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Post by Stu Venable on Jul 13, 2015 20:11:21 GMT -8
I want to run a Vampire campaign. I own neither of the most recent editions of either Vampire. Trying to make heads or tails from NWoD, God Machine and Requiem is a little much, even though that is (from what I understand) the same rules set I'd get in Requiem 2nd.
Given that I have to buy one book or the other anyway, and that I hardly know either system (played one and read the other), what are people's opinion as to which I should run? Reasoning as well, please?
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Post by ayslyn on Jul 13, 2015 20:27:54 GMT -8
God Machine is the NWoD 2e base game and metaplot. Blood and Smoke is the Vampire the Requiem 2e VtR book. I haven't read through both of them, but if they are like 1e, you'll need both to really play.
Vampire the Masquerade 20A is complete as far as I know...
Flavour wise, there isn't a TON of differences between the two of them. Just some metaplot. Which someone else can probably explain better than I. Honestly, I enjoy aspects of both worlds...
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Post by Probie Tim on Jul 14, 2015 6:45:11 GMT -8
As I mentioned on the show, I'm a huge fan of Vampire 20th. Part of that is probably the fact that I started playing White Wolf games with Vampire Revised and came to love the setting (not the meta-plot, but the clans and sects and such). By the end of the Vampire Revised line, it was a mess because of all the splat-books and whatnot which had been released, and Vampire 20th really cleans all that up. Vampire 20th also does away with the meta-plot to a certain degree, giving you just the setting information to play with as you will.
Requiem sounds really cool, but I can't get past my inherent Masquerade bias (and the horrible reading layout of the book) to find out for certain.
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Post by HourEleven on Jul 14, 2015 10:24:45 GMT -8
[I've GMed both games for many many years, and while I love both, I am partial to Requiem. I'll try and be unbiased, but I probably won't be.]
On the surface both games appear very similar, but there is numerous small things that really color how they play at the base level. Necessarily, this will be overly reductionist and exagerating the differences a bit, so people who are familiar with both settings - be prepared to think "it isn't like that at all!"
(I'm not going to mention Blood and Smoke at all, as it's just a rough draft for what became Requirem 2nd edition - renamed because of a copyright dispute with CCCP)
Mechanics
V20 plays a bit more, dare I say, Crunchy. It's not as streamlined as nWoD, which some people like because combat involves more rolls and more detail. nWoD combat is a bit more simple and direct. nWoD has less rules for specific situations, deferring more to the "just make some roll that feels appropriate, or don't roll at all, whatev." approach.
The other huge mechanical difference is that nWoD lets you plug in the rules from God Machine. God Machine was both an adventure path and a series of optional rules (the rules are offered for free online, the adventure you have to pay for). Rules from GodM feel like more "modern" rules, with things like "conditions" which are almost like temporary fate aspects or an expansion of the virtue/vice system that vastly changes how willpower works. In my opinion, God Machine's optional rule tweaks completely change the way the game plays (for the better) and makes it feel considerably less "this game is based on the most 90s game ever."
Before V20, old vampire was a mess of rules trying to balance/prevent everyone from just playing a hack and slash game as night-ninja-super-heroes combined with a near dnd3.5 level of splat book rule contradictions and brokenness. V20 collapsed all of that and made it awesome.
Requiem 2nd edition also adds in the base rules from the World of Darkness book, so you don't need both anymore (it's stand-alone now, like V20 is). However, the World of Darkness 2nd edition book has some extra optional rules (more rules for playing mortals, detailed vehicle rules, etc.) and is still useful.
Requiem is also organized worse (if you get an early printing, they forgot the damn index.... yeah.....) and edited worse, but they have fixed most of that.
Setting
This is the big one. The primary difference between the two games is the way the setting works (and the setting is inextricably locked to the mechanics, so while you have a lot of freedom, the two will always play different).
Factions: In V20, there is primarily two factions that can never and will never reconcile their philosophical beliefs, The Camarilla and the Sabbat. Depending on how you set it up, it can be anything from a fragile cold war between the two, up to a full blown civil war. But there is two sides and a handful of smaller factions circling those. This could be set up in numerous ways, from a Camarilla owned city with small groups of sabbat under the radar, etc.)
In Requiem, you essentially pick a faction at character generation and that determines a lot about your character. Unlike V20 where the origins of the vampires is pretty much fact (Caine made 13 vampires, that's 13 clans), in Requiem it is much debated. The characters faction (sometimes) determines their belief in the vampires origin, changing their philosophical views on what the actual role of a vampire is. Was it Longinus' curse from wielding the spear, and vampires exist as proof of god and hell? Factions also determine a belief in how vampire society should be organized. There's a million ways to set up the political exchanges between the factions.
Clans: V20 has a lot more clans (type of vampire) than Requiem. This makes it appear that there is more options at character creation (13 clans in V20 vs 6 in Requiem). Requiem only has a small base of clans but a multitude of "blood lines" (~20 per clan) which are different types under the umbrella of a single clan. For example, the Mekhet are generally the secretive clan. One optional bloodline for them is focused entirely on manipulating the dreams of the sleeping. But all those Mekhet bloodlines, are still mekhet. Most every clan from V20 has an equivalent bloodline in Requiem (at least in reference or small ways). The difference is, in V20, you have all of these different clans warring politically and in Requiem you have very few. The loyalties are more complex in Requiem because you are loyal to a clan and also to a faction (and what if you faction leader is of a different clan?), and those things may or may not play into the political landscape. In V20, you are (probably) Camarilla and loyal to a clan that is tied up politically with a slew of other clans, each vying for their own superiority. Doesn't seem like a big difference, but when organizing a city, it's huge.
Memory and Torpor:In V20 you have vampires of unbelievable ages and power schemes, Elders. Requiem doesn't have this because of the way it handles potency and memory. Vampires build up tolerances to blood over time. It takes more potent and more quantities of blood to fill them up. Eventually this becomes impossible and they have to sleep for X number of years until their tolerance lowers. When they wake up, their memories are messed up and they are out of touch. Super old vampires are not reliable sources of information, usually they are a bit insane, etc.
It really dulls the claws of the super scary ancient vampire. In V20, the Elders are the reason for the Camarilla. The power level across the city is much more level in Requiem than in V20.
Social Combat: I just have to mention this because it's so problematic for most people. Requiem has an optional combat system in the book Dance Macabre that is an incredibly detailed and complex (and amazing, in my opinion) system for social combat. Literally treating a social encounter the way another game might treat a massive gun fight.
To Summarize in the worst way possible: V20 makes for more direct games that focus on individual vampire driven power structures and more mechanical combats. Requiem makes for more indirect games that focus on faction based power structures and more streamlined combats. This isn't to say you can't run both games either way. Just reduce the number of factions in power in your Requiem city, or focus more on the clan structures and less on camarilla politics in your V20.*
* It's possible tapatalk crashed right before I submitted this, and I just rage typed the whole thing again in much less eloquence.
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Post by Probie Tim on Jul 14, 2015 10:43:09 GMT -8
V20 collapsed all of that and made it awesome. This is known. Just so. /GoT Requiem 2nd edition also adds in the base rules from the World of Darkness book, so you don't need both anymore (it's stand-alone now, like V20 is). It do? Neat. Do it still have the annoying, glossy red blood splatters on the page? If not, I may have to check this out.
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Post by HourEleven on Jul 14, 2015 11:04:57 GMT -8
Oh, it's splattered.
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Post by HourEleven on Jul 14, 2015 11:08:38 GMT -8
I also didn't mention, some choice parts of God Machine have been added to the main book, so if God Machines rules turn you off, a few are in there (like beat and condition based experience awarding, which makes some players rage out and lose their minds because it's so different from normal character advancement). And I loved them, so I didn't look to see how optional they are.
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Post by Probie Tim on Jul 15, 2015 8:36:32 GMT -8
Eh, that's a shame. I may wind up getting it anyway, though.
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Post by HourEleven on Jul 15, 2015 15:22:19 GMT -8
Mood has always been more important than legibility for white wolf. In the old books, some of those dark grey, hand written scribble fonts on black crumpled paper backgrounds for a few of the fluff stories... Yeesh.
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Post by Stu Venable on Jul 16, 2015 7:46:45 GMT -8
Requiem 2nd Edition, as I've been reading it, references the WoD core book several times (and God Machine). It also seems that there are some rules they have NOT duplicated in R2E. They duplicate much of it, but there are some rules they reference but never explicitly explain, but those explanations are found in WoD core.
I am by no means finished, but it seems like it still requires WoD core and God Machine.
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Post by lowkeyoh on Jul 16, 2015 7:56:16 GMT -8
That was one of my problems with Mage The Awakening. I hated having to flip between books to try and determine what's going on
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Post by Probie Tim on Jul 16, 2015 7:58:46 GMT -8
Yeah, huh... no need to do that with V:tM 20th. It's all contained in that one book.
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Post by ayslyn on Jul 16, 2015 18:32:26 GMT -8
God Machine is the new core book.
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Post by Stu Venable on Jul 17, 2015 8:20:10 GMT -8
God Machine has SOME of the rules, but not all.
I'm trying to make characters in V:tR 2nd and I have to have THREE books open to do so.
The line is a hot mess SCREAMING for a 2nd ed core book.
Or an update to the pdf.
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Post by Probie Tim on Jul 17, 2015 8:42:33 GMT -8
*cough*V:tM 20th*cough*
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