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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dykstrav" data-source="post: 6073195" data-attributes="member: 40522">Vampire: the MasqueradePublished by White Wolf,  currently supported under the Onyx Path imprint. It's a great game, and  one of the very few games that I've never gotten tired of at one point  or another.Strengths: The game's setting is  essentially the "real" world with a few occult wrinkles, not the least  of which is the existence of vampires and other supernatural monsters.  It's very easy to get people into the context of the game because you  can set a chronicle in your own home town or a real-world city that  everyone has some passing familiarity with (say, London or Los Angeles).  You don't have to explain the level of technology, the economy, the  politics, the arts--the players already know it. Furthermore, the  inherent familiarity of the setting actually helps with building a  horror environment.The character generation system is a point  buy that allows you to create virtually any sort of character that you  can envision. Attributes and Abilities are rated on a scale of one dot  (abysmal) to five dots (superb, literally one of the best people on the  planet). You can easily make a world-famous neurosurgeon by selecting,  say, four dots of Medicine and four dots of Fame. This is sufficient to  make your character one of the best surgeons in the world that's also a  household name, but it's also not a crippling min-maxing investment.  You'll still have plenty of dots to make your character a well-rounded  individual that can accomplish many tasks at least passably, and  probably better than the average human.The mechanics are simple,  easily learned, yet remarkably comprehensive. You can learn the entire  system in under ten minutes, and resolving even a big combat scene  rarely takes more than five or ten minutes. A great deal of power exists  in the hands of the storyteller, they are mostly free to do as they  please. As long as the players are enjoying the game, there's no real  discussions about "balance" or following the letter or intent of the  rules.Vampires deal with a trait called Humanity, which  basically measures how much of a psychotic bastard they are as they  become more and more comfortable with the fact that they need to hurt  and kill to survive. Losing Humanity is a great deal more terrifying to a  Vampire player than losing hit points or shifting  alignment in D&D, it represents your character's transformation into  a callous monster. The fundamental struggle that a vampire undergoes to  retain some vestige of decency is considerably poignant, and in the  hands of a competent storyteller, can be profound and engaging on a  level that's difficult to match in other games. Unlife as a vampire has  consequences. Every feeding, every killing weighs heavily on the mind  and spirit of the vampire. You can use violence to deal with a situation, but it's rarely the best option and it always carries consequences.If  you have a good storyteller, the mood and flavor of the game can't be  beat. You absolutely have to get the right people for the group, but  when you do, the game seamlessly accommodates creepy occult mysteries,  high society intrigues, personal tragedy, high-octane action... Just  about any mood or theme you can imagine for a horror setting.Weaknesses: First off, it's a Horror game with a capital "H." If your players don't dig horror, they aren't going to dig Vampire.  The setting and events of a chronicle can be bleak and depressing if  the player and/or storyteller let it. It's a game that explores the  lowest, darkest corners of the psyche at times. It should be creepy and  tense, but it can also be profoundly disturbing (ask Vampire  players about their first encounters with the Tzimisce, for instance).  Not everyone enjoys that sort of game, and there's no real way to tone  it down.The game is also pretty narrowly focused. It does what  it does very well, but you can't really adapt it to do things beyond  vampire fiction. Depending on your tone and mood, your chronicle could  be the Lost Boys, Interview with the Vampire, Blade, or Underworld.  But it's never going to move beyond vampire fiction, or at best,  various strains of horror. Other World of Darkness games do other things  very well, but Vampire is pretty narrowly focused on what it does.Players  can get bogged down in how much of the "real" world exists in the World  of Darkness. Some players want to deal with topical issues in the news,  especially those with a strong social conscience. You can certainly use  current events to inspire stories, but I ultimately want to watch the news, not play an RPG set in it. It's very important to establish expectations about tone, mood, and good taste up front when you play Vampire.Players  can lose their sense of perspective when playing a vampire character.  Because it's possible to begin play as a relatively powerful character  (even the weakest vampires outclass the majority of humans), they don't  always remember that a five-dot rating in a particular trait makes them  literally one of the best people in the world at that particular  Ability. It's easy to become blase about someone with four dots of  Firearms and explain their expertise as, "my character hangs out at the  gun store a lot."Vampire has a vast metaplot,  if you choose to use it. The game works just fine without it, but some  players have become very attached to the various facets of the metaplot  published throughout the product line. Some players that have read  through a dozen sourcebooks get very frustrated when you tell them that  you're going to ignore metaplot, or worse, change it.</blockquote>

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