I've mentioned a few times on this board that I've never had an affinity for the White Wolf / Storyteller systems.
Even though I was a teenager in the '90s, for whatever reason the general zeitgeist of Vampire: the Masquerade passed me by.
I've tried looking through some of the more recent Vampire/Mage/Werewolf core books, and they give me the same general impression that turned me off to White Wolf back in the day --- overly pretentious and self-important, with a mediocre/sub-par core system, that's only compelling because the vampire political maneuverings are somewhat interesting.
So I've thought recently --- What if you could lift the vampire political underpinnings out and away from their White Wolf chains and put them into another system, what would that look like?
Consider the following caveats/provisos ---
- I'm mostly interested in capturing the background/intrigue and dramatic stakes of the setting than I am in the combat system.
- I already have Savage Worlds and Genesys and like them both, but I'm looking for something else.
- I'm not interested in some rando GM's pet project Storyteller remake/hack/"personal re-envisioning" of the system.
- I am not interested in some far out-there, long-tail indie system that a grand total of eight people have ever heard of.
- I have zero interest in Fate or GURPS.
- I might be persuaded to consider HERO or BRP, but you'd better sell me on it.
- I'm very much okay (better than okay) with PbtA/FitD, but I don't want it to just be some reskinned playbooks stacked on top of the AW engine. It needs to be a bit more . . . integrated into a cohesive whole.
- From glimpses and hints from people discussing it from afar, it seems like Cortex+/Prime might be a decent match, but I have absolutely zero experience with the system. I'm already interested in it based on Tales of Xadia and Firefly. If there is a good Cortex hack, I'm all ears.
- I already own Night's Black Agents, but am not GUMSHOE is a good fit, nor how one might switch the focus from the investigators/agents to the vampires, or if it's even worth the attempt.