Vampire: The Masquerade (Collectors Boxed Set) (Limited Edition)

If you have read this far, DO NOT TAKE THE SOFTCOVER VERSION. The ýsoftcover editioný that Amazon.com advertises is a GURPS adaptation (GURPS stands for Generic Universal RolePlaying System). It tells you how to turn Vampire characters into GURPS characters, and how to run a GURPS campaign with Vampires engaged in the Masquerade. It is loosely a rulebook for the game, but its rules make much less sense if youýve never played GURPS.

Now, on to the rest of the gameý

The storyteller has the best time with the game. She runs the chronicle with the pride of a playwright, knowing that she touches her audience. She has all the power; she also has all he responsibility. The storyteller has to invent the chronicle, plotting out each weekýs saga for the rest of you to endure. While the most rewarding, itýs also the hardest job in V:tM. And somebody has to do it.

Youýll probably notice the oddness of the feminine pronoun (She runs, she has, etc.). The writers of this manual have distributed the pronouns in the book to be roughly 51% female and 49% male, to accompany the national division of the sexes. If youýre a male, itýs a reminder of the alienation that female scholastics must endure. This book pulls that off flawlessly.

I have two complaints. The first is dice. Most pen-and-paper roleplaying games use dice, with the exception of Amber. AD&D uses seven different types of dice, and three to five of each. Shadowrun and V:tM are each more forgiving; they just use one. This is nice. Shadowrun dice are your normal 6-sided dice, which is awesome. In Vampire, the die is ten-sided, which is much harder to come by. This means no buying in bulk; Iýve simply found it impossible to get a package of 10-sided dice without extra AD&D dice added on.

My second complaint is that the book has almost no structure. Iýd recommend putting post-its in as tabs for the sections that you want to have quick reference to; character generation alone involves swapping between different parts of the book 5-6 times. God forbid you have a rule conflict in a game; my group partitioned the book into sections to skim through whenever people were uncertain about a rule.

Once youýve read the rulebook, though, you donýt need it in the game. The most Iýve ever done is have the lexicon open so that I have my terms straight; you get a feel for what each level of each vampiric power does, and you donýt have to look up Natures and Demeanors all the time. (Natures and Demeanors are personalities that youýre required to take. There is a list of 30 and you take different ones for nature or demeanor).

Overall, this game is splendid. It has advanced over other RPGs to give true entertainment. Focused, fast-paced, and fantastically horrid, some gaming might give you nightmares, depending on who your storyteller is. Some gaming will be a lot of jokes and mudslinging at authority. Either way, youýll scare yourself with how casually you say, ýI suck down all the humanýs blood and kill him.ý At some level, the horror of catching yourself saying that phrase is what the game is all about.


The Start of RPGing for me   April 28, 2002
M. Williams (Newark, NJ)
13 out of 15 found this review helpful

Vampire is a very interesting game. When I was in 4th Grade me and my friends used to make up games in our heads but something was lacking a cohesive setting. By the time I was in 7th Grade we decided to buy an RPG book, just to get the gist of things. We ended up buing Vampire, and I must say it is great! I've bought 40 other books by White-Wolf in the last few years.

This game is a modern game in the Modern World, not a D&D type of Fantasy. Vampires are real in this game, they live in all the major cities, they pull the strings of politics. They hide from Humanity though, because they fear discovery. Yet they have to interact with humans, because as Vampires they eternally need blood to survive and even more to power their dark powers.

Vampires are arranged into clans, 13 to be exact all created by Ancient founders. These clans are divided into three groups. The first is the Camarilla, most obsessed with secrecy and having 7 of the Vampire clans. The next is the Sabbat, a group of Vampires who believe they should rule humanity and arch-Rivals of the Camarilla. They only consist of two clans but their are other clan members who have decided to join. Finally their are 4 Independent clans who try to avoid keeping any alligence to anyone.

The Rules of this game are simple as well. All a person needs is a copy of the sheets, a pencil and maybe ten 10-sided dice. The rule system is rather simple and the game doesn't revolve around pointless hours of combat but story purposes. This adds more enjoyment to the game, if your interested in weaving a story.

The Vampire game is a good introduction to White-Wolf RPG's and it is not only an interesting play, it is an interesting read as well. I have bought many books just to read them, and even if you don't have a group, their is a huge online community.


About Roleplaying Rather Than Rollplaying   May 6, 2003
7 out of 7 found this review helpful

I picked up this book after playing the Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption computer game (which I liked well enough) just to see what the pen and paper game was like... Now I'm pretty much hooked on the gameline. The Storyteller system is appealing for its simplicity and its current incarnation is relatively familiar since I am also into Werewolf: The Apocalypse and had most of fundamental first edition WTA sourcebooks. I've never owned any of the first / second / whatever edition VTM sourcebooks, but from what I hear from long-time Storytellers and players, VTM revised edition is a major (or perhaps just much-needed) improvement. (I *have* seen a list of Abilities in VTM's earlier edition sourcebooks and some of Abilities were so redundant, obscure or arbitrary that they made me blush. I have also seen The Kindred's Most Wanted (an earlier edition VTM supplement) and, frankly, the particulars of most of the characters on the Red List made me really sad. I hope - no, pray (ha ha) - that there are no major appearances of Ferox, the renegade gargoyle with True Faith 9, in VTM canon.)

On the side, this book is rather Camarilla-centric, but that's what the Sabbat guide is for, and this *is* a game about masquerading as vampires, something the Sabbat would never admit to actually practicing (albeit to a lesser degree). It just seems like a huge jump from this book to the Guide to the Sabbat that I suspect I probably should've gotten the Camarilla guide (or even the Anarch guide) before the Sabbat guide. Certain clans (i.e., Assamite, Setite, Gangrel, Malkavian, Ravnos, Toreador) are just barely touched upon in this book that you only see a few (very narrow) sides to them, but that's due to the more major clan events happening after this book was written, and can't be helped. Of what the writers did manage to stuff in this book, they did a pretty good job. (However, if you want advanced Disciplines (ranks 6-9), you might want to get the Camarilla guide and the Sabbat guide.)

Anyway, VTM is great, and to have more than an inkling of what it's like, it's helpful to own this book. The other VTM books I've found extremely helpful (other than the Camarilla guide and the Sabbat guide) are just about every one of the revised edition clanbooks (although a person who's only interested in one clan only really needs one clanbook, certain clanbooks are actually what got me interested in those clans I previously disregarded or disliked. Of course, Storytellers should also have the Storyteller's Handbook).