Tell me about VtM when it started

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Dungeon looting hadn't caught their imagination, but undead punks trashing clubs in DC sure did.

The Black Cat was basically made to be a VtM setting.

 

[MGibster]

Because it was cool, it was edgy, it felt transgressive.

That's probably part of it. I think the subject matter was also an untapped market. When I was that age, a lot of the girls I knew had devoured all of Rice's vampire books whereas I pretty much gave up after Lestat. Like D&D, I think the Vampire folks managed to drill in the right spot at the right time.

 

[GrimCo]

V:tM was first ttrpg i played. Straight into Sabbath campaign. I was young metalhead just starting HS and was introduced to game by friend of mine. People that played it were mostly black and gothic metal dudes and goth girls. And i liked goth girls Anne Rice was popular, Queen of the Damned was hot new movie that just came out (so early 2000s). Also, most of kids i played with were from art highschools (applied arts or graphic). V:tM just blended perfectly with that subculture. Most of the girl that played weren't gamers per se ( video games, board games, other ttrpgs). But they liked V:tM.

LARP (Mind's eye theater) was also popular, but it never resonated with me cause combat aspect was just lame. No prop guns But we did unofficial vampire larp in old abandoned hospital, with airsoft guns. It was freaking awesome.

 

[Laurefindel]

As I did for D&D, I LARPed Vampire:the mascarade (Mind’s Eye Theatre rules) before I even knew the table top game existed. I was 16-17-ish and it was… intense. A bit too much for my taste at first.

Then I went to university and started playing table top V:tM. My experience resemble that of other posters; a parity of genders, an unprecedented mixity of different people, new players that would have never join the RPG community otherwise, etc.

Vampire and the other WW games were pretty popular but did not completely eclipsed all other games in our club, but there was a marked regain of interest when Montreal by Night came out. We were not in Montreal but many of us grew up there of went out there, and witnessed the skinheads vs punks war of the early 90s firsthand, which inspired the supplement, even if violence was receding at that point. From then on, it was Sabbat games all the way…

 

[DarkCrisis]

Only time I've seen a VtM LARP was at my first GenCon and it was kind of silly. Then again I was an naughty word youth and I thought I was cooler than most. I'd probably appreciate it more now-a-days.

 

[Ulfgeir]

Vampire was a big shift here when it came, especially when people started doing vampire LARP's. It did draw a lot of new players into the hobby, a lot of them women as far as I recall. And at that time every gaming convention here in Sweden appeared to have a vampire larp during the convention. Sometimes with weird results.

It came at the right time, given Anne Rice's boks starting to get popular etc.

 

[Alas]

The Black Cat was basically made to be a VtM setting.

Ha, yes! And Tracks, and the Capitol Ballroom, and the Roxy, and the old 9:30... Going out dancing turned into location scouting for our game plots.

 

[aramis erak]

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?

In my experience, yes, it brought a bunch more women into the hobby, but not that I didn't know a bunch of female RPGers prior, even dated a couple prior.

At the time, I loved the variable TN system of 1e VTM. I don't care so much for the fixed TN 8 of later editions;

My campaigns, however never took off; longest made 3 sessions.
Many of my friends, however, ran successful campaigns of it.

Great setting, too.

 

[dragoner]

My gf got me to play VtM, I liked the mechanics, though like it was often described, it was "supers with fangs" art and stuff was cool, very skinny puppy.

 

[pawsplay]

It was huge. It brought in a lot of club kids. Also, a lot of people who read Ravenloft books but didn't play a lot of D&D. It brought a lot of non-gamers to the table, as well as feeding into LARP groups. Not just Vampire LARP, but lots of Vampire cosplayers showing up at Amtgard and such. It brought in lots of women and queer gamers who could more easily see themselves in those games than in traditional D&D. It wasn't all that lite a system, but it emphasized simple, narratively-focused resolution, which permanently increased the diversity of play styles in the RPG world.