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View Full Version : VtM an Expansion of Wod?



Sahaar
2010-10-20, 04:34 PM
The unofficial thread. Ask Generic Random RPG quesitons here.

The debut questions are:

1
Is Vampire: The Masquerade an expansion of World of Darkness (Do you need WoD to play it)

2
Is it good?

Knaight
2010-10-20, 09:15 PM
Vampire the Masquerade is part of the World of Darkness books, specifically the New World of Darkness books, but contains everything you need to play it on its own. As for quality, it is well liked. I personally consider it rather inelegant.

Partysan
2010-10-20, 09:18 PM
Re 1: No. V:tM is a game of the Old World of Darkness series and as such a complete game on its own, while Vampire: The Requiem needs the new WoD Core Rulebook to be played.

Re 2: A lot of people (including me) like it. As far as I can say the rules are a bit wonky at times (which they cleaned up for the new WoD), but it is one of the iconic RPGs that had a great influence on RPGs as a whole. The (over time pretty inflated) scenario is a case of YMMV, but it also supports simple escapism play.

Skorj
2010-10-20, 09:20 PM
3. Has anyone played Risus and care to comment on it? On paper it's the best "rules-light" RPG I've yet encountered, but often problems only emerge in play.

EDIT: who ninja'd the thread title. :smallconfused: I sewar this was on-topic a second ago ...

RE-EDIT: A pumpkin-ninja - the sneakiest kind! :smalleek:

Roland St. Jude
2010-10-20, 09:22 PM
Sheriff: The title of this thread has been changed. In Roleplaying, we generally have threads about something specific rather than a "generic" chat thread. It's hard to keep a thread on topic when it doesn't have a topic and discussions tend to get jumbled up.

Aron Times
2010-10-20, 09:24 PM
Masquerade was a nice read, but was deeply flawed as a game. Doesn't stop it from being fun, though. After the fluffy goodness of Masquerade, Requiem feels bland, but the latter has much better mechanics.

Good crunch is hard to come by; good fluff is a dime a dozen. I recommend Requiem if you want to actually play, Masquerade if you like to read.

Lord_Gareth
2010-10-20, 09:28 PM
Note: There are significant counter-arguments to V:tR feeling "bland". I deeply enjoyed V:tM for six years, but ended up abandoning it because I could no longer stand the logical inconsistencies and just plain bad writing that pervaded its fluff.

erikun
2010-10-20, 10:52 PM
There seems to be a bit of confusion, so let me add my response.

Vampire: the Maskquerade is a standalone, single book system. It belongs to the group of systems of the old World of Darkness, including Werewolf: The Apocalypse and Mage: The Ascension. The systems could be used together, but did not need to and were not forced to.

The "new" World of Darkness is the one which requires the WoD sourcebook (http://store.white-wolf.com/World-of-Darkness-Rulebook-P4978.aspx). Vampire: The Requiem is the "new" Vampire game which requires the WoD sourcebook.

As for how well it plays, it is generally considered to have a better background story but worse system. nWoD (the new World of Darkness) is generally more concise and works easier with other nWoD systems. oWoD (the older World of Darkness books) tend not to work as well when combined, and had a exceptionally few overpowering options.

As for the story, oWoD and V:tM had a very in-depth storyline with many characters and plot interactions. This is good if you want a bunch of stuff happening and don't have time to create it all, but it can cause problems if you want to start doing something which doesn't sync with the established storyline. nWoD and Vampire: the Requiem tend to have a much more vague setting. It gives you the freedom to do just about whatever you want as a DM, but the players might feel lost as they go out into the world and discover that these super-powered vampires do nothing but politic in their own isolated cities.

Knaight
2010-10-20, 11:48 PM
3. Has anyone played Risus and care to comment on it? On paper it's the best "rules-light" RPG I've yet encountered, but often problems only emerge in play.

Risus is actually really awesome in play, if you can deal with the level of abstraction. I prefer Wushu, but only slightly.