world of darkness, before the 90s had fully asserted themselves and the likely shape of the 2000s was perceptible. What did people make of it coming off of other games?

You got to play monsters with kewl powers and a edgy setting. It has a sense of style and a vibe to it from reading it. People probably don't remember but the first edition of the book had this cartoon telling the story of a new vampire running through it pages. When it was first release everybody I knew got a copy although we never really played it much.

Later when GURPS World of Darkness books came out we incorporated the VtM stuff into my Majestic Wilderlands.

Quote from: estar;916240What actually happened at the table was pretty much trenchcoat-and-katana from day one. I don't think I saw a Humanity roll in three years of VtM gaming.

This.  I was part of an off-and-on group for a year and all the PCs behaved like the Kurgan from Highlander--with one PC literally driving off in an NPC cadillac, screaming woman on the bonnet and all.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;916230What was playing Vampire: The Masquerade like in the earliest days of the game?

Basically around the time of its first release and rise in popularity, when it was all raw and fresh, before splatbooks and the ballooning of the world of darkness, before the 90s had fully asserted themselves and the likely shape of the 2000s was perceptible. What did people make of it coming off of other games?

I remember borrowing the first Masquerade book from a friend when it first came out and as a horror movie fan, it seemed very gameable as a concept. I never ran it as a GM, but played in plenty of Vampire. I also never dug deep into the books, so most of my experience was from play at the table and from skimming the books to make my characters (I didn't actually own the books).

Basically the way we played was something across between Near Dark and Interview with a Vampire. More often than not though, we'd end up going on killing sprees and smashing things before getting smacked down to size by more powerful vampires.

I remember Vampire pulling a lot of people into the hobby who might not have come on board for D&D (and there were more women in the Vampire games). There was also something of a Rivalry between people like me, who preferred D&D and people who preferred Vampire (in most cases gamers seemed to play both, but your preference was a point of debate).

The big thing I remember vampire doing was giving you permission to play the monster. People had done that in D&D campaigns and stuff I am sure, but it wasn't the norm before Vampire. I liked that bit (again as a horror/monster movie fan).

In terms of the 90s being in full swing, where i was living by 91, when it came out, they already pretty much were in full swing. Maybe it came to me a bit later, like in early 92, but all the stuff that was in the air (particularly around horror) was well underway by the time I checked out the book.

In all fairness, Near Dark and John Carpenter's Vampire$ were absolutely part of the source material and playing the bad guys from those films is a completely supported play style in VtM1.  There was a lot of assumption clash at most tables, though.

Quote from: daniel_ream;916247In all fairness, Near Dark and John Carpenter's Vampire$ were absolutely part of the source material and playing the bad guys from those films is a completely supported play style in VtM1.  There was a lot of assumption clash at most tables, though.

I thought it worked well. I liked running around playing psycho vampires, then realizing there was a bit vampire society to contend with. Some GMs were more lenient on that, to let the campaign go full psycho. Again, I never really read the books in depth, so I don't know how well all that matched the intent of the designers.

We never ran into assumption clashes that I can recall. Or if we did, it didn't strike any of us as a problem I guess. Each table was usually a bit different (which was true of pretty much any game group regardless of system). So it was always an interesting experience playing with other groups.

My one brief experience with it was very social. Very political intrigue. Plots plots plots plots.

Same with my equally brief play with Mage.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;916255I liked running around playing psycho vampires, then realizing there was a bit vampire society to contend with.[...] We never ran into assumption clashes that I can recall.

There's a big one right there.  In the setting as written, a psycho vampire would be exterminated immediately by the local Vampire power elite.  But I've never seen a VtM game where the vampire power structure was ever played as even remotely effective.

For our group it was a lot of D&D with fangs. We did involve politics and scheming a bit more in our plots.

Early days?  A bunch of weird overweight wrist-slicers with more Manson merch and far less hygiene products made me feel really stupid for buying the book.

Then I got Mage 2e and learned about Iteration X.

Quote from: daniel_ream;916288There's a big one right there.  In the setting as written, a psycho vampire would be exterminated immediately by the local Vampire power elite.  But I've never seen a VtM game where the vampire power structure was ever played as even remotely effective.

I didn't really see this as a clash of assumptions at the table. I saw it as we became vampires and went to town with it, then the GM would have some consequences in the setting. But generally players and GMs in the games I played in, while they might have had different sensibilities about how they would run the game, went with whatever approach the GM was taking. Some GMs were therefore more lenient in this respect and some campaigns became more full-blown psycho.

The core problem between VTM as designed and VTM as played is that RPGs are fundamentally about player freedom (kill the monster, take its shit), while the entire focus of VTM is about the restrictive structure of Vampire society. Older vampires are simply better than you, and are supposed to be a goal players are striving for. The core horror of the game is about balancing the consequences of the power that the players gain. But in most RPGs, power instead frees players to do what they want (which is why Dark Suns is so interesting as an exception). Right there is a fundamental clash between what the players want and what the GM is supposed to be doing. To fit within the basic power balancing mechanics of the game (blood acquisition, humanity, vampire politics and power growth measured in centuries, not months of training) a GM is basically going to be forced to frustrate the players, instead of accentuating their fun like in most RPGs. There just aren't that many ways around this, barring having a party who are completely committed to the mentality required.

What makes this even worse is that Vampires as created are fundamentally loners. This means that players are already placed in a connectionless murder hobo mindset. The solution, in my view, is what the new Delta Green did. You build relationships through character creation and are then forced to burn them over time as the stress saps away at your will to live. Build a family for the fledgling. Have them be supportive and caring as their loved one is forced to undergo this sudden shock. And then slowly rip it away from them.

In general, horror RPGs fail because its too easy to crack jokes. In addition, horror is about isolation, while RPGs are about groups. As John Wick quite rightly said, the way to scare your players is not by killer GMing them. Instead, you give them what they want. Turn them into Strahd, bit by bit, and let the fear sink in as they realize the costs for their power. That high ranking noble they mocked? He just killed their sister. Their fun resulted in their sorrow and there's nothing they can do about it. That friend they had that stood by them? You drained him when the beast took over. The bomb you used to kill that elder? Citizens were caught in the crossfire. That's where the best RPG horror, in my view lies. It's when your players get what they want, and now need to live with the costs.

I read through 1st but never got the chance to play, but was playing 2nd edition at its initial release. The ST for the game was more interested in political dramas and some good, personal stories (but generally stayed away from the melancholic personal horror). To his credit, it was an excellent introduction to the game. We had enough sense of freedom and mystery to feel like we were powerful vampires set loose upon the world to pursue our goals, and enough sense that the Elders would crush us like bugs if we stepped out of line and into their way.

He was using the 1st edition ST guide, 1st edition player's guide, Chicago by Night (and SC), and had a few of the story supplements. It remains one of my favourite RPG campaigns to this day. But as the years went on and the Vampire world solidified, especially as portrayed in LARP, his Vampire games became more oppressive, with the "you are a powerless slave to the machinations of the Elders" theme taking center stage.

Early Vampire was, actually, quite a different beast. I've actually just finished re-reading 2nd edition Vampire and found it an extremely impressive product still.

I was contemplating making a retroclone of 1st ed Vampire but with a different focus and tweaked rules inspired by later editions. The biggest change from the original game is century play: the scale of time that passes for the vampire characters. Basically each "session" is a single series of events of importance between decades of nothing. Their powers grow more through getting older, not gunning down mobsters with uzis and katanas in old warehouses.

So each session would be at a different "age". Like, the very first might be 18th century (powdered wigs and all), the next Victorian, after that Edwardian, World War II etc... Unfortunately the detail needed to support that style of play would be huge. So maybe it would be scaled down to within one century? Anyway the idea is that I like it that the Vampires have to deal with, amongst other sources of angst, a changing world around them. Also the viability of simply outliving their mortal enemies (vampire hunters, police, etc...).