Vampire the Masquerade RPG

Vampire: The Masquerade is one of the most popular modern horror roleplaying games, and has been for years. Playing a vampire seems to have a lure that is hard to resist.

We've all heard stories of vampires – pale-faced, with sharp teeth, lurking in the shadows at night, searching for their next drop of blood. These creatures have frightened and fascinated mankind for centuries – whether through folklore, the tale of Jonathan Harker's visit to the Count in Transylvania, or glitter-covered day-walkers in recent Hollywood films. But where does this myth actually come from? Why is this legend so persistent?

The idea of the vampire can be traced back centuries. It predates Bram Stoker's story of Dracula and appears in various folktales around the world, albeit in different forms. In Slavic folklore, vampires were often a kind of revenant – people who rose from their graves to suck the life force from the living, by whatever means. It was believed necessary to drive a stake through the heart of the deceased or burn their body to prevent the dead from rising again.

For years, many players have enjoyed portraying vampires in roleplaying games. Many have tried or heard of Vampire: The Masquerade or Vampire: The Requiem. Here's a short overview of the interlinking history of these two games.

The year is 1991. While people are still reading editions of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and board games are still mostly inclined towards heroic deeds and dragon slaying, the American company White Wolf Publishing introduces something new. And everything changes.

Vampire: The Masquerade is not just a new game but a new vision of what role-playing games can be. Mark Rein-Hagen, the game's creator, had previously worked on the fantasy game Ars Magica, but now wanted to try something darker and more psychological. He gathered a group of authors and artists, and together they created the world that would later be called the World of Darkness. The game was released in 1991 and became a hit in the underground role-playing game culture.

What made V:tM unique was how it inverted traditional fantasy. Instead of playing as heroes fighting against evil, you play as a vampire, an undead being trapped in an eternal struggle between the beast and human conscience.

To understand how this world functions in the game, we need to examine how the system itself is structured. In the original version of Vampire: The Masquerade, the game used the so-called Storyteller System, where players rolled ten-sided dice to perform actions. Each action involved gathering dice corresponding to the character's abilities and attributes. The game master determined the difficulty level, or "difficulty number," typically ranging from 6 to 8. Each die showing this number or higher counted as a success, and often the player needed to achieve a certain number of successes to accomplish their intended task. This added excitement and uncertainty to the game while also allowing for more in-depth narratives.

The world in which the game takes place is called the "World of Darkness" and is a mirror image of our reality, only darker, more corrupt, and full of mysteries. Vampires, werewolves, witches, and other creatures from folklore live there, but the main focus in VtM is on the vampires. They live among us, controlling politics, media, and finance, but no one must know. The world also includes superpowers within vampire society, such as the Camarilla, Sabbat, and Independent Clans, which offer deeper and more complex politics than had previously been seen in role-playing games.

The Masquerade rule is the cornerstone of the world: Vampires need to conceal their existence from the human world. Breaking this rule means drawing attention and punishment from those who guard the secret.

The vampires in VtM are not a homogeneous group. They are divided into "clans," each with its characteristics, weaknesses, and philosophy. Among them are the Brujah, who are revolutionaries with fiery tempers, often associated with protests and anarchism. Toreador are artists and aesthetes who are fascinated by beauty and culture, but are often unstable. Ventrue are the true aristocracy of vampires, power-hungry and dominant, with strict requirements about the blood they can drink. Malkavians are mad seers, possessing insight and insanity in equal measure, often revealing terrifying truths. Nosferatu are ugly but skilled in information gathering, espionage, and underworld dealings. Tremere are sorcerer-priests who use vampire blood in rituals called Thaumaturgy. Gangrel are loners connected to nature, who can transform into animals. Then there are the Lasombra, leaders of the Sabbat, who utilize shadow and darkness as a weapon, and the Tzimisce, horrifying creatures that transform flesh with the power of blood.

More clans exist, both in minority groups and within specific geographical areas. These clans often form alliances such as the Camarilla, which is responsible for maintaining the Masquerade rule and keeping society stable.

Playing Vampire: The Masquerade is not about heroic deeds or treasure hunting. Instead, the game revolves around identity, conflict, morality, and power. You play a vampire who has recently been "Embraced" and transformed into an undead being by an elder vampire. You are forced to live in a new world, learning the rules of society and trying to find your place within it.

Players engage in clan intrigues, power struggles within the Camarilla, and interactions with human "slaves" (also known as ghouls). They must confront their blood thirst and choose how and where to feed in a moral or bestial manner. This calls for a decision: do you hunt in nightclubs, hospitals, or among criminals? Human connections also become difficult — what do you do with family and friends you can no longer meet during the day? How do you hold onto something that reminds you of your life as a human?

Other threats lurk around every corner: Other vampires with their interests, Hunters, other supernatural beings like werewolves and witches, and even authorities who might discover the existence of vampires. At the same time, the player must contend with "The Beast" — a primitive, animalistic urge that drives the desire to kill, feed, and dominate others. If the player loses control, the beast takes over.

The Storyteller guides the story forward by presenting conflicts, dynamics, and an atmosphere that encourages players to experience horror and inner tension. The focus is on conversations, character depth, moral decisions, and dramatic storylines that can span one evening or decades in the game world.

Instead of rigid statistical weapons and battles, White Wolf introduced a new system: the Storyteller System. This system uses 10-sided dice and emphasizes abilities and virtues. But more importantly, it encouraged dramatic narration and interaction. You were telling a story, not just "winning" a game.

It also came with a moral scale, the Humanity rating, which shows how well you maintain your human side. When you commit evil acts, the rating drops, and you approach the "Beast" side. A vampire with low humanity becomes bestial, unpredictable, and a threat to everyone.

The game spawned numerous books, an expanding world, and new period settings, especially in later editions. Among these were Vampire: The Dark Ages, a medieval interpretation of the world where the Masquerade has not yet been established. The Giovanni Chronicles, an adventure series spanning centuries with the same group of characters, begins in 15th-century Venice and covers events in France, Germany, and the United States, providing players with a sense of long-term changes in vampire society. The Transylvania Chronicles is an epic saga spanning 800 years, from the Middle Ages to modern times, where players experience the rebirth of the Sabbat, the fall of the Camarilla in Eastern Europe, and even the end of the world.

A year later, in 1992, an updated version was released, addressing various flaws in the system and significantly expanding the world of vampires. More clans were added, and the world's context was elaborated considerably. VtM was popular, both domestically and abroad.

It's worth mentioning the LARP version of VtM, which quickly gained popularity. LARPing vampires was much simpler than heroes from the sagas, as it didn't require special costumes and could even be done in public. For example, I remember a vampire LARP that took place in the mid-90s in the then Borgarkringla and Hard Rock Café, where between 20 and 30 role-players gathered and LARPed.

In 1998, the so-called Revised edition of VtM was finally released. The system, especially aspects related to Disciplines, Humanity, and the like, was updated. However, White Wolf also now puts more effort into publishing deeper and longer adventures and stories to play.

In 2011, the anniversary edition of VtM was finally released, which collected a lot of material into one large edition, but added little to the system or the world. It could probably be argued that White Wolf rather intended this as a way to remind people of the role-playing game and generate revenue, as there was a lower production cost compared to a traditional new book release. Thus, one could debate whether this edition can be considered a genuine update or merely a re-release.

After nearly a decade of increasingly complex storylines, numerous books, and ever deeper and longer narratives, White Wolf decided to revisit their ideas and publication of VtM. In 2004, a new game appeared under a new banner, Vampire: The Requiem. It wasn't a sequel, not a reboot, but a new interpretation of the same ideas: What happens if you're a vampire in contemporary times? How do you live, rule, and fight in the shadows?

Vampire: The Requiem was the first edition of what was then called the New World of Darkness, later renamed Chronicles of Darkness. Although the atmosphere was similar to the old Masquerade, with the same black-and-white contradictions and moral struggles, everything was rethought: the origin of vampires, the social structure, and how things worked within the world. Instead of building on the massive mythology of the Antediluvians, Camarilla, and Gehenna, Requiem offered a more compact and personal world. There's less focus on global power plays and more on what it means to be immortal in your city, with limited oversight and even more limited control.

Instead of the clan system from Masquerade, five new types of vampires were introduced: Daeva are creatures of temptation, sensuality, and seduction. Gangrel are still the nature-connected, sensory loners. Mekhet are the mysterious ones, drawn to shadows and knowledge. Nosferatu is even more horrifying, but more in a psychological and social sense. Ventrue continues to be dominant, organized, and emotionally cold, as dukes of the night.

But rethinking what vampires were wasn't enough – the social pattern also had to take on a new form. Instead of international superpowers like the Camarilla and Sabbat, Requiem presents us with covenants that operate within ideological systems, philosophical or religious directions, which guide the vampire's behavior and purpose. Invictus are the guardians of old powers, conservative and aristocratic in nature. Lancea Sanctum sees the vampire as God's tool and the punishment meant to keep humanity in check. The Circle of the Crone celebrates older and pagan religions, with an emphasis on blood mysticism. Ordo Dracul, founded in the name of Vlad Tepes himself, seeks to understand and overcome the nature of vampires through research and rituals. And then there's the Carthian Movement, democrats and radicals who want to shake up the older systems.

The game system itself was also updated. A significant change was made to the core rules: previously, success was determined by rolling or exceeding a certain success number with each die. In the new system, each die is either a success or not, based on whether it shows the number 8, 9, or 10. A ten sometimes allows rolling again and getting more successes, a phenomenon known as 'exploding dice'. This meant that floating statistics no longer measured success, but by the direct successes achieved or the number of successes obtained from the total roll. This made the game more transparent and faster, making it easier for both game masters and players to evaluate success in a narrative context. The system still used ten-sided dice, but now emphasis was placed on creating atmosphere and internal tension by controlling effects, emotions, and danger levels. The struggle with hunger took on a new form, where the character's instability and tendencies were always at the surface. And instead of a universal "Humanity," Requiem dealt with morality in more diverse ways — humanity was certainly still present, but covenants as well as individual goals and values also mattered.

Playing Vampire: The Requiem was inherently more experimental and personal than its predecessor. Instead of being pawns in ancient wars, the players' role was to create their own story in a city that was essentially a prison. A city that might be New Orleans, Berlin, or Rome, or in some cases, the ancient Roman Empire. The latter was the setting for an adventure that explored vampire life in times when emperors ruled, religions changed, and blood was still considered valuable.

Requiem wasn't for everyone. Some found it too abstract and said it lacked the epic depth of Masquerade. But others welcomed the free approach and the opportunity to create their world. Instead of the all-encompassing end of the world and power play, Requiem was about eternal existence, loneliness, and the silence that comes with immortality.

VtR enjoyed considerable popularity in Iceland, and one could usually assume that all such tables would be fully occupied at gaming conventions. Experiments were also conducted with multiple groups playing within the same story, on the one hand at the Fenris convention held at Rimaskóli school, which was considered particularly successful, and on the other hand, a story that was played over several evenings at the Hugleikur Society at the time.

After years of silence, the landscape changed in 2015 when Swedish video game company Paradox Interactive acquired the rights to World of Darkness from CCP Games. This opened a new chapter in the history of Vampire: The Masquerade, and in 2018, the fifth edition, V5, was released.

V5 marked the revival of the game with modern emphases and ambition to reach new players. The game system was revised and changed, with the main goal of combining the deep contemplations of Masquerade with streamlined and contemporary gameplay. Hunger gained new prominence in the game, in the form of the so-called Hunger system, where the thirst for blood is a constant factor that must be managed carefully. In V5, each die showing 6 or higher counts as a success, but dice showing 1 on hunger dice can lead to a "bestial failure" — where the beast takes control of the vampire. Conversely, two or more 10s result in a "critical success," leading to dramatic and major achievements. This creates an exciting and unpredictable dynamic in every roll and, in my opinion, is one of the best changes made to the system.

There is now more emphasis on each vampire's struggle with the beast that resides within them and stops at nothing if it gets to rule.

Players could still choose their clan, but new interpretations came with it. The Malkavian clan now reflects mental health issues with greater sensitivity. The Nosferatu clan utilizes modern technology, espionage, and the internet. The Ventrue remain hard rulers, but within the framework of modern business and politics.

Although V5 was well-received in a gameplay context, the release also came with some controversial decisions. When the World of Darkness: Camarilla Sourcebook and V5 core rulebook were released, certain descriptions drew attention, including mentions of persecution against homosexuals in Chechnya in a way that many considered inappropriate. Additionally, it came to light that some of the authors hired to develop the content had connections to extremist groups online, which led Paradox to take action.

The company revised its publishing policy, fired several authors, and transferred the publishing rights to Modiphius Entertainment, which later transferred them to Renegade Game Studios. This moved the development into safer hands, and a more open, community-oriented approach was adopted. This proved to be a positive step, and the community accepted V5, especially after the release of books such as Chicago by Night, Cults of the Blood Gods, Fall of London, and others.

The authors who caused the most controversy included Zak Smith. He had been involved in various projects, including contributing to the 5th edition of D&D and being active in the Old School Revival scene. Zak was accused of behavior that was less than honorable, to put it mildly. Paradox felt compelled to issue a statement apologizing for his involvement and clearly explaining future priorities: diversity, ethical responsibility, and ensuring that fan voices were heard. The issue also affected WotC as it came to light that various individuals within the company had been warned about this author but had ignored such warnings.

Vampire: The Masquerade is therefore not just alive, but still evolving. V5 has brought the game back into the spotlight with a new generation that appreciates moral complexities, dark atmosphere, and a story that asks not just what you do, but who you are when no one is watching.

When darkness falls and bloodthirst comes knocking, we must not only ask ourselves how we can quench it, but also how far we are willing to go to do so. Vampire: The Masquerade and Vampire: The Requiem are not just stories about vampires, but mirrors that shed light on human experience: power, loneliness, desires, cravings, and conscience. Whether you play in the shadows of a gothic metropolis or amidst the ruins of ancient empires, the question always remains the same: What are you willing to sacrifice to live forever?