White Wolf Announces Vampire The Masquerade 5E Preorder And Distribution Partnership With Modiphius

White Wolf announced that they would be partnering with Modiphius Entertainment to bring Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition (V5) worldwide in English. Modiphius will be White Wolf's distribution partner, and handle distributing the game line.

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The image above, shared exclusively with EN World is by photographer Derek Hutchison and features the model Ramsey. It features a Malkavian vampire from the upcoming game.

Vampire: The Masquerade, the classic that changed role-playing games forever, returns in a fifth edition! V5 features a streamlined and modern rules design, beautiful new full-color art, and a rich story experience for new and returning players. Powered by the innovative Hunger cycle, the game also includes rules for creating system supported character coteries, Loresheets to directly involve players with their favorite parts of the setting, and Memoriam, a new way to bring the character's detailed backgrounds and expand on them in-session.

V5 is a return to Vampire's original vision, moving boldly into the 21sth century. While the rules have been redesigned, this new edition honors the deep story of the original, advancing the metaplot from where it left off and detailing exactly what has happened in the world of the Kindred up until tonight. The terror of the Second Inquisition, the conspiracies behind the Gehenna War, and the rekindling of the War of Ages: these are the building blocks of the modern V5 chronicle.

The ultimate game of personal and political horror roleplaying game, Vampire: The Masquerade, will see its fifth edition this year with the pre-order period starting midday GMT on Saturday the 28th of April. The V5 preorder will start shipping from August with the first release, the core book, available in stores from September. Two more V5 books will be released later in the Fall, the Camarilla and the Anarch setting books. V5 will also be available in other languages by the end of the year. Please visit the pre-order page for more details: https://www.modiphius.net/collections/vampire-the-masquerade.

The preorder for Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition will start on Saturday, April 28th, and the preordered books will begin shipping in August. The preorder will feature "three main full colour hardback books, the V5 corebook, the Anarch and Camarilla sourcebooks as well as an official V5 dice set, V5 storyteller screen and V5 notebook. All three books will also be available in a high quality slipcase for collectors along with a special edition of the corebook. For those wanting to mark this new edition, a collector’s edition of the corebook will also be available. The online pre-order will feature bundles including the V5 dice set, V5 storyteller screen and V5 notebook."

 

[CapnZapp]

That's absolutely true. Somehow WotC managed it with 5E, but I bet they're still wondering how that happened exactly, if you catch them on an honest day.

Simple. Simple to DM. Caster martial equality. Backgrounds.

Most things previously offered at way too low level, like OP Charm Person, Detect Evil, travel and obstacle bypass spells.

No new-fangled player agency abilities that just rip you out of the immersion to force meta-think. (Inspiration weak but easily ignored)

 

[Mr. Wilson]

Please don't be terrible, please don't be terrible.

 

[GloomyGus]

I can't think of a better description of 5E than "workmanlike."

It barely incorporates any of the new design features that two generations of games have evolved, even though to us old timers many of them in the late 90s were evident as things many folks wanted. It has essentially no rules that allow the player to take an "authorial role", barely existent personality mechanics, a poorly designed skill system, no real economy or crafting rules, and a number of other clunky legacy mechanics. Yet it's selling quite well and manages to occupy a lot of play time (including mine).


That's absolutely true. Somehow WotC managed it with 5E, but I bet they're still wondering how that happened exactly, if you catch them on an honest day.

I'm think the 5e devs know exactly why 5e is so successful. They built a simple ruleset that most people can grasp, and they built up a strong connection with popular online personalities like Mike Krahulik, Jerry Holkins, Jared Knabenbauer and Holly Conrad. They've embraced shows like Critical Role and made livestreaming an important part of the D&D experience. And on top of all that they've made actual, lead developers like Mike Mearls and Chris Perkins into a friendly, respected face for the company.

In other words, whether intentional or not, they've run one of the savviest marketing campaigns I've ever seen. They make D&D look fun, because some of your favorite online personalities are playing it. They make it look easy, because you can watch people who have never played slip right into the game without too much trouble. By livestreaming weekly games, they ensure that you're always thinking about the game, keeping it fresh in your memory. And you might just want to buy more stuff because you can see how genuinely excited the developers are about that stuff.

The was no luck involved. It was an impressively smart strategy.

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

Simple. Simple to DM. Caster martial equality. Backgrounds.

Backgrounds are nothing new, even to D&D---they were in late 4E, for example, and kits were around all the way back in 2E. Caster/martial equality is just a matter of tweaking game balance. The simplicity to run is more or less a return to 2E with some cleanup and additions from 3E and 4E.

Most things previously offered at way too low level, like OP Charm Person, Detect Evil, travel and obstacle bypass spells.

Many of these things didn't change much between versions, and most of those things had been removed in 4E (as I recall). Even if they did I don't recall them being totally unbalanced, though I certainly did cull some of the divination spells, which were notably weakened in 2E as well. Again, those are changes I'd call "workmanlike." Many of them are things people in the community had been kicking around for decades.

No new-fangled player agency abilities that just rip you out of the immersion to force meta-think. (Inspiration weak but easily ignored)

Ignoring something that many other games have included, even something as simple and not at all meta-game as Willpower from V:tM, is not exactly an act of genius.

5E has plenty of warts, too, such as a poorly defined skill system with several skills that are rarely useful (Medicine) and a shaky delineation between skills and tools, which range from incredibly useful (Thieves' Tools) to next to worthless (Lute). (Yes you could argue those are left undefined to allow DM to have agency. I don't agree with that argument but you can make it.) The crafting system is essentially non-existent but where it does exist, its numbers make no sense. Finally, even a core mechanic like saves has some kooky math. A number of other core issues were essentially set by arbitrary fiat, such as three items being attuned.

In sum, how is that not "workmanlike"?

Workmanlike doesn't mean bad and innovative doesn't necessarily mean good. 5E is really kind of the opposite of innovative. 4E, by contrast, was pretty innovative. I like 5E as a game better than 4E for reasons you already mentioned: It's simple, it's more like older versions of the game, etc.

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

I'm think the 5e devs know exactly why 5e is so successful. <snip> In other words, whether intentional or not, they've run one of the savviest marketing campaigns I've ever seen. <snip> The was no luck involved. It was an impressively smart strategy.

I don't think anyone anticipated things like live stream in, say, 2012, when the strategy was being laid out, though I won't claim to know. Even if they did it would be hard to guess how big that would get. (Am I the only person in the world who has 0 desire to watch other people play? Probably.)

4E made some false moves, but my guess is that in 2007 they thought they had a great strategy, such as grounding the game in what popular competition of the time was doing, like mini games and WoW. In retrospect we know they made some dumb choices and made too many changes to the game (much like a band that jumps from one sound to another), but in general the strategy was probably a reasonable one. It was a reasonable one that didn't work.

There's always luck involved and things look "inevitable" in hindsight.

 

[CapnZapp]

Caster/martial equality is just a matter of tweaking game balance.

Understatement of the year, if not decade.

There's absolutely no "just" about it.

It is the first time it's done, and it's a huge selling point of 5E to the crippling detriment of every previous edition.

You dismiss and downplay other points too, but compared to this one, they're small potato.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Which mechanic do you consider to be weak?

Most of it. I don't mean it wasn't playable, but the results (mechanically) were IME, always mixed. Incredible imbalance between what some abilities could do compared to others is an example, like the discussion above.

I just hope they can work out some of the kinks.

 

[MTylerJones]

Wow. So a post on Vampire revives the D&D edition wars. Go figure.

 

[Guest 6801328]

I hope this doesn't mean they're going to use 2d20. Modiphius is just the distribution partner, right?

 

[TrippyHippy]

I hope this doesn't mean they're going to use 2d20. Modiphius is just the distribution partner, right?

They won't be using the 2D20 system. It'll be a dice pool system, modified from previous White Wolf games. The playtest files are available for free on the worldofdarkness.com site for free. They may not be final, but they give a good indication about what to expect.

Modiphius are just distributing, as they do with quite a lot of different games these days.