I am interested in playing/running a campaign about one or possibly more vampire characters struggling to deal with their immortal existence and what it entails while trying to hold onto whatever humanity remains desperately and possibly even trying to pay back society for the wrongs they have had to commit given their affliction. The idea is heavily inspired by the old tv show Forever Knight and would allow for some other PC and NPC types like Werewolves and such.
I think I have it narrowed down to 2 games:
Angel RPG by Eden Studios (Cinematic Unisystem) or Nightlife RPG 2nd. Edition by Stellar Games.
Which would you choose? Which is the superior game? I tend to prefer rules lite to medium games. Which is more rules-lite?
Why not just use Vampire the Masquerade? Or Requiem?
I'd go with Nightlife. Though I am only familliar with the original.
Another one worth possibly glancing at is the Nights Edge supernatural setting for Cyberpunk 2020. That one deals with vampires as well and could be adapted to a non cyberpunk/technohorror theme.
Quote from: Batjon on July 11, 2022, 04:24:30 AM
I am interested in playing/running a campaign about one or possibly more vampire characters struggling to deal with their immortal existence and what it entails while trying to hold onto whatever humanity remains desperately and possibly even trying to pay back society for the wrongs they have had to commit given their affliction. The idea is heavily inspired by the old tv show Forever Knight and would allow for some other PC and NPC types like Werewolves and such.
I think I have it narrowed down to 2 games:
Angel RPG by Eden Studios (Cinematic Unisystem) or Nightlife RPG 2nd. Edition by Stellar Games.
Which would you choose? Which is the superior game? I tend to prefer rules lite to medium games. Which is more rules-lite?
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/124387
I recommend this one instead. It's similar to Nightlife in premise (I did a conversion on my blog a while back, it's easy),
but the humanity system is vastly refined. Also, it's free.
Quote from: Batjon on July 11, 2022, 04:24:30 AM
I am interested in playing/running a campaign about one or possibly more vampire characters struggling to deal with their immortal existence and what it entails while trying to hold onto whatever humanity remains desperately and possibly even trying to pay back society for the wrongs they have had to commit given their affliction. The idea is heavily inspired by the old tv show Forever Knight and would allow for some other PC and NPC types like Werewolves and such.
I think I have it narrowed down to 2 games:
Angel RPG by Eden Studios (Cinematic Unisystem) or Nightlife RPG 2nd. Edition by Stellar Games.
Which would you choose? Which is the superior game? I tend to prefer rules lite to medium games. Which is more rules-lite?
Out of the two RPGs listed, I would urge you to go with Unisystem. I liked it for Conspiracy X v2.0.
But I more strongly urge you to go with V20.
Quote from: MeganovaStella on July 11, 2022, 04:34:42 AM
Why not just use Vampire the Masquerade? Or Requiem?
Quote from: drayakir on July 11, 2022, 02:00:36 PM
But I more strongly urge you to go with V20.
I strongly urge not to touch those with a ten foot pole. If Nightlife's humanity mechanic is swingy af, WW's is wishy-washy af.
EDIT: "You stole a candy bar? Roll to see if you develop schizophrenia!" is a recurring joke in the fandom for a reason.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 11, 2022, 02:09:23 PM
Quote from: MeganovaStella on July 11, 2022, 04:34:42 AM
Why not just use Vampire the Masquerade? Or Requiem?
Quote from: drayakir on July 11, 2022, 02:00:36 PM
But I more strongly urge you to go with V20.
I strongly urge not to touch those with a ten foot pole. If Nightlife's humanity mechanic is swingy af, WW's is wishy-washy af.
EDIT: "You stole a candy bar? Roll to see if you develop schizophrenia!" is a recurring joke in the fandom for a reason.
Assuming you follow the Path of Humanity (at least for V20). I had an absolute blast playing a flesh trader following the Path of Honorable Accord. Admittedly it's been years since I've looked at V20, but I don't think you get a Derangement if you fall on the meter, that's VtR, innit?
Quote from: drayakir on July 11, 2022, 02:38:37 PM
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 11, 2022, 02:09:23 PM
Quote from: MeganovaStella on July 11, 2022, 04:34:42 AM
Why not just use Vampire the Masquerade? Or Requiem?
Quote from: drayakir on July 11, 2022, 02:00:36 PM
But I more strongly urge you to go with V20.
I strongly urge not to touch those with a ten foot pole. If Nightlife's humanity mechanic is swingy af, WW's is wishy-washy af.
EDIT: "You stole a candy bar? Roll to see if you develop schizophrenia!" is a recurring joke in the fandom for a reason.
Assuming you follow the Path of Humanity (at least for V20). I had an absolute blast playing a flesh trader following the Path of Honorable Accord. Admittedly it's been years since I've looked at V20, but I don't think you get a Derangement if you fall on the meter, that's VtR, innit?
That's been a rule ever since the first edition from 1991. As is having a higher Conscience rating making it easier to get away with humanity violations. But I digress...
Batjon said he wanted to play Forever Knight. The WW games are pretty much the worst choice you could possibly make. The rules and setting fight you every step of the way. Unsurprisingly, most groups ignore the rules and pretend it works. So not understanding how the rules actually work is pretty common.
I'm assuming Batjon already dismissed that considering that he knows Nightlife and Angel exist and it's highly unlikely that someone would know what those games are but not the WW games that overshadow them in popularity.
I have to hand it to whoever remembers forever knight. That was one excellent show. I'd say it was a best choice for a vampire themed game setting. A pity it wasn't done specifically for a good game ruleset.
Honestly gurps could do it, with losing humanity treated as a derangement that gets worse under certain conditions. I think there was a gurps vtm crossover once.
If you want some good reading on vampires and humanity I highly recommend the Sonya blue series, starting with sunglasses after dark.
I'd choose Night Shift, personally.
Cool, I have not thought about Forever Knight in a long time. Loved that show.
I was catching up on FK on streaming services.
An interesting aspect of FK's vampirism is that it's psychosomatic. (The rules for vampirism aren't consistent across the series, but this plays a role in several episodes.) Nick's symptoms become less severe as he becomes more "human." Crosses only irritate where before he'd burst into flame, he develops a reflection, etc.
Nightlife is the only system that models this sort of thing out of the box. Other systems require house rules.
However, FK vampires don't seem to actually need blood to survive; Nick drinks protein shakes instead with occasional relapses whenever drama is needed. It's more like an addiction or eating disorder. The only rpg I found that models that is the Feed rpg I linked above.
Quote from: MeganovaStella on July 11, 2022, 04:34:42 AM
Why not just use Vampire the Masquerade? Or Requiem?
I own V5 but am not a fan of the setting and I fear there might be too much setting and lore stuff to rip out to make it really worthwhile. It is also a tad on the crunchy side.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 11, 2022, 11:33:17 AM
Quote from: Batjon on July 11, 2022, 04:24:30 AM
I am interested in playing/running a campaign about one or possibly more vampire characters struggling to deal with their immortal existence and what it entails while trying to hold onto whatever humanity remains desperately and possibly even trying to pay back society for the wrongs they have had to commit given their affliction. The idea is heavily inspired by the old tv show Forever Knight and would allow for some other PC and NPC types like Werewolves and such.
I think I have it narrowed down to 2 games:
Angel RPG by Eden Studios (Cinematic Unisystem) or Nightlife RPG 2nd. Edition by Stellar Games.
Which would you choose? Which is the superior game? I tend to prefer rules lite to medium games. Which is more rules-lite?
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/124387
I recommend this one instead. It's similar to Nightlife in premise (I did a conversion on my blog a while back, it's easy), but the humanity system is vastly refined. Also, it's free.
I actually own this game, both PDF and physical. I have not fully read it yet but it seemed to me while looking through it that it was basically more of a vampire construction kit rather than a fully fledged game. I also do not think you can make other supernatural types with it.
Am I wrong? Are you able to tell me more about it?
Quote from: drayakir on July 11, 2022, 02:00:36 PM
Quote from: Batjon on July 11, 2022, 04:24:30 AM
I am interested in playing/running a campaign about one or possibly more vampire characters struggling to deal with their immortal existence and what it entails while trying to hold onto whatever humanity remains desperately and possibly even trying to pay back society for the wrongs they have had to commit given their affliction. The idea is heavily inspired by the old tv show Forever Knight and would allow for some other PC and NPC types like Werewolves and such.
I think I have it narrowed down to 2 games:
Angel RPG by Eden Studios (Cinematic Unisystem) or Nightlife RPG 2nd. Edition by Stellar Games.
Which would you choose? Which is the superior game? I tend to prefer rules lite to medium games. Which is more rules-lite?
Out of the two RPGs listed, I would urge you to go with Unisystem. I liked it for Conspiracy X v2.0.
But I more strongly urge you to go with V20.
I own V5 not V20. I mentioned in one of my posts above why I did not consider V5.
V5 is hot garbage compared to V20. V20 is probably the best iteration of Vampire Masquerade. It introduces the tools you need to play, but it rips out all the metaplot bullshit, so you can just keep whatever stuff you want, without the whole thing collapsing.
Is there any setting stuff included in V20 at all? With that tome being over 500 pages I would have imagined it being full of lore. I also have read people describe the mechanics as clunky.
I had heard good things about the humanity mechanics in V5.
They're clunky in the sense that there's two axis of dice resolution mechanic. You have the dice pool, which is straightforward stuff - you roll X number of dice and then Y is your target number. The other one is the target number modification. The standard is 8, but depending on certain Merits, Disciplines, the target number could go as low as 4 for some rolls. In our V20 game set in Washington DC, one of our players, the Assamite, had that for visual perception checks. Other than that, I'll be entirely honest, I saw no clunkiness. It has some suggestions on how to best run a Vampire game, but it doesn't say like "So and So is the Prince of NYC opposed by these factions." That's left up to you.
Unless you really want mechanics for the humanity aspect I'd suggest Buffy/Angel.
I've played it before and I think it matches your needs for rules-light. You already know it can handle other supernatural creatures (vamps, werewolves, witches, demons, etc).
In addition it can also handle different power levels of those within a single group. The drama dice mechanic it uses allows lesser powered PCs to be able to pull their weight. It gives them tools to work with so they can still be useful when they are physically outmatched.
Quote from: Batjon on July 11, 2022, 07:49:34 PM
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 11, 2022, 11:33:17 AM
Quote from: Batjon on July 11, 2022, 04:24:30 AM
I am interested in playing/running a campaign about one or possibly more vampire characters struggling to deal with their immortal existence and what it entails while trying to hold onto whatever humanity remains desperately and possibly even trying to pay back society for the wrongs they have had to commit given their affliction. The idea is heavily inspired by the old tv show Forever Knight and would allow for some other PC and NPC types like Werewolves and such.
I think I have it narrowed down to 2 games:
Angel RPG by Eden Studios (Cinematic Unisystem) or Nightlife RPG 2nd. Edition by Stellar Games.
Which would you choose? Which is the superior game? I tend to prefer rules lite to medium games. Which is more rules-lite?
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/124387
I recommend this one instead. It's similar to Nightlife in premise (I did a conversion on my blog a while back, it's easy), but the humanity system is vastly refined. Also, it's free.
I actually own this game, both PDF and physical. I have not fully read it yet but it seemed to me while looking through it that it was basically more of a vampire construction kit rather than a fully fledged game. I also do not think you can make other supernatural types with it.
Am I wrong? Are you able to tell me more about it?
Don't worry, it is a fully fledged game. It include 4 sample settings with wildly different takes on vampires, a chapter on trends in vampire fiction since gothic times, and many plot hooks scattered across the book. There's a donors supplement with human NPCs (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/127139/), and a youtube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoJMx5qAFT3TVWwT_oP7Oyg/videos) (altho been silent for years). The author didn't produce any further books for it (it was funded on kickstarter), but it's a complete game.
The rules are definitely flexible enough to support other kinds of splats. There's aren't any special mechanics for them (I'm currently trying to rectify that by working on some), but you can create them with vampiric impulses a la
Nightlife and it works fine. I wrote some conversions on my blog that you can use (https://vampire-sociology.blogspot.com/search/label/nightlife).
Quote from: Batjon on July 12, 2022, 12:33:09 AM
Is there any setting stuff included in V20 at all? With that tome being over 500 pages I would have imagined it being full of lore. I also have read people describe the mechanics as clunky.
I had heard good things about the humanity mechanics in V5.
Like V5, V20 is 99% setting. That's the whole appeal of WW games. As with D&D, it suffers from being hugely self-referential and sucking at replicating any vampire fiction outside of that. In fact, Feed was originally made because the author felt that way and says as much in the preface.
If you want to play Forever Knight, then Feed is tailor made to do that without unnecessary detritus like millennia of lore and high school clique politics getting in the way. The humanity and hunger mechanics are, imo, superior to WW games including V5. In WW games, humanity is just a statistic that abstractly measures how human you character is supposed to be: if you commit arbitrary acts, then your humanity gets dinged and you might develop arbitrary mental disorders. (This is how it has always worked since 1991 with minor tweaks, and the rules always go out of the way to give you methods to escape the consequences like "paths of whatever I was gonna do anyway", VTR2's banes, touchstones, and so on. The mechanic is just poorly designed IMO.) At the same time, you can develop a laundry list of superpowers while maintaining high humanity. Obviously, this is not how FK is structured: one of Nick's struggles is the temptation of using his powers and being inhuman by doing so. Feed doesn't have a humanity statistic, but rather divides your traits into vampiric traits and human traits. Losing humanity isn't framed as an arbitrary punishment for playing RPGs like RPGs. Instead, to lose humanity you need to actually alienate your human traits through roleplay. Similar to a lightside/darkside system, there's a temptation to gaining and using vampiric traits because they're just better than human traits. I feel this better evokes the feel of FK and other vampire fiction where a vampire's humanity is a big deal, rather than arbitrarily punishing characters with mental disorders. It also better evokes Nightlife's mechanic where using powers costs humanity, but without the swingy-ness.
Another benefit is that
Feed lets you play ancient vampires out of the box. Because the rules are abstracted and aren't based on leveling up, you can just declare that your vampires are centuries old and have been struggling to maintain their humanity. That's one of the suggested plot hooks. It seems like a banally simple thing to do, I know, but other games don't work like that. The book also provides guidelines on keeping PCs balanced so that players don't outshine each other, and the abstract lite nature of the rules makes this much easier than a heavier more simulationist system.
You can also convert stuff from other vampire games like V5 if you need to fill out the setting. I did conversions for that too (https://vampire-sociology.blogspot.com/search/label/vtx).
As far as dice go... Feed uses multiple types of die and a dice pool mechanic, but cuts down on dice bloat by capping traits at 3. You're rarely going to be rolling more.
If you want rules lite and you want a humanity mechanic that isn't swingy or arbitrarily punishing, then Feed is the best option.
Quote from: drayakir on July 12, 2022, 09:17:09 AM
They're clunky in the sense that there's two axis of dice resolution mechanic. You have the dice pool, which is straightforward stuff - you roll X number of dice and then Y is your target number. The other one is the target number modification. The standard is 8, but depending on certain Merits, Disciplines, the target number could go as low as 4 for some rolls. In our V20 game set in Washington DC, one of our players, the Assamite, had that for visual perception checks. Other than that, I'll be entirely honest, I saw no clunkiness. It has some suggestions on how to best run a Vampire game, but it doesn't say like "So and So is the Prince of NYC opposed by these factions." That's left up to you.
What about lore? At over 500 pages I'm sure there has to be a ton of lore/setting/metaplot. Also, the bloodlines/clans are intrinsic to the setting.
Quote from: Batjon on July 12, 2022, 02:06:42 PM
Quote from: drayakir on July 12, 2022, 09:17:09 AM
They're clunky in the sense that there's two axis of dice resolution mechanic. You have the dice pool, which is straightforward stuff - you roll X number of dice and then Y is your target number. The other one is the target number modification. The standard is 8, but depending on certain Merits, Disciplines, the target number could go as low as 4 for some rolls. In our V20 game set in Washington DC, one of our players, the Assamite, had that for visual perception checks. Other than that, I'll be entirely honest, I saw no clunkiness. It has some suggestions on how to best run a Vampire game, but it doesn't say like "So and So is the Prince of NYC opposed by these factions." That's left up to you.
What about lore? At over 500 pages I'm sure there has to be a ton of lore/setting/metaplot. Also, the bloodlines/clans are intrinsic to the setting.
I used to be a diehard fan in the 2000s, and I also read that book, so I can answer this easy. Each bloodline has several thousand years of lore that you're expected to memorize and religiously adhere to (or else!) in order to enjoy the IP. That's the key selling point of the IP. It's basically an extremely messy comic book setting masquerading (haha!) as a tabletop game setting. When people do play it, it's just high school clique politics with vampires. Each bloodline is basically a high school clique that determines your character's personality and superpowers, such as "sewer dwelling computer nerd", "patron of the arts," "rich kid that lives on daddy's money," "rebellious punk," "the weird kids," etc. (VTR is basically the same game with minor tweaks, more scattered nebulous lore, and additional batches of bloodlines that weren't covered by the other game like carnival freaks, BDSM freaks that can selectively turn off your senses, luckpires, freemasons with architecture magic, judas breed that cause suicides, demon hunters that venerate the Old Kingdom iteration of Seth, dudes with bone kinesis based on an obscure comic book, Balkan sludge vampires, etc. If you say anything positive about it, fans will come out of the woodwork to insult you for heresy.)
If you're not interested in that and just want to do your own thing or emulate some other setting like FK, then there's no point in buying/playing the game. It lives and dies on its lore and clique drama.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 12, 2022, 02:49:33 PM
Quote from: Batjon on July 12, 2022, 02:06:42 PM
Quote from: drayakir on July 12, 2022, 09:17:09 AM
They're clunky in the sense that there's two axis of dice resolution mechanic. You have the dice pool, which is straightforward stuff - you roll X number of dice and then Y is your target number. The other one is the target number modification. The standard is 8, but depending on certain Merits, Disciplines, the target number could go as low as 4 for some rolls. In our V20 game set in Washington DC, one of our players, the Assamite, had that for visual perception checks. Other than that, I'll be entirely honest, I saw no clunkiness. It has some suggestions on how to best run a Vampire game, but it doesn't say like "So and So is the Prince of NYC opposed by these factions." That's left up to you.
What about lore? At over 500 pages I'm sure there has to be a ton of lore/setting/metaplot. Also, the bloodlines/clans are intrinsic to the setting.
I used to be a diehard fan in the 2000s, and I also read that book, so I can answer this easy. Each bloodline has several thousand years of lore that you're expected to memorize and religiously adhere to (or else!) in order to enjoy the IP. That's the key selling point of the IP. It's basically an extremely messy comic book setting masquerading (haha!) as a tabletop game setting. When people do play it, it's just high school clique politics with vampires. Each bloodline is basically a high school clique that determines your character's personality and superpowers, such as "sewer dwelling computer nerd", "patron of the arts," "rich kid that lives on daddy's money," "rebellious punk," "the weird kids," etc. (VTR is basically the same game with minor tweaks, more scattered nebulous lore, and additional batches of bloodlines that weren't covered by the other game like carnival freaks, BDSM freaks that can selectively turn off your senses, luckpires, freemasons with architecture magic, judas breed that cause suicides, demon hunters that venerate the Old Kingdom iteration of Seth, dudes with bone kinesis based on an obscure comic book, Balkan sludge vampires, etc. If you say anything positive about it, fans will come out of the woodwork to insult you for heresy.)
If you're not interested in that and just want to do your own thing or emulate some other setting like FK, then there's no point in buying/playing the game. It lives and dies on its lore and clique drama.
That's wildly
incorrect reductionist. You can say that about any RPG with factions involved in it. I suppose some turbo-autists play games about shapes moving in an empty void, but we'll leave them to that.
V20 is superior in the sense that it took a look at the metaplot and history of the game and tossed it out. Like for instance it doesn't mention the hatred between the Lasombra/Ventrue, and like one line of the hatred the Tzimisce have towards the Tremere. That's about it. Everything else is mechanics, mechanics, and more mechanics. There is a tiny section in the back of the book regarding the setting, true, but you can freely ignore it (that's what I do - localize the coterie to one city and exclude the other supernaturals).
There are other books that do go into those details, but you don't need them to run a full V20 VtM game.
Quote from: drayakir on July 12, 2022, 03:26:04 PM
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 12, 2022, 02:49:33 PM
Quote from: Batjon on July 12, 2022, 02:06:42 PM
Quote from: drayakir on July 12, 2022, 09:17:09 AM
They're clunky in the sense that there's two axis of dice resolution mechanic. You have the dice pool, which is straightforward stuff - you roll X number of dice and then Y is your target number. The other one is the target number modification. The standard is 8, but depending on certain Merits, Disciplines, the target number could go as low as 4 for some rolls. In our V20 game set in Washington DC, one of our players, the Assamite, had that for visual perception checks. Other than that, I'll be entirely honest, I saw no clunkiness. It has some suggestions on how to best run a Vampire game, but it doesn't say like "So and So is the Prince of NYC opposed by these factions." That's left up to you.
What about lore? At over 500 pages I'm sure there has to be a ton of lore/setting/metaplot. Also, the bloodlines/clans are intrinsic to the setting.
I used to be a diehard fan in the 2000s, and I also read that book, so I can answer this easy. Each bloodline has several thousand years of lore that you're expected to memorize and religiously adhere to (or else!) in order to enjoy the IP. That's the key selling point of the IP. It's basically an extremely messy comic book setting masquerading (haha!) as a tabletop game setting. When people do play it, it's just high school clique politics with vampires. Each bloodline is basically a high school clique that determines your character's personality and superpowers, such as "sewer dwelling computer nerd", "patron of the arts," "rich kid that lives on daddy's money," "rebellious punk," "the weird kids," etc. (VTR is basically the same game with minor tweaks, more scattered nebulous lore, and additional batches of bloodlines that weren't covered by the other game like carnival freaks, BDSM freaks that can selectively turn off your senses, luckpires, freemasons with architecture magic, judas breed that cause suicides, demon hunters that venerate the Old Kingdom iteration of Seth, dudes with bone kinesis based on an obscure comic book, Balkan sludge vampires, etc. If you say anything positive about it, fans will come out of the woodwork to insult you for heresy.)
If you're not interested in that and just want to do your own thing or emulate some other setting like FK, then there's no point in buying/playing the game. It lives and dies on its lore and clique drama.
That's wildly incorrect reductionist. You can say that about any RPG with factions involved in it. I suppose some turbo-autists play games about shapes moving in an empty void, but we'll leave them to that.
V20 is superior in the sense that it took a look at the metaplot and history of the game and tossed it out. Like for instance it doesn't mention the hatred between the Lasombra/Ventrue, and like one line of the hatred the Tzimisce have towards the Tremere. That's about it. Everything else is mechanics, mechanics, and more mechanics. There is a tiny section in the back of the book regarding the setting, true, but you can freely ignore it (that's what I do - localize the coterie to one city and exclude the other supernaturals).
There are other books that do go into those details, but you don't need them to run a full V20 VtM game.
The WW games are infamous for their bloated overbearing lore. That's the reason people buy/play it. Assuming they actually play it and don't just buy the books to read the metaplot, which is a real thing that fans do. I don't know what your experience has been (I'm guessing you don't frequent the online scene, and I wouldn't blame you because it's a cesspit), but my experience with the fandom is that it is obnoxiously and religiously obsessed with lore. The game simply isn't designed to evoke other vampire fiction, but only to play its own self-referential setting with all its baggage and idiosyncrasies. If you're not interested in all that, then there's no reason to play the game. Trying to make it work for other settings, such as Ricean vampires (http://vampirerpg.free.fr/Rules/Anne-Rice.html) or Lost Boys (http://dreaddice.blogspot.com/2012/09/three-decades-in-blood-lost-boys.html), is more trouble than it's worth in my experience due to the complexity of the rules and the fact that they weren't designed to be tinkered with.
Also, Batjon asked for rules lite. I'd say all those mechanics get in the way. I personally found them more frustrating than anything else. The detail can get overbearing pretty quick; e.g. the section on mind control includes a sidebar on how to adjudicate targets without eyes. The powers are structured in a hierarchical ladder, e.g. to learn astral projection you first need to learn enhanced senses, aura reading, object reading and telepathy in that order and that's all you can learn. (V5 removed that limitation, for which I commend it.)
But if your goal to emulate Forever Knight or Nightlife, then Feed is the best way to go. In fact, I would say the system is better at playing WW games than actual WW games. Whatever the WW rules try to do, I think Feed does it better. Character creation in WW is overcomplicated with various attributes, skills, personality traits, backgrounds, merits, flaws, superpowers, etc. Feed simplifies all that by having everything run on the same abstracted trait mechanics.
In any case, this isn't an either/or argument. I posted the link to my conversion of WW if it's necessary to use anything from that. I don't think it is, but preparation is half the battle.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 12, 2022, 04:36:43 PM
Quote from: drayakir on July 12, 2022, 03:26:04 PM
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 12, 2022, 02:49:33 PM
Quote from: Batjon on July 12, 2022, 02:06:42 PM
Quote from: drayakir on July 12, 2022, 09:17:09 AM
They're clunky in the sense that there's two axis of dice resolution mechanic. You have the dice pool, which is straightforward stuff - you roll X number of dice and then Y is your target number. The other one is the target number modification. The standard is 8, but depending on certain Merits, Disciplines, the target number could go as low as 4 for some rolls. In our V20 game set in Washington DC, one of our players, the Assamite, had that for visual perception checks. Other than that, I'll be entirely honest, I saw no clunkiness. It has some suggestions on how to best run a Vampire game, but it doesn't say like "So and So is the Prince of NYC opposed by these factions." That's left up to you.
What about lore? At over 500 pages I'm sure there has to be a ton of lore/setting/metaplot. Also, the bloodlines/clans are intrinsic to the setting.
I used to be a diehard fan in the 2000s, and I also read that book, so I can answer this easy. Each bloodline has several thousand years of lore that you're expected to memorize and religiously adhere to (or else!) in order to enjoy the IP. That's the key selling point of the IP. It's basically an extremely messy comic book setting masquerading (haha!) as a tabletop game setting. When people do play it, it's just high school clique politics with vampires. Each bloodline is basically a high school clique that determines your character's personality and superpowers, such as "sewer dwelling computer nerd", "patron of the arts," "rich kid that lives on daddy's money," "rebellious punk," "the weird kids," etc. (VTR is basically the same game with minor tweaks, more scattered nebulous lore, and additional batches of bloodlines that weren't covered by the other game like carnival freaks, BDSM freaks that can selectively turn off your senses, luckpires, freemasons with architecture magic, judas breed that cause suicides, demon hunters that venerate the Old Kingdom iteration of Seth, dudes with bone kinesis based on an obscure comic book, Balkan sludge vampires, etc. If you say anything positive about it, fans will come out of the woodwork to insult you for heresy.)
If you're not interested in that and just want to do your own thing or emulate some other setting like FK, then there's no point in buying/playing the game. It lives and dies on its lore and clique drama.
That's wildly incorrect reductionist. You can say that about any RPG with factions involved in it. I suppose some turbo-autists play games about shapes moving in an empty void, but we'll leave them to that.
V20 is superior in the sense that it took a look at the metaplot and history of the game and tossed it out. Like for instance it doesn't mention the hatred between the Lasombra/Ventrue, and like one line of the hatred the Tzimisce have towards the Tremere. That's about it. Everything else is mechanics, mechanics, and more mechanics. There is a tiny section in the back of the book regarding the setting, true, but you can freely ignore it (that's what I do - localize the coterie to one city and exclude the other supernaturals).
There are other books that do go into those details, but you don't need them to run a full V20 VtM game.
The WW games are infamous for their bloated overbearing lore. That's the reason people buy/play it. Assuming they actually play it and don't just buy the books to read the metaplot, which is a real thing that fans do. I don't know what your experience has been (I'm guessing you don't frequent the online scene, and I wouldn't blame you because it's a cesspit), but my experience with the fandom is that it is obnoxiously and religiously obsessed with lore. The game simply isn't designed to evoke other vampire fiction, but only to play its own self-referential setting with all its baggage and idiosyncrasies. If you're not interested in all that, then there's no reason to play the game. Trying to make it work for other settings, such as Ricean vampires (http://vampirerpg.free.fr/Rules/Anne-Rice.html) or Lost Boys (http://dreaddice.blogspot.com/2012/09/three-decades-in-blood-lost-boys.html), is more trouble than it's worth in my experience due to the complexity of the rules and the fact that they weren't designed to be tinkered with.
Also, Batjon asked for rules lite. I'd say all those mechanics get in the way. I personally found them more frustrating than anything else. The detail can get overbearing pretty quick; e.g. the section on mind control includes a sidebar on how to adjudicate targets without eyes. The powers are structured in a hierarchical ladder, e.g. to learn astral projection you first need to learn enhanced senses, aura reading, object reading and telepathy in that order and that's all you can learn. (V5 removed that limitation, for which I commend it.)
But if your goal to emulate Forever Knight or Nightlife, then Feed is the best way to go. In fact, I would say the system is better at playing WW games than actual WW games. Whatever the WW rules try to do, I think Feed does it better. Character creation in WW is overcomplicated with various attributes, skills, personality traits, backgrounds, merits, flaws, superpowers, etc. Feed simplifies all that by having everything run on the same abstracted trait mechanics.
In any case, this isn't an either/or argument. I posted the link to my conversion of WW if it's necessary to use anything from that. I don't think it is, but preparation is half the battle.
Oh yeah, I generally avoid "fandoms" like the plague. There's nothing of value to them. And I think what you're saying is true for the older editions of VtM, but I really gotta say, I'm skimming the book right now, and while there's certainly... I dunno, call it "setting flavor," there's none of the whole BS of old VtM of "Gehenna is right around the corner! Your characters aren't meaningful! Look at how cool our NPCs are!" So eh.
I will concede the rules light bit though.
I do like the idea of vampire bloodlines, but I think Nightlife is more creative with it. The different kin races have the freedom to be much more different from one another than WW's bloodlines are, whereas the latter are all forced to abide by the standard vampire template. Something as simple as the kin having different diets and origins goes a long way to making them feel more distinct than just cliques.
Does V20 eject the origin of vampires and all the lore that is associated with it?
Quote from: Batjon on July 12, 2022, 08:04:44 PM
Does V20 eject the origin of vampires and all the lore that is associated with it?
It does not. It still has all the lore about Cain, the city of Nod, the thirteen founders who survived the Flood, and the Final Nights.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 12, 2022, 09:02:38 PM
Quote from: Batjon on July 12, 2022, 08:04:44 PM
Does V20 eject the origin of vampires and all the lore that is associated with it?
It does not. It still has all the lore about Cain, the city of Nod, the thirteen founders who survived the Flood, and the Final Nights.
That is a lot of the lore/metaplot I am trying to avoid.
Quote from: Batjon on July 12, 2022, 09:44:52 PM
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 12, 2022, 09:02:38 PM
Quote from: Batjon on July 12, 2022, 08:04:44 PM
Does V20 eject the origin of vampires and all the lore that is associated with it?
It does not. It still has all the lore about Cain, the city of Nod, the thirteen founders who survived the Flood, and the Final Nights.
That is a lot of the lore/metaplot I am trying to avoid.
It is, however, not nearly as pervasive as Box likes to tell everyone it is because apparently VtM murdered his puppy or something.
The extent of the lore isn't much more than what he already shared in his comment above and, in V20 all that is also treated like a Myth... like Adam and Eve and Noah and the Flood... rather than as THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED! i.e. the most popular legend for vampiric origins is they're descended from Caine through the founders of each of the Clans. But there's also stories that Lilith was the first vampire, or Ravnos was, or Set was.
He just really doesn't like anyone even looking at VtM as a prospect.
I'd also argue that the rules aren't especially heavy. Roll a number of dice equal to Trait 1 + Trait 2 and count each one that rolls at or above the difficulty (which defaults to 6 if not mentioned) counts as a success (i.e. if the difficulty is 8, each die that comes up as an 8 or better is a success). The more successes you achieve the greater you pull off the action.
That's pretty much the core mechanic right there... almost everything is just a matter of which traits you're rolling, the difficulty number and what the effects of success are.
You've got three sets of three attributes; a physical set, a mental set and a social set. You've got three sets of abilities; talents, skills and knowledges. Character creation is very strait forward; just picking a Clan and assigning points to each of these and a few other categories.
V20 can easily do many different styles of play including my personal favorite, a sub-genre referred to as "Vampions" (i.e. basically superheroes with fangs... sometimes also called Trenchcoats & Katanas). By contrast many of the others (including V5) seem to only have one way they want to have you approach vampirism... Feed, for example, is only interested in vampirism as an addiction narrative.
The biggest advantage of V20 is that while you don't NEED it to play a normal campaign, there is a lot of deep lore you can engage with to precisely the degree you're comfortable with. Want to keep it straight forward? Just use the main seven clans, generations 8-13 and Humanity only for everything in your city and it'll work fine as a typical US city with a vampire population that is competing over resources and control.
Want more? Then you can start looking at things further afield... Additional clans and bloodlines. Less common vampiric powers. Lower generation vampires (generations 4-7) and their elder disciplines and alternate paths of morality. If you wanna tell tales of vampires in the Dark Ages of Europe; there's whole supplements for that too. If lore's your thing you can deep dive into books like Beckett's Jyhad Diary or Lore of the Clans.
If you're really ambitious you can fold in things like mortal hunters, werewolves, mages and ghosts from their other game lines that are mechanically at least semi-compatible (though picking your cosmology in those cases matters as each has their own take on what version of reality is true.
But those are entirely optional. Take what you want; leave the rest. That's probably V20's greatest strength.
V20 is also very difficult to get a physical copy of and very expensive.
It's a quick Google search away.
I saw physical copies online for $350.
PDF + Hardcover B&W Book is $44.99 on DriveThruRPG, but it is sill just a mildly updated compendium of an older edition and I cannot see the rules separating gracefully from the lore.
As for Nightlife I own the 2nd. edition version of the game and have most of the stuff put out for it. Other than the Humanity mechanic, which I'm hearing is a bit swingy, how does the game play? Does it play pretty well and is fairly rules lite to medium?
Does anyone know of any vampire or urban fantasy-oriented adventure generators and/or adventures that would be good for a modern setting, especially where trying to hold onto humanity is a central theme?
Quote from: Chris24601 on July 12, 2022, 10:40:24 PMIt is, however, not nearly as pervasive as Box likes to tell everyone it is because apparently VtM murdered his puppy or something.
It didn't kill my puppy, but when I got into VTR the VTM fans mercilessly cyberbullied me for the entire time I was in the fandom because they were butthurt over not being validated. They're crybully assholes and I despise them for souring my experience.
The WW games are shitty games played by shitty people, and I wouldn't recommend anyone ever play them. VTM has all that lore baggage that the asshole fans religiously worship, and they'll crucify you if you don't religiously adhere to it. VTR has its own baggage, but VTM fans will bully you merciless if you express any interest in it. The whole shithole fandom can go die in a fire.
I don't hate VTM specifically, but damn do I hate the fans and I can't extricate my awful experiences with them from the game itself. But even if I could, I'm not just interested in VTM. I don't like its bloated overbearing lore or its many many idiosyncrasies like its bizarre obsessive jargon or its weird rules like hierarchical superpowers or generational limits. I preferred VTR's rules (even tho it still suffered from many of the same problems)... or at least I did before 2e fucked them up with all that conditions shit and V5 overhauled the superpowers in a way that makes VTR look like a dinosaur. I have had it with that shit and switched over to Feed because the rules are just superior in every way, the author doesn't tell you the right way to play, and I'm way less likely to get cybercrybullied out of the blue over expressing an interest in it.
Quote from: Chris24601 on July 12, 2022, 10:40:24 PM
The extent of the lore isn't much more than what he already shared in his comment above and, in V20 all that is also treated like a Myth... like Adam and Eve and Noah and the Flood... rather than as THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED! i.e. the most popular legend for vampiric origins is they're descended from Caine through the founders of each of the Clans. But there's also stories that Lilith was the first vampire, or Ravnos was, or Set was.
A lot of people like to pretend that's the case, but the rules are written as though it's fact. The fans will also crucify you if you don't religiously adhere to it.
The basic problem with VTM is that it has a lot of self-referential detritus that it has accumulated which is completely irrelevant to the sorts of adventures that Batjon has said he wants to play. Not just the lore/metaplot, but the bazillion bloodlines, generational limits, the arbitrary hierarchical structure of superpowers, etc. When it comes to trying to replicate something like Forever Knight, it just isn't worth it. You'd have to dump most of it anyway.
Quote from: Chris24601 on July 12, 2022, 10:40:24 PMHe just really doesn't like anyone even looking at VtM as a prospect.
That's not true. I did a detailed conversion to Feed, after all. Because this argument is a false dichotomy: Feed is designed to let you emulate any particular vampire fiction, including VTM.
Quote from: Chris24601 on July 12, 2022, 10:40:24 PMBy contrast many of the others (including V5) seem to only have one way they want to have you approach vampirism... Feed, for example, is only interested in vampirism as an addiction narrative.
Batjon has already explained that he wants to evoke Forever Knight specifically; Feed is geared towards exactly that. Also, Feed is much more flexible than you give it credit for: it includes satanic b-movie vampires as one of the sample settings. In that setting, you're explicitly playing as villains like Jerry Dandrige or Santanico Pandemonium. In this case, your humanity isn't a measurement of your humane compassion but rather a cover used to conceal your villainy. The other sample settings include a heavy handed addiction metaphor, vampirism as wishes granted by a pact with demons, and vampirism as metaphor for the cycle of violence. It doesn't have a vampions setting right out of the box, but it would be easy to make one. Feed is designed to emulate vampire fiction, after all.
Quote from: Chris24601 on July 12, 2022, 10:40:24 PMBut those are entirely optional. Take what you want; leave the rest. That's probably V20's greatest strength.
Its strength is being a WW game. If you're not interested in precisely that, then it's not worth it. It's not an all-purpose vampire game, it is very specifically glued to its one campaign setting and all its idiosyncrasies and baggage. If you try to homebrew or go against the assumptions, then you have your work cut out for you and the game is going to fight you every step of the way.
You can certainly mine it for inspiration, but as a game it is not suited for evoking the atmosphere of any vampire fiction except itself.
Quote from: Batjon on July 13, 2022, 04:08:26 AM
As for Nightlife I own the 2nd. edition version of the game and have most of the stuff put out for it. Other than the Humanity mechanic, which I'm hearing is a bit swingy, how does the game play? Does it play pretty well and is fairly rules lite to medium?
It's a d100 system from the late 80s/early 90s and the devs were flying by the seat of their pants when they made it. So you can expect it be about as clunky as other games that fit that description.
Quote from: Batjon on July 13, 2022, 04:09:33 AM
Does anyone know of any vampire or urban fantasy-oriented adventure generators and/or adventures that would be good for a modern setting, especially where trying to hold onto humanity is a central theme?
It's going to be very difficult to find adventures in that vein. Adventures with a modern setting are already rare, urban fantasy rarer still, and adventures with situations specifically relevant to vampires struggling to hold on to their humanity are almost non-existent. WW games were never big on scenarios and just leave you to figure that out on your own, and what little they did produce always involves either metaplot developments or clique politics.
With regard to modern horror/urban fantasy, has anyone tried out Liminal? Or is it also too lore heavy?
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 12, 2022, 11:05:33 AM
Quote from: Batjon on July 11, 2022, 07:49:34 PM
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 11, 2022, 11:33:17 AM
Quote from: Batjon on July 11, 2022, 04:24:30 AM
I am interested in playing/running a campaign about one or possibly more vampire characters struggling to deal with their immortal existence and what it entails while trying to hold onto whatever humanity remains desperately and possibly even trying to pay back society for the wrongs they have had to commit given their affliction. The idea is heavily inspired by the old tv show Forever Knight and would allow for some other PC and NPC types like Werewolves and such.
I think I have it narrowed down to 2 games:
Angel RPG by Eden Studios (Cinematic Unisystem) or Nightlife RPG 2nd. Edition by Stellar Games.
Which would you choose? Which is the superior game? I tend to prefer rules lite to medium games. Which is more rules-lite?
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/124387
I recommend this one instead. It's similar to Nightlife in premise (I did a conversion on my blog a while back, it's easy), but the humanity system is vastly refined. Also, it's free.
I actually own this game, both PDF and physical. I have not fully read it yet but it seemed to me while looking through it that it was basically more of a vampire construction kit rather than a fully fledged game. I also do not think you can make other supernatural types with it.
Am I wrong? Are you able to tell me more about it?
Don't worry, it is a fully fledged game. It include 4 sample settings with wildly different takes on vampires, a chapter on trends in vampire fiction since gothic times, and many plot hooks scattered across the book. There's a donors supplement with human NPCs (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/127139/), and a youtube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoJMx5qAFT3TVWwT_oP7Oyg/videos) (altho been silent for years). The author didn't produce any further books for it (it was funded on kickstarter), but it's a complete game.
The rules are definitely flexible enough to support other kinds of splats. There's aren't any special mechanics for them (I'm currently trying to rectify that by working on some), but you can create them with vampiric impulses a la Nightlife and it works fine. I wrote some conversions on my blog that you can use (https://vampire-sociology.blogspot.com/search/label/nightlife).
In Feed what if I want to have a human PC in the group as well? Doesn't the game only support playing vampires? Also, what about human NPCs and other supernatural type PCs and NPCs?
Quote from: Rhymer88 on July 13, 2022, 11:31:22 AM
With regard to modern horror/urban fantasy, has anyone tried out Liminal? Or is it also too lore heavy?
I own Liminal. It looks like a simple system but it disappointed me in that you can only play as a Dhampir and not a full-fledged vampire if you wanted to do that.
Quote from: Batjon on July 13, 2022, 11:35:26 AM
In Feed what if I want to have a human PC in the group as well? Doesn't the game only support playing vampires? Also, what about human NPCs and other supernatural type PCs and NPCs?
Rules for playing mortals are found on page 35. Rules for creating NPCs starts on page 61. The Donors PDF includes around a dozen or so human character sheets, useable as both PCs and NPCs. Page 103-4 includes rules for representing other supernatural non-vampiric forces.
The rules for non-vampiric forces aren't as detailed as those for vampires, but it is very easy to represent
Nightlife's kin races as strains using the same rules because they all feed on humans. I successfully converted (https://vampire-sociology.blogspot.com/search/label/nightlife) the werewolves, ghosts, wights, demons, inuats, and animates into strains. It was pretty easy.
I have been experimenting with creating spin-offs where non-vampiric supernatural characters replace Addiction with something else, like werewolf instincts or ghost grief, but nothing in a playable state. In any case, if you're trying to emulate
Forever Knight then I think
Nightlife kin races that all use the same Addiction/Hunger rules work fine and will have less book keeping compared to every character having a unique torment that dilutes the overall atmosphere.
Quote from: Batjon on July 13, 2022, 11:46:12 AM
Quote from: Rhymer88 on July 13, 2022, 11:31:22 AM
With regard to modern horror/urban fantasy, has anyone tried out Liminal? Or is it also too lore heavy?
I own Liminal. It looks like a simple system but it disappointed me in that you can only play as a Damphir and not a full-fledged vampire if you wanted to do that.
I don't understand that complaint. The vampires in
Liminal are soulless monsters, whereas dhampir are vampires with human souls and less severe weaknesses. It's the same thing as Buffy/Angel and Sonja Blue. That sounds almost exactly like what you're looking for?
I definitely agree with the suggestions to use
Night Shift or
Liminal. I don't think they represent the schism between humanity and vampirism well if at all like
Feed does, but if you prefer more traditional RPG design then they'll work fine.
Also, if you like Angel, Eden also published WitchCraft using the same system. It's an urban fantasy where you can play as wizards, vampires, werewolves, ghosts, and more. It doesn't have a humanity mechanic, but it provides the tools for more light hearted adventures mixing up Charmed with the X-Files.
Quote from: Batjon on July 12, 2022, 12:33:09 AM
Is there any setting stuff included in V20 at all? With that tome being over 500 pages I would have imagined it being full of lore. I also have read people describe the mechanics as clunky.
Here's the kicker: you can ignore all the metaplot and setting if you want by simply excising the stuff you don't like.
The basic dice pool mechanic is generic enough all the old WoD games used it with no (meaningful) modifications. Vampire then tacks on mechanics for Humanity, Virtues, Disciplines, Blood Pools, and Generation, along with vampy specific Edges and Flaws and a few other vampy specific mechanics (like Frenzy and Rotschrek or however the hell it's spelled). From there you can trim down to your idea of how a vampire should work ("all vampires have a fixed Generation of 8, the only Disciplines are Potence/Celerity/Fortitude/Auspex/Dominate/Protean, and there are no Clans or Caine or Gehenna"). While a lot of folks certainly think the setting is inseparable from the systems, it isn't.
Having said all that, the basic Storyteller System wasn't all that balanced or good 30+ years ago and people have been trying to fix or outright replace it ever since. I seem to recall thinking V20 fixed some things, and 5ed fixed some other stuff, but it's been literal years since I last looked.
Quote from: Habitual Gamer on July 13, 2022, 03:37:49 PM
Quote from: Batjon on July 12, 2022, 12:33:09 AM
Is there any setting stuff included in V20 at all? With that tome being over 500 pages I would have imagined it being full of lore. I also have read people describe the mechanics as clunky.
Here's the kicker: you can ignore all the metaplot and setting if you want by simply excising the stuff you don't like.
The basic dice pool mechanic is generic enough all the old WoD games used it with no (meaningful) modifications. Vampire then tacks on mechanics for Humanity, Virtues, Disciplines, Blood Pools, and Generation, along with vampy specific Edges and Flaws and a few other vampy specific mechanics (like Frenzy and Rotschrek or however the hell it's spelled). From there you can trim down to your idea of how a vampire should work ("all vampires have a fixed Generation of 8, the only Disciplines are Potence/Celerity/Fortitude/Auspex/Dominate/Protean, and there are no Clans or Caine or Gehenna"). While a lot of folks certainly think the setting is inseparable from the systems, it isn't.
Having said all that, the basic Storyteller System wasn't all that balanced or good 30+ years ago and people have been trying to fix or outright replace it ever since. I seem to recall thinking V20 fixed some things, and 5ed fixed some other stuff, but it's been literal years since I last looked.
You can ignore the setting and homebrew it, but at point you don't have any reason to play the game. The game was designed with the setting first, the system second... And yeah, the system just isn't very good. The writers have been tinkering with it for decades and every iteration has left something to be desired. Some more than others.
For a system that calls itself StoryWhatever depending on the game, it's not actually a story game. It's way more convoluted than it needs to be, what with attributes, skills, personality traits, miscellaneous advantages, disadvantages, superpowers, etc. It's a running joke that groups mostly ignore the rules.
I've tried tweaking it myself (https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vRjMbDl1lWGxo0o_OqDU0NDcGh-EDoYcNSsgI40Qge-des_KgbIjEs7Rb0DWxfInSqeyj1RjB47RCeE/pub) using the Opening the Dark SRD (https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vRF8OzdA1D1rC_PaJwr3OzfqqSMgqAVRhBHm9A5LsmaMqaMB4JlwLb8-Jd9PkAlMyDRI2ZLBd7lzFOI/pub) as a basis, trying to combine all the best iterations of various mechanics to create a streamlined version of the system. I eventually came to the conclusion that I should ditch dice pools and roll 1d10+attribute+skill to beat DC 9 like Unisystem does.
I should probably go into more detail on that last bit.
The ST system, in any iteration, uses dice pools and in convoluted fashion. There are several "difficulty sliders (https://mythcreants.com/blog/five-advantages-of-pass-fail-dice-pools/)": The amount of dice in a pool, the pips/face you need to roll for a die to produce a pass, the number of passes that need to be rolled to determine whether an action is successful, and whether dice "explode" or not upon rolling a 10 (or 9, or 8s ). And all of these can have modifiers applied too. V20 lets you add modifiers to the dice pool, the target pips, and the target passes... all of which affect the probability of success in ways that are not equivalent. Some iterations realized this was too convoluted and used fixed values for the second and third, like CoD. In CoD you only need to meet 8 pips to get a pass, and you only need one for an action to be successful, so all modifiers are applied to dice pool and rarely to exploding thresholds; the only problem with this simplicity is that you can't conceal values from the players, so they can metagame the opponent's defense value in combat. In V5 you only need to roll 6+ pips to get a pass, but modifiers can be applied to dice pool and/or the number of passes needed to succeed... and these two types of modifiers are not equivalent in how they alter the probability of success. These explanations are also heavily simplified for the purpose of brevity. I didn't mention stuff like 1s subtracting from passes or the fact that "success" is confusing used to refer to both a passing die and a dice pool check that succeeds.
Meanwhile, Unisystem's 1d10 roll has only one possible type of probabilistic modifier. You apply a modifier to the result of the dice roll... or you can apply a modifier to the target number if you're trying to conceal that modifier from the player, but these are equivalent in how they alter the probability. Obviously this is a lot simpler than dealing with all of those questionable probability sliders.
So if I was trying to write an ST retroclone, then the first thing I would do is switch to Unisystem dice rolling because I can't be bothered to deal with all that.
How well does Nightlife run?
Quote from: Batjon on July 12, 2022, 09:44:52 PM
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 12, 2022, 09:02:38 PM
Quote from: Batjon on July 12, 2022, 08:04:44 PM
Does V20 eject the origin of vampires and all the lore that is associated with it?
It does not. It still has all the lore about Cain, the city of Nod, the thirteen founders who survived the Flood, and the Final Nights.
That is a lot of the lore/metaplot I am trying to avoid.
Thats not metaplot though. That is history. And there is jack all nothing stopping you from tossing out any of it because jack all none of it impacts anything really. Thats true across editions and and changes to the setting large and small. Even the founders is nothing and WW tossed that out the window by 2e anyhoo.
Worse is that within the WOD lore itself any history is meaningless and all true all at the same time because history itself is mercurial in nature.
Quote from: Omega on July 13, 2022, 09:19:56 PM
Quote from: Batjon on July 12, 2022, 09:44:52 PM
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 12, 2022, 09:02:38 PM
Quote from: Batjon on July 12, 2022, 08:04:44 PM
Does V20 eject the origin of vampires and all the lore that is associated with it?
It does not. It still has all the lore about Cain, the city of Nod, the thirteen founders who survived the Flood, and the Final Nights.
That is a lot of the lore/metaplot I am trying to avoid.
Thats not metaplot though. That is history. And there is jack all nothing stopping you from tossing out any of it because jack all none of it impacts anything really. Thats true across editions and and changes to the setting large and small. Even the founders is nothing and WW tossed that out the window by 2e anyhoo.
Worse is that within the WOD lore itself any history is meaningless and all true all at the same time because history itself is mercurial in nature.
I was in a V20 campaign once, but we simply played it like any other dark urban fantasy game. Nobody really cared about the lore.
Quote from: Batjon on July 13, 2022, 08:59:25 PM
How well does Nightlife run?
I've never gotten a group together, but I assume it runs about as well as other d100 games like BRP. Plus the extra book keeping from measuring humanity fluctuations and their effects on the characters' vulnerabilities and appearances.
There's also some files from the defunct yahoo group that you might be interested in. I have those saved on a dropbox that I can share with you. This includes digital dead (90s internet stuff), mocks (evil clowns), the unfinished street velocity revision, and an adventure "roach motel."
Obviously you can fiat away anything in any rpg, but I prefer to determine a particular game's utility to [current interest] based on the rules as written. When I start fiating away about a quarter or more of the rules/setting, that's when I realize that it's probably not suited for my goals.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 13, 2022, 05:08:52 PM
The ST system, in any iteration, uses dice pools and in convoluted fashion. There are several "difficulty sliders (https://mythcreants.com/blog/five-advantages-of-pass-fail-dice-pools/)": The amount of dice in a pool, the pips/face you need to roll for a die to produce a pass, the number of passes that need to be rolled to determine whether an action is successful, and whether dice "explode" or not upon rolling a 10
What you call convoluted, I call a relatively simple system for generating complex outcomes in a minimum number of rolls.
The problem with linear distributions (i.e. 1dX+Y vs. TN Z) is that it can really only do pass/fail well, not magnitude. This is why D&D has always used a separate damage roll for magnitude and why the d20's skill system has always been wonky as it tried to turn extremes of that linear distribution into magnitude and had to add "take 10" mechanics to account for obscene failure rates that would result if you used the checks outside of combat situations.
Success-based dice pools give you an actual bell curve distribution which largely eliminates the need for separate take-10/mundane use mechanics. The variable target number allows you to increase or decrease odds of success without actually bumping the absolute magnitude of success (someone with 2 dice is never going to pull off more than a marginal success regardless of difficulty)... which is NOT something a flat distribution where "succeed by X" determines magnitude (because reducing the TN also reduces the number you need for the increased magnitude).
Similarly, number of successes (and failure/botch results) allow for more ways for a GM to interpret results than just pass/fail. Did you barely pick the lock, perhaps leaving telltale marks of your effort in the process? Do it compently? Do it so masterfully that someone might think the door had always been unlocked or merely slightly stuck? Did you instead fail so badly you jammed the lock?
Not only does counting successes allow those results, the dice pool caps the outcome... 2 dice will never produce the three successes needed for complete success. Four dice will never produce the 5 successes needed for a critical success. Thus a difference of just a few dots in a skill can denote much greater expertise than small gradations on a d10 roll where the only way to prevent the ametuer from a critical success is to push the TN and the bonuses for the expert so high that failure becomes the ametuer's only outcome.
Is the system used by old White Wolf clunky in places? Sure. But the benefits of the resolution system are many and the system's broad popularity (at one point it was about as close to a D&D killer as you're going to find) means there are plenty of house rules out there to streamline anything you do find clunky (The Dark Age Companion even does this themselves with optional rules for streamlining combat).
It's useful enough that I chose to use a variant as the core of my own urban fantasy game engine (the key fix for mine was how to handle difficulties below 4 or above 8).
Quote from: Chris24601 on July 14, 2022, 10:20:10 AM
The problem with linear distributions (i.e. 1dX+Y vs. TN Z) is that it can really only do pass/fail well, not magnitude. This is why D&D has always used a separate damage roll for magnitude and why the d20's skill system has always been wonky as it tried to turn extremes of that linear distribution into magnitude and had to add "take 10" mechanics to account for obscene failure rates that would result if you used the checks outside of combat situations.
A combination of True20 and 3d6 rolling addresses those issues with d20's damage and skill mechanics. Percentile systems, like that used by
Nightlife, easily handle margins of success and comparing opposed rolls without all the difficulty sliders obscuring the actual percentages. I don't think any rpg system is perfect, but I definitely don't think complexity in the task resolution that requires system mastery to understand is automatically good.
QuoteNot only does counting successes allow those results, the dice pool caps the outcome... 2 dice will never produce the three successes needed for complete success. Four dice will never produce the 5 successes needed for a critical success. Thus a difference of just a few dots in a skill can denote much greater expertise than small gradations on a d10 roll where the only way to prevent the ametuer from a critical success is to push the TN and the bonuses for the expert so high that failure becomes the ametuer's only outcome.
This depends on what iteration you're using. CoD has exploding dice which makes it possible for four dice to roll an exceptional success and you can also spend willpower to boost the roll.
QuoteIs the system used by old White Wolf clunky in places? Sure. But the benefits of the resolution system are many and the system's broad popularity (at one point it was about as close to a D&D killer as you're going to find) means there are plenty of house rules out there to streamline anything you do find clunky (The Dark Age Companion even does this themselves with optional rules for streamlining combat).
I think that's a terrible argument in favor. "Sure it's clunky, but you can use these obscure house rules to fix it!" That said, I admit I think CoD1e has the least clunky iteration of the task resolution because it reduces the difficulty sliders to just applying modifiers to the dice pool and you only need to roll one 8+ to achieve a successful outcome (aside from exceptional successes, contested rolls, extended rolls, and damage rolls, where the exact number of 8s is relevant). It has its issues (http://garglinggoblin.blogspot.com/2013/01/problems-with-world-of-darkness-rpg.html)like not being able to conceal modifiers from players, but no system is perfect and it's something I can let slide for the most part.
In any case, this isn't the place for evangelism and arguing whose game is better. What we should be doing is explaining what systems would be most suitable for what Batjon is specifically trying to do, and not let our favoritism get in the way of that.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 13, 2022, 05:08:52 PM
So if I was trying to write an ST retroclone, then the first thing I would do is switch to Unisystem dice rolling because I can't be bothered to deal with all that.
Once you start talking Unisystem, you may as well switch to GURPS and be done with it.
It even has an adaptation for VtM, MtA, and I -think- WtA already done.
Quote from: Habitual Gamer on July 14, 2022, 03:19:39 PM
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 13, 2022, 05:08:52 PM
So if I was trying to write an ST retroclone, then the first thing I would do is switch to Unisystem dice rolling because I can't be bothered to deal with all that.
Once you start talking Unisystem, you may as well switch to GURPS and be done with it.
It even has an adaptation for VtM, MtA, and I -think- WtA already done.
Probably. Nothing better at being a universal system than a system designed to be universal. I would use the rules from Blood Types, Shapeshifters, and Thaumatology instead.
Quote from: Chris24601 on July 14, 2022, 10:20:10 AM
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 13, 2022, 05:08:52 PM
The ST system, in any iteration, uses dice pools and in convoluted fashion. There are several "difficulty sliders (https://mythcreants.com/blog/five-advantages-of-pass-fail-dice-pools/)": The amount of dice in a pool, the pips/face you need to roll for a die to produce a pass, the number of passes that need to be rolled to determine whether an action is successful, and whether dice "explode" or not upon rolling a 10
What you call convoluted, I call a relatively simple system for generating complex outcomes in a minimum number of rolls.
The problem with linear distributions (i.e. 1dX+Y vs. TN Z) is that it can really only do pass/fail well, not magnitude. This is why D&D has always used a separate damage roll for magnitude and why the d20's skill system has always been wonky as it tried to turn extremes of that linear distribution into magnitude and had to add "take 10" mechanics to account for obscene failure rates that would result if you used the checks outside of combat situations.
Success-based dice pools give you an actual bell curve distribution which largely eliminates the need for separate take-10/mundane use mechanics. The variable target number allows you to increase or decrease odds of success without actually bumping the absolute magnitude of success (someone with 2 dice is never going to pull off more than a marginal success regardless of difficulty)... which is NOT something a flat distribution where "succeed by X" determines magnitude (because reducing the TN also reduces the number you need for the increased magnitude).
Similarly, number of successes (and failure/botch results) allow for more ways for a GM to interpret results than just pass/fail. Did you barely pick the lock, perhaps leaving telltale marks of your effort in the process? Do it compently? Do it so masterfully that someone might think the door had always been unlocked or merely slightly stuck? Did you instead fail so badly you jammed the lock?
Not only does counting successes allow those results, the dice pool caps the outcome... 2 dice will never produce the three successes needed for complete success. Four dice will never produce the 5 successes needed for a critical success. Thus a difference of just a few dots in a skill can denote much greater expertise than small gradations on a d10 roll where the only way to prevent the ametuer from a critical success is to push the TN and the bonuses for the expert so high that failure becomes the ametuer's only outcome.
Is the system used by old White Wolf clunky in places? Sure. But the benefits of the resolution system are many and the system's broad popularity (at one point it was about as close to a D&D killer as you're going to find) means there are plenty of house rules out there to streamline anything you do find clunky (The Dark Age Companion even does this themselves with optional rules for streamlining combat).
It's useful enough that I chose to use a variant as the core of my own urban fantasy game engine (the key fix for mine was how to handle difficulties below 4 or above 8).
What is your game?
Quote from: Habitual Gamer on July 14, 2022, 03:19:39 PM
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 13, 2022, 05:08:52 PM
So if I was trying to write an ST retroclone, then the first thing I would do is switch to Unisystem dice rolling because I can't be bothered to deal with all that.
Once you start talking Unisystem, you may as well switch to GURPS and be done with it.
It even has an adaptation for VtM, MtA, and I -think- WtA already done.
Except for the fact that I loathe GURPS as a gaming engine.
I generally agree with BoxCrayonTales' outlook on the utility of stripping the system from the lore/setting for VtM and then you also have to contend with the various clans and bloodlines not being authentic to what you want to model in your game.
I think you have possibly convinced me to finally read Feed. It has been on my shelf for a long time.
Quote from: Batjon on July 14, 2022, 09:00:39 PM
Quote from: Habitual Gamer on July 14, 2022, 03:19:39 PM
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 13, 2022, 05:08:52 PM
So if I was trying to write an ST retroclone, then the first thing I would do is switch to Unisystem dice rolling because I can't be bothered to deal with all that.
Once you start talking Unisystem, you may as well switch to GURPS and be done with it.
It even has an adaptation for VtM, MtA, and I -think- WtA already done.
Except for the fact that I loathe GURPS as a gaming engine.
Yeah. Cinematic Unisystem is vastly more streamlined than GURPS. If you're not looking for a bunch of mechanics around blood or humanity or similar, then I think Cinematic Unisystem could easily handle doing a Forever Knight campaign (for example).
I've played GURPS before, but I enjoyed Buffy/Angel much more.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 14, 2022, 08:38:11 AM
Quote from: Batjon on July 13, 2022, 08:59:25 PM
How well does Nightlife run?
I've never gotten a group together, but I assume it runs about as well as other d100 games like BRP. Plus the extra book keeping from measuring humanity fluctuations and their effects on the characters' vulnerabilities and appearances.
There's also some files from the defunct yahoo group that you might be interested in. I have those saved on a dropbox that I can share with you. This includes digital dead (90s internet stuff), mocks (evil clowns), the unfinished street velocity revision, and an adventure "roach motel."
Obviously you can fiat away anything in any rpg, but I prefer to determine a particular game's utility to [current interest] based on the rules as written. When I start fiating away about a quarter or more of the rules/setting, that's when I realize that it's probably not suited for my goals.
I'd love to get with you and get copies of your work for Feed, if you are open to sharing, please. Did you used to spend time in the Maven of the Eventide's Discord server discussing Feed as well?
Quote from: Batjon on July 15, 2022, 12:22:07 AM
I'd love to get with you and get copies of your work for Feed, if you are open to sharing, please.
I've sent you a message via discord.
As I mentioned I did try creating my own ST retroclone incorporating what I considered the most efficient rules from the various iterations of the system (as well as other systems like a Godbound-esque system for superpowers), while at the same time shaving unnecessary bits like WoD's excessive lore and refining bits like CoD's initial attempt to have open-ended lore. (In other words I was more or less reinventing The Everlasting: that was made by an ex-WW freelancer in response to WoD. It's sort of a proto-CoD (some of the jargon is identical, like blood-potency and numina), although in some ways it's superior to CoD: it had unified rules for superpowers and magic because it was designed from the start to easily support mixed groups.)
Ultimately I came to a couple of conclusions. Firstly, if I don't care about the various personality mechanics then I can probably do it better by using an existing system like GURPS, or better yet WitchCraft, Liminal, Urban Shadows, or other urban fantasy games that are better designed. Secondly, if I do care about personality mechanics then it's probably better to use a system designed to support them from the ground up, like Feed, rather than using a generic simulationist system which had personality mechanics crudely bolted on, like ST or Everlasting.
Admittedly, Feed isn't designed to replicate struggles other than humanity vs vampirism (or other man-eating monster-isms). I was inspired to try making spin-offs that explored other monsters with different metaphors, like werewolf instincts, ghost grief, wizard corruption or whatever, but ultimately I put that on the backburner because it would be a huge effort to pull off for very little reward. Furthermore, trying to run mixed groups using such rules would run into some of the same issues that have afflicted mixed parties in ST and Everlasting: each group has different struggles that require different book keeping. That remains the case even if everyone uses the same rules for superpowers.
So if you want to be efficient, then you can either play a game where the monsters all have the same internal struggles... or you can ditch those rules and play basically superheroes. Anything else is just going to increase complexity for decreasing benefit.
Quote from: Batjon on July 14, 2022, 09:00:39 PM
Except for the fact that I loathe GURPS as a gaming engine.
I don't get the hate some people have (outside of Pulver's exercises in accounting), but I don't get the love others have either. Some things it can handle well enough, others it can't. Overall, I find it mechanically better than the Storyteller System (a low bar to jump admittedly), but mainly I'm just throwing out options.
If we're still throwing options, I'd also nominate Strands of Fate. It has some WoD-inspired rules for vampires, although I haven't looked at them in years. I tried doing some conversions for the first edition years ago then forgot about it.
Quote from: Batjon on July 14, 2022, 08:58:15 PM
Quote from: Chris24601 on July 14, 2022, 10:20:10 AM
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on July 13, 2022, 05:08:52 PM
The ST system, in any iteration, uses dice pools and in convoluted fashion. There are several "difficulty sliders (https://mythcreants.com/blog/five-advantages-of-pass-fail-dice-pools/)": The amount of dice in a pool, the pips/face you need to roll for a die to produce a pass, the number of passes that need to be rolled to determine whether an action is successful, and whether dice "explode" or not upon rolling a 10
What you call convoluted, I call a relatively simple system for generating complex outcomes in a minimum number of rolls.
The problem with linear distributions (i.e. 1dX+Y vs. TN Z) is that it can really only do pass/fail well, not magnitude. This is why D&D has always used a separate damage roll for magnitude and why the d20's skill system has always been wonky as it tried to turn extremes of that linear distribution into magnitude and had to add "take 10" mechanics to account for obscene failure rates that would result if you used the checks outside of combat situations.
Success-based dice pools give you an actual bell curve distribution which largely eliminates the need for separate take-10/mundane use mechanics. The variable target number allows you to increase or decrease odds of success without actually bumping the absolute magnitude of success (someone with 2 dice is never going to pull off more than a marginal success regardless of difficulty)... which is NOT something a flat distribution where "succeed by X" determines magnitude (because reducing the TN also reduces the number you need for the increased magnitude).
Similarly, number of successes (and failure/botch results) allow for more ways for a GM to interpret results than just pass/fail. Did you barely pick the lock, perhaps leaving telltale marks of your effort in the process? Do it compently? Do it so masterfully that someone might think the door had always been unlocked or merely slightly stuck? Did you instead fail so badly you jammed the lock?
Not only does counting successes allow those results, the dice pool caps the outcome... 2 dice will never produce the three successes needed for complete success. Four dice will never produce the 5 successes needed for a critical success. Thus a difference of just a few dots in a skill can denote much greater expertise than small gradations on a d10 roll where the only way to prevent the ametuer from a critical success is to push the TN and the bonuses for the expert so high that failure becomes the ametuer's only outcome.
Is the system used by old White Wolf clunky in places? Sure. But the benefits of the resolution system are many and the system's broad popularity (at one point it was about as close to a D&D killer as you're going to find) means there are plenty of house rules out there to streamline anything you do find clunky (The Dark Age Companion even does this themselves with optional rules for streamlining combat).
It's useful enough that I chose to use a variant as the core of my own urban fantasy game engine (the key fix for mine was how to handle difficulties below 4 or above 8).
What is your game?
Bearing in mind that it was last updated in 2013, here's the link;
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8uzbbLvQJOLRWtSaVU4M3A5M0E/view?usp=sharing&resourcekey=0-yYTHFBgv9xmKhtjK7wndPQ (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8uzbbLvQJOLRWtSaVU4M3A5M0E/view?usp=sharing&resourcekey=0-yYTHFBgv9xmKhtjK7wndPQ)
It was officially a Mage the Ascension variant from back in the days before the PDFs were readily available and a ground up rebuild of the system after I had started extensive houseruling of the base system. That said, through the use of the Numina merit and various flaws you can recreate just about any supernatural entity. The options I plugged in for default vampires are on page 58.
I'll need to check the book, but I remember that Strands of Power includes a couple pages explaining how to handle syntactic magic.
Although it's a series rather than a movie, have any of you watched Terminal List? I've just started to watch it, but don't know if I should bother to look at the whole thing.
So all this conspiracy Chris Pratt is against are vampires?
Quote from: Rhymer88 on July 18, 2022, 03:27:53 AM
Although it's a series rather than a movie, have any of you watched Terminal List? I've just started to watch it, but don't know if I should bother to look at the whole thing.
My fiancé and I watched the entire series and loved it. I left a glowing review on Rotten Tomatoes to strike against the woke idiots.
Quote from: Batjon on July 18, 2022, 07:39:20 PM
Quote from: Rhymer88 on July 18, 2022, 03:27:53 AM
Although it's a series rather than a movie, have any of you watched Terminal List? I've just started to watch it, but don't know if I should bother to look at the whole thing.
My fiancé and I watched the entire series and loved it. I left a glowing review on Rotten Tomatoes to strike against the woke idiots.
Oops! I actually wanted to post that question in the movie thread.