Monday, 13 March 2023
TTRPG REVIEW: Vampire the Masquerade V5 Core Book- Renegade Game Studios
Publisher: Renegade Game Studios
A Storytelling 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. This is the original and ultimate roleplaying game of personal and political horror.
Fifth Edition 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.
Mature Warning: contains graphic and written content of a mature nature, including violence, sexual themes, and strong language. Reader discretion is advised.
As a vampire, struggle for survival, supremacy, and your own fading humanity Suffer the pangs of Hunger, while navigating undead politics and avoiding deadly hunters. Honors the history of Vampire: The Masquerade while advancing the story with streamlined 5th Edition rules.
REVIEW:
Ok, I'm returning to Vampire the Masquerade decades after I last played (2) and there have been quite a few changes from the earlier version I played to this one. The key one being that you no longer have a blood pool to utilise your powers and this mechanic has been replaced with hunger dice which can, and will, play havoc with your rolls.
Its a great new mechanic that always gives the player a chance to have to be inventive alongside the DM whether you roll, what Dumb Dumbs and Dice call a "Messy Successy" (when you pass your roll but the hunger dice comes up 10) where things will succeed but in a rather messed up way with consequences as your beast pushes it through, or a critical failure (where you roll a 1 on the hunger dice) with no successes leads to other consequences such as being spotted etc with repercussions.
Its definitely a fun mechanic and really leaves the players on tenterhooks as the dice are rolled. But other than this mechanic, what else does the core book bring to the table?
To be honest, its full of beautiful art, but for me the biggest problem is that it feels pretty jumbled in the order it appears, so much so that I have to break it down as follows:
1) Character creation feels pretty messy if you follow the step by step in the book and its so much easier if you create at the same time as following a You-Tube video who explains it in detail, however this is a failure in the system.
2) The reference system for finding information is pretty haphazard so if you have to find a piece of information, it can take you out of the game as the Storyteller, takes 10-20 minutes to find the nugget they're looking for.
Don't get me wrong, if you love Urban Fantasy it is a really cool game to play but when you need help as a newbie to build your character and have to spend time rereading to understand some of the information that isn't clearly worded it can leave you feeling out of sorts with the whole game and might leave a number of people wondering why they bother.
All in, the World of Darkness is a very cool world and whilst I understand that each itteration of the various inhabitants takes time to get out there, I'm a little sad that currently you're restricted to either Vamps or Hunters, with the Were's, Mages and Wraiths still a long way off. Finally I will play VtM and I look forward to weaving various adventures but when the clans are heavily restricted (you have to buy other books to get full access to all of the playable clans), it does leave a bitter taste that having spent so long commissioning the art and getting its placement within, that they weren't able to deliver something more comprehensive and easily understood.
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