Vampire The Masquerade D20?

[Aaron2]

Personally I think that V:TX would be a bad idea as a D20 game. D20 is entirely too rules heavy, something the Storyteller system has tried to get away from.

Is d20 more rules heavy than GURPS? Obviously, a d20 Vampire wouldn't be aimed at Storyteller players but at d20 players (such as myself).

A hit point system just would foul the whole thing up... it is supposed to be lethal no matter how experienced your character is.

Combat in Vampire never seemed particularly lethal to me. What if agravated damage went straight to CON or something?


Aaron

 

[BruceB]

It's not precisely the same thing, but my Monstrous Advanced Classes: The Vampire covers a lot of the same territory in myth, legend, and pop culture that Vampire: The Masquerade does, offering you options for easily constructing vampires in different styles. (I'm working on a follow-up file, A Handful Of Vampires, illustrating some possibilities at different power levels, with fully statted NPCs and background info.)

 

[jaerdaph]

It's not precisely the same thing, but my Monstrous Advanced Classes: The Vampire covers a lot of the same territory in myth, legend, and pop culture that Vampire: The Masquerade does, offering you options for easily constructing vampires in different styles. (I'm working on a follow-up file, A Handful Of Vampires, illustrating some possibilities at different power levels, with fully statted NPCs and background info.)

Hi Bruce,

I really liked the Vampire Monstrous AdC that you did for Ronin Arts. Do you have any plans to do something similar with werewolves? I'd love to see an undead/lycanthrope hunter Advanced Class as well.

Thanks

 

[BruceB]

I really liked the Vampire Monstrous AdC that you did for Ronin Arts. Do you have any plans to do something similar with werewolves? I'd love to see an undead/lycanthrope hunter Advanced Class as well.

Glad you liked it! The second, the Half-Fiend, is up now (see my sig file). Yes, I do plan to do werewolves, and also ghosts. Those will be relatively option-heavy, of course, because as with vampires, there's so many neat possibilities in folklore and fiction to loot from. I'll be interspersing those with relatively compact entries like the Cybermorph, the home-grown cyborg in the spirit of David Cronenberg films, and maybe a Blob-type critter.

 

[jaerdaph]

Glad you liked it! The second, the Half-Fiend, is up now (see my sig file). Yes, I do plan to do werewolves, and also ghosts. Those will be relatively option-heavy, of course, because as with vampires, there's so many neat possibilities in folklore and fiction to loot from. I'll be interspersing those with relatively compact entries like the Cybermorph, the home-grown cyborg in the spirit of David Cronenberg films, and maybe a Blob-type critter.

Sounds great! I've always enjoyed your work. Feel free to think about my supernatural monster hunter AdC idea.

 

[BruceB]

Sounds great! I've always enjoyed your work. Feel free to think about my supernatural monster hunter AdC idea.

I will! Though I'll want to survey the existing options in that regard first - I may end up saying "look, X did it better than I would, so buy that book".

 

[Calico_Jack73]

Is d20 more rules heavy than GURPS? Obviously, a d20 Vampire wouldn't be aimed at Storyteller players but at d20 players (such as myself).

Actually I think they are more or less the same in complexity (d20 & GURPS). Both have a simple mechanic for task/combat resolution and go on to add complexity after that. I just always felt the complexity was an option with GURPS but in d20 you more or less HAD to add the extras. Try keeping players when you tell them that you aren't going to use Feats in your game.

Combat in Vampire never seemed particularly lethal to me. What if agravated damage went straight to CON or something?

Maybe you weren't running it correctly. Here is a situation... Character 1 shoots Character 2 with a .357 Magnum which has a damage rating of 5. Let's say that Character 2 gets moderately lucky with his to hit roll and gets 3 successes. Two of those add to the damage rating for a total damage rating of 7. That is lethal damage... a mortal can't even attempt to soak it. If of those 7 dice 4 turn into actual damage you are looking at someone who is very severely hurt... they are at the Wounded level and are -2 at all further tasks. That was only the first shot... a second shot that does even 3 points of damage will kill character 1. The main thing is that it doesn't matter how much experience Character 2 had... he can still die from the same amount of damage.

Also remember healing times take FOREVER in the Storyteller system. I had a Mage character who was taken down to Mauled with lethal damage. It took half a year of in game time for him to heal back completely.

If you are going to correctly "port" it over you need a system for all three forms of damage... bashing, lethal, and aggravated. Bashing could be Vitality points that come back within a short amount of time. Lethal could be Con damage that CAN be healed magically within a short amount of time and Aggravated would only be able to be healed with time or Vulgar magic.

 

[Achan hiArusa]

A History Lesson for Nisrag

Excuse me?! Vampire the Masquerade actually gave a lift to the gaming community when it came out in 1990 after the witchhunts of the '80s by religious leaders. It brought in many people who didn't like the wargames with a plot (thinly veiled in the case of AD&D) including more women than any game before it.
Just compare the 2nd edition AD&D product list to the World of Darkness product list if you want to talk about a mountain of products. What "almost collapsed the industry" was not the Vampire game. The true culprit was Magic the Gathering owned by none other than the precious owners to the 3rd edition copyright Wizards of the Coast. I remember losing players to that damnable game ("sorry we were playing a Magic game and lost track of time") and not being able to get a Con table to run a game because of Magic. But unlike wargames (which never recovered from the challenge of roleplaying games and computer games) roleplaying games have bounced back. And that includes Vampire the Masquerade as well as D&D (and countless other games that don't get much press).

 

[Sorren]

I've been keeping up with every little morsel of info dropped regarding the new WoD and Vampire: the Requiem. From everything I've seen, I've drawn this conclusion:

The new Storyteller system is d20 with d10s.

Feats? Check! (They call them Merits.)
Templates? Check! (They even call them Templates and they serve the same purpose as they do in d20)
Armor Class? Check! (They call it Defense and it should be noted that this is what they call it in many d20 games)
Move and Attack in a combat round? Check!
Skills? Check! (Though one could just as easily say d20 stole this from the original Storyteller system.)

Sure there are differences, for one there are no levels, but the combat/action systems are nearly identicle otherwise. The only major difference is the rolling of a handful of d10s instead of a single d20.

In my opinion, all the changes are for the better. The old system was a nightmare when it came to combat. This should help tremendously.

 

[Achan hiArusa]

d20

Gurps Advantages, Hero Talents: d20 calls them feats. Also, Merits and Flaws were out with the 1st Edition Player's guide in 1992, before the Skills & Powers came out. So not check.

Defense. White Wolf always (until Orpheus) had this little skill called Dodge. You could always abort to Dodge and it did basically the same thing. So again, not check.

Move and Attack in the same combat round. You could always do that, it just cost you die pool. You could move up to a yard for every die you sacrificed in you pool, this comes from 1st edition vampire and werewolf. So again, not check.

And you made your argument against skills. So, not check

And templates, where did that come from. I have been keeping up with the same stuff you have and haven't see it anywhere. And they may have a different meaning (templates in d6 Star Wars are nothing like templates in d20).