Vampire nth Ed

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tenbones said:
With a 9mm? This is .45/.308/12-gauge country. :smile: but that's a whole different thread of tribalism. This is TX, son. Fishing for chicken will end badly. But it sounds fun. The guy on the corner from my old house down the road, has a pasture full of Bison... that would be more fun to try. Likely we'd get shot doing it. Not a good look to go on our first Shadowrun to shoot chicken or bison and get killed...
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Alright, if we're fishing for Bison, we'll need a .357 Magnum instead of a 9mm and we'll probably need to use a large head of lettuce as the bait instead of seed corn.

opaopajr said:
"Fishing for Bison" has Ska band name potential. :clown:
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Personally, I'd use the name for a black metal band just to fuck with people.
 
Baulderstone said:
If I were to run Vampire again, which honestly isn't that likely, I'd go with 5th Edition for the hunger dice. Ken Hite is a savvy designer, and it was a great observation of his that blood points worked like a fuel tank where everything was fine until the tank was empty. Having hunger as something that creeps up and becomes increasingly worse makes for more interesting choices in how you use your powers.

I don't really get the urge to want to want make Vampire a game that only works for Trenchcoats and Katanas. If you like T&K, grab the superhero RPG of your choice, make a hero with vampire-themed powers and proficiency with a katana, give them a vulnerability to sunlight, and start playing.

Makes more sense to me than demanding all the horror aspects be removed for a horror game for you.
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Tomb of Dracula with FASERIP sounds like a fun game to me.

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Baulderstone said:
It was originally treated seriously. I remember before Vampire was even released, there was a promotional brochure with information about the game and a short story. The main character was a Malkavian, and the insanity was presented as a genuine curse, not an excuse for hijinx. It wasn't until the clanbook that they ruined it.
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Certainly the wackiness wasn't present in the 1st edition corebook either really. Yep, it was introduced in the Clanbook.

Doc Sammy said:
Now, the Ravnos being tied to ethnic stereotypes was mainly a 2E thing.

In 1E, they were mostly generic vagabonds and hobos (the Gangrel were the ones tied to the Romani people in 1E) while Revised, V20, and both iterations of Dark Ages focused more on their Indian roots.
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The Ravnos weren't in the 1st Edition at all. They weren't even referenced beyond the mention that there were "many other clans". The original game had just seven playable Clans in it, with the Player's Handbook introducing them later. While the Player's Handbook did come out for the 1st Edition, it was quickly reformatted into a hardback 2nd edition because the 2nd edition only came out about a month later. In this sense, really the Ravnos were a 2nd edition Clan. Realistically, they weren't really part of the core game till Vampire Revised included them in the core book along with the others to make up 13 playable Clans.

While the Gangrel did reference a connection with Gypsies (which was redacted over time), the portrayal was basically a romaticised hippie - which is what that Clan represents. This was different to the portrayal used by the Ravnos. The problem here was that the Ravnos was an ethnic stereotype of the real world Romani people - and therefor a slur - of them being thieves and tricksters. In the real world, this stereotype has had a similar effect to Jewish people being stereotyped as moneylenders, and following on both these people have been persecuted with attempted genocide. So the issue with the Gangrel representation of 'gypsies', while clumsy, is not the same degree of insensitivity as the Ravnos.
 
Trippy said:
Certainly the wackiness wasn't present in the 1st edition corebook either really. Yep, it was introduced in the Clanbook.

The Ravnos weren't in the 1st Edition at all. They weren't even referenced beyond the mention that there were "many other clans". The original game had just seven playable Clans in it, with the Player's Handbook introducing them later. While the Player's Handbook did come out for the 1st Edition, it was quickly reformatted into a hardback 2nd edition because the 2nd edition only came out about a month later. In this sense, really the Ravnos were a 2nd edition Clan. Realistically, they weren't really part of the core game till Vampire Revised included them in the core book along with the others to make up 13 playable Clans.

While the Gangrel did reference a connection with Gypsies (which was redacted over time), the portrayal was basically a romaticised hippie - which is what that Clan represents. This was different to the portrayal used by the Ravnos. The problem here was that the Ravnos was an ethnic stereotype of the real world Romani people - and therefor a slur - of them being thieves and tricksters. In the real world, this stereotype has had a similar effect to Jewish people being stereotyped as moneylenders, and following on both these people have been persecuted with attempted genocide. So the issue with the Gangrel representation of 'gypsies', while clumsy, is not the same degree of insensitivity as the Ravnos.
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I've played several Ravnos characters and not a single one of them were Romani stereotypes and none of them were even Romani to begin with. Nor were any of them goofball "Looney Tunes" types either, even if one of them did use Chimerstry to his advantage.

Ravnos aren't like the Kuei-Jin. A non-Romani can become a Ravnos, and even all the "ethnic stereotypes" that the Onyx Path/Personal Horror crowd loves to bitch about were confined to a single edition and it's easy to ignore by invoking Rule Zero. No need to do that Week of Nightmares bullshit and dick over the people who actually like the Ravnos. All the other editions either depicted them as generic transients (1E Player's Guide) or emphasized their ties to Ancient India (V20, Dark Ages)

Checkmate, Goths and Punks.
 
Doc Sammy said:
II've played several Ravnos characters and not a single one of them were Romani stereotypes and none of them were even Romani to begin with. Nor were any of them goofball "Looney Tunes" types either, even if one of them did use Chimerstry to his advantage.
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The very concept of 'gypsie' Clan based trickery and thievery is a negative stereotype and a slur against Romani people.

Do you not get this Sammy?

And no, you're completely wrong again - the 1st Edition Player's Handbook literally describes the Ravnos Clan as the "Romani" Clan, and goes into detail about their supposed links. Their 'nickname' is literally "Gypsies". I've got the book and can quote passages to you if you like?

I really wish you'd stop pretending to know about things you don't know about.
 
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Baulderstone said:
If I were to run Vampire again, which honestly isn't that likely, I'd go with 5th Edition for the hunger dice. Ken Hite is a savvy designer, and it was a great observation of his that blood points worked like a fuel tank where everything was fine until the tank was empty. Having hunger as something that creeps up and becomes increasingly worse makes for more interesting choices in how you use your powers.
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You have given me a ton of spot-on recommendations that have turned out to be gold and I like the work of Ken Hite. That said, could you please explain why 5e is better than "Vampire: The Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition"? Thanks.

Edit: I am poring over the thread for the answer but there's a poor signal to noise ratio.
 
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Trippy said:
The very concept of 'gypsie' Clan based trickery and thievery is a negative stereotype and a slur against Romani people.

Do you not get this Sammy?

And no, you're completely wrong again - the 1st Edition Player's Handbook literally describes the Ravnos Clan as the "Romani" Clan, and goes into detail about their supposed links. I've got the book and can quote passages to you if you like?

I really wish you'd stop pretending to know about things you don't know about.
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I do get this, and quite honestly, I don't give a flying fuck what mistakes were made in past editions. From Dark Ages onward, the Ravnos were no longer the "Romani Stereotype" clan and were now the "Indian Nobility" clan and even then, you can play a Ravnos who's neither Romani nor a stereotype. I know this because I have done it.

The great thing about RPG's is that there's a lot of room for creativity with your characters. One of the best serious characters I ever played was a Japanese-American Ravnos that was a gambler and a street performer.

All I need to redeem the Ravnos is to invoke Rule Zero or go with the version presented in Dark Ages, V20, or the Revised Edition corebook.

But this is edging dangerously to some dangerous territory, so I'm gonna switch to another aspect of the game, the themes.

I'm also going to fix the problem of personal horror too.

I can fix this game and make it better with a black duster, a katana, a winch, a cinder block, winder block, and fifty-thousand winch blocks.

You got cockblock?

What you gonna winch?
 
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Doc Sammy said:
I do get this, and quite honestly, I don't give a flying fuck what mistakes were made in past editions.
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And nobody gives a flying fuck about your opinion of Vampire, Sammy, because you are factually wrong on nearly everything about it.
 
Trippy said:
And nobody gives a flying fuck about your opinion of Vampire, Sammy, because you are factually wrong on nearly everything about it.
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Well, we're both right I suppose and I suppose we can't see eye to eye on the subject, so let us move on and focus on better things, shall we?

Agree to disagree?

Now, I've been drinking a lot tonight and I'm going to head to bed while I can still type coherently. I'll be back tomorrow.
 
Brock Savage said:
You have given me a ton of spot-on recommendations that have turned out to be gold and I like the work of Ken Hite. That said, could you please explain why 5e is better than "Vampire: The Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition"? Thanks.

Edit: I am poring over the thread for the answer but there's a poor signal to noise ratio.
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In classic Vampire, you had a blood pool that you spent to use certain abilities, and as long as you had any points in it at all, you were fine.

It's been awhile since the mechanic is 5th was explained to me, so I may have some details wrong. From what I understand, instead of tracking blood points that you lose, you track hunger ranks that you gain. Each rank of hunger gives you a hunger die. These are d10s that are a different color from your standard d10s. When you roll for an action, each hunger die you have replaces a normal die. So, if you are rolling 5 dice and have 2 hunger, you roll 2 hunger dice and 3 and normal dice. When resolving the action, any hunger dice that come up 1 force you to lose control and act on a vampiric compulsion.

It just seems a little more visceral to me to have rising hunger as the thing being tracked. Just my personal opinion.

Also, let's all take a deep breath and not get too worked about other people's opinions about the game.
 
Baulderstone said:
In classic Vampire, you had a blood pool that you spent to use certain abilities, and as long as you had any points in it at all, you were fine.

It's been awhile since the mechanic is 5th was explained to me, so I may have some details wrong. From what I understand, instead of tracking blood points that you lose, you track hunger ranks that you gain. Each rank of hunger gives you a hunger die. These are d10s that are a different color from your standard d10s. When you roll for an action, each hunger die you have replaces a normal die. So, if you are rolling 5 dice and have 2 hunger, you roll 2 hunger dice and 3 and normal dice. When resolving the action, any hunger dice that come up 1 force you to lose control and act on a vampiric compulsion.

It just seems a little more visceral to me to have rising hunger as the thing being tracked. Just my personal opinion.

Also, let's all take a deep breath and not get too worked about other people's opinions about the game.
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That actually sounds really neat.

I've never been a big Vampire guy (oddly, since I'm stuck in the 90s), but I had always learned toward nWoD (for the more unified mechanics among the various splats)...but that sounds like a cool mechanic (and since 5e is new, there's not a metric ton of books to wade through).
 
I'm just going to say that Hite has been a huge draw for me ever since GURPs Cabal. I think he's one of the most talented and evocative writers in the hobby these days, and his approach to design reminds me a lot of Jeff Grubb.

If I were to run Vampire now, it would most certainly be using 5e's system combined with Vampire: The Dark Age's setting.
 
FeralToaster said:
Walks out from beyond the lone bush
First welcome to the Pub.
second, neat not enough people play 2ed NWoD (or CHroD which ever you prefer) I mostly just skimmed it for the lore and kitbashed what I like into Gurps but I did like how they used the whole Touchstone mechanics. Incidentally as a Requiem player whats your opinion on all the Bloodlines books (chosen, hidden, legendary and ancient)? I realize the question is a bit broad but I been waiting to have a discussion about them for months and this was the first opportunity.
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When they originally came out, I was wholly behind the Bloodline books. I got them all. I'm generally of the mindset "The more options, the better". And a lot of the ideas were really, really solid. Legendary was my least favorite. I think I just never found one in there that personally appealed to me. Chosen had the Baddacelli, which I loved. And Hidden had the Khaibit, which, was my bridge between oWoD to CoD, as they took the Lasombra discipline Obtenebration, and I fancied myself an edgy teenager.

Some bloodlines have been updated for the most recent edition. A lot of them are fan updates, but still incredibly good.

Black Leaf said:
I've read 2e, but I've never seen it in play, so I'd be very interested if you're willing to go into more detail on that. My impressions are:

Can't comment on things like touchstones without seeing how they work in play. I really liked some of the tinkering with things like clan flaws. The God Machine doesn't really click with me as a concept (it's too scifi for my urban horror tastes) but it seems easy enough to leave out.
;)
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I totally see where you are coming from with the G-M stuff. Most of that really didn't come around till second edition. Definitely not everyone's thing. I ran a chronicle around it, and it worked out. In subsequent games, I left it be. Especially in Vampire, I don't feel like it really belongs. It's more of a "Blue Book" story hook, in my opinion.

The clan flaws are awesome. Most bloodlines have a creative twist to their respective flaws as well.

I agree with some things that were said upthread, namely that the games do provide a laundry list of powers and things that can easily be turned into "Supers with Fangs". I'm not a very big fan of that playstyle. I am a very big fan of (again, mentioned upthread), using the society of the respective gameline (In the case of Requiem, the All-Night Society), to squeeze players. Vigilantes with trenchcoats and katanas would not make it terribly far in one of my games.

That's not to say the characters can't be cool and stylish, or really good at violence. All of these things, a Vampire should be.

But they are monsters. And are deluded when they think they are not.

In all, I believe Requiem, and CoD as a whole, really capture a street-level style of play the best. It's simple enough for those in my games who don't like crunch to RP with rolls, and those in my group who do like crunch to tinker with.
 
I started with VtM 1st ed., back when it came out. Over the years I ended up with a large collection of WoD stuff, including most of the lines and most of the editions of them. It got to be harder to find players or GMs after the main WoD popularity period, though, so I have read through more of the editions of the various lines than I have read. I did get an opportunity to play in a convention game of 5e, though.

When it comes to the base mechanics, I could use any edition, since I just house rule anything I don't like (or mix-and-match things from various editions). I like the old blood points system, but could use the newer hunger ranks one without much of an issue. Having read 5e and played a session of it, I don't see any compelling reason to switch to it, though, at least in the types of Vampire game I like to run (or liked to run - haven't done it in a long time).

I have been re-reading a lot of my old WoD books recently, primarily because I like the worldbuilding and find them entertaining. I have found that I still have a very strong preference for the original 1e and 2e setting and general feel. I always ignored the big metaplot aspects of it. My interest was more in the clans and overall world of the game. Those things changed a lot over the years, generally (for my tastes) for the worse. It seemed to me that later editions - particularly when CoD came out - were a lot less gritty and horrific. I always ran my games as very mature horror things, rather than the "vampire superheroes" type of feel, so the less extreme the horror, the less interested I was in the new material.

If I ever run another game of Vampire, chances are it would be with 1st and 2nd edition rules, tweaked a bit here an there.
 
Doc Sammy said:
Well, we're both right I suppose and I suppose we can't see eye to eye on the subject, so let us move on and focus on better things, shall we?

Agree to disagree?

Now, I've been drinking a lot tonight and I'm going to head to bed while I can still type coherently. I'll be back tomorrow.
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I can agree to disagree about personal tastes. I can’t however agree to disagree about things said that are factually untrue - and this is the problem here.
 
Baulderstone said:
In classic Vampire, you had a blood pool that you spent to use certain abilities, and as long as you had any points in it at all, you were fine.

It's been awhile since the mechanic is 5th was explained to me, so I may have some details wrong. From what I understand, instead of tracking blood points that you lose, you track hunger ranks that you gain. Each rank of hunger gives you a hunger die. These are d10s that are a different color from your standard d10s. When you roll for an action, each hunger die you have replaces a normal die. So, if you are rolling 5 dice and have 2 hunger, you roll 2 hunger dice and 3 and normal dice. When resolving the action, any hunger dice that come up 1 force you to lose control and act on a vampiric compulsion.

It just seems a little more visceral to me to have rising hunger as the thing being tracked. Just my personal opinion.

Also, let's all take a deep breath and not get too worked about other people's opinions about the game.
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Mostly correct, although you have to roll no successes before the Hunger dice have to be counted for a ‘Bestial failure’ (botch). However, if you do succeed and count Hunger dice as part of that you can also get a ‘Messy critical’ where you succeed spectacularly but at a cost of evoking the Beast. That is, your vampiric nature comes to the fore.
 
Voros said:
Tomb of Dracula with FASERIP sounds like a fun game to me.
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Fun sidenote - I actually put the Camarilla into my FASERIP game. The group naturally expected any vampire-stuff that would come up would be the Marvel canon (which I used to - I just nestled the Camailla in there are a vampiric secret society, with all the Clans etc.)

No one was expecting the Ventrue with AM(50) Mind control and Suggestion. Or the Toreadors with Emotion control... All those Psyche-checks are a biiiiitch!

FASERIP could do Vampire *very* well.
 
DarknessoftheEndless said:
When they originally came out, I was wholly behind the Bloodline books. I got them all. I'm generally of the mindset "The more options, the better". And a lot of the ideas were really, really solid. Legendary was my least favorite. I think I just never found one in there that personally appealed to me. Chosen had the Baddacelli, which I loved. And Hidden had the Khaibit, which, was my bridge between oWoD to CoD, as they took the Lasombra discipline Obtenebration, and I fancied myself an edgy teenager.

Some bloodlines have been updated for the most recent edition. A lot of them are fan updates, but still incredibly good.
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cool the Baddacelli were great citywide threat to slowly creep up on the players if they ignored the Underground sections of the city. Khaibit was Lasombra's Obtenebration coupled with a Setite origin story if I recall rightly, which was cool. Legendary from a Gurps perspective was a roughly fifty fifty split between fun monsters to play with a little tweaking and some that just struggled. That being said I would argue that the bloodline The Carnival was just as much a citywide threat/ game changer. A nomadic bloodline whose discipline can transform themselves into Vozhd and they don't have strong ties to any particular covenant? Chronicle goes from a hot bidding war between the covenants to gain the bloodline's favor to action/survival horror as the players try to stay out of the path of destruction, in a heartbeat. Good times...
 
Brock Savage said:
You have given me a ton of spot-on recommendations that have turned out to be gold and I like the work of Ken Hite. That said, could you please explain why 5e is better than "Vampire: The Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition"? Thanks.

Edit: I am poring over the thread for the answer but there's a poor signal to noise ratio.
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Apologies if I over explain something, not sure of how much you've used vampire.

Vitae is essentially what vampires "process" blood into, a thick black magical substance in their veins that can be used for various supernatural powers.

V20:
In V20 it is essentially a set of magic power points or a fuel tank. You use it to wake every morning, heal, pump up stats and to cast some powers. A typical young Vampire has about 10-12 points of Vitae. If you are low (<4 points) it makes it harder to resist your character frenzying/going feral in certain situations, like the taste of blood. Now it should be said most powers, outside of the very overt, require only 0-1 points of Vitae. The powers you'd use most often such as mentally dominating mortals, running fast, pumping up muscles, clairvoyance, etc cost nothing. In my experience this means that only really combat can drain you, but in the default setting of the book that's supposed to be quite rare among Vampires and fighting mortals is either trivial or, if they are heavily armed, dumb. So to be honest this isn't really a pressure in my experience.

The rolling system in V20 (for comparison purposes) is as follows:
  1. Attribute + Skill determines dice pool of d10s
  2. Difficulty threshold set by GM, i.e. for an average task every dice having 6+ might be a success. For harder tasks 8+.
  3. Subtract any 1s from that success total
  4. How many successes you get determines the effect, i.e. how well you did it. For powers this often determines how strong their manifestation is or how long they last.
The more powerful you get, you basically have more and more blood to spend.

V5:
The basic rolling system in V5 is:
  1. Attribute + Skill determines dice pool of d10s
  2. 6+ on a dice is a success
  3. GM determined difficulty is reflected in the number of extra dice they might grant or remove from your pool or how many successes you need, not the success threshold of a dice
  4. The general guideline is the GM alters the dice pool if the character is affected in some way (e.g. drugged, injured) but changes the number of successes needed depending on external circumstances, e.g. is it raining.
  5. Any pair of 10s count as four successes and make the roll count as a critical success
What happens if you are hungry is that some of these dice are replaced by hunger dice. In V5 everybody has 5 points of Vitae only. This is measured in terms of "Hunger" which is the number of dice you replace in a roll with special hunger dice. 10s or 1s on these dice make the result messier or more bestial, for a critical success or failure respectively. An important point is that you always have 1 Hunger, unless you drink a human to death which is a very dangerous thing to do (obvious to hunters, banned by vampire society, etc). As you get more powerful your lowest hunger threshold without killing gets higher.

So if you were trying to intimidate a guard, a regular success means you did so in a mundane manner. A messy critical though will mean you punched in the wall with supernatural strength, flung him into the wall or if you were trying to kill him you ripped out his spine rather than just silently doing so. For a failure it will mean you become deeply irrational in some way. The book lists a good few examples, but here it might be cracking his neck and drinking him dry or feeling the need to kill other guards for his "affront"*.

If you were checking a crime scene a messy critical would mean you found a clue but clearly shredded the place up finding it.

If you were using a mental control power on a cop, maybe you exert too much psychic force and blow the street lights and so on.

For most powers you make a check to see if your hunger goes up after using them. Consider that when you basically always have one Hunger dice, additional hunger dice from power use can quickly head up to the total of 5.

Overall this means most rolls carry the threat of animalistic rage or recklessness ("The Beast" being the in setting name). One is wary to call on supernatural abilities or attempt actions that are too risky since they risk rousing the beast**

* If you feel this is removing too much control from the player, there are other options given in the core

** The game has the typical assumption that you don't commonly roll, i.e. somebody trained in mechanics doesn't roll to do a routine repair on a car

EDIT: See the comment below by Trippy where even uncertain situations don't need a roll, it's only needed if you want to push yourself on risking doing well.
 
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Good summary above. To elaborate on the last point, V5 has a fully integrated system of diceless play which is a development from previous editions. Why this is important regarding Hunger dice is that you don't always have to risk rolling a dicepool in order to act. If you have a dicepool of 6, say, you can always opt to carry out an action worth half - 3 successes (which would be defined in each skill's description). If you want to push yourself, roll dice but with an increasing risk depending on your level of Hunger.
 
Trippy said:
Good summary above. To elaborate on the last point, V5 has a fully integrated system of diceless play which is a development from previous editions. Why this is important regarding Hunger dice is that you don't always have to risk rolling a dicepool in order to act. If you have a dicepool of 6, say, you can always opt to carry out an action worth half - 3 successes (which would be defined in each skill's description). If you want to push yourself, roll dice but with an increasing risk depending on your level of Hunger.
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Hmm? Doesn't that in fact mean that it doesn't have a fully integrated system of diceless play, if Hunger never matters when you play dicelessly? It sounds like if you play the game dicelessly, you miss out on what is otherwise a fairly central premise of the game.
 
Baeraad said:
Hmm? Doesn't that in fact mean that it doesn't have a fully integrated system of diceless play, if Hunger never matters when you play dicelessly? It sounds like if you play the game dicelessly, you miss out on what is otherwise a fairly central premise of the game.
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Playing dicelessly always would correspond to being very cautious and controlled, not really using supernatural powers (including the default ones of accelerated healing and attribute augmentation) and limiting your ability to succeed to a great degree by never pushing yourself. Sort of living as close to a human as possible, which corresponds in setting to what you'd need to remain in control of the Beast.
 
Séadna said:
Playing dicelessly always would correspond to being very cautious and controlled, not really using supernatural powers (including the default ones of accelerated healing and attribute augmentation) and limiting your ability to succeed to a great degree by never pushing yourself. Sort of living as close to a human as possible, which corresponds in setting to what you'd need to remain in control of the Beast.
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I see. How disappointing.

I suppose it might still be possible to yank out the mundane-skills chassis and use it for a mortal game, of course...
 
Baeraad said:
Hmm? Doesn't that in fact mean that it doesn't have a fully integrated system of diceless play, if Hunger never matters when you play dicelessly? It sounds like if you play the game dicelessly, you miss out on what is otherwise a fairly central premise of the game.
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No.

Degrees of success matter in the game. If you go diceless it basically means that you never push yourself, but you will need to in order to do certain things under pressure. This is when Hunger comes to the fore. And yes, this is fully integrated as it captures that particular aspect of Hunger coming to the fore at stressful times, rather than during routine tasks. You aren't going to go into Frenzy when riding a bike, but you might if you have to get somewhere in a hurry or if you are chasing somebody….
 
Séadna said:
What aspect of it is disappointing? I might have explained it incorrectly.
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It's disappointing because I had hoped that it was actually possible to play the game, in full, dicelessly. Because randomisers are awful and I hate them. :tongue:

Trippy said:
No.

Degrees of success matter in the game. If you go diceless it basically means that you never push yourself, but you will need to in order to do certain things under pressure. This is when Hunger comes to the fore. And yes, this is fully integrated as it captures that particular aspect of Hunger coming to the fore at stressful times, rather than during routine tasks. You aren't going to go into Frenzy when riding a bike, but you might if you have to get somewhere in a hurry or if you are chasing somebody….
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Yes, I understand the principle, but that still means that it's not a game you have the option to play dicelessly like I thought from previous things I'd heard, it's just a game where you don't have to roll the dice for everything. And where you only interact with the central premise of the game when you do roll the dice.

I suppose it depends on what you mean with "fully integrated."
 
Baeraad said:
It's disappointing because I had hoped that it was actually possible to play the game, in full, dicelessly. Because randomisers are awful and I hate them. :tongue:
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That's interesting, what don't you like about randomisers?
 
Baeraad said:
It's disappointing because I had hoped that it was actually possible to play the game, in full, dicelessly. Because randomisers are awful and I hate them. :tongue:



Yes, I understand the principle, but that still means that it's not a game you have the option to play dicelessly like I thought from previous things I'd heard, it's just a game where you don't have to roll the dice for everything. And where you only interact with the central premise of the game when you do roll the dice.

I suppose it depends on what you mean with "fully integrated."
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A fully diceless game very much inspired by classic Vampire is Undying.
 
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Yeah, I recommend Undying too for a fully diceless experience. We played it half a dozen times and it was a blast. It made me a fan of diceless.

Also, I think it's the best "Game of Thrones" game I've played. It's all about plotting & scheming your way up the local vamp society ladder, while keeping your beast in check as to not botch everything. And the rules do this clear and straight - you sit down to play, the game will be about that stuff. It has a vision and goes straight to it like a predator's fangs to the neck.
 
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Baeraad said:
It's disappointing because I had hoped that it was actually possible to play the game, in full, dicelessly. Because randomisers are awful and I hate them. :tongue:



Yes, I understand the principle, but that still means that it's not a game you have the option to play dicelessly like I thought from previous things I'd heard, it's just a game where you don't have to roll the dice for everything. And where you only interact with the central premise of the game when you do roll the dice.

I suppose it depends on what you mean with "fully integrated."
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Last session our group played - nobody rolled a single dice, and the game flowed fine.
 
I understand what Baeraad Baeraad is saying. If by going diceless you cut off such an important part (hunger), than the game doesn't really have a "diceless mode", which is what he wanted. Aka: You can't play it 100% diceless.

Baeraad , out of curiosity: what diceless games do you like most?
 
silva said:
I understand what Baeraad Baeraad is saying. If by going diceless you cut off such an important part (hunger), than the game doesn't really have a "diceless mode", which is what he wanted. Aka: You can't play it 100% diceless.

Baeraad , out of curiosity: what diceless games do you like most?
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There are discussions on how to play freeform (diceless) with Hunger in the game too. The Hunger still needs to be tracked, but you don't need to roll dice to do this, and depending on the level it is you just roleplay the vampire as it fits. There are several methods outlined in the game to play Hunger without dice.

This game spends a long time discussing modes of play, and yes, it is possible to play the whole game without dice. It's just many groups like the dice systems to evoke an element of drama, including Hunger. Different groups can choose how much of a balance they want for themselves, and whatever they choose it is fully supported within the game system.
 
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