Vampire: the Masquerade is a tabletop role-playing game created by Mark Rein-Hagen and released in 1991 by White Wolf Publishing as the first of several Storyteller System games for its World of Darkness setting line. It is set in a fictionalized "gothic-punk" version of the modern world where players assume the role of vampires, who are referred to as "Kindred", and deal with their night-to-night struggles against their own bestial natures, vampire hunters, and each other.

Where do I even start with this one? I love my sily little vampire game, and how ridiculously emo and melodramatic it is. I guess I'll start where I started, and where so many other people started: Bloodlines.

Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines is a 2004 action-roleplaying video game developed by Troika Games (a studio made up of people who worked on the original Fallout games, which obviously is fuckin awesome) and god does it show its age. It has become really difficult to play now, in the year of our lord 2023, and is basically a buggy mess. The plot follows you, the player, a human who is killed and revived as a fledgling vampire. The game depicts the fledgling's journey through early 21st-century Los Angeles to uncover the truth behind a recently discovered relic that heralds the end of all vampires.

Now, as I said earlier, Bloodlines is very annoying to get running at an acceptable level now. I played it on the Steam version with the Unoficial Patch, but you might want to try the GOG version, which comes with the patch already installed. I seriously can not reccomend the patch enough-- even though I played it the first time around without it I really don't think you should. The game was developed in less time than it needed and deserved, and it shows; the game is quite buggy, especially towards the third act, and is unstable and prone to crashing. Make sure to save often and I highly reccomend putting points into persuasion and melee early on. Oh, and please don't play as a Nosferatu your first time around. And if you're a newbie to VTM in general, maybe avoid that and the Malkavians. Anyway, please play it! It's a fantastic game with an unbeatable atmosphere that I've never seen in a game since, and it just oozes charm. It's in my top 5 games ever, easily.

After Bloodlines I felt an immediate urge to write my own chronicle (which is the word we use in the World of Darkness series instead of campaign). I was brainstorming setting ideas; I had plenty. 1980s Tokyo, 1920s New Orleans, 2000s Las Vegas... Ultimately I settled on the third, and this is where my darling was born: Las Vegas by Night. I had a few friends willing to play (one of them being the person who introduced me to VTM to begin with, ily Pidge). LVBN spanned about 9-11 sessions I think? I genuinely don't know because, fun fact lol, I somehow accidentally deleted ALL my notes in the middle of a session and had to continue on; to this day I still have not recovered them!!!

LVBN followed a coterie of four vampires: Tommy, a Ventrue; Byte, a Nosferatu; Ophelia, a Tzimisce; and Dusk, a Ravnos. They were a rag-tag independent group of Kindred who worked odd jobs for a Malkavian named Verlice Albrecht; to cut a far-too-long story short, Albrecht was working with the Sabbat, and the Coterie, after a long period of gathering evidence, exposed him and his crimes at Elysium, resulting in his final death at the hands of the Prince, who also happened to be Tommy's sire, unbeknownst to the rest of the coterie. After this, the coterie left to find August, Albrecht's ghoul and right-hand-man, who he had been abusing behind the scenes. They found him in an awful state; he had woken up to find that he aged about 10 years in the span of a few moments, and he was terrified. The coterie took them back to their shared haven (which, unfortunately, was an abandoned Chuck-e-Cheese), and he begged them to embrace him; to give him the power to protect himself from something like this from ever happening again. Ophelia ended up embracing him; and, a few moments after that, the coterie recieved a text message from a mysterious ally they had been working with, Jessie, a Kindred of unknown clan. Except it wasn't from her at all: it was a mysterious and threatening message that, essentially, said "ypu're next". The coterie, minus Ophelia and her new childe, left to Jessie's haven, only to find that it was burning to the ground.

Unfortunately, I really lost all my enthusiasm for this chronicle. I just got too tired, and too annoyed by myself for all the mistakes and imperfections I had made along the way, that at this point I don't know if I ever will finish it; which is awful, because I want to give my players the closure they deserve and answer the questions they have! Oh well, maybe someday I'll get around to it.

At the moment, I've been working on a new chronicle. Well, more accurately, I've been trying to craft a setting in great detail, so I can use it as a basis for any story and with any players at any time I need. Specifically this setting is Los Angeles, for a few reasons: 1, there's already a sourcebook out for it that I could just adapt from v3 to v20; 2, there's a bunch of characters in Bloodlines and the actual-play webseries L.A. by Night that I could steal instead of having to write my own; and 3, I just find Anarch chronicles really fun and chaotic, and I think my players would too, so L.A. is the obvious choice. So right now, I have almost everything done, I just need to edit the introductory oneshot to match the changes I've made, and it needs some sensitivity edits (I mean, it was written in 1994, there are some... odd choices).

I also really desperately want to made my own World of Darkness wiki, because I really fucking hate the Fandom.com format and all the stupid ads and shit. But I don't know how ethical it is to just take other people's work and put it on my own site; feels kinda shitty. I guess with proper credits maybe it would be okay? But I would really just like all the info in a nicer, better-looking, ad-free, more accessible place. Ideally I would ever be able to add my own resources that I've made to this site, basically making it a treasure trove of canon information, homebrew, PDFs and cheat-sheets for WOD fans :) but maybe that's a bit of a pipe dream.

So, lets get to the main point of this shrine. I want to convince you to give Vampire a shot! A lot of this will just be me rambling about why I like this thing that I like, so I apologize in advance if it's a little confusing to read!

So, chances are, you've played Dungeons and Dragons. What tabletop game fan hasn't? And even if you haven't, you understand it. You've heard of, or probably watched, a bit of Critical Role or Dimension 20. But right now, I'm moreso talking to the diehard Dungeons and Dragons fans out there. I know some of you guys aren't interested in trying other TTRPGs, which is something I might address more in my other TTRPG-focused shrine, and I can understand that! When you have something you just adore, it can seem like there's no point to trying something new or different. But I hope my pure undying love for VTM and the World of Darkness as a whole can convince you of why you should try it..

NOTE: This makes it sound like I'm saying ALL D&D fans are totally closed-minded BUT THAT'S NOT TRUE!! Not at all! I think this is just a side effect of D&D being the most well known/popular game in the TTRPG world, that there will be more people who are only interested in it instead of being open to other games. But I know plenty of Vampire fans who are Only interested in VTM and I think that's a mistake too; every game out there has such unique, interesting things to offer that I think limiting yourself to any one game, no matter what the game is, is a mistake. I love D&D, it's a fantastic game, and if you've never played it before you absolutely fucking should, it's a blast. It's such a fun, vibrant world and so versatile, some of my absolute favourite TTRPG experiences have been in D&D, and it helps that I have an amazing DM and an awesome group of players who make the experience just that much better!

First of all, Vampire is just really fun. Like, really fun. And versatile! There are so many different ways you can take the story: serious political drama, silly anarchist shenanigans, gothic romance soap opera, mall goth evil superhero simulator, brutally violent bestial rampages, whatever you want, not only is it possible, but it'll be so fun. There's something so satisfying about running around as a vampire, with your own unique powers and abilities, protecting the mortals you care for from danger and trying to keep your true identity hidden from those around you. Creating a character, while as complex as any other TTRPG, is really fun, especially in 20th Anniversary Edition (and this goes for other 20e WOD games), because it's so unique, customizable, and versatile. No two characters will ever be the same due to the sheer amount of different clans, powers, abilities, backgrounds, and advantages you can have.

I just find the whole concept of Vampire to be really interesting and fun. Hiding in plain sight, subtly manipulating the humans around you and bending them to your will just to keep yourself hidden; or the complete opposite, being your vampiric self, giving in to your beastial nature, and slaughtering anyone who gets in your way. It can be a real power fantasy, if you want it to be, but if not, it can be a very poignant, melancholic tale about humanity and the consequences of our actions. Or, conversely, it can just be a really fun, silly adventure, goofing off in some city; there's plenty of weird shit in the World of Darkness that supports stories like these. I think that the thing that all chronicles have in common, and the major achievement of the World of Darkness is this: the gothic-punk atmosphere.

TBC