Vampire - Blood and Smoke

As followers of this blog will know from previous posts, one of my plans is to run a "World of Darkness" game. Having compared the 20th anniversary edition of "Vampire:The Masquerade" to "Vampire:The Requiem", "Masquerade" was the one I settled on, though it was a tough call. Now everything's changed with the brand new version of "Requiem", "Vampire:Blood and Smoke" due out this summer.

I have been following the developer blogs over at White Wolf and have downloaded the playtest documents. The main thing that has struck me is the redesign of the disciplines, the special powers that vampires have based upon their clan.I'd been reading the guidelines of the disciplines in "Masquerade" and after numerous readings, still wasn't blown away by what the disciplines do, and in some cases I was downright confused. The new versions are crystal clear. I can describe and explain each of them off the top of my head, which is the level of comfort I prefer to have in a game like this.The story potential from each is immense too.

"Auspex", for example, used to be about extra-sensory perception. Now a lot of those powers (seeing in the dark, smelling prey) are common to all vampires. Auspex is now about secrets, much in line with the clan that it's associated with, the Mekhet. At the most basic level, it allows the player to ask the GM questions about a situation to shed light on what's really going on. "Protean", which used to be more along the lines of animal shapeshifting, is now an emphasis on the vampire becoming less human and more of a beast. At the highest level the vampire can transform into mist!

While the clans appear to be the same as those in Requiem (Daeva, Mekhet,Ventrue,Gangrel and Nosferatu), the covenants could be changing. There is a new villain, the Strix, who prey on vampires. They first appeared in the "Requiem for Rome" setting and will be fun to use. The predatory nature of the vampires themselves has led to new mechanics being introduced.

Overall, everything I've read simply makes more sense to me.There also seems to be more of an open acknowledgement that many players aren't looking to play vampires for the angst, they expect vampires to be cool and enjoyable to play as well, possibly an influence from recent shows like "True Blood".

There will be a quickstart version of the game released in select stores on "Free RPG Day', June 15th, and it'll be published online soon after. This will definitely be my next game to run, probably starting in August this year, and I'm already looking forward to it.