Vampire vs. Nightlife -- for a D&D adventure gamer

[Quasqueton]

My group has discussed playing some Vampire (WW) soon. I'm kind of burning out on DMing, so one of my Players has agreed to run a Vampire game (his love). I've never played it, but I did play some Nightlife back in the early 90s.

All I know about Vampire is what I've seen mentioned on D&D forums (like here), and unfortunately, it doesn't sound exciting. Hearing the Player talk about the game made it sound interesting, though. But my experience with playing horror monsters in the Nightlife game seems very, very different (opposite end of the spectrum) from what Vampire seems to be.

Has anyone here played Nightlife *and* Vampire? Can anyone compare the experiences?

Nightlife was splatterpunk. Fast, bloody, wild adventure. Sure, we role played our characters, but we played that game for the action. 70% action, 30% theater. (I tend to like an even ratio 50/50.)

Vampire seems, from what I've read here and heard from the Player, seems to be more 5% action, 95% theater. The DM mentioned how it is fun to slowly learn about your new attributes, and try to deal with day-to-day "living". This just doesn't sound all that exciting or fun. What kind of adventures can you have in Vampire?

Tell me about Vampire. Sell it to a D&D adventure gamer.

Thanks.

Quasqueton

 

[Crothian]

Are they playing the old Vampire the MAsqurade or the New Vampire the Requim?

 

[TheLostSoul]

As with D&D, Vampire can be played in alot of different ways. The one the rulebooks try to set up, is a game of personal horror, where you slowly loose your humanity as the Beast inside you, coaches you to do things that are more animalistic and amoral. At the same time the vampiric society tries to keep hidden from mortals, due to tradition, rules laid out by the first vampire (in Vampire: the Masquerade) and the fear and experience of mortal inquisitions.

The way I have most often seen it run (sadly), is a high action game with too speedy advancement and high gains (whether in power (political or ortherwise), resources or physical power). Not really the best way to run it, IMO.

There are some differences between Vampire: The Maquerade and the new Vampire: the Requiem. V:tM was more focussed at the struggle of different, worldspanning vampiric organisation (The Camarilla and the Sabbat) and the loss of your own humanity. V:tR is alot more personal and focussed at the locale of your game. There are no true worldspanning organisations (the ones in the V:tR book are examples of general organisations) and vampires are more focussed on territory and their personal sphere. This makes the game alot more personal and horrific, IMO.

I can only encourage you to play the game a few times. I love both the games and systems and, I personally think that the game encourages roleplaying in a way that most other games miss. The system is easily learned and quite fast, especially the new Storytelling system.

 

[Henry]

The one time I played VtM, I ran around town victimizing people I knew in real life, because none of us had even played before, and the DM gave us no direction whatsoever. We played for all of one session.

It's a good game I'm told, but its focus is more on the story of your character's journey from the transformed state (what he suddenly finds himself as) to what he ius to become - does he embrace what the typical vampire does because that's "what they do", or does he struggle to be a better being, and strive to achieve complete understanding of himself. Along the way, you break things and eat people.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It's Ravenloft, you and your kind are all collectively the darklords, and you're tied to a society of monsters who you abhor (and many of whom would be happy to see you dead, if it served their purposes, which it eventually will) but whom you need to survive.

The new World of Darkness is a lot creepier with a lot more amorphous scary things that go bump in the night than what the old one eventually evolved into. The new traditions and covenants also provide a lot of structure what sort of game you want to play, particularly if everyone shares a covenant.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I like what they did with the setting for the new WoD, but absolutely hate the new system. Some of the design decisions just boggle me, and it can all too easily become a game of 'trading tens'. (If the passive character's 'defense' is equal or less than the active character's 'attack' then the active character rolls a single die looking for 10s, so two even characters get to sit there all night rolling one die each looking for tens. What fun. Attack in this case does not always mean combat, two characters arguing would use the same system.)

Aside from a system that I very much dislike my only complaint is that they changed some spellings for no apparent reason aside from the change itself. The setting, Clans, etc. look decent.

You may want to try out Dark Ages: Vampire as well or Instead, a better system than Requeim and a fairly cool world. I am passing fond of Dark Ages: Fae.

I have never played Nightlife, and don't think that I know anybody who has.

The Auld Grump

 

[eyebeams]

I like what they did with the setting for the new WoD, but absolutely hate the new system. Some of the design decisions just boggle me, and it can all too easily become a game of 'trading tens'. (If the passive character's 'defense' is equal or less than the active character's 'attack' then the active character rolls a single die looking for 10s, so two even characters get to sit there all night rolling one die each looking for tens. What fun. Attack in this case does not always mean combat, two characters arguing would use the same system.)

Factually speaking, that's not actually how the system plays. The Storytelling System is designed so that two characters of equal talent will nullify each other's abilities if, and only if they do not apply any tactics to their actions.

In reality, most conflicts do not lead people to trade chance dice, because they apply:

1) Willpower (+3 dice to an action)
2) Equipment bonuses (+1 to 5 dice)
3) Situational bonuses (Aim, All Out Attack, etc.)
4) Supernatural bonuses (Blood: +2 dice to physical actions, etc)
5) Character bonuses that require activation (such as Dodge merits).

Basically, if you plan to play your character on autopilot, you will not do well. If you actively look for ways to seize the advantage (or put the opponent in a bad spot), you take advantage of the system.

Willpower use is much more common and central to success than the old game (there's more of it for this reason; In the old game 5 Willpower awas the exceptional starting base of Mage characters. Now it's the average)-- and it's directly related to Virtues and Vices. This means that character success is directly tied to the ability to play out a Virtue or Vice (Vices are easier to fulfill, but grant less Willpower).

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Factually speaking, that's not actually how the system plays. The Storytelling System is designed so that two characters of equal talent will nullify each other's abilities if, and only if they do not apply any tactics to their actions.

In reality, most conflicts do not lead people to trade chance dice, because they apply:

1) Willpower (+3 dice to an action)
2) Equipment bonuses (+1 to 5 dice)
3) Situational bonuses (Aim, All Out Attack, etc.)
4) Supernatural bonuses (Blood: +2 dice to physical actions, etc)
5) Character bonuses that require activation (such as Dodge merits).

Basically, if you plan to play your character on autopilot, you will not do well. If you actively look for ways to seize the advantage (or put the opponent in a bad spot), you take advantage of the system.

Willpower use is much more common and central to success than the old game (there's more of it for this reason; In the old game 5 Willpower awas the exceptional starting base of Mage characters. Now it's the average)-- and it's directly related to Virtues and Vices. This means that character success is directly tied to the ability to play out a Virtue or Vice (Vices are easier to fulfill, but grant less Willpower).

In reality I ran the game only once. In reality 'trading 10s' is exactly what happened - players hoarded their Willpower, and both the PC and the NPC had the same basic (ie cheap) equipment. The players created the term. This happened in both the fistfight, and in the debate with a minor funtionary of the prince. Neither time did the conflict escalate to the point where equipment (ie weapons) was called into play. Perhaps if the conflicts had been more lethal the PCs would have spent Will, but since it was not they did not, nor did they feel like spending Will just to save time.

Reality is what has happened, not conjecture. Did the PCs hoard their precious Will to tightly? Perhaps. Did we have fun? No, we did not. Did we have fun playing the older version? Yes, indeed we had. The decision was made to go back to the original version of the game. We may convert the newer version's clans and disciplines to the older game, since those actually seemed better. (Not more powerful, in general things were a tad weaker, and Celerity had been downright gutted. (Which it needed.))

Yes, this is anecdotal, but it is what happened in my game, and we just plain did not have fun. I find that I greatly prefer having both an active defense and an active attack to having the attacker do the rolling. It also adds in more variables, which I like.

As I said, I liked much of the non-rules and non central rules portion of the game. The characters seemed a little better balanced (in the example I used too well balanced) and a lot less like a munchkin's dream. But the system made the game less fun.

I still don't understand why WW felt the need to make spelling changes, which I will admit was more of a quibble than a complaint.

The Auld Grump

 

[SWBaxter]

Has anyone here played Nightlife *and* Vampire? Can anyone compare the experiences?

Nightlife was splatterpunk. Fast, bloody, wild adventure. Sure, we role played our characters, but we played that game for the action. 70% action, 30% theater. (I tend to like an even ratio 50/50.)

Vampire seems, from what I've read here and heard from the Player, seems to be more 5% action, 95% theater. The DM mentioned how it is fun to slowly learn about your new attributes, and try to deal with day-to-day "living". This just doesn't sound all that exciting or fun. What kind of adventures can you have in Vampire?

Any of the things you see in your favourite vampire movies/books/whatever. "Blade"-style actionfests are possible, so are "Interview With The Vampire"-style introspective journeys. Just like you don't have to play D&D as killing things and taking their stuff in endless repetition, you don't have to play Vampire as angst leading to tragedy leading to angst forever. In both cases the rules are written to support the default style of play, but you can work around that, and Vampire is less bound to a particular playstyle than D&D, IMHO.

Whenever I run Vampire, I usually go for a politics/conspiracy sort of tone. Lots of agendas, hidden and otherwise, lots of factions doing their thing, lots of cannon fodder to liven up the slow spots. It works OK, style and mix must of course vary by group. I aim for a 50/50 action/intrigue mix, and usually get fairly close. By action, I mean movie-style action (chase scenes, stunts, and so on) as well as fights.

Tell me about Vampire. Sell it to a D&D adventure gamer.

Nightlife is probably better for D&D-style games, IMHO. If you want to look at a Storyteller game that's more action-focused out of the box, I'd recommend Werewolf rather than Vampire.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

It's a good game I'm told, but its focus is more on the story of your character's journey from the transformed state (what he suddenly finds himself as) to what he ius to become - does he embrace what the typical vampire does because that's "what they do", or does he struggle to be a better being, and strive to achieve complete understanding of himself. Along the way, you break things and eat people.

Yeah, this pretty much sums it up for me as well.

There are some tricky things about Vampire. For instance, if you can make your character 8th generation (or whatever it is you can pull off in the core book) you're in a much better position than a 12th generation.

A buddy of mine ran a great Vampire game. It was a little astonishing because, frankly, he's not that great a GM or even a PC. But he stated everyone up as mortals and didn't even tell them what game they were playing (he was the only one with the book). Then the PCs slowly got bitten one by one and started having these cravings for blood. It was really cool.

Just don't lose focus on what Vampire is all about: picking up goth chicks.