Comments on: Why I Love Thee, Vampire: The Masquerade

By: Synapse Design Blog » Blog Archive » Gender & Gaming

Synapse Design Blog » Blog Archive » Gender & Gaming — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 05:09:52 +0000

[...] They added a lot of character depth as well and downplayed combat. Daniel Perez’ love letter to VtM cuts to the heart of it quite well, notice how he emphasizes the way the character’s [...]

By: The Last Rogue

The Last Rogue — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 17:30:28 +0000

I am Masquerade devotee myself and am thinking about getting back into the game. I am seriously torn between the two versions — leaning towards running the Masquerade story in a Requiem world. . . I cannot picture no Tremere.

By: Reflections on Vampire the Masquerade - Synapse Design Blog

Reflections on Vampire the Masquerade - Synapse Design Blog — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 03:35:03 +0000

[...] Perez has an interesting post up on his blog about why he adores Vampire the Masquerade. I can empathize with him to a certain degree, as VtM is my favorite game never actually played. I [...]

By: Why I am still howling at the moon « Dr. Checkmate presents

Why I am still howling at the moon « Dr. Checkmate presents — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 15:53:12 +0000

[...] February 7, 2010 by drcheckmate http://www.dmperez.com/2010/02/04/why-i-love-thee-vampire-the-masquerade/ [...]

A companion retrospective on Werewolf: The Apocalypse.

By: Daniel M. Perez

Daniel M. Perez — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 13:36:18 +0000

@Karlo Yeager That right there is the essence of Vampire, and it is in the book for sure, even if it can be obfuscated (ha ha!) by the cool powers and the skills, talents and whatnots. That is the essence I want to pull out and highlight with a million-watt spotlight. And I think I have the basic building blocks in place.

By: Daniel M. Perez

Daniel M. Perez — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 13:31:59 +0000

@JJ I have a copy of 1st edition that I, admittedly, had very rarely looked at before. It's hard to know now if 1st would've had the same impact on me as 2nd did, though I know it certainly did for many people out there.

By: Daniel M. Perez

Daniel M. Perez — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 13:02:33 +0000

@Nube Negra Yeah, I liked the basic building blocks of the implied setting (Caine, the generations, the Camarilla & Sabbat, the Clans) but I definitely liked it better when it was just that, implied. Which is not to say I didn't go for it; I bought into the metaplot hook, line and sinker, and let that creep into my game more and more until it became all about the metaplot, not about my group. The power-creep and the uber-awesome NPCs are all part of the metaplot problem. Which in turn, yes, led to player munchkinism, as you note. The Book of Nod was an awesome book, though, I agree with you. I should tell Sam Chupp to drop by and get his deserved props.

By: Karlo Yeager

Karlo Yeager — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 12:52:27 +0000

Daniel, I loved what White Wolf did with their Storyteller Series (thank you, Mark Rein-dot-Hagen!), and – like you – immersed myself in characters that were flawed or damaged in some way to push the envelope. . .

Y’see, the beauty of VtM was that at its core, the powers, the lures of being quicker, faster and *more* worked in complete opposition to Humanity – the one, vital, piece of self that you as a character knew would inevitably lose. The question remained: how soon? How long could the character skate on that razor’s edge? Given the fact that the more Humanity lost increased your chances exponentially of losing yet more Humanity, well – if you didn’t want to create character trees a-la-Athas, you’d better shape up, buck-o. . .

I had some truly moving moments playing VtM – moments I can still remember vividly, that spoke to that same loss: to the fact that boundaries have been crossed which cannot be undone.

By: JJ

JJ — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 00:13:19 +0000

@Daniel M. Perez I started with the soft cover of 1st edition (long gone now - only two copies of 2nd edition left) and there was not a lot of meta plot in that one. By the time 2nd ed was around, all the splat books and stories were well established. .-= JJ´s last blog... Elric Explored - Part 4: Twilight Civilizations =-.

By: Nube Negra

Nube Negra — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 22:51:37 +0000

And the Book of Nod. Now that was an awesome prop, and a very good read. As for the metaplot, I meant the story of Caine, the 2nd and 3rd generations, the beginnings of the Sabbat, the Chicago by Night Methuselah war… not neccesarily all the later stuff that fueled an endless stream of novels and supplements. Which is not a slam on White Wolf, just not my thing.
As for power creep: it’s everywhere! Lots of super-powerful villains and antagonists with plot-derived abilities (Samuel Haight, the Abomination, Helena and Menele, hell, frickin’ Huitzilopoctli/Shaitan). And players start at the bottom, so it’s no wonder people were power-mongering/diablerizing their way to the top. All in the name of a good story (of course