Tell me about VtM when it started

[DarkCrisis]

I didn’t get into it until Requiem though I absolutely loved Bloodlines 1. I had friends who wanted me to try it but I was in my “D&D or nothing phase”.

I want to hear about your experiences before Requiem. How amazing was it? How big was it in your area? Did it bring more women to the table, as the documentary says?



I recently replayed Bloodlines 1 again with the Clan Quests / Sabbat mod and that was pretty awesome. Played a Brujah who yeah the Cam are a bunch of jerks and the Anarchs are just trying to hard. The real system shakers are the Sabbat, sign me up.

Ended up being betrayed and killed

Already got BL2 on pre-order, though I hear it more compared to Dishonored then BL.

 

[MGibster]

I want to hear about your experiences before Requiem. How amazing was it? How big was it in your area? Did it bring more women to the table, as the documentary says?

I was 15 when the 1st edition of VtM was released which was a long, long time ago and my perspective is only my own. Vampire felt like something very different when it was released in 1991. Like I said, my perspective was my own, but everything about the game seemed sophisticated and adult when compared to D&D, Star Wars, or most of the other games I played.

The black and white artwork was evocative, bloody, and sexy, there was diversity of nationalities, religions, gender, and even sexuality at a time when that wasn't a big concern by mainstream society, and the setting itself included elements of Christian beliefs. That last thing was kind of a big deal because we were still at the tail end of the Satanic Panic era.

In my experience, a lot of young women who wouldn't be caught undead playing AD&D, (especially) GURPS, or Shadowrun were more than happy to play Vampire. From what I observed men still outnumbered women, but it was the only game I saw with anything approaching parity between the sexes. Especially when it came to LARPing, but I wasn't involved in that scene.

 

[overgeeked]

In my area, Vampire: The Masquerade was every bit the seismic shift White Wolf and their documentary want you to believe. The only thing comparable is D&D 5E. Not to that scale of course, but certainly to that extent.

I was in high school. Playing RPGs with friends. They’d all moved beyond D&D at that point. Some friends of friends still played. I still had my original group that played D&D. But with my friends, it was anything but D&D. Call of Cthulhu, Shadowrun, Rifts, TMNT, Star Wars, Star Trek, Top Secret, Marvel Super Heroes, etc.

VtM 1E came out summer of 1991.

By the start of the next school year, every other game might as well have ceased to exist. Poof. Gone. No one in my age group played anything else. Even the D&D players stopped their D&D games to start playing VtM. People who would never play RPGs were playing VtM. Kids who made fun of other kids for playing RPGs were suddenly playing VtM.

That bit in 2014-2015 when D&D 5E was suddenly everywhere. It felt like that. Again not as big in real numbers, but damn it sure felt like it.

Most tables were still more boys than girls, but suddenly girls were playing. By the time 2E came out in summer 1992, it reached parity and several girls-only tables popped up. No girl referees before VtM, then suddenly there were some. After a year or two, a lot more.

The LARP scene was huge. Playing in rented out laser tag places, farms, weekend retreats, it was madness.

 

[Jahydin]

VtM 2e came out when I was just shy of being a teenager. One of my fondest memories as a kid was eating lunch with the Teacher's Assistant and hearing all about her live-action VtM game. Absolutely blew my mind how "non-D&D" the audience for that game was and what kind of stories TTRPGs could tell.

 

[DarkCrisis]

In my area, Vampire: The Masquerade was every bit the seismic shift White Wolf and their documentary want you to believe. The only thing comparable is D&D 5E. Not to that scale of course, but certainly to that extent.

I was in high school. Playing RPGs with friends. They’d all moved beyond D&D at that point. Some friends of friends still played. I still had my original group that played D&D. But with my friends, it was anything but D&D. Call of Cthulhu, Shadowrun, Rifts, TMNT, Star Wars, Star Trek, Top Secret, Marvel Super Heroes, etc.

VtM 1E came out summer of 1991.

By the start of the next school year, every other game might as well have ceased to exist. Poof. Gone. No one in my age group played anything else. Even the D&D players stopped their D&D games to start playing VtM. People who would never play RPGs were playing VtM. Kids who made fun of other kids for playing RPGs were suddenly playing VtM.

That bit in 2014-2015 when D&D 5E was suddenly everywhere. It felt like that. Again not as big in real numbers, but damn it sure felt like it.

Most tables were still more boys than girls, but suddenly girls were playing. By the time 2E came out in summer 1992, it reached parity and several girls-only tables popped up. No girl referees before VtM, then suddenly there were some. After a year or two, a lot more.

The LARP scene was huge. Playing in rented out laser tag places, farms, weekend retreats, it was madness.

So, why would you (or anyone here) say it pulled even non-gamers?

 

[Mercurius]

I didn't play it, but lived in Burlington VT in the mid-90s. I knew a guy who was a barista at a large now-defunct coffee shop (Samsara) who ran a Vampire LARP from the coffee shop. IIRC, he told me there were 50+ people involved (or maybe 150! I just remember "fifty" being part of the equation). I think it was a lot of teens and early 20s folks, lots of women, with a mix of gothy, gamery, and thespian types.

Burlington was a great town then, with a lot of youthful/artsy energy. Since then it has been gentrified, and more of a tourist theme park of what it used to be (not unlike Portland, Boulder, etc).

 

[overgeeked]

Some why would you (or anyone here) say it pulled even non-gamers?

It 100% pulled in non-gamers.

 

[DarkCrisis]

It 100% pulled in non-gamers.

I meant, why did they start playing

 

[Rune]

I meant, why did they start playing

When I first got to college, there was a large Vampire LARP scene. Most of them were women (as near as I could tell as a non-participant) and almost certainly most were not gamers (video- or tabletop). Most of them probably were theatre kids, though.

Admittedly, I am (and was) basing those assumptions on my participant friends and acquaintances and the comparative dearth of other gaming scenes (even Magic the Gathering wasn’t huge yet).

Why was it so popular among such non-gamers? I always assumed it was because Anne Rice was similarly popular amongst them.

* For context, this was in the late 90s, though, so Vampire had some time by then to catch on.

 

[overgeeked]

I meant, why did they start playing

When I first got to college, there was a large Vampire LARP scene. Most of them were women (as near as I could tell as a non-participant) and almost certainly most were not gamers (video- or tabletop). Most of them probably were theatre kids, though.

Admittedly, I am (and was) basing those assumptions on my participant friends and acquaintances and the comparative dearth of other gaming scenes (even Magic the Gathering wasn’t huge yet).

Why was it so popular among such non-gamers? I always assumed it was because Anne Rice was similarly popular amongst them.

* For context, this was in the late 90s, though, so Vampire had some time by then to catch on.

This is basically my take as well. Literal theater kids, goths, fans of vampires, Anne Rice readers, etc.

Early on there was a clear split between those who were gamers before and those who started gaming with VtM. The gamers played it as superheroes with fangs and those new to the hobby played it as high drama and what we'd call OC-style play now. Over time some of the gamers started shifting to the high drama, OC-style play. But there was little, if any, of the reverse.