They believe that they are destined to rule, and I imagined William becoming infatuated with the idea of being part of those otherworldly political machinations.Īfter a few hours of working through his backstory and his skills, I felt like I had a good handle on who my character was. The Ventrue clan is both arrogant and flamboyant in their dealings with other vampires and the humans around them. Rather than a ranger good with a bow or a wizard casting spells, I became a Ventrue, a clan known for their wealth and power. Clans are Vampire’s version of the class system common in many tabletop and computer RPGs. Not with the senators or even with the President, but with a powerful cabal of blood-sucking vampires pulling the strings behind the scenes.ĭuring our first meeting, Carl helped me to choose a vampire clan. I imagined William Talbert to be a mid-level lobbyist in Washington, D.C., someone finally coming to terms with where the real power sits in our nation’s capital. You hadn’t quite ascended to the top yet. Yet, as you worked with these people, you always felt that there was something still to come. Some of the most established, wealthy families in Europe. You get to see some of the work we do and meet the more common types of clients.Īs you work hard and rise in our ranks, you get to meet our more valuable clientele. When you come in as a trainee, you work with corporate clients, municipalities, and foundations. You know that our company operates with different levels of trust. I am the CFO of the Eichel Group, and it is my pleasure to welcome you to the inner circle. But one page in particular stood out to me part of a script torn out of some kind of corporate training manual.Īs most of you probably know, my name is Yvea von Eichel. Medieval manuscripts mingle with contact sheets of bizarre, violent photoshoots. There, on the desk, first-hand accounts of vampires observed in the wild sit alongside minutes from secretly recorded telephone conversations. Rather than a boring info dump, in V5 that lore takes the form of unrelated scraps of paper being shuffled on a desk.
To inspire players, V5 offers up more than 30 pages of artfully designed background lore starting on page one. Like any RPG, part of character creation is determining who you were before the game began. In Vampire, players take on the role of modern-day vampires. White Wolf uses many different formats to illustrate its latest book, including photography. Warning: This article contains a discussion of sexual assault.Ī member of the Ventrue clan of vampires. But that has as much to do with me as the content of the game itself. To be completely honest, I’m not sure that it’s a game that I’m interested in playing again any time soon. Even experienced game masters should think long and hard about before bringing it to the table. This is not a game for the faint of heart. What I encountered during our one-on-one game was an intimate exploration of evil, a role-playing experience that was extremely intense. To find out, I invited White Wolf’s Jason Carl, producer on Vampire’s 5th edition, or V5 as it’s called, to run me through character creation and a short gameplay session. But to what extent has the game system itself matured? And how have its designers worked to reframe the lore to align with modern tastes? This newest version, which will go on sale in early August, carries on the game’s dark traditions. Fans would say that detractors are simply missing the point. Since the first few editions were published in the early 1990s, the game has been criticized for its dark and erotic themes. Vampire: The Masquerade is a tabletop role-playing game that has long been steeped in controversy.
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