Vampire the Masquerade: Love the setting but not the system

[overgeeked]

Yeah. The system is not designed for that style of play despite being played rather famously as superheroes with fangs, leather trench coats, and katanas. It was apparently designed as a personal horror and political intrigue game. Go figure.

Savage Worlds with the Horror Companion is probably your best bet if you're looking for that kind of high-action campaign. The Rippers campaign books might also be helpful as they're also horror.

 

[aramis erak]

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

Seconded. Note that WOD: Combat is, in essence, the Street Fighter RPG combat mechanics stripped of the SF IP. It's a great tactical game, as any game where a martial arts tournament is the primary arc driver.

 

[aramis erak]

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!.

Savage Worlds is many things... but finely balanced it is not. Tactical combat is intentionally swingy, with a mantra of "up, down, or off the table"... - PCs are either up and functioning, down from stun, or out of the action.

There was a points system for 1st ed SavW that can still be found in PDF online... it provides a basic level of balance, but it's less reliable than D&D 3.0's balance factors.

 

[GrimCo]

Yeah. The system is not designed for that style of play despite being played rather famously as superheroes with fangs, leather trench coats, and katanas. It was apparently designed as a personal horror and political intrigue game. Go figure.

Even in that playstyle, System wasn't really combat friendly. You can have one combat where you play ping pong turn after turn ( when ones damage and other soak are closely matched) and other where first hit and some hot dices drop you from full health to almost torpor. Supers with fangs only worked if you fought regular humans without more serious hardware. When it came to fights with other vampires, werewolf or even humans with right hardware, it got real nasty. Humans with assault rifles, high powered sniper rifles, incendiary ammo, shotguns (with incendiary ammo) or flame throwers were menace. With other vampires, it either became boring slogfest going nowhere or if one side had ability to do aggravated, it got nasty real fast.

 

[John Dallman]

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.

I've read it, but not played it. It uses the normal GURPS 3e combat system. It has not been revised for 4e, or released as PDF because there was a falling-out between SJ Games and the old White Wolf company.

 

[DarkCrisis]

I was going to say VtM fixes a couple of issues I had with old WoD but I see that’s not your issue.

Perhaps WoD D20? It’s certainly a thing.

 

[Lord_Blacksteel]

You're going to find that outside of 3E and later versions of D&D most RPGs do not have "encounter balance" as an area of focus. Even recent games, outside of D&D and offshoots of it, do not really get into this. Players and GMS just have to pay attention to what's going on in-game and realize that a)not everything is meant to be a fight and b) sometimes the PCs will need to run away if they want to continue living.

 

[GrimCo]

You're going to find that outside of 3E and later versions of D&D most RPGs do not have "encounter balance" as an area of focus. Even recent games, outside of D&D and offshoots of it, do not really get into this. Players and GMS just have to pay attention to what's going on in-game and realize that a)not everything is meant to be a fight and b) sometimes the PCs will need to run away if they want to continue living.

And c) if you insist on fighting, sometimes you will meet very swift end because you picked a fight with someone/something that's way above your paygrade.

 

[Piperken]

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?

You could peek at ShadowCity: Blood and Neon (Chubby Funster). It approaches V:tM, gazing towards OSR (Shadowdark), with a domain overlay that creates an experience similar to what you might find in the GTA series or similar. Relatively easy to find video read throughs etc.

You could keep a lot of the lore from WoD. One exception to note however, is that this game plays out from an alternative 1980s time frame, so your table would need to either agree with that caveat, or be willing to rework the random tables provided.