VtM: Remastered for BlueRay and HD DVD. With special introductory price.
*rant warning*
1. Five months for open development of material conversion? It's either too long or too short (3 months for printing leaves 2 months for development and editing). Given that this is rehash of old material with slapped on conversion with all setting specific items left out, the question is whether there is anything worth developing.
Although, I'm thoroughly convinced that the book is going to be pretty.
2. Old design attitudes are coming back to play foul (excerpt taken from
designer blog):
(on greater dice pools leading to greater chance of botching the roll)
And you know what? I agree with these. While I will certainly stop far short of saying that your reward for a high degree of competence (dice pool) versus problematic situation (difficulty) is the greater chance of sewing your car keys into the ghoul's abdominal cavity, I will say that they are both narrative goldmines, and they're true to the fluky, weird, and cosmically karmic nature of classic tabletop Vampire storytelling.
This is an old issue. Bringing it back shows that that while the world moved on, this particular person didn't. I may have little bias with a system which rewards greater competence with greater chance of disastrous failure, but the fact that the topic was beaten to death over years simply shows lack of flexibility or creativeness.
To counter this particular idea:
- modern narrative systems have usually two control mechanisms built in. One to mitigate disaster, the other to induce disaster. Both are needed - to make the players feel more in control, the other to ensure that disasters do happen at significant moments (in a way, it's like accumulating negative karma).
- pure randomness invites cheating on both sides of the screen. Players don't want to lose because they had to roll and were struck by bad luck. GMs don't want their villains to flop meaninglessly.
Oh, and that was Justin Achilli writing it,
el luchador of the development team.
3. The original vampire game was not about vampires. Bloodlines, disciplines, clans, generations were marginal to relations, power plays and daily struggle with vampiric urges.
Is the concept of master list of clans really appropriate?
I wonder if they are going to fill pages again with stereotypes, goth girls, ugly nosferatu and smart businessmen? The disciplines were mentioned to include 9 levels of powers though, so hopefully, this time they may choose to skip some of fast food content.
4. An example of a modern supernatural game:
Harry Dresden Files (link to free adventure). That's the benchmark against which V20 has to compete... unless the plan is just to sell to die-hard fans.
Regards,
Ruemere
PS. Regarding this bitter tone of mine... does anyone remember heavyhandedness with which demise of Ravnos Antedeluvian was handled? There was no sense of mystery, no hidden and subtle stuff happening behind the scenes. So much potential, so many details lovingly painted by designers... all of this gone in a flash of a nuclear strike. Just like Camarilla, Inconnu and Sabbat (and the independents) got squashed by elephant stomp of Gehenna books.
Without satisfying conclusion to metaplot of Old WoD, and with new books lacking focus... I know it's highly subjective and incomplete impression, but the first books of New WoD were hardly inspiring with regard to building long campaign arcs. At their core, the sense of wonder may have been somewhat present in mortal books, but the vampires and werewolves were distinctly lacking in mysticism department.
And so I put my books on the shelf, and didn't look back.
Hmm. For some reason, I have an uncanny urge to give 7th Sea another try...
