System for V:TM "light"

Best Selling RPGs - Available Now @ DriveThruRPG.com
Let's be honest, anything from Paradox/Renegade/Modiphius on the popularity of V5 is to be taken with a grain of salt. And the fact that it's supposedly a "majority of new players" might have to do with the fact that they actively try to chase away fans of the older editions (unless they completely tow the party line 100% in full lockstep) and at this point, I'm surprised they haven't memory holed all the older editions yet.
Let’s be honest Sammy. You have little knowledge on anything you purport to talk about on the matter, and your views on the game are beyond eccentric.

V5 held a top five retail chart status for three quarters in a row, when it came out and was Modiphius’ best selling product they have ever had. The WoD brand is evidently bigger than just the tabletop game, with all sorts of multimedia games under it. Renegade Studios seems to have been picked as the best means for the Paradox to build on licenses moving forward. There are two other incoming WoD games, based on V5, billed for next year along with supplements. The only thing holding much of these back is global distribution (tax alignment, etc), although Renegade is apparently working these out. Only just recently, were they able to sort out distribution to the UK and EU markets.

All of the previous editions remain on sale through drivethrurpg.com.
 
Last edited:
When V20 came out I just tended to use the DA core mechanic basic rules pdf for the mainframe, I kinda skipped alot of the core mechanics in V20 because I assumed it seemed more or less the same as DA
Yeah the DA basic system is nice. Like you're not wrong, the system has rules light and rules heavy variants so there's no single answer to the question. I did the same thing you did, i.e. use DA core mechanics with stuff selected from V20. A while ago now, so I don't remember the ins and outs.
 
What you describe is not how publicly traded companies work. For it to be true we'd have to take it as true that Paradox's shareholders are happy for them to actively go out of their way to lose money. This is full on conspiracy theory stuff.

Fair point, but with Paradox specifically, there's the fact that pretty much all of their money comes from PC games. The WoD stuff is more of an afterthought, so the shareholders are far more likely to care about the sales of Crusader Kings and Hearts of Iron than WoD.

Let’s be honest Sammy. You have little knowledge on anything you purport to talk about on the matter, and your views on the game are beyond eccentric.

V5 held a top five retail chart status for three quarters in a row, when it came out and was Modiphius’ best selling product they have ever had. The WoD brand is evidently bigger than just the tabletop game, with all sorts of multimedia games under it. Renegade Studios seems to have been picked as the best means for the Paradox to build on licenses moving forward. There are two other incoming WoD games, based on V5, billed for next year along with supplements. The only thing holding much of these back is global distribution (tax alignment, etc), although Renegade is apparently working these out. Only just recently, were they able to sort out distribution to the UK and EU markets.

All of the previous editions remain on sale through drivethrurpg.com.

Let's be honest, Trippy. I know more on this matter and there is a lot more to it than you might think and it comes across as if you are motivated purely by the same "One True Way" goth mindset that I decry.

"Top five" doesn't hold as much water in this industry when pretty much any best-seller is a massive distant third, fourth, or fifth behind titans such as D&D or Pathfinder. While even in the company's heyday in the 90's, White Wolf was second to D&D, it was a lot closer in its position as opposed to this nebulous Top 5 status.

Modiphius is also a smaller and relatively newer company by comparison, and there's also the fact that nearly all the multimedia stuff is vanity projects that try to bank on the meme status of VTM: Bloodlines since it's become the video game equivalent of Rocky Horror Picture Show at this point with its memetic cult status.

Nearly all of the multimedia projects are either pretentious boring vanity projects like visual novels that sell well because of their niche status or it's the Bloodlines sequel that seems to be in perpetual development hell and will likely end up as mere vaporware and all of them seem to give off this feel of tryhard astroturfing.

If Bloodlines 2 does come out and ends up becoming a flop, the V5 gravy train will derail and all those kids who bought V5 to get their internet goth cred will rapidly abandon it.

V5 is a best-seller in the "big fish in a tiny pond" sense and it will pale in comparison to the older editions. Just because I don't like the game in the exact specific way you do, does not mean I'm bullshitting.

No disrespect towards you on an individual, but the way you act is precisely the purist mindset within the WoD fandom that I complain about. It can come off as condescending and rather pretentious. It's what killed the original VTM in the long run and it will very likely doom V5 as well.

I'll admit, I often get too worked up about that attitude but still.

While they keep their older stuff around for sale, it really feels like they try to condemn and decry it without erasing it completely and push V5 above all else.

There's probably several reasons for their approach, some of them best discussed somewhere else and some of it being basic marketing reasons.
 
Last edited:
Fair point, but with Paradox specifically, there's the fact that pretty much all of their money comes from PC games. The WoD stuff is more of an afterthought, so the shareholders are far more likely to care about the sales of Crusader Kings and Hearts of Iron than WoD.



Let's be honest, Trippy. I know more on this matter and there is a lot more to it than you might think and it comes across as if you are motivated purely by the same "One True Way" goth mindset that I decry.

"Top five" doesn't hold as much water in this industry when pretty much any best-seller is a massive distant third, fourth, or fifth behind titans such as D&D or Pathfinder. While even in the company's heyday in the 90's, White Wolf was second to D&D, it was a lot closer in its position as opposed to this nebulous Top 5 status.

Modiphius is also a smaller and relatively newer company by comparison, and there's also the fact that nearly all the multimedia stuff is vanity projects that try to bank on the meme status of VTM: Bloodlines since it's become the video game equivalent of Rocky Horror Picture Show at this point with its memetic cult status.

Nearly all of the multimedia projects are either pretentious boring vanity projects like visual novels that sell well because of their niche status or it's the Bloodlines sequel that seems to be in perpetual development hell and will likely end up as mere vaporware and all of them seem to give off this feel of tryhard astroturfing.

If Bloodlines 2 does come out and ends up becoming a flop, the V5 gravy train will derail and all those kids who bought V5 to get their internet goth cred will rapidly abandon it.

V5 is a best-seller in the "big fish in a tiny pond" sense and it will pale in comparison to the older editions. Just because I don't like the game in the exact specific way you do, does not mean I'm bullshitting.

No disrespect towards you on an individual, but the way you act is precisely the purist mindset within the WoD fandom that I complain about. It can come off as condescending and rather pretentious. It's what killed the original VTM in the long run and it will very likely doom V5 as well.

I'll admit, I often get too worked up about that attitude but still.

While they keep their older stuff around for sale, it really feels like they try to condemn and decry it without erasing it completely and push V5 above all else.

There's probably several reasons for their approach, some of them best discussed somewhere else and some of it being basic marketing reasons.
You are not knowledgeable about anything.

You come onto every Vampire thread, basically to make disparaging and deliberately inflammatory comments about a game and a setting you don’t understand. You like to make up ridiculous conspiracy theories, that hold no credibility with anybody. There is a name for that type of poster, but whether it is worth pointing out to you is probably not going to make much difference.
 
Last edited:
Let's be honest, anything from Paradox/Renegade/Modiphius on the popularity of V5 is to be taken with a grain of salt. And the fact that it's supposedly a "majority of new players" might have to do with the fact that they actively try to chase away fans of the older editions (unless they completely tow the party line 100% in full lockstep) and at this point, I'm surprised they haven't memory holed all the older editions yet.
You've been warned many times about ruining Vampire discussions with this garbage. You are now banned from discussing Vampire: the Masquerade on this forum.
You are not knowledgeable about anything.
And this was completely uncalled for.
 
Having recently been in a V5 campaign, I can attest that's it pretty rules-light. For a lot of the game we played completely diceless. Whenever we felt that a situation required more detail, we went into the dicerolling stuff. I think it's very good that V5 has options for both.

I also really like the Hunger mechanic. Some players don't like losing control of their character through rules, so they don't like this. I loved it. It made for some brutal, but very memorable, moments in the game.

I also really can't see, why you couldn't run a Vampire game based on V20 lore, with V5 rules. If you don't like where the setting of V5 has gone.
 
The main issue I think with V5 is also its strength.

If you're interested in the elements the mechanics focus on it's an absolute joy to use. If you're looking at a game not supported you risk finding yourself fighting against the rules.
 
I might suggest human(ish) or Sigil & Shadow the former I know little of but the latter I own and I've already examined it for its Shadowed and how different Shadow types can be skinned to represent different monsters or the same monster from different backgrounds.

Notably, I'm doing something different in my head than most people might in this case I was thinking of the somewhat mistaken translation of the Bible that created "heroes and giants" aka the Nephilim. In my case, the only difference between Hero and Giants (monsters) is how they express their vices when the vices are harmful and/or go beyond control they're monsters when they focus the controlling or turning their vices to aid humanity they're heroes. Though that's just one idea I'm playing with at the moment. But I'm not trying to do Vampire clone with it anyway.
 
I might suggest human(ish) or Sigil & Shadow the former I know little of but the latter I own and I've already examined it for its Shadowed and how different Shadow types can be skinned to represent different monsters or the same monster from different backgrounds.

Notably, I'm doing something different in my head than most people might in this case I was thinking of the somewhat mistaken translation of the Bible that created "heroes and giants" aka the Nephilim. In my case, the only difference between Hero and Giants (monsters) is how they express their vices when the vices are harmful and/or go beyond control they're monsters when they focus the controlling or turning their vices to aid humanity they're heroes. Though that's just one idea I'm playing with at the moment. But I'm not trying to do Vampire clone with it anyway.
Human(ish) is FASERIP so it pretty much comes down to whether that's a system you get on with. It'd work, as long as it's ok that the powers it gives are very trad vampires.
 
Human(ish) is FASERIP so it pretty much comes down to whether that's a system you get on with. It'd work, as long as it's ok that the powers it gives are very trad vampires.
Those are easy enough to alter though to fit the powers of V:TM.
 
According to the author of Human(ish)

bottg said:
"I wrote it so that i could play WoD-style games without spending a long time explaining rules to my players, so that we could easily play a mixed supernatural game, and as mentioned above, so that we could emulate something along the lines of "Being Human".
Also, basing it on the FASERIP rules means that it is very easy to add in new supernatural character types or enemies, or modify the ones in the book. Just patch in powers as appropriate."

Of course, one has to note that it's not actually based on FASERIP (MSH), but on Blacky Blackball's FASERIP pseudo-clone.
 
According to the author of Human(ish)



Of course, one has to note that it's not actually based on FASERIP (MSH), but on Blacky Blackball's FASERIP pseudo-clone.
Ah, fair, I didn't realise there was a significant difference.
 
Ah, fair, I didn't realise there was a significant difference.

Blacky's clone, besides the usual cosmetic changes for copyright, has a slightly different combat system, uses a variation of the power system from Icons, and incorporates system elements from Golden Heroes. I've only sorta skimmed Huma(ish), so I'm not sure how much it, as a pseudoclone of a pseudoclone, deviates from there.

But still, it's all the same basic - percentile role compared to colour-coded chart resolution of most FASERIP-derived games- so I'm just being pedantic
 
I like me some FASERIP, so I'm going to look into that.

How are V5's options if you want to ditch the mechanical effects of bloodlines/clans/etc.? I want to keep them as organizations, but nothing the player's have to care about when building their characters. Everyone is basically Lugosi/Lee/Hamilton/Oldman Jr, possibly with more modern greatcoats and a Bauhaus soundtrack.
 
I like me some FASERIP, so I'm going to look into that.

How are V5's options if you want to ditch the mechanical effects of bloodlines/clans/etc.? I want to keep them as organizations, but nothing the player's have to care about when building their characters. Everyone is basically Lugosi/Lee/Hamilton/Oldman Jr, possibly with more modern greatcoats and a Bauhaus soundtrack.
They have options to play clanless.
 
I'm going to throw a curveball here and suggest Ghosts of Albion. It uses the same system as Angel/Buffy, but Vampires are different. You start with a base Vampire quality, but can add different powers from there. So you could do something akin to clans if you want. IIRC, it has as many supernatural abilities (if not more) than Angel; if not, porting in material from Angel is easy.

Vampire - Alone in the Darkness uses real world vampire myths for the basis of their "castes". Its not as bad as the rating suggests, but would need more work to emulate V:TM
 
Ah, fair, I didn't realise there was a significant difference.
I think the only nod to Golden Heroes rules is that power selection is a mix of random roll and player choice.

I like Blacky's FASERIP, but chargen is a bit weird, as Tristram has pointed out before. Nothing that can't be houseruled. That's my only real complaint with it. Tristram, being more familiar than I with MSH, and a bigger fan of it to boot, could probably point out more. Still, you can get Blacky's FASERIP free in PDF, so try before you buy.
 
I've been thinking of doing a big comparative review of MSH Basic vs MSH Advanced vs Icons vs Blacky's FASERIP vs 4C Extended vs Marvel: Nth Edition vs G-Core...
 
I like me some FASERIP, so I'm going to look into that.

How are V5's options if you want to ditch the mechanical effects of bloodlines/clans/etc.? I want to keep them as organizations, but nothing the player's have to care about when building their characters. Everyone is basically Lugosi/Lee/Hamilton/Oldman Jr, possibly with more modern greatcoats and a Bauhaus soundtrack.
You have a couple of straightforward options presented in the core rules: playing Caitiff (Clanless) or Thin-Bloods. Indeed, all you need to decide when building characters is what three Disciplines your character will specialise in and what sort of vampiric flaw your character has. The Thin Bloods provide quite an interesting variation on playing normal vampires too, as they can walk around in daylight, etc.

The Clans are similar to Classes in as much as they provide instant archetypes to play, but players often try to circumvent the stereotypes themselves after a while, I’ve found, trying to play more unique characters. It isn’t necessary to play Vampire focusing on the Clans at all really.
 
Last edited:
I authentically hate this movie and one of the biggest reasons is when they unironically turn Sheedy's character into a prep.
Do you mean "perp"?
 
Do you mean "perp"?

"Prep" or "Preppy" (deriving, IIRC, from "Prep school") was a high school clique in North American schools of the '80's and '90s that could best be described as..."Young Repub....uh...conservative"

See Zak from Saved by the Bell as the primary pop culture example
 
Lets face it, all 90's US media was an extrapolation of popculture highschool, just through a different lens.
Vampire clans/werewolf tribes/mage traditions et al - just warring high school cliques.
The Soprano's or Three O'clock high?
Trust me on this, I'll fight anyone who says I'm wrong.
 
Monte Cook did a d20 take on WoD.

Just saying...
I actually played that back when it came out. It was pretty good for running a party where everyone was a different supernatural creature, just for vampires it would be a bit, erm, anemic. Never mind the combat focus.

You have a couple of straightforward options presented in the core rules: playing Caitiff (Clanless) or Thin-Bloods. Indeed, all you need to decide when building characters is what three Disciplines your character will specialise in and what sort of vampiric flaw your character has.
Ah, okay, that doesn't sound to different from what you could do with the older editions, too. If the disciplines haven't changed, that still means that a starting character is somewhat specialized when it comes to stereotypical vampire powers, though.
 
I actually played that back when it came out. It was pretty good for running a party where everyone was a different supernatural creature, just for vampires it would be a bit, erm, anemic. Never mind the combat focus.
You could reskin the other types to be particular Vampire clans, if you liked the rest of it enough to do so.
 
You could reskin the other types to be particular Vampire clans, if you liked the rest of it enough to do so.
Back when we were playing this, having a D20 base was a benefit, these days it's almost the opposite. Otherwise Modern20 or True20 would be decent enough options, too.

Right now, I'm looking deeper into the "official" options (V5/V:tM Quickstart), plus Ghosts of Albion. But still open for suggestions and likely to sift through other ideas presented here, if time and money permits.
 
Back when we were playing this, having a D20 base was a benefit, these days it's almost the opposite. Otherwise Modern20 or True20 would be decent enough options, too.

Right now, I'm looking deeper into the "official" options (V5/V:tM Quickstart), plus Ghosts of Albion. But still open for suggestions and likely to sift through other ideas presented here, if time and money permits.
Someone I gamed w/long ago said they just used a d12, added the dots (skill + stat) as a bonus to beat a 13. I don't remember if it was masquerade or requiem but combat was similar but with d10 or something (barely remember). Not sure if he ever put those rules online though.
 
I always pondered adding skill, stat + discipline or blood and rolling under on a d10. Not sure if it would work or not but it avoids moving difficulty targets.
 
This is a bit of an out there suggestion, but for a system look at Postmortem Studio's system in the (free!) Neverwhere RPG. It uses adjectives which provides a lot of flexibility, but there's enough mechanical heft that I don't think it'll be too narrative for you.
 
You are not knowledgeable about anything.

You come onto every Vampire thread, basically to make disparaging and deliberately inflammatory comments about a game and a setting you don’t understand. You like to make up ridiculous conspiracy theories, that hold no credibility with anybody. There is a name for that type of poster, but whether it is worth pointing out to you is probably not going to make much difference.
He just knows what he likes and dislikes. That's his taste that he expresses on a forum like this. If no one did that it would be silent here. I would choose to ignore him if you don't like this. I think it just bothers him he doesn't like the new editions of the game and something is missing for him.
 
I really don't see where the crunch is, Storyteller/Storypath games feel somewhere on the spectrum to rules-lite to medium mechanics to me.
I think the Storyteller/Storytelling system is rules-light to rules-medium, but it has some power bloat and a lot of subsystems. If you use all the additional stuff in all the supplements it will start adding up.
 
He just knows what he likes and dislikes. That's his taste that he expresses on a forum like this. If no one did that it would be silent here. I would choose to ignore him if you don't like this. I think it just bothers him he doesn't like the new editions of the game and something is missing for him.
I think it goes way beyond that, and things he has said over multiple posts in practically every Vampire based thread for a prolonged period of time, have amounted to group attacks and appalling misinformation. Anyway, mods have told him to not discuss Vampire on this forum again, so that is that. No point debating it further.
 
Banner: The best cosmic horror & Cthulhu Mythos @ DriveThruRPG.com
Back
Top