TPT #156: Vampire The Masquerade 5th Edition Review. They discuss the latest advancements to the World of Darkness storyline, the revamped mechanics by lead designer Kenneth Hite, and weigh in on White Wolf’s trademark edginess in this extra-long episode. Both the Dynasty Unwarranted campaign and the Character Creation Forge take the week off but will return next episode.
Vampire: The Masquerade is the original and ultimate roleplaying game of personal and political horror. You are a vampire, struggling for survival, supremacy, and your own fading humanity—afraid of what you are capable of, and fearful of the inhuman conspiracies that surround you.As a vampire you suffer the pangs of the Hunger, the relentless and terrible thirst for human Vampire: The Masquerade is the original and ultimate roleplaying game of personal and political horror. You are a vampire, struggling for survival, supremacy, and your own fading humanity—afraid of what you are capable of, and fearful of the inhuman conspiracies that surround you.As a vampire you suffer the pangs of the Hunger, the relentless and terrible thirst for human blood.
If you refuse to deal with it, it will overcome your mind and drive you to terrible acts to slake it. You walk this razor's edge every night.Dark designs, bitter enemies, and strange allies await you in this World of Darkness.The classic that changed roleplaying games forever returns! This fifth edition features a streamlined and modern rules design, beautiful new full-color art, and a rich story experience for players.
Powered by the innovative Hunger cycle, the game also includes rules for creating system supported character coteries, Loresheets to directly involve players with their favorite parts of the setting and The Memoriam, a new way to bring the character's detailed backgrounds and expand on them in-session.V5 is a return to Vampire's original vision, moving boldly into the 21st century. While the rules have been redesigned, this new edition honors the deep story of the original, advancing the metaplot from where it left off and detailing exactly what has happened in the world of the Kindred up until tonight. The terror of the Second Inquisition, the conspiracies behind the Gehenna War, and the rekindling of the War of Ages: these are the building blocks of the modern V5 chronicle. VAMPIRE: THE MASQUERADE 5TH EDITION is a book I never expected to see.
I was a huge fan of Vampire: The Masquerade in the nineties. I was about as big a Gothic Punk as a tabletop roleplaying gamer could be in the South with no Goths around him, no black clothing in his wardrobe, and a restrictive Catholic high school. I loved pretending to be 8th generation Elder Lord Sirrius of the Ventrue and Erasmus Von Prague the Tremere Knight.
It was a game inspiredVAMPIRE: THE MASQUERADE 5TH EDITION is a book I never expected to see. I was a huge fan of Vampire: The Masquerade in the nineties. I was about as big a Gothic Punk as a tabletop roleplaying gamer could be in the South with no Goths around him, no black clothing in his wardrobe, and a restrictive Catholic high school. I loved pretending to be 8th generation Elder Lord Sirrius of the Ventrue and Erasmus Von Prague the Tremere Knight. It was a game inspired by INTERVIEW WITH A VAMPIRE, LOST BOYS, and BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA.
I traveled from the seedy streets of Chicago to Prague during the Dark Ages to the end of the world before the line ended in 2004.Its difficult to overstate just how influential Vampire: The Masquerade was in a post-Twilight era when vampires have so much shade thrown on them. Ironically, it's in part because of the tabletop roleplaying game that the undead became so over-saturated. BLADE, TRUE BLOOD, UNDERWORLD, and other works all drew from the lore of the game. There was a badly made Aaron Spelling TV series that I still have a fondness for and a couple of awesome video games. It was an influence on my STRAIGHT OUTTA FANGTON and I WAS A TEENAGE WEREDEER books and I can name many other urban fantasy authors who had some experience with the game.The premise of the game is extremely simple: you are a vampire in the modern world. At some point in the last fifty years, your character was a normal human being transformed into one of the undead.
You are part of an undead society that exists behind the scenes and must maintain a constant vigilance so humans cannot find out about your existence. This is the titular Masquerade. Nightly unlife is a constant struggle against the vampire nobility, vampire hunters, werewolves, and your dwindling humanity. If you give into the killing urge too often, you'll eventually degenerate into a mindless beast that has to be put down.The 5th Edition of the game opens up with thirty pages of in-universe fiction that is designed to appeal to the now 30 and 40 year old fans of the game who played it in high school. The opening story is a letter from Mina Harker, a real person in the setting, who is addressing one of her descendants she's Embraced (turned into a vampire) out of loneliness. Other fiction talks about how the Camarilla (vampire society) has fallen and a Second Inquisition of ABC agencies globally has started a massive purge of the undead.
Yes, the Masquerade is partially broken and now vampires have to fear drone strikes as well as thermal-vision equipped Special Forces.The idea of the government knowing about the undead is probably the only way you could believably do the Masquerade in the 21st century. In an age of cellphone cameras, cloud servers, instant global communication, and satellite networks-it's slightly more believable the intelligence communities want to avoid a global panic from the revelation the supernatural is real.
I also like how the gameline says humanity is kicking the collective asses of vampiredom. Setting juggernauts like the Tremere Inner Council and Camarilla's leadership are wiped out to remind people why the Masquerade is so important.Previous editions were criticized for overly relying on their metaplot. So much so that the 20th anniversary edition of Vampire: The Masquerade (4th Edition by my count) actively removed all references to it. However, while the metaplot was overdone, I think it's one of the chief reasons to upgrade to a new edition. Seeing how old favorites and characters you had an attachment to growing up is something worthwhile. I've already heard they have plans for a 5th Edition of Chicago by Night and I'd enjoy discovering what the characters within have been up to for twenty years.Gameplay-wise, the biggest change is the focus of the game is shifted.
Previous editions were a power fantasy where the majority of focus was on your disciplines. Many characters were built like Connor Macleod with a trench coat, a katana hidden underneath it, and a bunch of awesome superpowers. Now, the game greatly broadens the focus on hunger and feeding.
Many pages are spent discussing how a vampire feeds, what they feed on, and how they feel about who (or what) they eat. There's also a change to Humanity in order to make what a character cares about and how they stay sane more varied.Fans of all thirteen clans may be disappointed to discover the book contains descriptions of only the original seven clans, Caitiff, and Thin Bloods.
There's some light revisions to them like the fact the Gangrel's flaws are no longer as severe and the Malkavian's insanity is not related to any 'real' mental illness (as they had previously been depicted as tricksters and doomsaying prophets-not really things you want to associate with the mentally ill). We also get updates to Disciplines (vampire powers), which are much more versatile. Perhaps the best rules revision is that its much harder to feed on animal blood or blood bags if you're a vampire of power. Vampires also become more powerful as they age in terms of Blood Potency.Fans of the Sabbat, Followers of Set, Giovanni, Ravnos (they exist, or so I hear!), and Assamites will wonder why they didn't do all thirteen clans. Also, why there was no focus on the Paths of Enlightenment that serve as alternatives to Humanity. While I imagine part of this is a space issue, I think it's actually a thematic issue.
The above clans are the most inhuman of Kindred and they're really beating the drum of V:TM as a game about coping with the horror of one's condition. Besides, they have to get you to buy the supplements somehow. That's good business and I'm not just saying that because I leave cliffhangers in my books for the exact same reason (bwhahahaha!).The book has beautiful artwork spread throughout, using photos and touch-ups to give impressions of how the gameworld looks. Some of the artwork isn't great, like the Nosferatu look like poor college students and runaways than horrifying monsters in their Clan write-up, but most of it is incredible.
The game is clearly intended for an older, more mature audience. This is a good thing as we finally get straight answers on everything from whether Kindred can have sex (High Humanity vampires can) to how to make a Herd of mortals.The general tone of the book is dark and edgy in a deliberately overdone style that implies Kindred are selfish monstrous creatures at every turn. One of my favorite pieces of art is a Ventrue debutante with her slave sitting underneath her as she wears a slit dress while posing over the city.
Beside her, she has a little speech about how being rich made her life a party but being undead has made the world her bitch. There's some questionable choices but the general sense is the game is trying to be politically aware in a time when punk is feeling out of fashion but never so relevant. Whereas the original books were Gothic Punk written for sixteen-year-olds, this feels more like it was written for people who watch HBO and FX.There's some bad decisions in the book, I think.
For one, there's a short story about how the Sabbat tried to claim credit for 9/11 despite having nothing to do with it. It's an attempt to refute the 'vampires behind everything' of previous editions but I don't think anyone really needed a story about in the first place.
I'm also not sure how Thin Bloods, a bunch of almost human vampires in the modern age, ended up making their own path of alchemy. The absence of a opening adventure like Gencon's Rusted Veins was a mistake, IMHO, as that was incredible. I also think making rules about how nice a vampire has to be to have sex is a bad decision.Gameplay mechanics-wise, I think 5th Edition suffers a bit in design. The Predator types, basically how and what you feed on, are a major part of the new game. However, they aren't very well described and sometimes the mechanics doesn't make sense for what you're eating. For example, one kind of vampire only feeds from other vampires but it doesn't explain how you do that-especially with the Blood Bond being a thing.
Some players will also object to the changes to favored clans like the Tremere who have gone from the Clan which everyone is Blood Bonded in to the Clan which can't do Blood Bonds period. The absence of Paths and Sabbat clans feels wrong, especially as they have a role as both antagonists as well as players. Given the Lasombra have supposedly joined the Camarilla, their presence is sorely missed.Still, I think the game is fantastic. Vampire's 20th Anniversary Edition was great but it didn't feel sufficiently distinct from Revised.
Every game is going to carry a heavy bias on 'how you should play it.' I think this manages to improve on Vampire: The Requiem, which also wanted to bring gamers into deeply personal horror stories but I feel failed in the fact it didn't provide a strong enough direction on how to do that. 5th Edition feels like it not only knows what it wants but is capable of showing gamers how to do it.9.5/10. The game's target is not the people who play or played Vampire the Masquerade, 20th or earlier, but people who don't play Vampire the Masquerade, instead. Or for people who like Zack Znyder's over-production and pseudo-substance, Marvel movies' shiny colors and teenage jokes. This game is not mature, this game is for younger millennials who (like to?) feel offended by everything and anything. The book even contains an apology for it's delicate content, something a mature audience would not need.
The game's target is not the people who play or played Vampire the Masquerade, 20th or earlier, but people who don't play Vampire the Masquerade, instead. Or for people who like Zack Znyder's over-production and pseudo-substance, Marvel movies' shiny colors and teenage jokes. This game is not mature, this game is for younger millennials who (like to?) feel offended by everything and anything. The book even contains an apology for it's delicate content, something a mature audience would not need.
When it comes to this edition of Vampire, I had a number of psychological shifts. When it was announced, also involving some of the original designers, I was excited.
When I first laid eyes on it, I was disappointed and somewhat worried. The one point I will not argue, is that it has stupendously poor art direction, opting for photo collages and montages instead of drawn art (to an extent of 90%).When I finally got my hands on it and started reading it, I got a really bad feeling from the get go When it comes to this edition of Vampire, I had a number of psychological shifts. When it was announced, also involving some of the original designers, I was excited. When I first laid eyes on it, I was disappointed and somewhat worried.
The one point I will not argue, is that it has stupendously poor art direction, opting for photo collages and montages instead of drawn art (to an extent of 90%).When I finally got my hands on it and started reading it, I got a really bad feeling from the get go, but I did not have the time to study it thoroughly, so I discussed with others, read online reviews etc. One thing started emerging as a pattern: this was Vampire for hipsters. Also, it was a Vampire game that wanted to please everyone and not offend anyone in this all-pervasive political correct trend; at the same time, it wanted to seem and sound 'more adult and edgy'. I am sorry, you cannot have both.At the end of the day, however, only reading the whole damn thing could justify any judgment.
Or rather, playing it. Hence, the 2 stars instead of 1, since I have not played it yet and I hold on to some vague hope that I might be somewhat wrong.I cannot and will not try to review it cover to cover, since I have found such reviews boring myself. Rather, I will tell you what I find wrong with it.1st and Foremost: Lazy, LAZY writing, whereby the Elders are gone because something (The Beckoning, I mean, how original) calls them away to fight some unknown war in the Middle East.
Not to mention it forgets or retcons its own history. For instance, there is an 'immersion piece' that is a letter from Mina Harker to a Fledgling, where she talks about Dracula. Mina comes across as quite empathetic and even talks about her sire mildly, when in fact Dracula was a terrible Tzimisce Elder and therefore, she would have been of 7th Generation, therefore, per the new rules, akin to a maddened monster that in any case would have succumbed to the Beckoning. This is just an easy example. Other than that, while the 2nd Inquisition is an interesting idea, what caused it it laughable.2nd: Only Camarilla clans, with the Tremere being basically nerfed.
To put it simply, half the options of the previous vanilla Vampire the Masquerade. If they plan on a later book, it is shameless milking. If not, they just trashed half the fun. Oh, and the Sabbat is basically destroyed because of, guess what, The Beckoning.3rd: Disciplines.
Forget the interesting effects of yore. They just copied the powers from Vampire: Bloodlines (right down to the symbols) and added Thin-blooded Alchemy.
Whoop.4th: Hunger, feeding, frenzy. You basically risk frenzy if you do anything interesting that goes beyond human abilities. Also, now Blood has Resonance and gives different benefits if you feed from people of different psychologies, etc. In short, if you follow the rules, you are forced to micromanage EVERYTHING.5th: More micromanaging. The book has the standard hefty size of White Wolf tradition, but with so many things missing, you would wonder what's in there. Well, more micromanagement, from pointlessly complex Discipline allocation (oh, did I mention, there is no more Dementation - it is now half-assed as a Discipline Combination Effect), to Chronicle Tenets (the things that will cause you to lose Humanity, pre-agreed, on a Chronicle to Chronicle basis), to Relationship Diagrams, Coterie Styles blah-blah-blah. Basically, they created micromanagement for roleplaying.
The example given is that, for instance, you could lose Humanity for healing yourself, because, you know, that's not something humans do. Why even play this game?There is more, but to me, that is enough. I can only imagine a very skilled Storyteller making use of this mess and creating an interesting story, but here is the thing: a skilled Storyteller does not need all this mess. As I read in another review, this game is made for those who did NOT (and would not) play Vampire before.This sums it up better than all my ranting.For extra annoyance points: ugliness is not allowed.
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All the Vampires shown are basically models and in the rare instance of actual artwork, they ALL look like the dress-up doll style used in the old Zynga Vampire Wars game - or put simply, clothes-designer sketches. Pros:The first half of the book is devoted mainly to introducing the reader to the world and the clans. The second half holds most of the rules and systems you'll need to play.
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This is a massive improvement, imo. From the very beginning, the sourcebooks for VtM (as well as other WoD) have been arranged counterintuitively. You had to make super heavy use of the index to find anything with suggestions for rules of play scattered every which way. It still leaves something to be desired, imo, but th Pros:The first half of the book is devoted mainly to introducing the reader to the world and the clans. The second half holds most of the rules and systems you'll need to play. This is a massive improvement, imo.
From the very beginning, the sourcebooks for VtM (as well as other WoD) have been arranged counterintuitively. You had to make super heavy use of the index to find anything with suggestions for rules of play scattered every which way. It still leaves something to be desired, imo, but this is much better. Kudos for the improvement.Along with that, there's a dedicated table of contents, y'all. Has White Wolf ever made anything like that? Even if I find the 20th Anniversary Edition superior in gameplay, that table of contents made me giddy.
You can find things with such ease now instead of throwing your hands in the air and saying 'Fuck it, we'll do this live. Who gives a shit?' I think it streamlined things to the game's benefit like certain clans and disciplines, for instance. As an example, I enjoyed dementation as a discipline but it was never completely separate from dominate.
I like the idea of it being a mutation (?) of dominate available only to Malkavians.I've always enjoyed the different clans and their weaknesses and archetypes but a lot of them felt not so distinct or overpowered or underpowered in comparison to other clans. I really feel like they made the playing field much more even, while getting rid of some of the more problematic aspects of the clans. Like the Ravnos, for instance. I enjoyed the clan with heavy editing and detouring from the canon.
The fact that they are now a foot note is bittersweet but also much appreciated.It's also very friendly to new players who might not be used to the heavy roleplaying of VtM in comparison to other tabletop games. (aka focusing more on character development as a means of driving the story than battles and skill progression). The writers went more in depth with character concepts that a new player can easily bounce ideas off of.I don't necessarily like the inclusion as an actual game mechanic, but the idea of relationship maps, touchstones, predator types, and coterie types are actually really conducive to helping players who might not be used to the genre or type of game.Tangential to that, I actually really liked the inclusion of convictions. Belief tenants that you choose for your character during creation. I think using that as opposed to the humanity chart is actually a far better way to track a character's, well, humanity and how close they have come to the beast.I also liked that they've mostly ignored the conclusion of gehenna. An interesting plot point, maybe, and certainly something that the original VtM was building up to.
But we already had a sourcebook for gehenna, we don't need more. I'm not quite sure if this is a less fatal interpretation of the end times or a prelude to it, or just a reimagining/parallel universe. I don't really care, honestly. It's good for a set piece of VtM in present time.Cons:The biggest and most fatal con to this corebook that I can think of is the actual gameplay. I can't imagine actually running this or attempting to play it. The best thing about VtM, for me, was how intuitive so many of the gameplay mechanics were.
This new edition has added a lot and it is a cluster fuck, imo.Though I liked the inclusion of relationship maps, I find it completely unnecessary for players to do have to make them. Yes, definitely, depending on how many NPCs they've got going, I would definitely recommend something of the sort, but as it stands for PCs.
Touchstones are also super sus to me, in the same line of thought. Same with lining out a PCs ambitions and desires as a mechanic or blood potency or humors. It's a helluva lot to go into in an hour long session. Can't forget humanity 'stains' as well. Maybe I'm just dumb, but I'm having a hard time understanding how that works.
And that's totally ignoring the advance systems, which I flipped through with glazed eyes.So much of this stuff seems so unnecessary and/or in the realm of actual roleplay. I would hesitate to enforce any of these rules. While I might think it's a good idea to have players think of what sort of goals their character might have, I wouldn't necessarily make it a game mechanic. Allowing the PCs to grow, and that means outgrow their character concepts, has always been a very important and fun part of VtM. I think some of these systems really lend themselves to rigid roles and unfun play.Shit, I think humanity is pretty unbalanced and just, I'll be real here, not great in this edition.
The stains on humanity, while an interesting idea, just don't seem to mesh well with me. Take into consideration a PCs tenants, right? Why would blood bonding a mortal be a stain on their humanity if that is not a core of their morality?Did I mention I disliked touchstones? I really dislike that a PC's humanity and playability can be heavily damaged by a mortal character and that as a mechanic, you're supposed to have a touchstone.
It ignores PCs whose backgrounds couldn't and probably shouldn't have a touchstone like that in the first place. Once again, it's making a portion of actual, honest to god roleplay in to a game mechanic which is just silly.Conclusion:I find it decent and in some ways an improvement, at least from the writers. But I think I'd much rather continue with the 20th Anniversary Edition instead. I'm writing this review as someone who is not very familiar with the other versions of Vampire and has not had much opportunity to play this revision. I only played in two short games hosted by a local tabletop store, and even though the games were advertised as for 'beginners,' there was clearly one dude at the table who knew way more than everyone else and wanted to ensure that the story was all about his very cool, edgy and unpredictable vampire cyberhacker. Yeah, that was kind of a shite int I'm writing this review as someone who is not very familiar with the other versions of Vampire and has not had much opportunity to play this revision. I only played in two short games hosted by a local tabletop store, and even though the games were advertised as for 'beginners,' there was clearly one dude at the table who knew way more than everyone else and wanted to ensure that the story was all about his very cool, edgy and unpredictable vampire cyberhacker.
Yeah, that was kind of a shite introduction to this game, but I was intrigued enough to purchase this hefty rulebook and plow through it cover-to-cover - the first non-Dungeons and Dragons tabletop tome I've done so for.There's a lot of fascinating lore in here that is initially assaulting to newcomers but pretty easy to process after a few pages. Stuff about the Second Inquisition and Gehenna makes the mind bubble with possibilities, and I found the descriptions of all the clans (Malkavian and Nosferatu are the most compelling to me personally) to be useful. Hidden amomgst these lore bits is some possibly cringe stuff that has earned this edition of the game a lot of blowback online, such as a sentence about how the Brujah court both the alt-right and people obsessed about social justice and how vampires tried to take credit for 9/11. Your mileage may vary, but I didn't find the stuff in here to be as bad as the internet made me believe - though I dunno if I'd be able to say the same about the Camarilla and Anarch sourcebooks, which are now discontinued because of the hubbub they created. (Worth Googling if you're interested; it's kind of hard to describe all the commotion within the span of a Goodreads review.)Lore aside, the actual game mechanics seem solid though character creation isn't laid out all too well.
I kept finding myself flipping back and forth between sections, and frequently wished that the book had a nice TABLE OF CONTENTS to make the search easier. (Maybe the edition I picked up is an early one, since I didn't get a title page either. I dunno.)Once again, all of this is from the perspective of a Vampire noob, and maybe if I was a massive fan of older editions I might find this one lacking.
For someone whose tabletop experience is primarily composed of fantasy stuff, this served its purpose as a fine introduction into a darker, blood-spattered world - one that I dunno I'll ever run actual games for, but I certainly would be interested in playing in.as long as the Storyteller is competent and there isn't some overexcited dude trying to make his bloodlusting hacker the coolest cat at the table. You have to judge this book from two angelsa Lore BookA Source-book/Rules bookAs a lore book it isn't bad but the awful artwork make it incredibly hard to immerse yourself in the world as a lot of it is unflattering photography and concept art work depicts vampires wearing clothing that only a 14 year old would find cool. Considering that many vampires are decades or hundreds of years old the depiction of attire here is utterly unfathomable, modern and off putting. The photography is similarly u You have to judge this book from two angelsa Lore BookA Source-book/Rules bookAs a lore book it isn't bad but the awful artwork make it incredibly hard to immerse yourself in the world as a lot of it is unflattering photography and concept art work depicts vampires wearing clothing that only a 14 year old would find cool. Considering that many vampires are decades or hundreds of years old the depiction of attire here is utterly unfathomable, modern and off putting. The photography is similarly uninspired and further assists the editor in trying to make you stop reading the book.The tone itself is fine, mostly, not as good as I was hoping as I would have liked but it still manages to bring new players in in a manner that gives them a fairly good idea of the world.
Still, I personally found that if I had not played the outstanding Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines video game and dabbled in older versions I would not have made it through the lore sections as I found some of the content legitimately cringe-worthy.There is also some stuff about playing nice with other players; so that nobody takes offence to anything in the game. Which comes across as really condescending and for lack of a better term 'Politically correct.' It's disappointing as Vampire the Masquerade has always been a mature setting and this just feels out of place.Rules-wise the game isn't bad so far but I must confess I have only played a couple of games! I honestly feel I need to play more in order to give it its due but so far I have found it to be quite fun, more streamlined. I would say and the new take on retaining your humanity is fun and I and those I play with have not felt overwhelmed in the way one does when playing a Fantasy Flight game system. I will update this section of my review when I have a little more:). Those of you who have read the original V:tM books may take my review with a grain of salt - I haven't read much of them, nor did I play that version much so I cannot compare the two.
That being said.This is a gorgeous tome (super heavy, glossy pages). The artwork is spectacular.
I appreciate the time taken for the aesthetics.I wish the information were laid out a bit better, but the inclusion of a searchable PDF makes that a moot point.I really liked the inclusion of story to bring the whole Those of you who have read the original V:tM books may take my review with a grain of salt - I haven't read much of them, nor did I play that version much so I cannot compare the two. That being said.This is a gorgeous tome (super heavy, glossy pages). The artwork is spectacular. I appreciate the time taken for the aesthetics.I wish the information were laid out a bit better, but the inclusion of a searchable PDF makes that a moot point.I really liked the inclusion of story to bring the whole experience up to present day. The Second Inquisition sounds like a fun/stressful story opportunity! The few nice elements (hunger dice mechanic & the disappearance of the Elders) are unfortunately outweighed by some over complication. Indeed, given the ethos of a lack of complication which one could ascribe to 5e, it does feel (more than even other VtM or VtR games/editions) to have taken a certain a la carte design approach; but this sort of picking and choosing approach rather than a definitive 'this is what 5e is' results in a weaker product.It's also a massive assumption, but I felt s The few nice elements (hunger dice mechanic & the disappearance of the Elders) are unfortunately outweighed by some over complication.
Indeed, given the ethos of a lack of complication which one could ascribe to 5e, it does feel (more than even other VtM or VtR games/editions) to have taken a certain a la carte design approach; but this sort of picking and choosing approach rather than a definitive 'this is what 5e is' results in a weaker product.It's also a massive assumption, but I felt some of the system changes wouldn't work without the Beckoning changing the power dynamic in the narrative. Don't know which came first, if at all. Having read an earlier edition of this game (1992), in retrospect I find this book the inferior edition. However that might just be because I enjoyed the earlier atmosphere of the other book more, with it's stark black colouring and somehow darker and shadier world - in this edition, it seems like the Kindred aren't so far beneath the surface any more - I do suppose that's the point of the Second Inquisition.But another problem I realized with this book was that the layout is frequently confusi Having read an earlier edition of this game (1992), in retrospect I find this book the inferior edition. However that might just be because I enjoyed the earlier atmosphere of the other book more, with it's stark black colouring and somehow darker and shadier world - in this edition, it seems like the Kindred aren't so far beneath the surface any more - I do suppose that's the point of the Second Inquisition.But another problem I realized with this book was that the layout is frequently confusing and you have to go back and forwards across the book to find relevant information, which is rather annoying. Some of the photographs also don't really work for me, but there are still some wonderful descriptions and a good update of some of the mythos for a newer, more modern audience. I do think I prefer the older edition, but if you didn't want the hassle of tracking down older copies of Vampire, this seems like it's a reasonable alternative.
Want start a V5 chronicle fast? The V5 Quickstart 'The Monsters' is now available!In a small American town, someone is killing people and taking their blood, which is always a problem for vampires. If it is a human being, it might draw attention to the true predators of the night.If it is Kindred, the Masquerade is in jeopardy. If it is something else.In this quickstart scenario of Vampire: the Masquerade fifth edition, you and a couple of friends will portray inhuman vampires doing their best to stay unliving in a world filled with peril. In this particular instance, they have been tasked to find a killer before the increased police and civilian scrutiny causes trouble for the vampires in the region.Note: No artwork, setting, or other material from the The Monsters or other Vampire: the Masquerade fifth edition products is allowed in the Storytellers Vault community content program. See the for more information.