Quote from: daniel_ream;920526Gangrel.  I don't remember off the top of my head what the direct le Fanu reference was, I'd have to re-read it.

The clans I would agree were a hodgepodge of different inspirations (I remember Nosferatu were just pulled directly from the film pretty much). But I was thinking more in terms of the overall concept, look and presentation. To me that first Vampire book, seemed much more in the spirit of Rice than Stoker.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;920532The clans I would agree were a hodgepodge of different inspirations (I remember Nosferatu were just pulled directly from the film pretty much). But I was thinking more in terms of the overall concept, look and presentation. To me that first Vampire book, seemed much more in the spirit of Rice than Stoker.

Vampire was mostly a hodgepodge of whatever vampire related stuff was popular and influential at the time.  Anne Rice cast a long shadow on the genre so there's a lot of stuff in there that was influenced by her.  There's other stuff though.  The Nosferatu were lifted directly from the silent film of the same name as you pointed out.  That film started out as an unauthorized film adaptation of Dracula by Bram Stoker.  They had to change the names because they got sued.  There's some influence from Le Fanu in the Gangrel and the feeding habits of the Ventrue which are reminiscent of the feeding habits of the titular character from his novella Carmilla.  There is also influence from popular movies like Lost Boys and Near Dark.  There's a lot of Anne Rice but there's a lot of other stuff thrown in there with it.

Quote from: yosemitemike;920558Vampire was mostly a hodgepodge of whatever vampire related stuff was popular and influential at the time.  Anne Rice cast a long shadow on the genre so there's a lot of stuff in there that was influenced by her.  There's other stuff though.  The Nosferatu were lifted directly from the silent film of the same name as you pointed out.  That film started out as an unauthorized film adaptation of Dracula by Bram Stoker.  They had to change the names because they got sued.  There's some influence from Le Fanu in the Gangrel and the feeding habits of the Ventrue which are reminiscent of the feeding habits of the titular character from his novella Carmilla.  There is also influence from popular movies like Lost Boys and Near Dark.  There's a lot of Anne Rice but there's a lot of other stuff thrown in there with it.

I am not saying that other stuff isn't in there in individual elements like that. I am just saying the core concept of 'you play the vampire' felt very much like Rice. Organizing the vampires into clans and having a vampire shadow society also very rice. To me it felt like all the other stuff was pulled in just to flesh out the world created by Anne Rice. And I wasn't a huge Anne Rice fan. I was much more into stuff like Stoker at the time. But the game really seemed to have Rice's DNA in it more than anyone else when it came to the overall feel and setting.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;920567I am not saying that other stuff isn't in there in individual elements like that. I am just saying the core concept of 'you play the vampire' felt very much like Rice. Organizing the vampires into clans and having a vampire shadow society also very rice. To me it felt like all the other stuff was pulled in just to flesh out the world created by Anne Rice. And I wasn't a huge Anne Rice fan. I was much more into stuff like Stoker at the time. But the game really seemed to have Rice's DNA in it more than anyone else when it came to the overall feel and setting.

NO vampire before Rice had anything like the tormented angst she imposed on them. All the way back to 'Castle of Otranto', they were creatures of pure evil, symbols of power and forbidden sexuality (stoker's, anyway). Rice made tried to make Vampires sympathetic and added the 'lost humanity' angle, which V:tM uses as its central theme.

There could be no V:tM without Rice.

Quote from: AaronBrown99;920568NO vampire before Rice had anything like the tormented angst she imposed on them. All the way back to 'Castle of Otranto', they were creatures of pure evil, symbols of power and forbidden sexuality (stoker's, anyway).

I remember seeing an interview with her where she said that she was strongly affected by the portion of Frankenstein where the monster speaks and tells its story. Personally I found that the most interesting part of the book as well. I wasn't a huge Anne Rice fan, but Interview with the Vampire is a very good book that did something quite interesting and virtually every Vampire novel or series I encountered in the 90s was aping her it seemed (and there were a epic crap ton of them in the 90s). At the time though my tastes leaned more toward the older stuff. Don't want to give the wrong impression though. I never found her angsty vampires to be a problem. What got annoying to me as a horror fan was virtually every vampire in the 90s was angsty.

Quote from: daniel_ream;920482Here's the thing about early WW games: they're supernatural/horror kitchen sinks the same way D&D is a fantasy kitchen sink and Shadowrun is a cyberpunk kitchen sink.  VtM isn't "Anne Rice on 'roids", it's Anne Rice and Bram Stoker and le Fanu and Lost Boys and Near Dark and Brian Lumley all in a blender, and then the serial numbers and copyright notices filed off.

That was WW's forte. Ganking stuff from other sources and filing the serial numbers off. Sometimes so arrogant as to not even bother that.

It oozed style with a terrific cover and really industry-changing interiors by Tim Bradstreet. We played a few sessions when it first came out, but we were more "Lost Boys" than "Theatre des Vampires." Spawned lots of fat guys in trenchcoats with their arms crossed walking around convention hotels, which, for me, somewhat undermined the aesthetic of the book itself.

I think the Fright Night series is one of the unheralded influences on V:tM. Besides Captain Chronos: Vampire Hunter, I think Fright Night 2 was one of the only films up to that point to introduce the concept of different kinds of vampires existing synonymously, each with different powers. Moreover, Fright Night really brought the Vampire into the urban modern landscape.

Quote from: Omega;920593That was WW's forte. Ganking stuff from other sources and filing the serial numbers off. Sometimes so arrogant as to not even bother that.

There's a long, healthy tradition of that in gaming. [strike]Ents, Hobbits, and Balrogs[/strike] Treants, halflings, and balors in D&D and all that. The writers are in a small bind. They know regardless of if they name the game Traveller, half the players are still playing Star Wars in space. WW just had the advantage that much of the stuff they pulled from was easily identifiable even with a name change (or using an uncopywritable name. The producers of Nosferatu couldn't say that they invented the name.).

Help me out here- people keep saying they screwed up Mage 20- I'm honestly thinking about buying this, so any feedback on this would be great.

Quote from: Crüesader;920662Help me out here- people keep saying they screwed up Mage 20- I'm honestly thinking about buying this, so any feedback on this would be great.

I hadn't noticed anything when we ran a campaign, but we were consciously running a game set in 1995 and going off feeling and memory to get the 'feel' right and mostly ignoring the GM advice in the book (outside of Sphere effects).

I was a goth back in the day when I played this. I still remember being blown away while reading the clanbook Brujah and seeing the character concepts of "Fake Rapper" and "True Rapper". It never occurred to me that the vampire concept would go beyond certain genres or crowds. Very cool.

I also loved how the "Real" rapper character looked like Ice-T.

Quote from: Necrozius;920672I was a goth back in the day when I played this. I still remember being blown away while reading the clanbook Brujah and seeing the character concepts of "Fake Rapper" and "True Rapper". It never occurred to me that the vampire concept would go beyond certain genres or crowds. Very cool.

I also loved how the "Real" rapper character looked like Ice-T.

And the Fake Rapper looked like Vanilla Ice.

Ice, Ice, Baby!

Quote from: yosemitemike;920558Vampire was mostly a hodgepodge of whatever vampire related stuff was popular and influential at the time.  Anne Rice cast a long shadow on the genre so there's a lot of stuff in there that was influenced by her.  There's other stuff though.  The Nosferatu were lifted directly from the silent film of the same name as you pointed out.  That film started out as an unauthorized film adaptation of Dracula by Bram Stoker.  They had to change the names because they got sued.  There's some influence from Le Fanu in the Gangrel and the feeding habits of the Ventrue which are reminiscent of the feeding habits of the titular character from his novella Carmilla.  There is also influence from popular movies like Lost Boys and Near Dark.  There's a lot of Anne Rice but there's a lot of other stuff thrown in there with it.

Near Dark. Definitely Near Dark.

Quote from: Crüesader;920662Help me out here- people keep saying they screwed up Mage 20- I'm honestly thinking about buying this, so any feedback on this would be great.

It's got some gender neutral pronouns in there, which some objected to (who cares). It undid the events of Mage Revised, but kept them all as optional plug ins if you want to use that era (sensible). I don't have a physical copy, but from what I've read it looks fine to me. Not sure what the stink is about.