It’s not Spring Break yet so no new design posts from me. However, I think you should take a look at the posts I am linking to below.
Nothing happens in a vacuum, especially not creative endeavors, and since I both send links to my design posts to Twitter, as well as “think out loud” there, it is inevitable that a network of influences would eventually emerge. Take for example last week: I’m not sure how it started, but for some reason, my Twitter feed last week was awash in a number of conversations about the World of Darkness, both old and new. Over the five days of the work week, there was not one day when at least a handful of World of Darkness-related tweets flew by, sparking conversations and blog posts.
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It’s midterms this week so I’m taking a break from game design thinking. You can follow the posts in this series so far by checking out the tag “Rebuilding Vampire.”
In lieu of more design, I’d like to quickly address a couple of things, just to be clear to myself mostly, though others may find this useful as well.
First the caveat.
I think I already said this in a previous post, but it bears repeating to be 100% crystal clear:
I love Vampire: The Masquerade to undeath. Really, to little tiny bits. Thus, this game that’s emerging as I write along is *not* me saying “VtM Sucks!” Not even by a long shot. This *is* me saying, “VtM had some things that I felt got lost in the shuffle and here’s me trying to bring them back to the spotlight in my own way.” The latter does not detract from the former. If I wanted to be more dramatic in my answer, I’d say that this game is both my reply, and love letter, to VtM, my way of saying, “You made me think about these things, here’s what I thought of them; thanks so much, and enjoy the gift.”
Now the self-deprecation.
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As I have already mentioned, at the crux of the tragic story of the vampire is the fact that they are on a downward spiral towards damnation, destined to destroy all that they held dear. If you read through the comments on the previous two posts in this series you will find that over and over we keep going back to the simple, and very important, idea of why should one care about the vampire’s journey on the road of dwindling Humanity. Or put another way, why should I (the player of the vampire character) care about the loss of Humanity? Why stall it? Why not give in to the beast?
There are traits in the two Vampire games that sort of deal with this. In VtM we have the traits of Nature and Demeanor, which basically sum up what your behavioral essence is on the inside and how you project yourself to the world. These are good to help shape how you want to play your character, but they really don’t say much about who your character is, which ultimately is what we’re driving at when looking for the reasons to cling to Humanity. VtR uses Virtue and Vice to replace Nature/Demeanor. I like the contrast of these two traits because, while they can help you shape how you play the character, they now say something about who this character is, if maybe a bit indirectly. The Virtue/Vice split also hearkens back to classical philosophical thought, something I can totally dig. Both of these sets of traits, however, have the same drawback for me: they are too vague. This is great for the games in which they are used, as a limited number of combinations can be used to represent virtually endless characterizations across a number of games sharing the same basic system, but for what I’m seeking to do, I want something that’s a hell of a lot more focused.
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Something came up in the comments to my previous post, Rebuilding Vampire: Humanity, brought up by Mick Bradley about whether there should be the glimmer of hope/redemption for a vampire. He made this point after I had stated that, in my view of the vampire myth/game, the story of the vampire is one of an inevitable downward spiral towards transformation into a beast that will destroy all that he used to love, with the dramatic caveat being how long can that be staved off. Considering his feedback led me to consider the vampire myth and ask for other people’s opinions on Twitter (and I got good replies – see the comments for links).
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In thinking of what would I do to re-arrange Vampire’s mechanics to reflect the type of game I believe is intended (as opposed to presented), it always has been obvious that Humanity is the one central stat around which everything else must orbit. After all, the game is about the loss of this essential trait and the descent into the unbridled bestiality of the vampire (which, of course, presupposes that you want to stave this loss off as much as possible; otherwise you’d be an NPC).
So we have our main trait, Humanity. I’ll keep this on a 1-10 scale because it provides for a good amount of gradation in the middle, with 10 being fully Human, and 1 being inhuman (inhumane?). This stat determines how Human you are, serves as the fuel for your vampire powers, and determines how many dice you roll to avoid losing/regaining Humanity. When Humanity reaches 1, you have lost all connection to what it means to be a human, and your character is removed from the game.
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In my post about Vampire and My Humanity, I stated categorically that whenever I play this re-visiting of Vampire, it *has* to be Vampire: The Masquerade, as opposed to the newer Vampire: The Requiem. But why be so fastidious? In the end, aren’t they just about the same, i.e. games in which you take the role of a vampire, using a game system engine that’s about 95% similar? Just play whichever, right? Well, no.
This is all subjective, obviously, but to me, Vampire: The Masquerade (VtM) has a few qualities that set it apart from its newer counterpart and, while I surely would play Vampire: The Requiem if given the chance, if I’m calling the shots or have any influence on the matter, it’s VtM that I’m gonna go for always.
Before we move on, let me make this very clear: this is not a slight against Vampire: The Requiem *at all.* I like the new game, I like what they did with it and the new World of Darkness, and I want White Wolf to continue to have great success with the game line. This isn’t about dissing Requiem, but about extolling Masquerade.
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