White Wolf Announces Vampire The Masquerade 5E Preorder And Distribution Partnership With Modiphius

White Wolf announced that they would be partnering with Modiphius Entertainment to bring Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition (V5) worldwide in English. Modiphius will be White Wolf's distribution partner, and handle distributing the game line.

View attachment 96763​

The image above, shared exclusively with EN World is by photographer Derek Hutchison and features the model Ramsey. It features a Malkavian vampire from the upcoming game.

Vampire: The Masquerade, the classic that changed role-playing games forever, returns in a fifth edition! V5 features a streamlined and modern rules design, beautiful new full-color art, and a rich story experience for new and returning 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 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 21sth 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.

The ultimate game of personal and political horror roleplaying game, Vampire: The Masquerade, will see its fifth edition this year with the pre-order period starting midday GMT on Saturday the 28th of April. The V5 preorder will start shipping from August with the first release, the core book, available in stores from September. Two more V5 books will be released later in the Fall, the Camarilla and the Anarch setting books. V5 will also be available in other languages by the end of the year. Please visit the pre-order page for more details: https://www.modiphius.net/collections/vampire-the-masquerade.

The preorder for Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition will start on Saturday, April 28th, and the preordered books will begin shipping in August. The preorder will feature "three main full colour hardback books, the V5 corebook, the Anarch and Camarilla sourcebooks as well as an official V5 dice set, V5 storyteller screen and V5 notebook. All three books will also be available in a high quality slipcase for collectors along with a special edition of the corebook. For those wanting to mark this new edition, a collector’s edition of the corebook will also be available. The online pre-order will feature bundles including the V5 dice set, V5 storyteller screen and V5 notebook."

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Great game that's always had a weak mechanic. I hope the new rules work out.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

I am looking forward to it, except they cannot seem to mention prices before the pre-order goes live this weekend. That worries me and makes me think it will be out of my price range, at least to start. I would be surprised if the core book is less than $50, since that seems to be the normal starting price these days, and $40 for each of the other two books. But they could each be $10-20 more than that per book and that it what worries me.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Great game that's always had a weak mechanic. I hope the new rules work out.

Which mechanic do you consider to be weak?

 

[GloomyGus]

Which mechanic do you consider to be weak?

I can't speak for anyone else, but I always heard that in New World of Darkness (at least), choosing nothing but ordinary human skills and abilities allowed you to outcompete characters that went for supernatural skills and abilities. So for example, in a mechanical sense, being really good at swinging blunt objects was on par with being really good at making all the blood in someone's body explode, and had far fewer drawbacks. Which runs directly counter to the game's lore, where supernatural creatures should effortlessly surpass human limitations.

Maybe there were similar problems in Old World of Darkness?

(Also, it's been a very long time since I opened up a NWoD book. So that example might not be strictly accurate.)

 

[TrippyHippy]

I can't speak for anyone else, but I always heard that in New World of Darkness (at least), choosing nothing but ordinary human skills and abilities allowed you to outcompete characters that went for supernatural skills and abilities. So for example, in a mechanical sense, being really good at swinging blunt objects was on par with being really good at making all the blood in someone's body explode, and had far fewer drawbacks. Which runs directly counter to the game's lore, where supernatural creatures should effortlessly surpass human limitations.

Maybe there were similar problems in Old World of Darkness?

(Also, it's been a very long time since I opened up a NWoD book. So that example might not be strictly accurate.)

I think you are possibly being a bit misled by hearsay here.

There have been issues with previous edition rules - particularly in combat situations - being overly convoluted with dice-pool rolling, and being buggy because of this, but the general engine is straightforward enough. Vampires certainly have potentially very powerful powers that mortals cannot access and have more stat points overall - so I'm not really sure where the criticism is coming from. Swinging blunt objects at a vampire is unlikely to do much damage against a vampire.

The new edition's rules are not fully known, but the Alpha playtests are still available for free on the www.worldofdarkness.com website, and are as good an indication as any. While there are some things I'm iffy on, the basic rules engine is sound and fully functional.

 

[CapnZapp]

While there are some things I'm iffy on, the basic rules engine is sound and fully functional.

Could it be that you are easier to please than most? That you don't see the scepticism?

Who thinks "sound and fully functional" rules are a success? That sounds workmanlike and barely passable. Who'd buy that?

I think it is perfectly understandable to worry that the times have moved on and that you cannot capture lightning in a bottle twice. Ann Rice and True Blood isn't what preoccupies the current generation, much like Delta Green struggles to find a foothold in a post the X Files world.

Personally I'm waiting for WFRP4. It's entirely possible it will be a disappointment (which it will be if it only lightly rehashes the 2E rules from nearly a generation ago).

A game that found true success is D&D. They truly updated and fixed and streamlined d20 for 5th edition, while bringing bits of AD&D and 4E across too.

Do you see any evidence of THAT in the alpha playtest?

Cheers

 

[TrippyHippy]

Could it be that you are easier to please than most? That you don't see the scepticism?

Well, I have the aspects I look out for, but it wasn't necessarily what I was trying to highlight with my post. Hence, I suggested a link to the playtest files on the website should people wish to check them out.

Who thinks "sound and fully functional" rules are a success? That sounds workmanlike and barely passable. Who'd buy that?

This is tangent on what I was pointing out with that comment. Wylietype above suggested that previous editions were literally dysfunctional, which they are not. The style or elegance of such rules is another question.

I think it is perfectly understandable to worry that the times have moved on and that you cannot capture lightning in a bottle twice. Ann Rice and True Blood isn't what preoccupies the current generation, much like Delta Green struggles to find a foothold in a post the X Files world.

I think the fact that Vampire: The Masquerade 5th edition was voted on this site as the most anticipated game of 2018 suggests that gamers still have an interest in how the game is. There was a documentary about Vampire's influence released this last year and apparently there have been talks about a Netflix show. Delta Green had a new edition too recently, so again, it's not going away soon either.

Personally I'm waiting for WFRP4. It's entirely possible it will be a disappointment (which it will be if it only lightly rehashes the 2E rules from nearly a generation ago).

I'm waiting for WFRP4 too, but that is another topic again.

A game that found true success is D&D. They truly updated and fixed and streamlined d20 for 5th edition, while bringing bits of AD&D and 4E across too.

Do you see any evidence of THAT in the alpha playtest?

Cheers

Yes actually. The lead game developer is Kenneth Hite, who has brought in influences from both Classic and NWod/CoD systems, as well as influences from Call of Cthulhu and Apocalypse World, from what I can see. I don't know how much of it will be in the final product, but as I say, people can check out the playtest rules all they want.

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

I can't speak for anyone else, but I always heard that in New World of Darkness (at least), choosing nothing but ordinary human skills and abilities allowed you to outcompete characters that went for supernatural skills and abilities. <...> Maybe there were similar problems in Old World of Darkness?

I did not play nWoD Vampire but ran and played a good bit of nWoD, Exalted, Aberrant, and oWoD over the years. Any die pool mechanic always has some weird statistical problems due to the fact that adding more dice also adds variance. But by and large it worked.

The supernatural abilities in oWoD were often quite good. For instance, supernatural stats like Potence, Celerity, and Fortitude were in all ways better than Strength, Dexterity, and Stamina. nWoD tamed supernatural abilities a bit, but even so they're still effective. If your only goal was beating people up in the short run, then investing in mundane skills was worthwhile.

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

Could it be that you are easier to please than most? That you don't see the scepticism?

Who thinks "sound and fully functional" rules are a success? That sounds workmanlike and barely passable. Who'd buy that? <...> A game that found true success is D&D. They truly updated and fixed and streamlined d20 for 5th edition, while bringing bits of AD&D and 4E across too.

I can't think of a better description of 5E than "workmanlike."

It barely incorporates any of the new design features that two generations of games have evolved, even though to us old timers many of them in the late 90s were evident as things many folks wanted. It has essentially no rules that allow the player to take an "authorial role", barely existent personality mechanics, a poorly designed skill system, no real economy or crafting rules, and a number of other clunky legacy mechanics. Yet it's selling quite well and manages to occupy a lot of play time (including mine).

I think it is perfectly understandable to worry that the times have moved on and that you cannot capture lightning in a bottle twice.

That's absolutely true. Somehow WotC managed it with 5E, but I bet they're still wondering how that happened exactly, if you catch them on an honest day.