The same that happened Gygax happens to Rein-Hagen?

[Eyes of Nine]

Oh yeah, forgot Rice's oeuvre - certainly a strong connection to that touchstone.

Borderlands as a touchstone for V:TM? Hmmm, it's been a while since I read, but that's not resonating. I'll take your word for it.

 

[MGibster]

Many folks going into business, especially pnp RPG business, have no business being business owners. They can be great people, great creators, but they are most often horrible business people. And when people age, their focus changes, in this case it might have been the focus on the TV Series or it might just have been other things, people grow apart all the time.

Running a business is certainly a different skillset from designing games.

With respect, Rice's Interview with the Vampire predates V:tM by 15 years. Terri Windling and the shared universe authors of the Borderlands series, and even Shadowrun with its Tolkienesque races in a modern setting, all got to the topic of the main/viewpoint characters being the monsters before V:tM did.

I've never really thought of Shadowrun from that point of view. I kinda get where you're coming from, trolls and orcs typically being the bad guys in most games, but they never really came off like that in Shadowrun to me. There was nothing particularly monstrous about orcs or trolls aside from their appearance. But still, something I'll have to think about. Thanks for that.

 

[Cergorach]

With respect, Rice's Interview with the Vampire predates V:tM by 15 years. Terri Windling and the shared universe authors of the Borderlands series, and even Shadowrun with its Tolkienesque races in a modern setting, all got to the topic of the main/viewpoint characters being the monsters before V:tM did.

Heck, even the (terrible) 1989 Rick Springfield movie, Nick Knight, the precursor to the Forever Knight series, beat V:tM to the punch.

Rare indeed is the instance when you can look at a genre and say there is one, and only one, work that is responsible for it.

Something like Buffy probably has many, many inspirations, it wanted to flip the Horror genre on it's head. Also keep in mind that 'Blade' first appeared in '73 in Marvel comics, predating the Rice novel by three years (but not the short story '68 vs '76).

Something like True Blood seems to have drawn some inspiration from VtM though.

And Monsters! Monsters! a '76 pnp RPG where you played monsters predated both SR and Terri Windling (Borderlands series) and came out in the same year as the Ann Rice novel. Other works where the protagonist is a monster are Frankenstein and Phantom of the Opera, both far older works.

People also sometimes forget that in the 90s (and earlier) the Internet wasn't what it is today and people can function without ever finding certain 'source' material, while being submerged in more recent 'source' material.

"Good artists copy, great artists steal,"

 

[Umbran]

I've never really thought of Shadowrun from that point of view. I kinda get where you're coming from, trolls and orcs typically being the bad guys in most games, but they never really came off like that in Shadowrun to me. There was nothing particularly monstrous about orcs or trolls aside from their appearance.

In making orcs and trolls sympathetic to the player, and the victims of prejudice, Shadowrun asked the question, "What is a monster, really?" while standing corporate greed up as an obvious answer.

V:tM asked similar questions, but more cynically, allowing the answer, "Well, yeah, I feed on humans, but I'm not really a bad guy, when you get to know me..."

 

[MGibster]

In making orcs and trolls sympathetic to the player, and the victims of prejudice, Shadowrun asked the question, "What is a monster, really?" while standing corporate greed up as an obvious answer.

It just felt like D&D to me, but then I was 13 and didn't look too deeply at such things. Heck, I really didn't look too shallowly at such things. You're right though, I do remember the books taking a sympathetic stance for those "victims" of goblinization including being rejecting by their families and facing discrimination in various aspects of their lives.

V:tM asked similar questions, but more cynically, allowing the answer, "Well, yeah, I feed on humans, but I'm not really a bad guy, when you get to know me..."

I understand the expectation was most players would side with the Anarchs, you know, fight the power. But it was the opposite, with most players siding with the Camarilla and inflicting abuse on their inferiors.

 

[dragoner]

We are the monsters, fantasy is just skinning it over, there is no non-monster us.

 

[Umbran]

I understand the expectation was most players would side with the Anarchs, you know, fight the power. But it was the opposite, with most players siding with the Camarilla and inflicting abuse on their inferiors.

I don't see how you'd get that expectation, when the core rulebook was all about being part of the Camarilla.

 

[Sir Brennen]

And Monsters! Monsters! a '76 pnp RPG where you played monsters predated both SR and Terri Windling (Borderlands series) and came out in the same year as the Ann Rice novel. Other works where the protagonist is a monster are Frankenstein and Phantom of the Opera, both far older

There was also the parallel development of Nightlife and VtM, the former releasing just a few months before the latter, but never found the same audience. Possibly due to differences in distribution and production values.

 

[MGibster]

I don't see how you'd get that expectation, when the core rulebook was all about being part of the Camarilla.

Sure, but the Anarchs were a faction within the Camarilla that were the downtrodden (i.e. typically younger). My impression was we were supposed to identify with the Anarchs but most players ended up identifying with those in power within the Camarilla. We didn't want to play the downtrodden, we wanted to do the trodding.

 

[Umbran]

Sure, but the Anarchs were a faction within the Camarilla that were the downtrodden (i.e. typically younger). My impression was we were supposed to identify with the Anarchs ...

Dude, the Anarchs are barely mentioned in the original core rulebook. I don't have a pdf to search, but I find like, five whole sentences in my hardcopy.

Hard to have a game written with an expectation of the players identifying with them, whey they are told nothing about Anrachs in the book!