Want to Playtest Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition (V5)?

White Wolf has just announced the Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition "pre-alpha" playtest, which you can download and play right now! The company also has an attached survey for playtest feedback. "Today we are sharing with you the Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition (V5) pre-alpha playtest kit, which includes the V5 pre-alpha rules and a special V5 pre-alpha scenario, The Night After. We invite you to download the kit and try it out: invite a few friends to play through the scenario together, talk about it, and then share your opinions with us through the online survey. We appreciate your feedback and value your input." The survey closes on August 1st, so you have about six weeks, after which WW will release the next iteration, the "alpha playtest".

The announcement continues:

We recommend strongly that you play the scenario and not just read the rules document. Actual play is the best way to experience and understand new rules concepts. In fact we suggest that you play it more than once, making different decisions each time to experience the full scope of the rules.

This version of the rules is pre-alpha. That means it’s not feature complete, and the designers have not made final decisions about what rules and features will be included. It was created specifically to test the new Hunger Dice mechanics for a live playtest at the World of Darkness Berlin fan convention in May. Much will change between this version and the Alpha, Beta, and final release versions.

We understand that you may be tempted to use this material to test the rules in ways that aren’t intended (such as trying to reverse-engineer the rules into your own scenarios, or published scenarios). We don’t recommend this: the pre-alpha rules were created specifically for The Night After scenario, and aren’t even close to final. We strongly recommend using them only to play The Night After scenario.

The Night After is a scenario that was designed specifically for these pre-alpha rules. It provides a glimpse into the tumultuous and destructive events that occurred in Berlin in May 2017, as told in Enlightenment in Blood, a VTM LARP event at the WoD Berlin convention. The scenario takes place on the evening immediately after Enlightenment in Blood, but no knowledge of that LARP or its events is necessary to enjoy the playtest.​

[video=youtube;43VXwCS42O0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43VXwCS42O0&feature=youtu.be[/video]
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[Derren]

I am confused, wasnt Masquerade the name of the old WoD setting? Are they bringing the oWoD back?

 

[ppaladin123]

Yeah they released an anniversary edition (with tweaks) of the old world of darkness settings a few years back (masquerade was old world of darkness vampires....requiem is new world of darkness vampires). I think the old setting/ruleset has proved popular/durable enough that they decided to return to it more formally.

 

[Abstruse]

Onyx Path (a separate company from White Wolf) licensed the rights to the World of Darkness and Chronicles of Darkness (old and new WoD, respectively, oWoD being Masquerade, Apocalypse, Ascension, etc. and nWoD being Requiem, Forsaken, Awakening, etc.) after White Wolf was sold. They developed the 20th Anniversary Editions of the various games (Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, Changeling, etc.). The Vampire: The Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition is being treated as the "4th Edition" in terms of calling this 5th Edition.

After White Wolf was sold to CCP (a video game company), they tried and failed to make a World of Darkness MMO so then sold White Wolf to another video game company, Paradox. Paradox is the one ostensibly "in charge" of Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition.

Meanwhile, Onyx Path still has an active license to produce material for both World of Darkness and Chronicles of Darkness and have had new releases as recently as this month, and Onyx Path has published a lot of brand-new not-reprinted-or-revised Vampire: The Masquerade and World of Darkness material.

 

[PMárk]

In other words, yes, OWoD is back and has been over 5ish years and OWoD and NWoD (now CofD) are existing in tandem since that.

Honestly, I understand the whole story is like a bad soap opera and I understand not die-hard fans being confused, but man, it's getting trying, explaining it every time a new is coming up from WW.

 

[MH13outlaw]

not a fan of the Art

 

[TerraDave]

I guess these are cut down versions of the rules, but very clear and easy to understand! It remains a relatively light game, but it was never supposed to be about the "systems".

Of course, chargen was not that clear. There are pre-gens in the scenario, which seems to have the style I remember from the game.

Curious to see what the vampire veterans think.

 

[TwoSix]

Considering all the controversy around this release, I'm interested to see how it will be received.

 

[PabloM]

Considering all the controversy around this release, I'm interested to see how it will be received.

I´m sorry, what contreversy?

 

[Sunseeker]

I skimmed the download real quick, I get that this is supposed to set in the "real world" but I'm surprised that it's actually dealing with ISIS by name. That's...bothersome.