White Wolf Unveils New Vampire Logo!

White Wolf has unveiled the new logo for the most anticipated RPG of 2018, Vampire The Masquerade 5E! "Elements of the past, present, and future combine in this new logo design by Tomas Arfert and Chris Elliott."

 

[Wulffolk]

Awesome, thanks for the interesting information. I didn't realize that I had been using a previously created method

 

[Wulffolk]

The first dice pool system that I was aware of was Shadowrun, which also came out in 1989, but I didn't pick up on until '90 or '91.

 

[TrippyHippy]

The very first dice-pool system was that of Ghostbusters (which also had Greg Stafford in it's design team, incidentally). This was then developed into the WEG Star Wars D6 game in about 1987, and dice pool systems then became highly fashionable.

Shadowrun was also a prominent dice pool game, that was certainly influential on White Wolf's Storyteller system (Mark Rein-Hagen made reference to it), but it tended to adopt the complexities of long lists of skills and structured combat mechanics (modifiers, etc) that most of the other dice pool designs (including Vampire) were deliberately moving away from. While it is related, therefore, it isn't as directly influential in terms of Vampire's design intent as Prince Valiant is (the notion of 'simple and elegant' design).

Another dice pool game of note is Over The Edge (1992) by Jonathon Tweet who had collaborated with Mark Rein-Hagen in the making of Ars Magica but had taken a sabbatical from the rpg hobby in the interim. Ars Magica was very much the antecedent to Vampire: The Masquerade in terms of setting (with the 3rd Edition of the game unofficially being the medieval background of the World of Darkness, although the idea was jettisoned later). However, Mark Rein-Hagen's strength was really in setting design and the mechanics were really Tweet's forté (he went on to be lead designer of D&D 3rd edition). Over the Edge's dice pool system, however, really was very simple and elegant and some have argued that this was basically closer in design intent than the occasionally clunky system that Mark Rein-Hagen came up with in the end for Vampire. Over The Edge, in turn, became influential towards the design of things like Fate.

 

[aramis erak]

Prince Valiant (1989, Greg Stafford) essentially invented the dice pool mechanisms that developed into the the Storyteller system (in fact, it's where it got the name from). It's been acknowledged by the White Wolf crew in the past, multiple times. The main difference between Prince Valiant rules and Storyteller rules, aside from being simpler with less stats, is that they use a coin toss for each dot in the pool.

If you want to see the antecedent roots of the Storyteller system, then pick up Prince Valiant. For me, it would be the base model for the system of V5 too in many respects, and it also has a new edition coming out next year too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Valiant:_The_Story-Telling_Game

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1861515217/prince-valiant-storytelling-game-by-greg-stafford

Shadowrun was mechanically closer, also 1989, and MUCH better known.
Plus mechanics...

• PV is difficulty is number of successes needed, all coins for a fixed TN per die (of Heads).
• Shadowrun is each die is an exploding value d6 vs a tn which is set by difficulty, only one success needed to succeed, but more is better.
• VTM 1E is each die is a d10 vs a tn which is set by difficulty, only one success needed to succeed, but more is better. Some dice explode generating more dice.
• Space 1889 combat mechanics were d6s vs a target number by weapon count successes.

Space 1889 was released in 1988 - it's the first of the "count successes" mode in the RPG sphere I'm aware of.

Note also, it wasn't until later that VTM/Storyteller switched to Difficulty by number of successes vs fixed TN.

 

[ProfessorDetective]

It's funny really. I never really had a problem with the Storyteller rules myself, but then I never had qualms about tailoring rules to suit as I went along. Ken Hite, the current Vampire developer is actually one of it's biggest critics, historically. He didn't think the system was robust enough - so it'll be interesting as to how he will develop the rules himself now he's in charge.

Wait a moment. They have one of the creators of the GUMSHOE System, Trail of Cthulhu, and Night's Black Agents heading up VtM 5e?

Now I'm intrigued.

 

[TrippyHippy]

Shadowrun was mechanically closer, also 1989, and MUCH better known.
Plus mechanics...

• PV is difficulty is number of successes needed, all coins for a fixed TN per die (of Heads).
• Shadowrun is each die is an exploding value d6 vs a tn which is set by difficulty, only one success needed to succeed, but more is better.
• VTM 1E is each die is a d10 vs a tn which is set by difficulty, only one success needed to succeed, but more is better. Some dice explode generating more dice.
• Space 1889 combat mechanics were d6s vs a target number by weapon count successes.

Space 1889 was released in 1988 - it's the first of the "count successes" mode in the RPG sphere I'm aware of.

Note also, it wasn't until later that VTM/Storyteller switched to Difficulty by number of successes vs fixed TN.

Shadowrun may be better known but it isn't mechanically closer. It has a dice pool mechanic with fixed target numbers, but in all earnestness, that is actually the limit of the similarity to the Storyteller system.

Vampire was written with an expressed intent to create a "simple and elegant" system that was aiming to put story and setting first, and de-emphasising the wargaming roots of most RPGs in favour of more freeform styles of play (like Live action or diceless play). Shadowrun essentially embraces wargame mechanics, with lots of emphasis on combat, lots of skills, gear and trait lists, strategic modifiers and all the sorts of things that you'd basically get in strategic/tactical rpg systems like Champions. The two games systems have different design intents.

Prince Valiant was expressly cited and discussed as an antecedent by the original White Wolf crew, however. Stewart Weick, who sadly passed away this year, as one of the founders of White Wolf, made a point of this in the Prince Valiant Kickstarter campaign too. Prince Valiant also 'counts successes' with a fixed target - albeit those flipped on coins - along with ranking the stats in the same basic way.

Vampire: the Masquerade wasn't influenced by any one, single game of course, but the development of the system towards non-fixed targets ultimately proved to be a bad system design - this is why they reverted to fixed targets in later versions of the system.

 

[TrippyHippy]

Wait a moment. They have one of the creators of the GUMSHOE System, Trail of Cthulhu, and Night's Black Agents heading up VtM 5e?

Now I'm intrigued.

Yep, Ken Hite is the key developer of the new Vampire: The Masquerade system, in consultation with others (including Mark Rein-Hagen especially). He was a co-creator of Gumshoe and key writer for Trail of Cthulhu and Night's Black Agents, as well as things like GURPS Horror and lots of other contributions. His horror background is clearly more from Call of Cthulhu than Vampire, but he has a lot of respect in the field of horror roleplaying generally.

 

[aramis erak]

Shadowrun may be better known but it isn't mechanically closer. It has a dice pool mechanic with fixed target numbers, but in all earnestness, that is actually the limit of the similarity to the Storyteller system.

You're wrong about the shadowrun and the vampire of the era. I'm not. (Because I double checked.)

Both the 1989 Shadowrun and VTM were variable TN, with only 1 success needed for succeeding the task.

 

[TrippyHippy]

You're wrong about the shadowrun and the vampire of the era. I'm not. (Because I double checked.)

Both the 1989 Shadowrun and VTM were variable TN, with only 1 success needed for succeeding the task.

And you've ignored everything I've said about why they are different, because you are typing with an agenda here again. Go and read the post again, and you will realise that the base style of mechanic is the only similarity between the two systems (as I said) but the design intent of both systems were miles apart.

The dice pool mechanics in each share a common ancestry (Ghostbusters), but Vampire's major source of inspiration for its system came from Prince Valiant. It's why Mark Rein-Hagan, Stewart Weick (and a bunch of other writers) have all contributed towards the recent Prince Valiant Kickstarter in terms of providing scenarios and extra writing.

 

[dco]

I know people like to think that the D&D edition war between 3.5e and 4e was a big deal, and I am not denying that 4e and Pathfinder fractured the D&D player-base, but what happened when White Wolf ended Vampire: the Masquerade and the OWoD to move on to Vampire: Requiem and the NWoD absolutely destroyed that game.

I loved the OWoD and bought everything they published for it (including collector editions), but when they obsoleted EVERYTHING that I had invested in I stopped buying anything new, and it seems that most of their previously loyal fans stopped as well, because the company died. I haven't looked back since, though I still have all of my old books and would be more than willing to run another game based on the old system.

For me it ended after the first edition of Vampire the masquerade, then it changed to some superheroes under the disguise of vampires, mages and werewolves, but the system was slow, clunky and the metaplot awful.