Vampire the Masquerade: Love the setting but not the system

[Cergorach]

...you picked wrong game.

While I am tempted to say something similar. They say the don't like the game, but they do like the setting. So saying that they chose the wrong game seems redundant...

As you mentioned Monte Cooks WoD, that might be the right path mechanics wise, but it's a different setting, re-imagined by Monte Cook. Certain parts of WoD are combat heavier, Werewolf for example, and I've seen folks running VtM games with combat heavy Anarchs.

 

[Bill Zebub]

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.

I'd love to see clever RPG rules (they surely exist somewhere) that makes escaping from combat more interesting/exciting/cinematic than just making a single dice roll. Getting one's @$$ whupped and barely getting away is such a common trope in action movies; would love to replicate that feel. And having that mechanic would change the calculus on "balance". This genre seems very appropriate for it.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

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.

Ah. Probably very hard to find then. You'd have to find an old print copy somewhere.

Welp, in that case I'd say SWADE. Works pretty well in my limited experience. Tactical and flexible. The only thing that may be an issue is - I don't know if the SWADE rules have powers that map nicely to the powers in VtM. But certainly something could be cobbled together. Just have all powers run on Power Points, like spell casting, but of course the "power" is blood and the only way to get it back is to drink.

The other option, as always, is HERO!

Build any powers you want, but make them all run on ENDurance from an ENDurance Pool (that is, a blood pool) that only recovers from drinking blood. Non-powers, like a vamp's regular strength and running, should all be bought as 0 END. They don't drain the blood pool. Add in disadvantages like Berserk when the END Pool reaches a low point, say 1/4 of full, and torpor when it reaches 0.

Just some thoughts.

 

[Fenris-77]

There's also this game that's currently crowdfunding. YZE does combat pretty well.

 

[dbm]

Another vote for Savage Worlds as an option for urban fantasy but with some more crunchy combat. The latest version of the Horror Companion (for Savage Worlds Adventure Edition) has a chapter on playing ‘monstrous’ characters such as vampires, werewolves, angels, and more.

There isn’t strong guidance on encounter building in the game, though there is some. As a starting point, constrain enemies to being Extras and they will be much less dangerous and resilient than Wild Cards (which all PCs are, along with ‘named’ NPCs) and that gives you a bit of a safety valve.

A final thought - Vampire is kind of ‘super powers with gothic trappings’, so if you have a favourite supers RPG you could use that as the engine for an urban fantasy game? The monstrous character types in Horror Companion are actually built using the supers rules ‘under the covers’.

 

[azabaro]

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

Your 1st and 3rd goals are directly at odds with each other; the style of powers seen in various incarnations of Vampire are typically either of the save-or-die variety when applicable in combat or an outright "I win" button, and a number of these cost nothing to use. Tactics for dealing with opponents with these sorts of abilities consist of avoiding combat entirely in favor of e.g. blowing up their haven while they sleep.

If you're OK with a tactical combat system which is sort of compatible with the Storyteller System you should seek out White Wolf's Street Fighter: the Storytelling Game. I say "sort of compatible" because it achieves tactical combat by not only avoiding the sort of powers seen amongst White Wolf's typical supernatural character types, but also by throwing out the standard combat system entirely: even the most basic determinations like the order in which characters take action, whether an attack hits, and how much damage is inflicted or resisted are completely disconnected from the rest of the system and bear at most a passing resemblance to it (in that various quantities are measured in "dots" rather than just given numerical values).

Assuming you really do want tactical combat that works well with a combat focused campaign and allows various superhuman abilities, you're basically looking at a themed superhero game. DrunkOnDuty mentions using HERO - I think that's one of your better options if you're willing to pre-build both the common powers intrinsic to vampirism as well as the powers available for individuals to pick up, all while keeping an eye on the built-in options for resisting and overcoming each of those powers. The HERO system also has at least some guidelines for trying to keep characters in the same ballpark combat-wise, but I don't recall much discussion of how to build balanced encounters - Lord_Blacksteel's claim that isn't a big focus for TTRPGs outside the D&D 3.x-5.x cluster seems pretty accurate to me.

 

[WhammeWhamme]

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?

I would recommend the MET Masquerade LARP rules (By Night Studios, the version BEFORE 5e) as a basis.

They still don't do CR, because CR is very much a feature of games where characters of level X have fixed ratios of combat:non-combat abilities, but I didn't find it that hard to balance encounters.

The upsides:

• the combat is more tactical and positional (you'd need to translate "steps" into "hexes/squares", of course)
• it outright uses VtM Disciplines, Clans, etc. because it's still Vampire: the Masquerade.
• resolution is designed to be fairly fast (you might want to sub dice for RPS, but either way it's a single randomizer for hit/damage)
• it's designed to have characters play differently, more so than tabletop (because it's designed for larger groups), so there's more tactical depth in terms of options.
• it's (generally) designed to be more balanced than the tabletop version, because LARPs can get PVP-y at times.

The downsides:

• You'd need to convert "steps" into "squares" or "hexes" to do it tabletop (easy enough).
• Rock/Paper/Scissors is a weird resolution mechanic for most TTRPG players; I would personally replace it with a single die roll and a chart for a tabletop game, because it's just serving the role of a randomizer, so as long as you keep the odds the same (assuming win/tie/loss at RPS is random), you can replace it with a die roll.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

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.

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.

I actually playtested GURPS: VtM back in the 1990s. Like any incarnation of GURPS, it handled gritty combat pretty well.
My character was a Brujah who was at least as crazy as any Malkavian. The Embrace drove him mad. The mechanics of the character leaned heavily into being a deadly killing machine- possibly the most dangerous in the playtest. The roleplay had him as a fusion between The Tick and Blade.

The game itself? The DM ran it as one might run a standard campaign in VtM: roleplay heavy, plenty of intrigue and machinations.

…and not triggering my character into combat.

Seriously, my PC’s combat capability was such that he could probably have taken down almost any active PC or NPC. But even though the character was was a walking, talking Armageddon button, I don’t think we played an actual combat.