Vampire the Masquerade: Love the setting but not the system

[Umbral_Magmus]

My group recently tried running a campaign using Vampire: The Masquerade 20th. We really enjoy the setting and lore and would like to keep playing in that world, but the system didn’t quite support the kind of gameplay we were hoping for.

The main issue for us was that combat didn’t feel very satisfying, especially compared to more tactical RPGs. A few things contributed to that:

• Very little tactical depth. Positioning, terrain, and movement didn’t matter much, and the system doesn’t really support grid or map based play. Most fights felt like trading dice pools rather than making meaningful tactical decisions.
• Limited differentiation between combat actions. Many turns ended up feeling mechanically similar; roll to hit, apply damage without many interesting choices about abilities, positioning, or teamwork.
• Hard to judge encounter difficulty. Our GM struggled to estimate how dangerous enemies would be ahead of time. There isn’t really anything like encounter building guidelines or a CR style framework.
• Combat pacing felt awkward. Some fights dragged due to multiple rolls and resolution steps, while others ended abruptly depending on how damage rolled.

None of this is really a criticism of the design; it's clear the game is focused more on drama, politics, and personal horror than on tactical combat. But our group tends to enjoy combat heavy campaigns with structured fights and tactical decision making.

What we’re hoping to find is a system that:

• Supports tactical combat (grid/map play preferred)
• Provides tools for building balanced encounters
• Can replicate vampire style supernatural powers similar to disciplines
• Works well for a combat focused campaign

We’re happy to adapt powers or do some conversion work if necessary. Mostly we’re looking for a system that handles tactical fights and encounter balance better while still letting us run a World of Darkness vampire game.

Any recommendations?

 

[Fenris-77]

So, just a first thought. The importance of terrain and tactics is, to some extent, on the players and GM, not just the system. If the GM strives to provide tactical environments and the players strive to use them tactically, then a lot of what you want just kind of appears. You certainly could try VtM in a more tactical system, but that also may not the actual problem.

 

[Umbran]

None of this is really a criticism of the design; it's clear the game is focused more on drama, politics, and personal horror than on tactical combat. But our group tends to enjoy combat heavy campaigns with structured fights and tactical decision making.

That'd be an accurate assessment, but there's another element for you to consider, that actually ties into the setting and lore.

Combat in Vampire isn't tactical, because the typical supernatural abilities of the participants are not human-scale. Vampires are typically so much stronger and faster than humans that what people think of as an relevant tactical challenge simply doesn't inconvenience a Vampire enough to concern yourself with. So, the conflict is really just between the participants - basically about who has more power, or is willing to take more risk, or has the clever supernatural trick the other couldn't deal with.

This is part and parcel of the lore and setting - Vampires, as a culture, would not last long if they got into combat with each other frequently and conflicts with mortals risk breaking the Masquerade. If you play this game as if it were D&D, where you can have vampires getting into cool tactical fights every session, what you will end with won't make a whole lot of sense in the context of the setting. They have Princes around specifically to keep that kind of stuff from happening.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I've always enjoyed reading the White Wolf books, but never really interested in playing.

But a more tactical, combat-oriented, kick-in-the-door-kill-the-monster-take-its-stuff kind of game with vampires and werewolves and such...I'd buy THAT for a dollar! (Or fifty...)

 

[jdrakeh]

Pick up the World of Darkness supplement "Combat" book. It was widely considered a poor book by many, specifically for the reasons I think you'll like it (i.e. it shifts the focus of the game from storytelling to combat). It should be mostly compatible with V20. You can get it here:

https://legacy.drivethrurpg.com/product/343/World-of-Darkness-Combat

 

[DrunkonDuty]

If you can find it, there's a GURPS Vampire supplement from back in the day. I haven't actually read it, but it's GURPS. It'll be tactical.

 

[comrade raoul]

What we’re hoping to find is a system that:

• Supports tactical combat (grid/map play preferred)
• Provides tools for building balanced encounters
• Can replicate vampire style supernatural powers similar to disciplines
• Works well for a combat focused campaign

We’re happy to adapt powers or do some conversion work if necessary. Mostly we’re looking for a system that handles tactical fights and encounter balance better while still letting us run a World of Darkness vampire game.

Any recommendations?

I might try Savage Worlds (using material from the horror and super powers companions) or, if you want something especially crunchy and have a high tolerance for abstraction, the (criminally underappreciated) Strike!.

 

[GrimCo]

Not to criticize you, but if you enjoy lot's of combat, specially tactical, grid based one, you picked wrong game.

In VtM, combat is supposed to be last resort, specially between supernaturals. It's intentionally direct, fast and deadly. Oh, and balanced encounter design? That one was never in the books.

I would suggest, if you can dig it up. Monte Cook's World of Darkness. It's based on d20 3ed D&D and it's more like action horror game, with stronger emphasis on combat.

 

[kigmatzomat]

The Storyteller system was developed by Tom Down from the first edition of Shadowrun. It has none of the improvements of SR2.

Its actually pretty easy to translate storyteller to SR. Both are stat+skill dice pools, ST has stats 1-5, SR has "common" stats 1-6 with extremes of 9.

Given vampires are extraordinary, I would convert as (2 x stat)-1 so a vampire 5 becomes SR 9.or just double the build points.

While I think SR2 was the most cinematic version with the big combat pools and SR5 is the current version, humble bundles of SR4 are hard to resist:

Humble RPG Bundle: Shadowrun Fourth Edition Complete Collection by Catalyst Game Labs

Get the full Shadowrun 4th Edition experience with this bundle of lorebooks, guides, and missions! Pay what you want for all 89 ebooks, and support the ACLU!

www.humblebundle.com

After that its a question of "do you just use SR combat with ww powers or try to leverage SR magic, physads, bioware and cyberware as proxies for WW powers?"

 

[TheHand]

if you don’t mind doing some conversion, The Chronicles of Darkness books had slightly more combat systems, as I recall (like static values for Defense and various keyworded Conditions). Nothing quite what you’re looking for in terms of tactical gridded combat, though.

If you have the time and resources you might also take a gander at Curseborne, the spiritual successor to Onyx Path’s Chronicles. It’s probably not exactly what you want either, but it is a recent game and brings some modern sensibilities to the table, including a few side blurbs in playing with VTTs. Unlike vampire, it’s a mixed monster urban fantasy. It’s not super crunchy in the tactical area either, but like Chronicles it has a lot of codified conditions and status effects, and on the GM side it uses simplified npc stat blocks which makes encounter building easier. I think there’s some free preview materials on Drivethru.